Can you "choose" to believe in God, if you just genuinely don't?

[aquestionwithnoanswer]

Namechanger as this is just a bit too personal.

Basically as the title says. I can't help it, I believe facts. I believe science and proof and things that I can "know."

I was raised in Christianity, can quote the Bible chapter and verse, educated about many religions, surrounded by people who have faith, but I cannot bring myself to believe in God - any God.

The thing is, I want to. For various reasons, I really want to believe in God.

Do you choose it? How can I "make" myself believe it? I certainly don't feel it. If I am honest, it all makes very little sense, it is illogical, it is not rational. My mum answers that with "that's why it's called faith!" but that is not really helpful.

How do you get there from here?

I was aghast that I was A Christian - ie the label. I was bewildered with the very idea that I was. It seemed bizarre, embarrassing; it tipped on its head everything I had previously believed, how I had seen the/my world. The God thing, after all that turmoil, was very distinct for me - s/he tipped up big time. It's not like this for everybody but it was like this for me.

If I'm absolutely and completely honest, I do still, decades later, feel very out of step with the whole 'christian' thing ie the western cultural expression of Christianity. Maybe it's the way I came to God/found God, which was very personal, I don't know.. but I couldn't and still can't go along with all the ritual and observance type of thing. I'm not explaining this very well...

Suffice to say, I too would have bridled at the idea that one 'doesn't question anything' etc. That's not the way I see it and not the way my relationship with God works. I'm a no-stone-unturned type of person, and dialogue/discussion is very much part of who I am, therefore very much part of my relationship with God. imo that's how it's supposed to be with me, there isn't a flaw. though of course with any personality type there are downsides iyswim - but that doesn't mean I'm supposed to be somehow different to what I essentially am in order to tick all the boxes with an exacting God. That just isn't how it is imo.

I think you're explaining it very well actually. Sounds as though it is a bit personal to ask specifically how you found God, but if you can even be vague I'd love to understand. Especially since you believe and yet don't follow all the observances; you have somehow struck your own balance?

I have a belief in a 'something' and God is often the most convenient term to describe that.

I was brought up in a strong Christian family, and later became aetheist. I now work in a situation which brings me into frequent contact with people of many faiths and beliefs. There are people with 'fundamentalist' views at both ends of the spectrum. I meet (and like and respect) some Christians who know that there is on omniscient omnipresent God, and that the only way to everlasting life is through belief in Jesus and the resurrection. I meet (and like and respect) some Humanists / rationalists who know that there is no God and that science and rational thought disprove app theories and fantasies about religion.

Me? Well I wish I was so certain either way . Having explored many ends of the spectrum (if that is possible?), I find that I do not believe in or follow any established doctrine. In my times of rational exploration I can find the 'evidence' for no God weighs heavily, but I also know that in moments of extreme anguish (like when I thought my dcs were going to drown) I find something inside of me that is ignited and prays - not praying for a rational humanistic solution like a lifeboat to save them from the waves, or a physical solution like a safe sandbank, but a miraculous thing like an angel winging down from heaven, plucking us all out of the sea and putting us on dry land .

I am happy to be challenged that my 'prayer' was an emotional response based on my Christian upbringing, but I also know that in times of extremis there is deep within me a faith in 'something' supernatural. And maybe by that I only mean something that science and nature does not yet understand.

I think there is an arrogance in believing that our current knowledge and understanding of how the world works is sufficient to explain all that happens. And I'm happy (for the time being) to put all other unexplicable feelings, occurances, and miracles into a box that I conveniently label as 'God'.

I also had a christian upbringing which I rejected; and also had an experience where I 'cried out to God' - like you, venus, my child was very ill (it looked like meningitis): I remember being on the stairs in the dark with big blobby tears dripping down my face and crying out to God to save her. All was well and dc recovered.

oddly, I've been trying to get on this thread for a few days but keep being booted off! what's going on??

I'll try to keep my story short (not easy) as, like so many of us, it is a long story. I was living with some christians, who banged on and on about God and were really quite tiresome if I'm honest. They had a medical emergency, very serious, and prayed for God's healing. The whole thing affected me very deeply and I went to the prayer meeting, held in their home, to offer support, definitely not to pray (I didn't believe in God) and to my surprise I sobbed uncontrollably throughout. Embarrassing! It was as though a deep grief took hold of me - hard to explain - and I did pray, silently, a simple pray for healing. The next day they went for tests and the only possible explanation is that a miracle had occurred. This knocked me for six. I was frightened and very confused that God could, after all, be real. Weevil's post resonates with me because I had, prior to the medical drama, come to the conclusion that we all need love, that it is the make or break currency. When I heard the results of the tests I was alone in their house and the words on a victorian cross-stitch samplar on the wall, which I had seen a hundred times, leapt out: God Is Love. It was as though God was speaking to me directly re yes you need love and as I am it, you need me! Very strange.

