To not know how anyone can believe in God or not hate him if they do?

[JustWearThePants]

I've been thinking a lot about this lately. I've a relative who's very religious and brings God into every conversation and situation.

I grew up going to church with my parents and always just took the 'who knows' approach afterwards.

I've been through an incredibly traumatic experience lately, where something happened and keeps happening to me which has left me broken, a shell of who I was, depressed and anxious, and just wanting to die so many times.

Yet this relative always wants to bring God into my situation. Tell me how he'll help, if I pray, if I 'give it to him' it will help me etc... I want to shout and shake them and tell them to wake up.

It's left me honestly baffled how anyone can either believe at all or, if they do, why they don't see him as a horrid bully who enjoys watching people suffer. All you have to do is watch the news to see what goes on in the world.

Before this happened I was okay just letting my relative and whoever believe whatever they believe but now I want to scream at anyone who brings it up. How could you possibly feel loved by someone who allows these things to happen to you?

I'm so angry at someone telling me the man in the sky will make everything better yet whenever I ask why he's let it happen in the first place they have no answer. It's all 'his plan' or some other crap. And how when I start to feel better it's because of God giving me strength when actually it's me, I've put in the effort, I've gone through the shit.

I don't want to see this person anymore but I can't as they are a close family member and I know no one else in the family would understand.

If I was mean enough I'd give them a copy of blasphemous rumours by depeche mode, it sums up my view on religion. Sorry for your loss.

*I don't understand why I've lost multiple Babies and the (hypothetical) heroin addict, neglectful parent a few towns over is having their 6th no problem.
*
I have this thought too. Although mine is why after 15 years of fertility issues I finally fall Pregnant 4 times and you take them all back. Yet I know someone who pops them out to claim every benefit going. And the 'they're in a better place or these things happen for a reason really wind me up. No they aren't in a better place at all. The better place would be here on earth with me and their Daddy. And what reason could that possibly be!

I don't believe in God. I think religion causes more problems than its worth. Might as well believe in the tooth fairy. I do however believe in something, but I don't have a clue what.

I'm still in the figuring-out-what-I-believe stage, but I agree with pp who said that "God" and the "Devil" are the same entity.

If God is omnipresent and created everything, then he is the source of all "evil" as well as "good". I think the biggest clue is probably his report that he "made man in his image".

I'd like to think that there's a higher purpose, that all the things we consider terrible now will make sense in some kind of wider context. Unfortunately, suffering seems to be part of that.

I hope that's the case, because otherwise it's just an indifferent Universe and Game Over. If I knew that were the case, I would opt out now. A little hope goes a long way.

Sorry you are going through this.

but you cant pray in anger or resentment

Of course you can! Bloody hell, of COURSE you can. I certainly do, on occasion. Every expletive imaginable. A conversation/row, a relationship.

I've had a hard life. Back in the day I was a Good Christian (🙄), then a horror happened and God could fuck right o. Much later, having experienced many horrors, I finally sort of turned to God, a God, full to the brim with rage and expletives (hurt, actually). The fact I was addressing God in a relational way did suggest I sort-of believed? Whatever, I wanted to have it out - fist shaking at the sky. I did experience a comfort then. The more I raged, the more the comfort flowed. That's just how it went. It was strong.

I have no answers to the big questions. I'm so very very sorry you have suffered so badly, op. I could cry for you. I'm guessing your relative is the next generation up from your parents? They need to keep quiet about plans, God's plan, or anybody else's plan. This is terrible pain, not a plan.

Can another relative have a word with your tactless relative and tell them to shut up?

I'm not asking for everything I want. I want help. And I've never seen it come from anyone except real people.

This is so true.

OP

I have a friend like this, she's a lovely person but the Go0d stuff drives me mad. Any thing good - God did it, anything bad, Oh well God helped someone through it.

She wants me to go to her church to see,"healings", I know I'd just see a set of tricks.

We had a family, er difference of opinion, with my extended family. One relative said, "Tell Grandad I still love him, but I'm not talking to him just now".

Is it possible you could do this with your relative?

I don't think God toys with Job, @Flopjustwantscoffee. The devil in that story asks a good question: does Job just love God because God blesses him? He puts forward the theory that people will only love God if God gives them what they want and protects them from bad things happening.

