Why do some people find it hard to believe in God?

[MosEisley]

I believe in God.

However, I am attending an adult confirmation class and we have been asked to consider why some people do not believe in God. DH and I came up with:

• there is no absolute proof of God's existence
• they are rebelling against a strict organised religion that they can't accept as literallly true

If you know someone who doesn't believe in God, why don't they?

MrsDeVere, I am sorry about your daughter. But I don't think that I, for one, have in this thread been wanting to force you to give up your faith. I have just been asking questions. And I think it is presumptuous and condescending in the extreme to assume that those who have no religion are only concerned with shopping and sewing and getting their hair done etc.

I don't think MrsDevere was saying that those who have no religion are only concerned with sewing, shopping and getting their hair done. I read her post as saying those were her other comforts/interests alongside her faith.

Ok. Well if that's the case then I apologise. Sorry.

What an interesting thread! So many viewpoints. To add mine into the mix, I believe in God and love my church (local little c of e village church, very gentle). I was brought up Christian, and have never really had a rebellion against religion - I've always needed and loved it too much to rebel! :) Upthread someone was talking about whether religion is complicated or simple - there's a long tradition that says that God is perfect simplicity and that it's we humans who are complicated. So for me the heart of my faith is that God is perfect, true love, love that gives and creates and forgives and inspires us and helps us to do the same, and helps us to get rid of our selfishness and meanness and everything in us that is not love.

I feel much the same, Holo. :)

Me three Holo :)

Oh and my God is not fluffy I'm afraid. Far from it. I haven't even got words to describe how un-fluffy God is.

I would stay more, but have to go to a conference. For church leaders

But thanks for the encouragements, Marmite and Rational, you know, I like you a lot too :)

I can't think of anything less fluffy than love! (in it's true sense, the love that keeps you up at night with sickly dc, the love that leads you to give money to charity, defend an unpopular person etc etc etc....) At the risk of sparking off a big ruckus, isn't it selfishness / self-centredness that is fluffy, rather than love?

Sorry - I'm still here. I want to know about the "just having faith" thing. This kind of faith and belief seems to be very different to the one being explained yesterday evening. Regarding the comparison to being in love, it then seems to me to be quite random and lucky. If I don't have faith because, well, I just don't, then that's just my bad luck isn't it? It doesn't seem to fit with the Christianity I've heard about, where faith is continually tested. Hope, Cheerful and Holo, your faith sounds like a lovely, comforting thing to have, but not really something you have to work on, if you see what I mean.

It seems to be more of a way of day to day living with no particular end in sight (the whole "getting to heaven thing).

And when I think of Jesus's central messages of love, peace and forgiveness, these sound like a good way to run the world (without all the other OT crap and the various interpretations of Christianity there have been since). Your talk of faith and God doesn't contain much mention of Jesus, yet isn't Christianity based on the teachings of Jesus? Would you describe yourselves as Christians, or "just" a person of faith?

Sorry I'm not as eloquent as some posters. Do you see what I mean?

Holo - no ruckus from me. You're right - love (not 'being in love') isn't fluffy at all.

However: 'God is perfect simplicity' - well that's one of those things people say but what does it mean?

Hope - your analogy with faith being akin to being in love is a good one - losing faith was quite similar to falling out of love (but it was like falling out of love with someone you suddenly realised was fictional.)

Ariel you misinterpreted my post in quite a spectacular fashion.
I was neither accusing you of wishing to disuade me from my faith nor suggesting that you only like sewing etc.

I happen to think sewing, shopping and getting my hair done are fine ways to pass the time and am not sure why you were so insulted at the notion.

However a rap on the knuckles for my disgraceful spelling would have been accepted as I have just reread my post and

I know. That's why I apologised. See?

Ariel, really good question! Sorry in advance if I ramble - I'm unwell and I'm on Tramodol so slightly away with the fairies :) Jesus for me is the personification of everything I believe God to be. Once I heard Jesus described as 'God with a face', and I love that idea. I also believe that Jesus' death is the ultimate voluntary self giving out of love, and the ultimate act of non violence. Martyrdom is always powerful, but as a Christian I believe that Jesus' death is uniquely so, because of Jesus' uniqueness, and that the resurrection and ascension into heaven are God's big 'Yes!' to all that Jesus said and did. For me, taking Communion is the most powerful way of entering into the life of God, and the point at which I encounter Jesus. So yes, definitely very Jesus centred!

