Help me believe there is a god

[littlenamechanges]

I really want to believe God exists but at the moment I'm really struggling as there is so much pain and suffering in this world! When I asked someone why this would happen if there is a god their reply was there is also a devil but isn't god all powerful? Why would he let innocent children go through so much pain and suffering?

[Westray]

guy

[TheDowagerCuntess]

Well, yes, I do think that is rubbish. Don't most people?

Of course he didn't send a flood to wipe out humans and animals.

It's a nice story, and even if it did occur, it would have been down to environmental factors, not because we needed to punished and wiped out.

[picklemepopcorn]

Try going to an active church and hanging out with people there. Join in with the community work they do. Many people live in faith but with doubt. They know they don't have all the answers. There have been some great suggestions from PPs.

Avoid the right wing evangelical churches- it can be a bit harder to 'discover' faith in your own time, there.

[ollieplimsoles]

I really want to believe God exists

Op, the fact that you actually want to believe is really all you need. Once you have made the decision to trust in blind faith, you can explain away all the questions, all the doubts- you will never escape the burden of proof, but you can counter it with 'I just have faith'.

Unfortunately if you are looking for concrete evidence that 'God' exists (which god btw?) then you will not find it.

you can choose anything- spaghetti monster, magic pixies, all powerful smurfs- they all have as much proof that they are responsible for the creation of the universe as the god of the bible does, or indeed any of the religious texts.

My advice would be to put this out of your mind and work on why you want to believe- do you need a moral compass? If so- identify which values you hold dear and work on upholding those values morally.

You do not need to believe in god to give your life meaning. If you want that warm fuzzy feelings that Christians boast you can only get from accepting god and jesus deep inside you (sorry I had to do it) than just make the choice to believe, and live your life accordingly. Just don't expect anyone else to make the decision to believe in god just because it gives you a warm, fuzzy feeling.

This is for Dowager

If you can easily throw out stories like Noah and the great flood as obviously fictional (I disagree that it is a 'nice story' actually but thats another debate)- then how do you decide which parts of the bible actually are to be followed and believed? Did Jesus really come back to life, was he killed at all? Was he born of a virgin and did he really heal suffering and feed 5000 with a small quantity bread and fish?

Sorry I know you may not be a believer but the cherry picking of religious texts is something I see all the time and I challenge it.

[ollieplimsoles]

Fortunately for us he loves us so much he has given up his only son to take our punishment for us.

He's God- just send another.

What is considered ok when it comes to bad things? Is stealing ok? Is bad mouthing ok? In fact I think God thinks all these are wrong, not just the big things but the little things too.

There in lies the problem with the ten commandments. To answer your question 'what should god do' well maybe he should have made such a concrete list of rules a little bit clearer? Many of them are blanket bans and loop holes are plentiful ( stealing a loaf of bread to feed your starving child for instance)

No I think God has given us everything we need to make the right choices (a conscience, 10 commandments)

Its interesting that the first three have nothing to do with morality and how one human treats another.

Instead of:

'I am the Lord Thy God, Thou shalt have no other God's but me' (whoopsie Hindu's, you're in trouble!)
'Thou shalt not take the Lord's name in vain'
'Thou shalt keep the sabbath day holy' (wtf?)

How about:

'Thou shalt not intimately force thyself on thy neighbour, nor thy neighbour's wife
'Thou shalt honour and protect innocent children
'Thou shalt not claim ownership of thy neighbour's freedom'

Better already.

[ollieplimsoles]

Or if you are more activist get out and volunteer with a Christian charity working with the homeless or refugees

Or maybe a Christian charity that aims to deny women basic medical care, or rights over her own body? No I would leave the christian part out and just go and help out in your community, volunteer at at homeless shelter or animal sanctuary. You do not need faith to make a difference.

see what faith in action looks like.