God doesn't actually do anything to Job. He doesn't kill his family, like a PP claimed. He simply says, I will not step in to save him. Some people see that as the same thing - as bad as killing them himself, but I see a huge difference there. Evil is found in the absence of God, when God withdraws. That is the way in which they're connected.

The other thing the story of Job shows clearly is that Job's suffering was not part of some cosmic plan. God did not come up with the idea, even. It's a story, not a historical event, so maybe we shouldn't get too caught up in details, but God's role in the story is to protect and bless - and sometimes for some reason to stand back from that (although there is some protection even then), and watch. Not dispassionately, and with the aim of showering blessings again later.

Eleven miscarriages - I can't even begin to comprehend

What I mean about getting too caught up in details is: I think most suffering is random, and God steps in some times and doesn't at others. I don't understand that, although I think it's part of this world being far from perfect. The story of Job doesn't answer why God hasn't given you the baby you so want. Suffering is senseless: people have grappled with that the whole of history, and you're right that all Christians should be prepared to think that through. Otherwise their faith is just a baby faith, really.

When I was very little, our next door neighbour was like an extra granny. She was the nicest person ever. Everyone said so. As was her husband. My earliest memory is the ambulance coming to take her husband away when he died. She was a churchgoer and she asked my mum if I'd like to go to Sunday School (she was the Sunday School teacher for the younger kids) and mum knew it was more about company for her following the loss of her husband. So she said yes and I went.

I loved it. They were the friendliest, nicest, most wonderful group of people. And what was great about them is that they never tried to foist religion on people. My mum's sister died when she was young and so didn't believe in God. She would occasionally come and see the church nativity play, or concerts, or talent evenings and carol services and was always made very welcome but not once did anyone ever try to persuade her to "find God". As a result my mum also recognised them as the thoroughly lovely bunch they were and started doing shopping for some of the really elderly ones who had trouble getting out. She still talks fondly about many of them. Baked a 90th birthday cake as a surprise for one of them.

Sadly, they were all mostly over 50 then and I'm now 45 and there's only one of that lovely bunch left. She's 92 and I still go and visit her even though I stopped going to church when I was 20. I miss them all.

THEY were what is right about faith and a belief. I think a lot of the problem are the ones like your relative OP. The ones who talk about it a lot or keep talking about it won't get anywhere. My mum didn't become Christian but she agrees that knowing these lovely folk made a huge difference in our lives.

I also know a female vicar who never talks about God outside of work and swears like a trooper. More like that would do the C of E good!!

@CharlotteCollinsneeLucas
Totally agree. That’s how I would interpret Jobs story aswell.

I've NC as this is outing if anyone on here knew me well.

I went to a church when I was growing up. My mum and dad were both a big part of it and the people there were like family to me. I actually had a strong faith as a child and I loved the people there.

Then my mother suffered a serious mental breakdown and did a few stupid things out of desperation, trying to take her own life, ran away leaving my dad and me. Instead of help and support she was essentially shunned and me and my dad, the innocent parties were ignored.

I was a child and I was offered no help, no support, no friendly words. People literally crossed the street from me and my dad afterwards. We, who'd done absolutely nothing wrong. A hurt husband taking care of his depressed child and these 'people of God' treated us like shit on their shoe. I believe it's because they couldn't explain it away and so would rather not have faced it.

I've never forgiven them for it. And I'll never set foot inside a church again because of them, and I hope they know that. That they, people who are supposed to help bring people to God, completely shook my faith as a child and that's hard to get back and something I've never really recovered from.

Since then and at the time I've only ever felt supported and encouraged by people outside of religion and of course I shouldn't tar everyone with the same brush but it's true for me.

I always thought God wanted his followers to scoop people up in hard times, to help and support, to encourage and listen. But we were abandoned by the people we'd essentially grown up with.

I'll never forget it, or the fact they are the biggest bunch of hypocrites I have ever known. I avoid most things to do with religion now because of it.

So yeah I question God. And I now too question whether most people who believe in him care about others in the way they say or only when it suits their faith. That's probably unfair but hey ho.

