Why do Christians lose faith?

[Nihilist Virus]

If that was really your reasoning, then it sounds a little bit like a false dichotomy to me. Almost everybody has experienced things in life that might be evidence for God's existence. And the reverse is true too - almost everybody has experienced things in life that might be evidence for God's NON-existence. Sometimes we experience more of one than the other.

At least in my case, I start by trying to understand if there is something fishy going on in my life that might not fit the model of metaphysical naturalism. Ideally a person might examine the stories that other people tell to get a more objective view too. It's not an exact science obviously. Belief in an inerrant Bible is only one possibility of many.

Everybody is different, and I know that what you said is a common path. Are you sure there were not some tragedies or difficulties in your life at the time you lost faith - things that seemed like evidence for God's NON-existence?

I'm not sure how it is a false dichotomy. Can you tell me what the third possibility is?

And no I didn't lose faith because of a tragedy.

 

[razzelflabben]

http://www.divorcesource.com/ds/main/u-s-divorce-rates-and-statistics-1037.shtml

Half of marriages end in divorce and most people do not marry their first boyfriend/girlfriend. Therefore most relationships are walked away from. So I think they are quite easy to walk away from. In fact it's healthy to walk away from a bad relationship.

well, first, those numbers are not as accurate as we want to believe.....http://www.divorcesource.com/ds/main/u-s-divorce-rates-and-statistics-1037.shtml

Second and more importantly, I did not say one could not walk away from a relationship, but that it is harder to walk away from a relationship than a mere belief system. Notice the difference between what I said and what you claimed I said?

Thirdly, even if we accept the 50% divorce rate, which is contested, that is NOT "MOST" as you claim here. I don't know what "do not marry their first boyfriend/girlfriend" has to do with the discussion in order to comment on that part.

 

[Nihilist Virus]

http://www.divorcesource.com/ds/main/u-s-divorce-rates-and-statistics-1037.shtml
well, first, those numbers are not as accurate as we want to believe.....http://www.divorcesource.com/ds/main/u-s-divorce-rates-and-statistics-1037.shtml

Second and more importantly, I did not say one could not walk away from a relationship, but that it is harder to walk away from a relationship than a mere belief system. Notice the difference between what I said and what you claimed I said?

Thirdly, even if we accept the 50% divorce rate, which is contested, that is NOT "MOST" as you claim here. I don't know what "do not marry their first boyfriend/girlfriend" has to do with the discussion in order to comment on that part.

Being a boyfriend/girlfriend couple is a relationship. Because most people do not marry their first boyfriend/girlfriend, and if you do accept the fact that half of marriages end in divorce, it follows that more than half of relationships end due to the conscious choice of one or both parties rather than the death of one or both parties.

Lastly, Christianity is a religion. James 1:27.

 

[razzelflabben]

Being a boyfriend/girlfriend couple is a relationship. Because most people do not marry their first boyfriend/girlfriend, and if you do accept the fact that half of marriages end in divorce, it follows that more than half of relationships end due to the conscious choice of one or both parties rather than the death of one or both parties.

Lastly, Christianity is a religion. James 1:27.

Still not following your point in relation to my point, nothing you have shown here suggests it is easy to break up any relationship.

In addition, James says that taking care of widows and children is religion, not a relationship with Christ is a religion....if you are going to quote scripture please be careful that it says what you want to portray it to say....if you want to disagree with what I said, you need to 1. show that it is easy to break up with someone you are in a relationship with and 2. that a relationship with Jesus is just about taking care of the widows and orphans...cause I can show you dozens of scriptures that say otherwise.

 

[Chris B]

Atheists often chuckle about Christians telling them that they rejected God because "they wanted to sin", but I think there is some truth to the broader idea that some atheists rejected God because events and circumstances in their lives seemed inconsistent with belief in a God that had a purpose for them. Speaking for myself, losing faith in the purpose of your life is not healthy psychologically.

"Some atheists" has to be fair: take a big enough sample and you'll find examples of just about anything.

Your phrasing is a bit loaded: "...some atheists rejected God " looks as though you know their decision was wrong.
Rather we have rejected a proposal or idea of God which others have accepted and consider true.

"...because events and circumstances in their lives seemed inconsistent with belief in a God ..." (don't need the purpose bit)
Well yes: Looking at the observable world, alongside theistic accounts of it, I found too much of a mis-match. Nothing personal, but on a broader scale.