Yes, watch the footage of the planes flying in to the World Trade Centres, or maybe the Westboro Baptist church picketing funerals and forcing the defenseless children with them to hold the signs up. Have a look at what happens when terminally ill patients believe God has healed them because they gave their life savings to a faith healer? The bible is also very clear on homosexuality, look into what happens when well- meaning, fearful christian parents send their children to reformation camps to be 'cured' of their 'degeneracy'
Or perhaps all the murders who claim without doubt that God told them to do what they have done- Andrea Yates? David Burkowitz?

Some lovely examples of 'faith in action'.

[Deranger01]

I hope you are ok op, I'm a bit worried that some of these responses are all about atheism, and perhaps we should be asking you to tell us more about those you are worrying about that are suffering, to see what kind of concrete help can be suggested.

[thegreenheartofmanyroundabouts]

Yes I hope you are OK OP? You sound very sad. The internet can be a brutal so I hope that there is a GP, neighbour, friend, relative or even local church that can help out.

[TheDowagerCuntess]

Ollie - I'm not cherry picking, I don't believe any of it.

It wasn't me who brought the bible into the conversation.

I'm agnostic - I don't know what I believe spiritually, as none of us know. Not one of us.

What I categorically do not believe in, as I said upthread, is religion.

Someone else then introduced the bible into the conversation. I'm afraid I don't think the bible is worth the paper it's written on.

I'm so far from cherry-picking, I'm rejecting it wholesale!

[ollieplimsoles]

Dowager apologies I read your other posts incorrectly. But I wasn't really accusing you of cherry picking, its something many bible followers are guilty of.

What do you mean when you say I don't know what I believe spiritually, as none of us know. Not one of us. ?

I think some people are actually very sure what they believe spiritually- the confusion is over whether or not what they believe in actually exists!

No offence intended!

[TheDowagerCuntess]

No offence taken!

I just definitely know I don't cherry pick, and in fact agree that the vey cherry picking that often goes on when it comes to religion lessens the credibility of both the religion, and the believer.

I mean that none of us know what the truth is, we only firmly believe it, at best.

[Westray]

, I still don't understand premature death, especially of babies and children, and natural disasters.

I totally understand these things. No mystery there.

[TheDowagerCuntess]

I don't understand them in the context of an all-powerful, all-loving God, clearly.

I do understand them outside the context of that...

[NewYearsAoibhe]

I can't help with with believing in the 'person' of God, or the question of why 'he' allows the suffering of innocents.

But I do believe there's more than the physical reality that we know, a spiritual aspect to us and all living things, and maybe a different consciousness / experience beyond the physical one that ends with death. I like the idea that "that which you seek is the reason for your seeking"; that the yearning that humans have for spiritual meaning is in itself the evidence of spirituality, that it's the soul that yearns to understand it all, and that's how you know you've got one.

I liken it to a baby who cries with hunger and knows she wants milk: she doesn't know that her digestive system will absorb the nutrients she needs to survive, she just knows she needs it. And she's not wrong.

Or in the days before humans understood how sexual reproduction works. There were still horny cavemen and cavewomen. They knew they wanted sex but they didn't necessarily understand why it was so essential to them or what it meant. They just knew they wanted it, and they weren't wrong - the species needed it to survive.

I don't think we humans tend to have inherent, driving appetites that are nearly universally shared across human populations, that don't have something real and essential behind them. Humankind has an appetite for spirituality, a common yearning across cultures and history for there to be 'something more' to it all. We don't know exactly why we want and need it, or what purpose our efforts to connect with spirituality serve, but that doesn't mean that we're wrong, or that it's not real.

[ollieplimsoles]

I like the idea that "that which you seek is the reason for your seeking"; that the yearning that humans have for spiritual meaning is in itself the evidence of spirituality

That is not evidence of 'spirituality' that is evidence of circular logic. Its the kind of reasoning that led women to to burned at the stake as 'witches' in ye olde days..

First, define what you mean by spiritual? Because just ' having a feeling' about something is absolutely not proof of that something's existence.

Your analogy about a baby needing milk and cave people engaging in sexual intercourse is also ineffective in making your point on this, those things are instinctual behaviours evolution has granted us so we can survive. I can't see any evidence that a vague sense of spirituality is essential for human survival.

