I don’t think I believe in “God” anymore

[anonymous1120]

I feel really low today, my trigger was reading an online story about how Madeline’s body might be found in a few days as police think it’s 30 mins from hotel in a well. I’m sorry I stopped reading so details might not be fully accurate. My eldest daughter has just turned 4 and it’s really upset me thinking what Maddie might have gone through in her last moments.

I know some people will respond negatively to me and hence the name change. I’m really struggling to think how can God really exist and let awful and evil things happen all the time. My faith has really been tested over the years and I do not believe in God anymore.

@eaglejulesk

For crying out loud! God does not make things happen, or not happen, that's just life. God is there, if people believe in him, to help people to come to terms with what has happened and many people find comfort from that.

If you don't want to believe in God then don't, but the people who question why things happen as if God is sitting there pulling the strings are just being ridiculous.

But he is supposed to be omnipotent and beneficent. Why does he not lift a finger to stop bad things from happening? Why do people pray to him and ask for things which he won't do anyway? Why should people gather together and sing songs about how utterly wonderful he is?

I had a friend whose DH died of cancer. Before he died his congregation prayed for him daily. There were messages of how he was going to “beat this” and how he would be cured because he believes in God.

When he didn’t get better and it became apparent that he was not going to survive, the support dropped, and the talk turned to how he clearly didn’t have a strong enough faith and therefore he was destined to die.

When I was at school the challenger blew up on takeoff. One of the teachers immediately stated that a teacher was on that shuttle and the reason why it had blown up was because this was God’s sign that we were going too far.

I could relay hundreds more but you get the gist.

PhilCornwall1 My DD has a degree in Physics ,and agrees with you! However Scientists are also human beings and many Doctors /Scientists/ believe in God or a higher being.(My wonderful Dentist reminded me of lent ,and that he was giving up chocolate,(or maybe as a Dental Surgeon wouldnt eat much of the dark sweet stuff anyway!) Everyone will have different views on Religion and its often based on childhood experiences . My gut feeling is that of a God /Heavenly Father looking after us all .Although as all busy parents realise he cant be everywhere at once ! We are not "bad" just somewhat misguided .If the existence of a higher being is discounted ,life seems to lack any real meaning surely?

Eh I've stopped being religious, as in organised religion, ages ago. I oscillate between feeling agnostic or atheist, but I've made my peace with it. I don't feel pressure to be one or another, and if someone gets into a discussion with me to convince me to be on either side, I just let the state their arguments and just continue to do my thing. Hope this helps.

I will share a slightly amusing one though.

My DP is visually impaired. For a time he was part of a penticostal church, and one day some missionary or the like came to talk to them and pray for some. DP was encouraged to go up on stage even though he was reticent. When he got up there someone put their hands over his eyes and the whole prayer thing began. DP, although he does have a faith, said he actually wanted to laugh because it was so ridiculous and almost forced.

Anyway, when the praying was done the hands were removed from his eyes and he was asked whether he could see. And he responded, “yeah.” At which point the congregation started to cheer and praise the Lord, at which point DP then said, “well, you had your hands over my eyes before, so I couldn’t see anything, now that you’ve taken them away again I can see the bit I could see before.” it did not go down well.

I'm technically an atheist but I was not raised with religion so it's just normal to me.

My parents are pagans but do not practice paganism very frequently, and consider themselves more spiritual.
I do not feel not having a God/Gods as a loss.

I dont know how you feel at the loss of your faith, but try and take solace in what you can. Absolutely, terrible awful things happen and there is no divine force to protect us.
But that just means we must work harder to look out for our fellow humans.