Thus followed a time of intense turmoil which I wasn't able to quieten down. My world was tilting and I didn't like it or want it. Eventually, on the off-chance I visited a church with the wife of the couple I was living with - a pentecostal church, of all things - and it was all a bit much (but everything was a bit much at that time, everything strange and different). At the end the preacher, in very emotive language (which I didn't like at all ), did what's called the Gospel Call re 'Is there one-ah! is there one who will give their life to the Lord-ah Jesus-ah Christ-ah!' (a la Eddie Murphy) and I had to know more so went forward, knelt down and prayed the prayer with someone there: Lord Jesus, I give you my life. It was an old hall like something out of the 1950s. Lots of wood.

Nothing happened. By then I was almost craving to know if God was real but also to bring to an end the turmoil I was feeling. Nothing had happened and I was crushed with disappointment, feeling I couldn't get it right and there must be something wrong with me and how do you get to know God anyway? As I left I braced myself to bear the disappointment and the crushing turmoil I had been feeling since the 'miracle'. On the way out, in the porch, with lots of chit-chat going on, very suddenly it was as though an ENORMOUS weight shot of my shoulders, upwards, like inverse gravity. I staggered and gasped - it was a very powerful and very tangible experience; like taking your rucksack off when you're backpacking: a lightness. Gasping and unable to speak, I eventually steadied myself enough to leave and walk home. On the way home a tremendous peace and joy romped into my soul. it stayed for a about a week; and for about 9 months after that I experienced waves and waves of healing and release.

So that's that, that's just what happened. I have no idea why God did it like that. I've known God for over 30 years now and s/he never ceases to amaze me tbh. Awesome, gorgeous, amazing, fabulous. Not fusty ime.

Springy - wow. I can certainly see why you'd have to believe after an experience, or rather a series of experiences, like that. Thank you for sharing it. Forgive me but I have to ask now as you really sound so much like me: Since your experiences and becoming a Christian, how do you reconcile those parts of the religion that you just can't believe in/agree with? Do you accept them? Ignore them? How does it work, intellectually?

Venus, what a thoughtful post. Do you think your prayer was, for lack of a better term, instinctive?

I talk to God a lot, particularly if things are going on that I can't just leave. ime s/he embraces debate. I suppose I have been convinced that s/he is good, is who s/he says s/he is. The rest follows tbh ie it follows in terms of a relationship. I know I keep banging on about relationship but it is central imo. I can't know it all in one go. A lot of it I'm neither here nor there about tbh. Actually, the core of my life with God is love - re the God Is Love thing that happened right back when, the sampler on the wall. Sounds cheesey but what I mean is the working out of that. eg the very heavy grief I felt when my friends' baby was dangerously ill (actually, expected to die due to a serious congenital defect) re the medical emergency was, I think, just a small drop of God's love for the situation ie I felt it. I know there is more. From where I'm coming from, I want - and I know God wants -his/her love poured out iyswim. God cares about what is going on in peoples' lives, is very closely involved. If you read the beginning of Isaiah 61 (which Jesus quoted later on at the start of his ministry) it says that he came to 'heal the broken hearted, set the captive free, comfort those who mourn' etc and imo that is love in action . I'm not really up for the pontificating iyswim.

Hence, I've got enough to be going on with. I don't care if there was or wasnt eg an Adam and Eve, about evolution/creation etc. I'm quite sure all the dots will join up at some stage, and I'm quite happy to leave the big picture to him/her (it does get so cumbersome, this gender thing eh). At the moment, I'm praying about my nephew in Afghanistan, my friend whose daughter is dangerously ill with anorexia, E Africa etc (many etcs). I'm also a designer and I enjoy my life, enjoy design, the arts, culture etc. There's a lot to enjoy and rejoice in.

embraces debate - and wants to be known!

That's a very powerful testimony Springy. I wish more people were willing to give God a try, in the same way that you went to the prayer meeting and did not hang back in your unbelief.
I'm of the 'group' (for want of a better word) 'who know that there is on omniscient omnipresent God, and that the only way to everlasting life is through belief in Jesus and the resurrection' as Venus says, I'm also convinced that the God I love and who loves me has a purpose for my life and that I have a choice as to 'fall in' with His (I say He, since Jesus speaks about God as His Father) plans or not.

absolutely re purpose. I know someone who also had a powerful experience when he became a christian: he was on a weekend hiking and it was as if the earth cried out for release (bear with me here - the spiritual can be so different to what we are used to). He has gone on to do a lot of environmental work. ie we each do something different, there isn't one way iyswim. My 'purpose' focuses a lot on love because that was the direction at the outset - though it wasn't slapped on me, it very much fit with the kind of person I am and my experiences. .

..."that the only way to everlasting life is through belief in Jesus and the resurrection"

Does that mean that only people who believe, in this life, per the above, have an "afterlife," for lack of a better term? Will you see your loved ones again there? Do they have to be Christian for you to see them, iykwim?

