Can you explain, why/how it is you have faith?

[waltzingparrot]

I've just been remembering a conversation I had with an elderly man at church about where his faith had come from. In his 50s, his wife was rushed into hospital and he was told to expect the worse. On his way home from the hospital, he passed our church, saw it was open and felt compelled to come in. He said people were so warm and friendly to him and as he sat there, he got this overwhelming whoosh from head to toe and this complete feeling of peace descended on him and he just knew everything would be alright. He knew this was God and he and his wife have been coming to church every week since for the past thirty odd years. It's easy to see that an experience like that would bring you to God.

I on the other hand, have never had an overwhelming experience. I'd love to. I feel my reason is very weak. I was brought up in a Christian family and I suppose it's always been there despite my dabble in Buddhism in my late teens and not going to church in my 20s/30s. But I remember one day looking out the window at the houses, cars, people and thinking This is mad. Our planet is the only planet with all this going on. It is mad, isn't it? And I asked myself, is
all this here because there's a God, or because there isn't? The more logical answer, for me, was 'because there is'. I'm certain that our God created this world for us.

I'm very interested in this. I can not describe these things well. Would you mind if I asked more?

I'm curious how you got from the "there is a god" position (and I don't disagree with you) to knowing there is a god that is good and aligning yourself with Christianity?

Also how did you decide against Buddhism?

For me, I was raised going to Church most weeks. I attended Sunday School and later became a young leader there. Church Parade with Brownies/Guides. A stint in the choir. Sunday evening youth group run by the Vicar. You get the picture.

Then in my 20s I had horrendous depression. I can only describe it as being at the bottom of a very deep well and being alone. I could see, hear and talk to people who weren't in the well. Occasionally I could reach them and hold their hands but they couldn't pull me out.
Then one day I realised that I wasn't alone. There was a 'presence' with me. And, imo, that was God.

Since then I've tried to lose my faith for one reason or another. But I can't. My heart just tells me there is a God.

I watched loads of near death experiences on youtube, so many atheists turn into believers after those events.

@landahoy82

I'm very interested in this. I can not describe these things well. Would you mind if I asked more?

I'm curious how you got from the "there is a god" position (and I don't disagree with you) to knowing there is a god that is good and aligning yourself with Christianity?

Also how did you decide against Buddhism?

I think I'm a 'big picture' person.

I'm probably wrong about this but Buddhism seemed a bit insular in comparison to the community of Christianity. Although I can't argue against their simple mantra 'Do Good, Avoid Evil'.

As for God is good....... If I had to sum it all up in a nutshell , I'm happy with God is Love. For me it is the essence and is intrinsically a good thing. He gives us love and he wants us to give others love and care. I feel it would make for a wonderful world if everybody could live by it. Christianity is where I feel at home.

I have always felt that one planet = one God so we are all just on different labelled paths to the same end.

I have also wondered if God has another planet in another galaxy. Experiment A and Experiment B. I hope they're not making such a hash of things.

@wirldsgonemad

I watched loads of near death experiences on youtube, so many atheists turn into believers after those events.

And so many astronauts after they've been into space.

Why I have faith is a lot to do with my upbringing. I went to church all through my childhood but stopped at 17 and didn't go at all for 20 odd years. I said I was atheist at 14 but I was always more agnostic and then I barely thought about it ever.

It was only when I had dc that I decided I didn't want to raise them godless. I described myself as culturally Catholic but spiritually agnostic.

I started going to church again when ds1 had to do first holy communion with his class. I gave my faith and God some thought for the first time in ages and I started to pray for understanding.

It floored me that I got responses to prayer. Too many to mention. I thought I had gone mad but I am definitely still sane! I had the prayers from mass in my head all the time. I was occaisionally overwhelmed. I was upset to realise I'd missed out all these years. I read a lot, explaining the bible and watched a lot of Fr Mike Schmitz on YouTube Catholic priest who explains the faith really well (he's as full on as you'd expect).

I fought it quite hard. I liked being as I thought of it 'normal' and didn't want to be a religious type.

So why I have faith now is a combination of being shown that there is a God and then rationalising my own understanding. It seems logical to me that the world and this universe and humanity with all its complexity and sense of right and wrong didn't all just happen by chance. I think it was put in motion by God and He is very much still involved in our lives. How that works I dont know but I accept there is a lot I dont understand and no human can.

Planets in other galaxies are not logically due to a god, and neither is earth, logically due to a god. You believe this is the case (which is your faith), but there is no logic to it.

Jason118, you are quick to condemn Christianity as illogical in ascribing the creation of the universe, galaxies and ourselves to God, but you must accept that science has no explanation for the existence of the universe either. Logically, nothing should exist at all.
By the laws of physics, matter and energy cannot be created or destroyed, and yet somehow the Big Bang happened and produced everything we see today.
Christians ascribe the Big Bang to God, as the moment of creation, when God said “Let there be light”.
If you have an alternative explanation I would be interested to hear it. As a doctor and a Christian, I support logical discussion of views.

