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Original poster

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

999 replies

MosEisley · 15/01/2012 22:49

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?

OP posts:
Rational · 21/01/2012 21:10

I know the study you're referring to Grimma. Your guess could very easily be number 4 on my list.

OldLadyKnowsNothing · 21/01/2012 21:20

Wasn't that those who knew they were being prayed for thought they must be really, really ill (to need prayers) and so they died? A sort of reverse placebo effect.

GrimmaTheNome · 21/01/2012 21:25

Can't remember the details well enough to know if the 'knew they were being prayed for' group would have thought they were sicker than the others.

Anyhow, if you're going to pray for someone guess you'd best keep it between yourself and God. That should do no harm.

minitoot · 21/01/2012 21:32

Bluegnueboo: "Why would I?"

Exactly!
I find it astonishing, personally, that people do believe in God. I often ask myself why. Fear of death? An inability to think logically? An excessive love of pleasant stories? Maybe they just think they believe in God. Maybe what they really believe in is culture, or tradition. That last explanation seems the most likely to me. I'm not sure I believe in people who believe in God.

But each to their own.

Spero · 21/01/2012 21:33

Come on you religious folks! you must have some examples of limbs that have grown back due to the wonderousness of our Lord. Still waiting for details of time and place, I've got a few friends who might want to come along too if it is wheelchair accessible.

Seriously, if God can 'heal' me then hallelujah, the sheep that was lost will be found and I will believe with every little atom of my pathetic mortal body.

But actually I am not sure there is a SINGLE EXAMPLE EVER of God growing somebody's leg back.

Um, why would that be? Is it coz us cripples are being visited with the sins of a past life? That is a not uncommon view of the religious as I recall, you being such a friendly bunch and all.

Rational · 21/01/2012 21:34

I believe all the subjects knew they were taking part in a test. I see no reason for the group who knew they were being prayed for to feel that they were more unwell than the other groups.

I believe the study Grimma and I have been referring to is quite an old one. This is from a more recent study (2005) which uses the same criteria but, I believe, a larger study group.

"Intercessory prayer itself had no effect on complication-free recovery from
CABG, but certainty of receiving intercessory prayer was associated with a higher incidence of
complications."

www.templeton.org/pdfs/press_releases/060407STEP_paper.pdf

OldLadyKnowsNothing · 21/01/2012 21:35

News report of the prayer study.

OldLadyKnowsNothing · 21/01/2012 21:35

X post.

CheerfulYank · 21/01/2012 21:37

PMSL at "excessive love for pleasant stories." :o

Rational · 21/01/2012 21:38

It kind of flies in the face of those who may say 'leave them to get on with their praying, i does no harm', it quite apparently does Grin

BobbinRobin · 21/01/2012 23:19

And what about the harm that is done to those who are prayed for, and pray themselves, to no avail? Whose desperate prayers aren't answered, yet the prayers of the person in the next hospital bed, or mud hut, are?

That is a truly evil concept - to torture people by putting into their minds that somehow they didn't pray hard enough or weren't seen as worthy by god of being 'saved' from the awful fate that is inflicted on them or those they loved.

BobbinRobin · 21/01/2012 23:42

And to those struggling with making sense of god's plan, if you take god out of the equation and put human psychology in instead - the good, the bad and the ugly aspects of it - it all becomes very simple indeed and makes perfect sense.

Spero · 21/01/2012 23:49

What makes perfect sense is to believe that god does exist - but he hates us. Then it aaaaaall fits.

BobbinRobin · 21/01/2012 23:55

If god was a goalkeeper, he wouldn't be in the premier league, that's for sure.

seeker · 22/01/2012 07:51

" I believe God is good. I believe God loves and cries over those dying babies. I don't understand. I really don't. But my experience is again and again of a loving God."