As in, what happens if you are Christian but they are not?

Or what if they believe in, well, something bigger, but don't necessarily follow Christian doctrine?

And for lack of a better way to put it, what happens to all of the other people?

Sorry if these sound like odd questions.

They're not odd questions at all. You've gone straight to the nub.

Christian doctrine is that God became human - Jesus - and lived among us (Emmanuel = God with us) specifically in order to pay the once-and-for-all price that heals the breach with God, reconciles us to God. We are born separated from God. So, God died for us. Put his money where his mouth is type of thing, paid a (very) high price to heal the breach. If we accept that solution to the breach, we're reconciled to God.

He did it all, our bit is to accept what he did. If we accept the specific plan that God put in practise - and followed through - and submit to it, God's spirit comes to live in us. God's spirit is eternal so if his spirit is in us, that spirit lives on eternally. Unless we are born of the spirit of God we remain in the state we were born in re separated from God. He's perfect love, we're not: something had to happen to join us together. We have to accept the bridge (Jesus) God provided as the bridge. No point thinking we can do it some other way: may as well do it the way God specifically planned it. It's a great way, after all.

Christian doctrine goes that until/unless we are reconciled with God, we are not. God's spirit is either in us or is not. We can think some nice thoughts or do a lot of 'works' but none of those conform to the plan God specifically put in place: to accept the (need for) the one he sent, who actually did the job of repairing the breach; didn't just think it but actually did it.

As for what happens to 'everybody else': God's business imo. I can't bear the thought of people being separated from God tbh. My job is to do my job, if you like. I get on with the business put in front of me, I leave the rest to God.

Not really answered your q, and also resorted to the male gender. God is technically not one or the other but, yes, Jesus referred to God as 'Father'.

ps muslim belief is that God loved Jesus so much that he swapped him at the cross and got somebody else crucified in his place. Which would have negated the whole plan tbf.

I've got blisters on my fingers

i should say that I can't bear the thought of people being separated from God or from each other.

I nag God about that.

'everlasting life' is not only about the 'afterlife' it is also about life in the here and now. A life without Jesus to me is no life at all, others may well say that they are doing alright, but that's their problem.
And thinking about your original question and this is quite diffcult to say: there is not one word in the Bible about 'seeing our loved ones again'.
Being a Christian is to put God first, have a relationship with Him which is stronger than death and will carry on into eternity...or not as the case may be, depending on the decisions you make in this life.
When all is said and done, God leaves that decision up to you, He does not force you, but His love is stronger than death.

Oh darling, I am so sorry for your pain.

To answer your question, honestly...I don't know. I have tried not to believe in God, and that never goes well. :) So sometimes I think it's, you do or you don't.

Maybe you could open yourself up to being not sure, to this person you love? If there can be the possibility of other dimensions, and no way to know where or how or why they are, or how one gets there, there may be the slightest possibility that after our physical death a conscious part of our energy goes...someplace else.

That did not come out at all how I meant it, I've been ill (particularly nasty strain of strep) and will come back later.

Again, I am so sorry.

A life without Jesus to me is no life at all, others may well say that they are doing alright, but that's their problem.
well, no, actually that's their solution, not their problem (I've been both sides of this fence. Life with Jesus was lovely... oddly enough I find it just as good but free from all the paradoxes without!)

CY - that all sounded pretty darned good to me, for one

OK Grimma, point taken.

I went off from God for a long time at one stage. In hindsight, it was because I had too much religion going on, I believed too much shit about God that had nothing to do with him. I didn't want the shit so ditched God. It took me a long time to realise I'd thrown the baby out with the bathwater. It is probably why I am so anti-religion now. religion = rules and weird stuff, having to do things to be acceptable to God. There's nothing you can do to be reconciled to God, only accept the one he sent.

I believe we are reconciled with those we love when we die. 'today you will be with me in paradise' - Jesus said that to the other guy on a cross with him.

Well, Jesus was against 'religion' too, so you are in good company Springy.

Unconditional love. But with conditions?

The "I hate religion" guff really rankles with me, because you hear it so often from religious people. The church I was involved with claimed to not be "religion." Clearly, they had not read the dictionary definition.

Jesus may well have been against religion, but his mates evidently were not. Paul in particular. And yet, Paul's contribution to the bible is a huge part of the way that christians worship and live. Do people who "hate religion" ignore those bits of the bible?

It's nearly as mad as "love the sinner, hate the sin," one of the biggest load of codswallop ever conceived.

Where does it say Jesus hated religion?

"Unconditional love. But with conditions"

Good point, Crunchy.

springy just wanted to say your testimony is amazing and so encouraging and inspiring to read. Thankyou.

Read what he had to say to the Pharisees, the religious leaders of the day. He didn't mince his words.