AIBU to ask if you believe in God - particularly if you didn't previously, and what that's like

[Pinesinthedunes]

Just as the title says really. I don't believe in God. I'm very curious about those who do - particularly those who didn't previously. How did your belief develop? How do you conceptualise God? Can it be a choice? I have a lot of admiration and curiosity for anyone who is able to sustain a sincere faith in Western culture. How important is having a community around you to strengthening your faith? Thank you in advance for any thoughts on this you would be happy to share

I don't believe in God. I don't want to believe in anyone who may have made childhood cancer and so much suffering.

I am a Christian and I believe I had a religious/supernatural experience which switched me on to it and got me over my critical/logical aversion. All I would recommend is to pray eg knock on the door and ask God to show you that he is there.

I was brought up catholic. I don’t believe at all. Totally far fetched.

Perhaps surprisingly for the ultimate rationalist, I agree with you on the "emanations". I just wouldn't use a word like divine.

Everything is, and always will be, inescapably the result of Big Bang (or big bounce, or whatever theory works at any given time). Free will is just nudging a couple of tiny things a very little bit, and it will self-correct in due course.

The small parts if the universe we've been able to examine contain gorgeous monstrosities of vast power, exponentially more awe-inspiring than any deity invented by humans. Their literal emanations impact our world, and each of our lives, all the time.

The spaces between particles are made of stuff we can't see or explain but can measure - and such stuff forms the greater part of everything. It's really fucking amazing.

If the ancients had known of all this, they would've had to invent gods even more mysterious, more terrifying, than what they did invent. Good thing they didn't, eh? The ones they came up with, based on terrestrial events, are bad enough!

So we're on similar pages here, with an impartial force exerting unstoppable influences on Earthly life. Just framing it differently 🙃

All I would recommend is to meditate, spend a bit of time outdoors, and ask your own mind to show up when needed.

I was bought up a catholic , not strongly , but just going to church and religious school . I never got it . I never felt it . I never loved it . I don’t believe in it .

I stopped believing when I went to University- too much other stuff to do ! But there was a void in my life that nothing else could fill.
I felt a pull back to faith, and my life is now complete again.

How are Catholics not Christian?!

I was at an old Vicarage place for work recently and there was an old piece of embroidery thanking God for bringing the makers uncle through the Titanic disaster and crediting him staying safe to his faith

Presumably God was really fucked off with the majority of passengers.

This is not a serious contribution, sorry OP, but it tickled me.

Sectarian nonsense.

I have always had faith and was brought ul Christian, sang in the church choir as a teenager etc. It’s always been there in the background.
I lost my beloved grandmother 2 months ago and since then my faith has become stronger and stronger. This is largely down to the lovely vicar who took her funeral service. She has been kinder to me than most of my own family put together, supported me, met with me since and has drawn me into her church family (where my grandparents lived and worshiped in the 1970s/80s). I am so grateful and it has been a huge comfort. It’s just so lovely not to feel judged.

I don't think so. Lots of religions refer to that as "God's will" and accept the outcome.

I am an atheist, however I can understand how some people believe in a higher power when they look at the wonders of the world around them, and the idea that there has to have been a higher power involved in their existence, even though I don’t believe that myself.

However I don’t understand how anyone can or wy anyone would want to believe in a Christian God, and tbh I find it offensive that people believe in the bible, pray to a God for things to happen and are prepared to worship a being who, according to the Old Testament, rules by wrath and punishment. Love thy father or renounce the ever lasting life and so on, not to mention the suffering that goes on in the world on a mass scale. I’m not talking about individuals, I’m talking about famine, war, the suffering of mass groups of innocent people, all of which, if there is a god, he would have the power to do something about.If someone told you that their parent behaved like that, or that they themselves treated their children like that they would be told they were abusive and if it was the child that they should go nc.

And yet Christians and other religions encourage people to worship this being, because they have been drawn in by the promise of love in the bible.

Even the most abusive parent professes to love their children, that’s why so many children find it hard to detach from those abusive parents.

Totally agree with you. I think the ancients got thinks fairly spot on, just wrapped in different stories.