I’m a Christian, and a doctor. I can’t help being amused by the atheists on this thread who angrily blame God for letting people die. You do realise that we all have to die? Including you? Death is the gateway by which we exit this imperfect world and go to be in perfect union with God.
All humans are given free will, otherwise life would be pointless - a mere preprogrammed existence for robots.
Some people choose evil, and cause others to suffer. Like the people who tortured and crucified God Himself, in the person of Jesus.
God is not a cruel, remote being - he suffered that torture as one of us, to show His love for humanity, and to demonstrate via the resurrection that we would have eternal life - that our life on Earth is just a temporary stage, and its individual length is immaterial when viewed from outside the space-time continuum of our physical universe.
You are looking at things from an Earthbound perspective, and can’t understand why life seems unfair or evil prospers, or death happens. These things only make sense if viewed from God’s perspective- which we can only fully share after our own deaths. Rather as a butterfly might look back and see why it needed to first crawl about as an ugly Earthbound caterpillar, then go into a chrysalis “tomb” in order to be resurrected as a butterfly, soaring in the heavens and sipping nectar. Not a complete analogy, but I think it conveys the basic idea.

OP, forgetting about God, and I am a practising Christian, don't you think that the people to blame here were the irresponsible parents who left this poor child and her twin siblings while they went to dinner?

They were arguably to blame for being irresponsible and creating a window of opportunity for someone to take her. But they are not to blame for the fact that someone did take her and (allegedly) murdered her afterwards. That is on him.

No-one else is responsible her for her abduction and (alleged) murder but him. Not the parents, and not any (if He existed) God.

@anonymous1120 I am the same as you. I used to believe in a God but from reading about such vile acts to children, adults and animals I've turned my back. To me if a God is true then why let these vile acts happen? Anyone who has the power to stop torture and disease should!!! Some Countries prefer child brides and the men have complete control with violence in the name of their God. So nope its not for me i prefer to be a good person anyway.

When he didn’t get better and it became apparent that he was not going to survive, the support dropped, and the talk turned to how he clearly didn’t have a strong enough faith and therefore he was destined to die.

Tbf, sounds like he belonged to a weird (and unpleasant) chuch.

Try to remember that we live in a fallen world, and Satan is the ‘prince of the power of the air’ and the ruler of this world. Humans have free will and unfortunately this is what it can lead to. It’s a constant spiritual battle between light and darkness. When I feel down I watch chuck misslers videos on YouTube and they give me strength. Sending hugs hope you feel better soon x

I’m a Christian, and a doctor. I can’t help being amused by the atheists on this thread who angrily blame God for letting people die. You do realise that we all have to die? Including you? Death is the gateway by which we exit this imperfect world and go to be in perfect union with God.

Self-evidently, atheists aren't blaming God for anything as they don't believe there is any such being.

Inasmuch as people are raising the issue of death, it's in the context of a supposedly beneficent and omnipotent God who allows things like babies being born with horrible, intensely painful conditions that will only result in their early death. Is that OK just so that they can have a perfect union with the being who could have prevented what they suffered but chose not to do so?

I attend church but I don’t necessarily believe in God all the time or ever. But I like the community aspect and action of the church which I think provides many positives. I am sure I am not the only one. It’s so complex I think people’s faith changes all the time and that’s ok and human.

I had a brilliant teacher who had an extraordinary memory. She did much of her teaching without notes, and could quote at will large chunks of poetry, Shakespeare etc that she had learnt decades ago. She clearly revelled in the rich store of wonderful literature that she held in her head. She was also extremely religious, and would talk about her absolute certainty of an afterlife with God.

And then she got Alzheimer's. It was slow developing, she knew exactly what was happening and was only too painfully conscious of how her memories were slipping away from her day by day. For someone who derived so much innocent pleasure from her memories, it was the cruellest possible thing that could conceivably happen.

I don't know whether she retained her faith before she died, but if I were in that position I would really struggle. Because either there is no God and getting Alzheimer's was just one of those things; or the being whom she had served devotedly all her life was happy to inflict on her - or to refuse to save her from - the cruellest possible condition for her, which she had done nothing whatsoever to deserve. I've always thought that in that situation I would rather be an atheist.

Sorry to hear that you are losing your faith, anonymous. I'm a long-term atheist and find religion hard to understand, but I can see how horrible it would be emotionally to go from feeling you could rely on a deity in some way, to feeling like you can't.