However, saying that I do think that humans quite possibly have an inbuilt desire to make sense of the world around us, its one if the perks if self awareness. In olden days 'spirituality' played a big part of life. Religion, ritual, superstition all helped people understand things like the seasons, weather, how crops grow, even how countries should be governed. This happened because science had not discovered the things we know now. We need to rely less and less on 'spirituality' because gaps in our knowledge of the world are being filled through scientific endeavor and discoveries. We can now think critically and put these superstitions to the test in a rational way.

A baby instinctually seeking sustenance ect.. They are positive things that aid survival, I can think of examples that demonstrate spirituality can be harmful to someone- religion has and continues to be a means if control, segregation, judgement and violence the world over. Psychic mediums make money from people's gullibility and grief, and dont get me started on astrology.

[TheDowagerCuntess]

I don't know that it's a universal yearning for spirituality (many, many people are not spiritual), but rather just a very real and human curiosity about how we got here, and what happens to us when we die. What is the meaning of life, etc.

They're burning questions, that we've theorised on 'til the cows come home, but that we're only incrementally closer to an explanation of, than we were 1000s of years ago.

God is just a way that we try to explain it all to ourselves, before we realised the earth wasn't flat, that we're just one planet of many in a vast solar system, and that we evolved over many years instead of being created in a week.

That's not to say we weren't created by a some sort of being - we might have been, but the story cooked up and penned down as the Bible probably isn't accurate.

All we all really want to know is how we got here - I personally think that's what drives us to come up with explanations, rather than a need for spirituality, per se.

I don't necessarily believe in a 'soul'. But to my mind, having watched someone die, I think it's kind of significant that when a heart stops beating, the body remains. What's not there any more, is the very essence of the person - their personality. Or what more spiritual people might call their soul. That's no longer there, and the face of the body instantly looks different without that essence in it any more.

The body remains, even after death. Where does the personality go? Lots of people will say it just vanishes. And great if you feel so certain about that (though you can't know it).

I think we are slowly and only recently beginning to realise how important our mind is. That it needs care, that a mind that has been nurtured since childhood is in good stead for adulthood. That our minds can get injured, hurt and sick, just like our bodies can. And we ignore that (personally and socially) at our peril.

I think our human minds are way, way more susceptible to hurt that our bodies are. Our bodies are - relatively speaking - much more resilient than our minds. But until very recently, no-one cared about people's minds, in spite of most people trotting off to church every Sunday. Mental health just wasn't even a thing.

It's our minds that need friendship, support, kindness, learning, education, and it's our minds that are driven by a need for spirituality or an explanation of why we're here.

I'm really not explaining this very well as I can't even quite get my own head around it, but this is what makes me agnostic, I think.

[TheDowagerCuntess]

Sorry - cross-post! Took me so long to articulate that waffle... 🙄

[ollieplimsoles]

Damn fine answer Dowager I agree with all

[Glittter]

Op-I think it's obvious that God doesn't exist but you can still be spiritual. 💑👯😇

[babba2014]

Let's look away from the media for a second as that's what puts people off the most in regards to this.

The biggest proof that there is a God is the Qur'an. Shocked? Let's look into it.

The Qur'an was revealed bit by bit to a man in Arabia over 1400 years ago who couldn't read or write.

In this Qur'an, it states many scientific facts which would be totally unknown in those days as there was no technology, no microscopes or any material to prove anything.

A few examples. The embryo. In the Qur'an it explains so eloquently how the embryo is formed and then the stages it goes through as it grows. How would someone even know this without the scientific resources which came out much later? Without seeing inside the human body. You can Google this and find what the Qur'an says about the embryo and there will be no doubt there when you look at how things were in those times.

The Qur'an mentions that orbit of the planets. Also something that would be unknown to humans during that time. Nor could it be proven then.

It also mentions how the sky protects us from the sun (and I bet you remember growing up always hearing about global warming).