Err.. the story of Job is Satan making a wager with God, for lols, to see if Job would still be loyal if they decided to kill his ten children

Alot of hard work has been done to make it sound like this isn't a story of sadism.

@EverReady2

I can really relate to your story. I think churches can become toxic fast, cliques form and the needy can be shut out. This isn't unique to christianity, but it is shitty how much it contradicts their message

And Potatobug I really hope you aren't a person of God. If so, you sound exactly like the people in my post above. Sarcastic, unsympathetic and no understanding at all of why anyone else may have their faith shaken or begin to question things like many do.

I believe God would welcome questions. And it's not for us to make people feel like crap for doing that. Shame on you if you are a believer.

Everready That sounds awful, sorry you had to go through all that, but that’s basically just uncaring people. Churches are full of hypocrites and people that pretend they’re all nice but they aren’t. I believe in God, I don’t go to church, but I try not to let bad experiences with nasty people make me disbelieve. This life is full of trials, somehow we have to get through them the best we can.

YANBU. The world would be a far more people place if we as a race at last rejected religion. Won't happen in this lifetime though, unfortunately.

I think we conflate God and the church. Which is a disaster! NOT the same, sadly. I wonder how God must feel having these too-often revolting people supposedly representing him/her/it? It took me a while to get that.

I don't think God 'withdraws'. Re Job. I don't think Job existed. It's just a very interesting and thought provoking philosophical story re what can happen when conclusive disaster strikes, who does what. At least his friends sat with him for 7 days, unlike a lot of contemporary people of faith. I'm not surprised at your awful story EverReady but I'm so very sorry the people at the church behaved like emotionally stunted idiots. I've had similar experiences in the church. I hope your mum is OK now?

A lot of people in the church can be cultish about their faith : this plus this equals that. If something comes along that refutes that equation the cult rejects it as flawed /sin. Like Job's friends who blamed Job for his disasters. The Job story is a perfect example of how people who view God through a cultish/religious lens draw erroneous and horrible conclusions about God, the nature of God. At the end of the story, God comes in and says 'how dare you!'

I think God is gorgeously wonderful, personally. You could read the book The Shack, a novel about unimaginable suffering and God's response to it. This book has divided the Christian community big time but hey its only a story. Gives us something to think about.

I think we conflate God and the church. Which is a disaster! NOT the same, sadly.

I was raised a Christian but lost my faith ... the church we went to was lovely, more like the one ShatnersWig describes. I miss that church, it's 'god' that's the problem for me not people.

My take is that men make gods in their own image - good people can make a good church so long as they don't get overwhelmed by bad ones.

There's a quote: “With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil - that takes religion.”

Well, that's too simplistic, other dogmas (eg Stalinism) can replace religion, but nevertheless it has some truth to it.

God doesn't stop bad things happening to you, he carries you while they do.

Human beings have free will and it's true that terrible things do happen to good people, but God never leaves you to cope with those things by yourself. God said "I am with you always".

It's the 'problem of evil' isn't it
Obviously what's really going on is we are living in a simulation and the being that we consider god is the person who wrote the code.... he/she/it is one sadistic fucker and no mistake!

One hundred percent agree OP

When the truth is they are completely different and most people know it. It's one thing asking for a 'hot boyfriend' and quite another begging and the floor for help because you are on the verge of suicide.

Stop begging and listen and look for help and support from God and the world. God isn't a Disney movie, he doesn't fix stuff with a flash of light and sometimes he doesn't fix at all, he just lays down beside you on the floor.

Take care and I really hope you feel better soon. Xxx

I don't think op was expecting a Disney film, just beseeching from the heart at a very dark time in her life.

I get your point, yo, but it comes across too harshly imo.

I apologise that it comes across harshly, that wasn't my intention.
I really do wish that the op will be able to get through and find the support she needs and I also believe that God is trying to give it to her. Really not trying to be patronising at all or upset op further, but I will be praying that she is able to reconcile with God, feel his love and calm and have everything she wants in life. Take care op xx

@Potatobug I was asking for your viewpoint, rather than your permission to hold my own opinion, so, let me rephrase the question. Do you believe that God is omnipotent?