My use of the word “divine” is a bit different to what you would find in say Abrahamic divisions. I would look to a source, a singularity, not a wholly good god, but something that contains everything. Who knows, as since advances spirituality and science might be reunited?

you might want to check out the thought processes in what we now call Neoplatonism.

Theres a lot of spiritual thought that follows emanationism.

Mind you even Genesis got the order of evolution roughly right. 😀

And in another version of emanationism, Jewish Kabbalah there is the idea of the shattered vessels https://www.chabad.org/kabbalah/article_cdo/aid/380568/jewish/Shattered-Vessels.htm

cant help but think of the idea of the Big Bang.

I was an atheist for years (brought up C of E). I believe in God as an idea that has helped and inspired many people. A metaphor if you like. DP is a complete atheist and says 'That's too wishy-washy'.

My auntie in the Salvation Army told me that. She said they worship 'graven images' and pray to saints and dead people, and these things are 'idolatry'.

AIBU to ask if you believe in God - particularly if you didn't previously, and what that's like

YANBU to ask, but as you will have noticed, the Atheists have already taken over your thread, even though the thread is asking opinions from those who believe in God.

I don't know what I believe - but what I feel is a need for meaning and purpose beyond the everyday, and a God or spiritual practise meets that need.

I was always a staunch atheist until a couple of years ago when I started to feel that need for deeper meaning.

Christianity appeals to me in some ways but I've never been able to get my head around the whole Jesus thing. But rituals, worship, prayer and community all seem good to me.

God is love. I think that is the simplest expression of my belief, such as it is.

I am an atheist... I find it offensive that people believe in the bible, pray to a God for things to happen...

If you're offended by religious people then are religious people allowed to be offended by atheists taking the piss out of religion?

Garlicgrace,I had a book written by a scientist called "are we hardwired to believe in God", unfortunately can't find it. Some people are. Me no,it's only a belief. My oldest DS reckons there was a jesus, the derren brown of his time. My oldest DD, Easter jesus wasn't dead,they didn't have stethoscopes in those days.Course people used to believe that the poor old woman who delivered your baby was a witch,and burnt her at the stake. Thankfully we are a bit more civilized now! So many religions are cults
Look back through history, how many wars caused by religion.

It's an old video but Stephen Fry's take on god is always worth a watch;

Yes absolutely.

I see people on here and elsewhere talk about imaginary friends and fairy stories etc in relation to God and really there’s no need, in the same way as there being no need for devout Christian’s and the like to preach the word of God to non believers.

My offence isn’t at people’s belief that there is a higher power in their lives who had a hand in the earth and life being here. So many people look at the world and the universe around them and it inspires a belief that this can’t have all happened on its own.

the bit I find offensive is the parts of the bible which essentially encourage and even threaten people into worshipping an abusive being or face the consequences. Unfortunately so many people who are of a faith leave out that bit and choose to only believe in the bits of the bible which represent love and acceptance. But if someone truly believes in God, then that belief also includes the belief in the bible and all of the parts of it.

You only have to look at the more devout elements of Christianity which preach no sex before marriage and homosexuality being a sin, with countries like Uganda now having brought in laws allowing for the death penalty to be given to people who are gay, to see why religion is so toxic.

I see people on here and elsewhere talk about imaginary friends and fairy stories etc in relation to God and really there’s no need, in the same way as there being no need for devout Christian’s and the like to preach the word of God to non believers.

Thanks, it's good to have that acknowledged by an Atheist.

I'm not Christian, so I won't comment on the bible, but I do vert much believe in live and let live.

MayThe4th. We understand from history in the UK,that religion was invented to keep the populus in order. People had "the fear of God" put into them,told they would burn in hell,if they didn't do what the rich landowners/church demanded. I worked many years, with folk from other countries, every single one claimed to believe in God,sat on a night shift reading their own version of the bible, telling me it was perfectly ok to commit sin as long as you atone. I don't agree with that
We have lived very near, Scientology HQ, Johover witness church,Mormons, Plymouth brethren. Only the mormans were polite, wishing you a good day,if you told them you weren't interested.