It isn't clear to me that life does have an overarching or pre-set purpose.
I can understand that if it is believed that life ought to have one then the possibility of it not being there could b every disturbing.
Personally, long before I met the phrase I had taken on board the idea that life *might* be as Shakespeare puts it
"A tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

That thought doesn't destroy my life, or any point it may or may not have.

But atheists face the same problem. Everybody needs to have faith that life has purpose - no matter the source of that purpose.

Err, no, not really.
I certainly don't have faith in the sense of relying on a particular purpose.
We may have to just make our own, which could be why J-P Sartre described humanity as being condemned to be free: finding our own direction can be hard work for an authentic individual. Indeed many do buy-in to any of the range of pre-existing set purposes and models of existence that are available.

Perhaps for some the idea just of the possibility of "no purpose" cannot be faced.
From "Endgame" by Samuel Beckett:
“HAMM: We're not beginning to... to... mean something?

CLOV: Mean something! You and I, mean something!
(Brief laugh.) Ah that's a good one!”

Or perhaps Rick in Casablanca?
" ...it doesn't take much to see that the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world."

I can cope with either of those.
If there is a pre-set purpose, and a good part of the game of life is in finding out what that is, and then aligning oneself to it, that's different. But I remain to be convinced, and doggedly following a less than authentic pre-set purpose, now that idea give me something of the shivers.

 

[Chris B]

instead of just learning to accept what scripture says as the authority on the matter.

Well if you already know on some other grounds that scripture *is* the authority on the matter, that's fine.
Otherwise, it's not as simple as that.

 

[razzelflabben]

If there is a pre-set purpose, and a good part of the game of life is in finding out what that is, and then aligning oneself to it, that's different. But I remain to be convinced, and doggedly following a less than authentic pre-set purpose, now that idea give me something of the shivers.

I have heard many claim that the very idea that man seeks out a purpose for his existence is evidence for a deity, the next question would be who or what that deity is.

I'm not sure I personally buy all that, but I can see where they get the idea from.....just throwing it out there for whatever it's worth.

 

[Chris B]

Getting back to the OP, how many people lose faith solely as a result of philosophical arguments versus rationalizing a belief that resulted from emotions about personal circumstances? I know that in my case, I simply could not see enough evidence that God cared about my life, so I lost faith. Some Christians trust that God cares even though they cannot see the evidence.

I had to keep emotions and feelings out of my analysis as far as possible.
But I am atypical, I think. The simple "But is this true?" question predominated, and "how I felt about that" was not much of a useful witness.

 

[razzelflabben]

Well if you already know on some other grounds that scripture *is* the authority on the matter, that's fine.
Otherwise, it's not as simple as that.

I'm not sure what you are trying to say here.

My stand is that the God of the Bible claims the scriptures as the authority by which man knows the God of the Bible. That would mean that in order to know and or test the God of the Bible it is imperative that we base all our understanding off what the Bible really does say or else we are creating a whole new being and calling that being God. Now, if the God of the Bible said...I don't know, that the church was the authority for who He is, then we would have to go to the church to identify a deity we could test. This principle applies to every deity claim on the face of the earth. THe only way to actually test for or that deity is to go to the source that deity claims as authority of who He/he/she/they are and in that discover truth of that deity.

 

[Nihilist Virus]

Still not following your point in relation to my point, nothing you have shown here suggests it is easy to break up any relationship.

In addition, James says that taking care of widows and children is religion, not a relationship with Christ is a religion....if you are going to quote scripture please be careful that it says what you want to portray it to say....if you want to disagree with what I said, you need to 1. show that it is easy to break up with someone you are in a relationship with and 2. that a relationship with Jesus is just about taking care of the widows and orphans...cause I can show you dozens of scriptures that say otherwise.

OK so where in the scriptures does it say to have a personal relationship with Christ? Do you mean where you are supposed to be his bride? That's an analogy, and a bad one since most relationships, as we've agreed, end purely because of the desire of one or both parties. The fact that more than half end in this manner suggests it is easy to do so. The main difficulty arising in the termination of a relationship arises from the need to find a new living arrangement (moving sucks). Breaking up can be hard, even sometimes for the one doing the breaking up, but it can also be very relieving, like a huge weight is lifted off one's shoulders. That is how I felt when I dumped Jesus and his unreasonable demands (such as feeling guilty after masturbating).

Also, even if you demand that I honor your view on Christianity being a relationship with Christ, there ARE religious components to it. Communion and baptism are religious rituals, period. Catholics have a ton, but you protestants certainly have some.

 

[com7fy8]

While I was in a certain religion, I "lost" faith that was only belief in that religion. Then I decided to go back to it, because so many people believed in it.