The Arabic language in the Qur'an is so well written that God has a open challenge in the Qur'an that all people can come together and being a verse like it, it is not possible. We could not write a book, in Arabic (even if we knew the language or got the people fluent and best at the language to write it) that could have scientific facts that for example, that could be then proven 400+ years later and not change. Science is always changing and being revised but what hasn't changed? Science has proved whatever scientific facts are mentioned in the Qur'an. And those scientific facts have not changed. There's no other explanation for how the embryo grows

This same book gets over 1.8 billion people to pray 5 times a day, to fast 30 days in Ramadhan, to give in charity, to not gamble, to not drink alcohol (but don't worry, the Qur'an promises rivers of milk, honey AND alcohol in paradise. And in paradise it won't have the negative effects that it has in this world).
Could we, even if we all came together, write a book that not only had scientific facts which would be proven hundreds of years later but also make people fast, pray, give away their money, stay away from gambling and alcohol, all of these things together?

See this is why we shouldn't look at the media portrayal of Islam. Most Muslims (not saying all are good, there are some who do bad but most are good and doing the above), so most Muslims do the above and are not on the streets killing other people. This world would be a very different place if islam was a religion of violence. Heck even if there was war, no tree can be killed, nor animals, women and children should not be touched. If islam promoted hurting others then the 1.8 billion plus Muslims would be doing that along with praying 5 times a day, not having food AND water from dawn until dusk every year (and in the UK this year many place were around 1:30am to 9:30pm fasts). This is the effect of the Qur'an on people from all over the world.

It's never been altered and thousands and thousands of people have memorised it so it could also never be altered even if someone tried. God made it a easy to remember off by heart. Some kids at the age of 6 have memorised it entirely.

If the above cannot be denied then there is one answer then that is it wasn't written by any man but something much higher, an Almighty? A powerful force? That sent his first final message with Muhammad (peace be upon him) who confirmed the message of the Prophets before him who also prayed like how Muslims pray (bowing down to God and never to any human being), who said Jesus was a Messenger and not a son of God (and Jesus never claimed to be God, that was brought about by St Paul). He confirmed Moses and Noah and Abraham and all the other Prophets came with the same message which was to worship One only and not to associate any partners with Him, He has no family but He sent Prophets.

I'm sorry if this has gotten long but if we look at the science in the Qur'an which was proven years later by scientists, that is a miracle in itself. And then we would look at what else the Qur'an says and that is that there is one God and Muhammad peace be upon him is His final Messenger. And Jesus will come. Good and bad does happen in this world but if we believe in the above and do good we are promises paradise where there will be only good.

If you have a Quran I would urge you to read it and just look at the facts first. There would be no denial in the facts proven by scientists much later. If you have any questions feel free to ask. There is no compulsion in religion nor do I want to offend anyone so please take it with me smiling at you and talking with a light heart.

[SuperBeagle]

Life becomes a lot simpler when you accept that there is no puppet master pulling the strings and that, instead, there is a relatively unpredictable, untameable force called "nature", which explains everything which religion fails to.

[babba2014]

Sorry for spelling mistakes. No edit function!

*mentions a verse like it
*orbit of THE planets
*bring a verse like it
*promised paradise

[grasspigeons]

I love my children more than anything in the world. They were loved before they were born and were conceived in love. Despite this I brought them into a world knowing there was terrorism, natural disasters, diseases, pain and suffering. I have already seen them suffer small illnesses and I know, one day, they will die as we all must.
Now, I am not God but I suppose it's the same dilemma. Why would God make life exist in these circumstances. Perhaps this is the only circumstances you can get the vast variety and quantity of life.

[crazykitten20]

Imo there's a big difference between god and religion.

Religion doesn't appeal to me. God does.

www.sapphyr.net/largegems/littlesoul-thesun.htm

It's a way of thinking 😊

[CardinalSin]

There's actually no more proof that the paedophile prophet existed than that Jesus did - exactly none. Which means his book is just another creation after the fact, by people who actually did know something (although most of the "scientific facts" proclaimed to be before their time by Q'ran enthusiasts don't stand up to the slightest scrutiny), and it has been used to control people and subjugate women ever since. Just like the Bible.