A friend of mine died a few years back, and at the church service they preached in front of her young children about how God had taken her because he needed her. It felt very uncomfortable to me, not having grown up with religion, to think what they might make of that idea, that someone had deliberately taken their mum away from them. Or that she was looking down at them from heaven and could see whatever they were doing - would they find that nice or frightening, being watched? Would they imagine her up there crying because she couldn't be with them? Or happy despite them not being with her? I can imagine the kind of reassuring answers the church would give, but is it not also reassuring to think that death happens, it is usually nobody's fault, it is normal to feel sad, and when people are dead they don't even know it? I don't understand why we have to make it more complicated. (I know; each to her own...)

I won't welcome you into atheism as it doesn't sound like something you'll embrace! And do watch out for your mental health. If you are suddenly feeling upset about everything, it could actually be not an atheist revelation but the beginnings of depression. Have a little Google for symptoms and think about speaking to your doctor.

Babdoc Agree wholeheartedly with you .Very well put Thank You!

BashStreetKid Sorry to hear about your poor Teacher .However she did not have Alzheimers "inflicted" on her.It is just the Brain wearing out ,or as my DM nurse told me when DM died of it, like the hard drive being wiped. As far as not being "deserved " Who on earth does "deserve" such a cruel illness!

God is not a cruel, remote being - he suffered that torture as one of us, to show His love for humanity, and to demonstrate via the resurrection that we would have eternal life - that our life on Earth is just a temporary stage, and its individual length is immaterial when viewed from outside the space-time continuum of our physical universe. no he didn’t. He sacrificed his only son which was in fact a fallacy because Jesus knew that his father wouldn’t forsake him.

And with that in mind, I thought that we were all God’s children? And yet the bible describes Jesus as his only son. How does that work then?

Oh, and then there’s the bit in the bible where Abraham was told to sacrifice Isaac on the alter as a test of his faith, and felt compelled to do it. And yes, I know that apparently a goat arrived just at the crucial time to serve as the sacrifice, but the expectation was still there?

As for we are all going to die, no shit Sherlock. Dying isn’t the thing here, it’s the amount of suffering prior to that death which is the issue.

While it is inevitable that some people will become ill and die, you have to look at parts of the world where whole societies are suffering, from famine, from poverty, from malnutrition, and the one thing they all seem to have in common is that they are desperate to believe that there’s a God at the end of it all.

Why the fuck does anyone actually want to be a part of that kind of afterlife anyway?

@Babdoc I think you might be conflating atheists with ex-Christians. Some atheists were bought up in a Christian home, but many just weren't bought up to have any religious beliefs.

I'm not angry with god about death in the same way I'm not angry with Zeus about thunderstorms.

Don't get me wrong, I respect people's rights to believe in whatever they want, and I actually find religion fascinating. But I dont like it when atheists are painted as bitter god haters.

I’m a Christian, and a doctor. I can’t help being amused by the atheists on this thread who angrily blame God for letting people die.

Obviously, it is not atheists who are angrily blaming God for anything.

Would you have left your daughter in an apartment and gone to dinner? God uses us as parents to protect our children the only thing I fear is leaving them in this world and not being able to protect them from danger
Keep praying

I don't believe in religion at all I believe it was all made up because there was no laws back then

I'm curious as to where the idea comes from that atheists are angry with God. Where are the examples on this thread that you refer to, babdoc?

there is no shame in not believing. I do not believe in God or any abrahamic religion. There is no hell and not believing won't cause any bad things.

Actually not beliving was liberating. I believe in nature and cycles and yes it is totally possible these were formed without a creator.

I'm not angry with god because I don't believe they exist.

I do not say "well then how come this happens" in order to insinuate 'god' is bad or cruel. I say it to show an example of why I believe in the absence of a god.

To @priya38 if you genuinely believe that then you're in for a rough ride in your next life to learn empathy, kindness and how to say things without being cruel. Good luck.