This sums it all up for me. God is omnipotent, omnipresent and loving. So why is he crying over dying babies and not mending them? And why, in order to believ in him, do believers have to gloss over this? "You don't understand but he's really really good and loving. Honestly, he is, you just don't see the side of him that I do. He's really different when it's just us, he's a good dad. Sometimes he can lose it a bit, but that's my fault- I wind him up. And he's so sorry afterwards. And he loves the kids, he really does."

Hnow where hav.e I heard something like that before?

EssentialFattyAcid · 22/01/2012 08:05

Abused kids usually love their abusing parents. Maybe this is how it is with the religious and the dying babies when you still insist god is loving. How much more proof do you need? This is an absolute proof that god does not exist, or at the very least that if he does he is not a loving god.

solidgoldbrass · 22/01/2012 08:07

Seeker: Absolutely bang on. Gods having been invented by human beings, it's not surprising they have human characteristics, but it seems a shame that (to quote Heinlein) 'most gods have the manners and morals of spoiled children'.
I think I rather preferred the earlier pantheons that were more like flawed superheroes: capricious, greedy, randy, stroppy etc. But the idea of a supposedly all-knowing, all-fabulous being that will only save a dying baby if a) you kiss the being's arse enough and b) it feels like it is not comforting.

PosieParker · 22/01/2012 08:47

If everything is God's will why do people bother praying or asking for help, it's all designed and decided by God, alone.

Rational · 22/01/2012 09:02

Maybe god didn't know the importance of the person being prayed for, he needs some of his faithful to give him the heads up Wink

BobbinRobin · 22/01/2012 09:38

The sad thing is that the strongest arguments in the world won't convince those who have a vested interest in believing. The arguments are turned on their heads and become 'tests of Faith' instead.

Rational · 22/01/2012 10:26

"science literacy is a vaccine against the charlatans of the world that would exploit your ignorance"

Neil deGrasse Tyson

Nineflowers · 22/01/2012 12:19

I had a devout catholic friend (indoctrinated as a child) who had all these discussions with me at uni. Whenever I pointed out a dead end in his argument, or something ridiculous or the innate lack of logic, he'd come back with "Ah that's where you take a leap of faith". Hah!

That leap of faith crap is very convenient.

I'd rather have no leaps in faith or common sense or logic or intellect. If something is not demonstrably, provably true - it is not true.

Rational · 22/01/2012 13:55

This thread's very quiet today. Everyone gone to church?

madhairday · 22/01/2012 14:01

You know, I can't give you any words that will change minds. But I will still stand up for faith, even if only to represent so many that still believe and still have experience of God's love. You see I do believe God did something about it, in Jesus. But I'm not going to get into preaching territory. I might be in danger of losing my fluffy status. Wink

You've heard standard answers anyway. free will, choice, etc etc. In the end they're only words. Often people who come to faith say it isn't words that convince, but God working in their lives and hearts. So I'm not sure why I am here. However, I will doubtless carry on. I quite enjoy the debate, despite knowing it's not something I will ever 'win' Grin

I think it might come down to hope. What is there if not hope? I found out this morning a lovely lady at church who had terminal cancer died last week. She had hope. She shone with it. It doesn't make it easier, better, less of a great tragedy. But it somehow transcends the mess, the awfulness, in our lives. That evil has an opposite is an important thing, I think.

I can speak for those who some of you are saying must be in a total mess due to God not deigning to heal when I have asked and been asked for, and I have been told unhelpful things such as some of you allude to. But I don't believe the unhelpful things, such as it being my fault, such as God doesn't love me enough, such as I don't have enough faith. These things are toxic and wrong and I stand against them again and again. But I am not in a mess because of these things, because even within the greatest pain I know God in my mess, even in the most hopeless of days I find that hope breaks through.

Spero · 22/01/2012 15:16

If you have faith and it makes you happy and inspires you to do good things, that is lovely and I would never knock it. But if you have faith and you go on about bonkers things like leg lengthening or don't even have the wit to understand why people don't believe, I have less kindness in my heart for you.

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