As for not having to work at faith.....I have wrestled so much with God through my life, which I think is the opposite of rebelling. I love the fact that the name Israel means 'wrestles with God'. When my baby niece died, I wrestled long and hard with God, with lots of tears. I wrestle with hard questions to do with God often :) I see this as an act of faith, a refusal to leave God out of life's complexities and heartbreaks, and a refusal to accept glib answers. Yet there are times in the wrestling that peace comes, and it feels like a gift from the God whom I don't understand very well.

As for divine simplicity, well, it's a bit like those moments when you just know very deeply that everything is all right. The medieval mystic Julian of Norwich said 'all will be well, and all will be well, and all manner of things will be well' and I think she had a little insight into the perfect simplicity of God. I want to read more about this though, and Thomas Aquinas is the man (also a medieval). This might sound like the very type of glib answer I just said i refuse to accept, but it's not really, because it's not claiming anything from God ( as in, believe and your life will be trouble free) but rather, it's saying that whatever happens, there is a deep wellness that can be found in God. I love the Scotttish philosopher John McMurray who said that the message of false religion is 'believe in God and n

Sash! Sorry, committed the double sin of writing an enormous post and then accidentally posting it mid sentence!

So, the message of false religion is 'believe in God, and nothing you fear will happen to you', and the message of true religion is 'believe in God; the things you fear are quite likely to happen, bug they are nothing to fear.' I love that! :)

Thank you for taking the trouble to answer Holo :)

Just realised my iPhone put a random 'sash' at the start of that post! Eh?!?! (PS you're welcome!) :)

It was very kind of the other poster to offer her (correct) interpretation of my post but I thought it best that I speak for myself to confirm how wrong you had it.

Do you see?

Of course. Again sorry if I jumped to conclusions and I am dreadfully sorry about your daughter.

Its fine
thank you

Basically what Holo said. I am a Christian, yes.

I think humans would have a very hard time grasping the infinity and enormity of what a presence like God would be, and that Jesus was necessary for this reason- to be the best example of the way we should be, the way we should treat others.

In the children's book Old Turtle, it's written that people are a message of love from God to the earth, and a prayer from the earth back to God. It's also about animals and the natural world arguing about who knows God and who doesn't, and Old Turtle says:

"God is indeed deep,? she said to the fish in the sea; "and much higher than high,? she told the mountains. ?He is swift and free as the wind, and still and solid as a great rock,? she said to the breezes and stones. ?She is the life of the world,? Turtle said to the willow. ?Always close by, yet beyond the farthest twinkling light,? she told the ant and the star. ?God is gentle and powerful. Above all things and within all things. God is all that we dream of, and all that we seek,? said Old Turtle, ?all that we come from and all that we can find. God IS.?

So...I just go with that, basically. :)

That's really lovely, Cheerful! :) are you really a yank? Do you have to come from a certain part of. The USA to count as a Yank? (interested)

Not really. :) It used to be just people from New England, and then during the Civil War it was what the Rebels called the Northerners. But it seems to be the catch-all term for Americans from anyone outside of the US.

It's in my username because I felt like I was being tedious saying "oh, well in America..." or "because I'm from the states I..." to explain why I didn't know what things were or whatever.

I was born in Ohio but have lived in Minnesota since I was very young.

I must admit I find the meaning and symbolism of Jesus' death on the cross to be troubling.

You could view it as an immortal being (god) arranging matters to ensure that another part of himself (Jesus) is symbolically killed (but not really because he's immortal) to assuage for humans' transgressions against god's rules (which god knew would happen because he is, after all, omniscient). Therefore, the Romans and Jews who killed Jesus were actually following god's plan. I wonder if they ended up in heaven or hell...

I dunno. I get that Jesus is supposed to mark a new dawn of god's relationship with man. Some/many/all of the old rules were wiped out, god changed from the smitin' and fightin' interventionist god of the Old Testament to the more touchy-feely non-interventionist god of the New.

But I don't get why this change of rules had to be sign-posted by the grotesque torture and (sort-of) death of a god in human form. Couldn't god just write the new rules on the moon in letters a thousand miles high?

Amoeba, I see it as Jesus meeting violence with non violence, voluntarily laying down his life, and thereby breaking the power of violence, rather than God punishing Jesus or anything like that (although lots of Christians do believe in that idea). I think that martyrdom is always powerful, even when IMO it is misguided. The unique thing about Jesus' martyrdom for me is that because I believe Jesus to be God incarnate, God in Christ therefore gave up God's life (iyswim) and that act was infinitely powerful because God is infinite, and therefore Jesus' death changed the very nature of the cosmos (to use the Greek word) and enabled people to be part of this 'new creation'. Does that make sense?

Blimmin' iPhone!!!! I can't believe I just called you amoeba. I am so sorry!!!! Predictive text is not a good thing!!!!!!