Later, I asked Jesus to save me and I was going around preaching "you're a sinner who needs to get saved" at everybody, and reading Bible verses to them. Then I got tricked about something and was too proud to admit I was stupid; so I stopped acting like I was "saved" and felt pretty dumb, not wanting to be with the Christians or the non-Christians. But I had been criticizing Christians, all the time, too. So, my critical spirit had me set up to fall.

Now I understand faith is not only believing ideas, but we need "faith working through love" (Galatians 5:6). I can't lose this love faith unless I let evil decide what I feel and believe and trust.

Others have trusted in what they dictate to be logic, instead of trusting in Jesus; so they can lose their "faith" if someone gets them thinking about logic which is limited to how humans can see things.

And there are people who trust in themselves and what they can get themselves to do; so they do not really depend on Jesus; so they can lose, when things get hard and they are still in weakness of their own egos' will.

 

[razzelflabben]

OK so where in the scriptures does it say to have a personal relationship with Christ? Do you mean where you are supposed to be his bride? That's an analogy, and a bad one since most relationships, as we've agreed, end purely because of the desire of one or both parties.

well, this is one of many places we can use to support the teaching about relationship (more on that in a moment) However, you are missing something crucial about the biblical teaching about the marriage relationship with Christ....that is that our relationship with Christ as the bride is not a picture of our marriage to one another, but rather our earthly marriage is to mirror our relationship with Christ. This is a huge difference and a vitally important one.

The fact that more than half end in this manner suggests it is easy to do so.

now, before we go on, you still haven't explained how your stats, stats that I evidenced were not accurate, have anything at all to do with what I said and claimed. In fact, I have shown you that it doesn't reflect anything at all about what I said and you just keep going as if I never pointed this out to you. So before you go back to that non sense, please address how it addresses what I said...thanks. I'm sure we can avoid a lot of flaming by just addressing issues rather than pretending they don't exist.

The main difficulty arising in the termination of a relationship arises from the need to find a new living arrangement (moving sucks). Breaking up can be hard, even sometimes for the one doing the breaking up, but it can also be very relieving, like a huge weight is lifted off one's shoulders. That is how I felt when I dumped Jesus and his unreasonable demands (such as feeling guilty after masturbating).

not sure what this has to do with what I said either, but back to task until you decide to show the relation.

Now, as to relationship...there are tons of scripture, at this point I will just mention some, I can provide passages upon request. 1. We are to be in Christ as Christ is in us...this is an intimate relationship 2. we are the bride, we already talked about that 3. We are His children, again, another intimate relationship. 4. We are to fellowship, that is, not just go through the traditions, but actually communicate one to another...we can go on, how many different examples of relationship do you want?

Also, even if you demand that I honor your view on Christianity being a relationship with Christ, there ARE religious components to it. Communion and baptism are religious rituals, period. Catholics have a ton, but you protestants certainly have some.

Who is demanding anything? I think you must be confusing me with someone else if you want to take this approach. 1. I am not demanding anything, 2. I have shown above and can continue to go deeper, that scripture is about relationship, man is about relationship. 3. even salvation demonstrates a relationship over traditions and the symbolic traditions. 4. as to religion, in a wide definition of religion, we could say yes, a relationship with Christ is one of religious belief, however that is like saying that marriage is nothing more than a relationship with another person. Marriage is much more than just a relationship with another person, if this is not true, then we would never have had a debate in this country of homosexual marriage, iow's there wouldn't have ever needed to be a discussion at all. But that wide definition also allows all relationships to be included, such as friend, (which btw, scripture also tells us we are Christ's friend, again, relationship) parent/child, siblings, etc. all of which btw are used to describe our relationship to God for a true believer. Ok, so back to point, on a narrower definition, one in which we are more familiar with, scripture dismisses it as not for the true believer. In fact, one of the major aspects of the common definition (notice I said common definition not necessarily dictionary definition) is the idea of appeasing a deity....the whole point of salvation is that God cannot be appeased....go figure...just like I said, relationship not religion, we can go one, you see, another common understanding is religion is about the dos and don'ts or another way to say it, the traditions.....

 

[ViaCrucis]

I don't know that there's a one size fits all answer.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[Nihilist Virus]

well, this is one of many places we can use to support the teaching about relationship (more on that in a moment) However, you are missing something crucial about the biblical teaching about the marriage relationship with Christ....that is that our relationship with Christ as the bride is not a picture of our marriage to one another, but rather our earthly marriage is to mirror our relationship with Christ. This is a huge difference and a vitally important one. now, before we go on, you still haven't explained how your stats, stats that I evidenced were not accurate, have anything at all to do with what I said and claimed. In fact, I have shown you that it doesn't reflect anything at all about what I said and you just keep going as if I never pointed this out to you. So before you go back to that non sense, please address how it addresses what I said...thanks. I'm sure we can avoid a lot of flaming by just addressing issues rather than pretending they don't exist. not sure what this has to do with what I said either, but back to task until you decide to show the relation.

Now, as to relationship...there are tons of scripture, at this point I will just mention some, I can provide passages upon request. 1. We are to be in Christ as Christ is in us...this is an intimate relationship 2. we are the bride, we already talked about that 3. We are His children, again, another intimate relationship. 4. We are to fellowship, that is, not just go through the traditions, but actually communicate one to another...we can go on, how many different examples of relationship do you want? Who is demanding anything? I think you must be confusing me with someone else if you want to take this approach. 1. I am not demanding anything, 2. I have shown above and can continue to go deeper, that scripture is about relationship, man is about relationship. 3. even salvation demonstrates a relationship over traditions and the symbolic traditions. 4. as to religion, in a wide definition of religion, we could say yes, a relationship with Christ is one of religious belief, however that is like saying that marriage is nothing more than a relationship with another person. Marriage is much more than just a relationship with another person, if this is not true, then we would never have had a debate in this country of homosexual marriage, iow's there wouldn't have ever needed to be a discussion at all. But that wide definition also allows all relationships to be included, such as friend, (which btw, scripture also tells us we are Christ's friend, again, relationship) parent/child, siblings, etc. all of which btw are used to describe our relationship to God for a true believer. Ok, so back to point, on a narrower definition, one in which we are more familiar with, scripture dismisses it as not for the true believer. In fact, one of the major aspects of the common definition (notice I said common definition not necessarily dictionary definition) is the idea of appeasing a deity....the whole point of salvation is that God cannot be appeased....go figure...just like I said, relationship not religion, we can go one, you see, another common understanding is religion is about the dos and don'ts or another way to say it, the traditions.....

This appears to be a lot of rambling. I looked it up and 40-50% of marriages end in divorce. This does not count boyfriend/girlfriend and gay couples that terminate their relationship. Counting those things puts it well above half.

Marriage is a relationship, it doesn't matter that father/son dynamics and etc are relationships also. That does not make marriage more than a relationship. The opposition to gay marriage was for *religious* purposes and Christianity is a religion.

What are you even trying to prove? If I grant you that Christianity is not a religion, so what? How is that evidence in favor of Christianity? Because guess what. Atheism is not a religion either.

 

[razzelflabben]

maybe you should read it again then, it is not rambling at all, in fact, it addresses your post very nicely...maybe you are rambling the reason you aren't following....

This appears to be a lot of rambling. I looked it up and 40-50% of marriages end in divorce. This does not count boyfriend/girlfriend and gay couples that terminate their relationship. Counting those things puts it well above half.

that doesn't explain how you think this addresses what I said, which I have repeatedly asked you about. In the first place, you are not addressing the discrepancies in the stats, Mark Twain once said, there are three kinds of lies, lies, damned lies, and statistics...this applies here, in fact, I did research not all that long ago and was quite surprised by how manipulated the stats really are.

Second and more importantly, these stats say nothing about how difficult it is to break up with someone. You see, the claim you are trying to refute was that it is harder to break up a relationship then simply change your mind about a belief you once had. You keep offering manipulated stats as if that somehow magically shows that it is easier to break up a relationship than to change your mind about a belief that you once held, but the stats don't show that at all, in fact, all the stats show is that breaking a relationship is possible, something that I never doubted, questioned, or suggested wasn't possible. So please, instead of just repeating the stats that you want to believe, just explain how you think the stats show that it is easier to change what one believes than to break up a relationship with someone that exists in your life (intimate relationship)

It shouldn't be a hard thing for you to do since you seem to think it addresses the issue, what I can't figure out is why you refuse to explain how you think these stats show it is harder to change your mind than to break off an intimate relationship and I am really getting tired of asking.

Marriage is a relationship, it doesn't matter that father/son dynamics and etc are relationships also. That does not make marriage more than a relationship. The opposition to gay marriage was for *religious* purposes and Christianity is a religion.

HuH? You asked me to show how Christ is according to scripture about relationship not religion, I did just that...it is no wonder you think my post rambled if you can't even remember what you asked me about. Geesh....

What are you even trying to prove? If I grant you that Christianity is not a religion, so what? How is that evidence in favor of Christianity? Because guess what. Atheism is not a religion either.

what are you going on about? SEriously, I don't get it! the topic being discussed is why people lose their faith, I suggested that for some it is because their faith is in the religion called christianity not the relationship with Christ talked about in the Bible. It really isn't that hard a concept and you don't even have to believe that it is possible to understand that it is much harder to break off an intimate relationship than it is to simply change your mind about a religious belief you once held.

I really don't know where you are getting the rest of this stuff or how you think it applies to the discussion at hand or even why you would want to discuss it, of which I am happy to do, but would need to do someplace other than this thread in that it takes us off topic.

 

[Nihilist Virus]

the topic being discussed is why people lose their faith,

Maybe for some it's because they realize that Christianity, at its core, is a religion based on blood sacrifice (indeed, Christ's death would be pointless without this notion), and then when they go and read the Old Testament to study up on these laws of sacrifice, they see that they are getting their system of morality and sunsequent method of atonement from a group of racist, sexist men who regularly engaged in genocide, rape, and slave trading.

 

[razzelflabben]

Maybe for some it's because they realize that Christianity, at its core, is a religion based on blood sacrifice (indeed, Christ's death would be pointless without this notion), and then when they go and read the Old Testament to study up on these laws of sacrifice, they see that they are getting their system of morality and sunsequent method of atonement from a group of racist, sexist men who regularly engaged in genocide, rape, and slave trading.

sounds like you are referring to the history books in the bible and a lack of understanding of why some of it happened, but again, that is off topic. What is on topic, is that this post seems to agree that traditions and the teachings of the church rather than the actual teachings of scripture and a relationship with God are often what causes people to lose their faith....how cool is that, we seem to agree.

 

[Nihilist Virus]

sounds like you are referring to the history books in the bible and a lack of understanding of why some of it happened, but again, that is off topic. What is on topic, is that this post seems to agree that traditions and the teachings of the church rather than the actual teachings of scripture and a relationship with God are often what causes people to lose their faith....how cool is that, we seem to agree.

It is not off topic. The topic is about why Christians lose their faith. For many it is because they see the laws in the Old Testament that clearly endorse slavery, or perhaps all of the genocide and butchery committed at the behest of Jehovah, and others might [bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse] their head in confusion while seeing no "Thou shalt not rape" in the ten commandments.

The genocides are recorded proudly in Joshua. Sometimes genocides were left incomplete so the men could be rewarded with virgins as war loot. Other times defectors from the enemy were spared.

The laws on rape are written in Deuteronomy 22:25-29. You will see that punishment is only administered if the rape victim is betrothed to another man. If she is not "claimed" by another man, and you rape her, she's all yours. As it's written, the woman can refuse marriage, but if she chooses to marry her rapist, the man may not divorce her all his days. Also the rapist must pay an increased dowry to the father, presumably as punishment for not asking the father's permission before raping her. I find it unlikely the woman would refuse the marriage because her father would likely kick her out of the house, as she would be sabotaging his one chance to fetch a dowry for her (no one will want to marry a woman who is not a virgin in such a patriarchal society). The elephant in the room, of course, is the fact that the rapist will rape her at his leisure for the rest of their lives. Nothing is said or done to protect her from this. I've heard from apologists that this law was put in place to protect the woman, since she was shamed and would otherwise be unable to support herself (hence the reason the rapist is not executed despite the fact that the law was quite severe on other issues) but this explanation is an abject failure for many reasons that I'll be happy to share if you're somehow not disillusioned by everything I've said about the treatment of women here.

As for slavery, God endorsed chattel slavery where the Jews were permitted to take slaves from other nations. God endorsed the owning of one human being over another for life (Leviticus 25:45-46). Most apologists completely ignore this and point to the verse which says Jews can only own Jewish slaves for 6 years, which actually only serves to confirm my accusation that they were racist (the sexist claim is pretty much verified on every page).

 

[cloudyday2]

Just for clarification, the scripture is not saying that Christians who "fall away" can never be saved. But rather, it is impossible for someone who truly believes to loose their faith and "fall away". So the question is, "if a christian lost their faith, did they ever truly believe with all their heart in the first place"?

Does anybody truly believe with all their heart? I don't think so.

 

[(° ͡ ͜ ͡ʖ ͡ °) (ᵔᴥᵔʋ)]

Does anybody truly believe with all their heart? I don't think so.

I cannot answer that.