I will also condemn other suggestions as to why things happen or exist on the basis of no evidence. Of course god could have created everything - but using the same logic, so could anything else you might think of. Maybe it was all created by beings in another dimension? There is no evidence for either hypothesis, so why believe one over the other?

I have heard testomies both from books, audio and real people about how god has changed them. There have been ties when I felt thing have happened for a reason. Times when I have felt a Euphoria, was I high on the moment or was it the holy spirit?. Times when passanges from the bible have really spoken out to me.omeones prayer has really reached out to me.Ties when i prayed for people and they say I reached them. Basically enough for me to believe.

Babdoc

You are falling victim to the 'argument from ignorance', as well as the 'black or white' fallacy.

Just becuase we don't fully understand the origins of the universe, doesnt mean that it must therefore have been created by God (which God anyway, Zeus?)

Admitting you don't yet understand something, but are working on it is a strength.

Making up an explanation for something you don't understand is a weakness.

Surely it depends on what you mean by faith and God?
I believe that pure energy is the father of creation and that there are divine forces we do not understand. As my prayers have been answered.
I do not believe in God as depicted in monotheistic religions where there is a specific humanified figure actively making decisions like punishing bad people and willing disaster/blessing at his(why a he?!?!?) whim.
I will continue to believe in what my soul tells me

@Babdoc. My sentiments exactly.

As it happens I do have an alternative version of what caused life the universe and everything and it works on many levels, is very simple, and doesn't require any study or belief to understand. It is this : we don't know. We don't know is fine, and the corollary to that is we keep looking. We don't make things up because we don't know, unless we put forward a hypothesis and test it against what we do know. Belief systems just obfuscate the real world.

@Babdoc I completely agree. Our universe is finely tuned for life. Either there are infinite universes, or a creator, or both. There is no evidence yet for other universes, there is quite a lot of evidence for a creator.

Einstein said the most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible. Why should evolved beings have any understanding of the laws that govern the universe? Why should simple mathematical laws govern the world and our tiny brains be able to comprehend even a few of them? Even quantum mechanics is beautiful mathematically although it makes no logical sense. It’s as if someone wants us to understand.

That said, my faith as a Christian is in more than a creator. And that comes from answered prayers, transformed lives, historicity of Jesus and seeing miracles. It has been a slow journey but Christianity definitely works.

For the OP, i have been a committed Christian for 22 years now, and had a “eureka” style miracle just 4 years ago. It is nice to have but looking back the many years of smaller stuff have been more significant.

TheImber, you make the mistake of assuming that we have “invented” God to explain what science fails to do, namely the existence of a universe instead of a void of nothingness.
Nobody “invented” God. God exists, and has made His presence known to millions of us throughout history. Most obviously in His incarnation as Christ, but also in personal spiritual encounters with individual people. Including with some hardened atheists like me, who found it awe inspiring and life changing!

peapotter, I agree - God is so much more than “God of the gaps” - a convenient explanation for anything science doesn’t understand. I was just addressing that particular issue raised by a PP.
I was an atheist for 35 years, but a personal encounter with God was my “Damascus Road” moment of revelation. I was made aware of the infinite love and compassion that God feels for every living creature, that goes far beyond the “mere” act of creation.

Very interesting thread OP, thank you. @peapotter I am interested in your comment:

“ That said, my faith as a Christian is in more than a creator. And that comes from answered prayers, transformed lives, historicity of Jesus and seeing miracles. It has been a slow journey but Christianity definitely works.”

Do you mind me respectfully asking if you (or anyone else who has faith) could explain why you believe and take these miracles and other things written about in the bible as fact? And not a series of stories passed on, altered and enhanced in a time when happenings/the body etc were less understood?
Thank you.

Hi @Bogardicia no problem, i love these types of question, it’s good for me to think rationally (rather than just about potty training!)

So, my belief in miracles in my comment was more the miracles I have seen with my own eyes or people close to me. Highly improbable answers to prayer (I calculated the stats because I’m a geek) and healings (not the televangelist type) etc.

In terms of the Biblical miracles, I believe in the miracles because I believe in Jesus rather than vice versa. If there is a creator of the universe then my question is not “can miracles occur?” but rather “why aren’t there more miracles nowadays?”

The vast majority of modern scholars agree that Jesus was a real historical figure (there was a different view in the 60s from some academics). The majority also agree that much of Jesus’ teaching in the Bible is accurately recorded from notes written at the time. They don’t agree with the miracles because...miracles don’t happen. That seems to me to be the main argument (but history is not my speciality) But IF you start from the POV that Jesus could do miracles, and apply the same standards as to other historical documents, then it seems to stand up as accurate.

Also, there are small inconsistencies between the four accounts of Jesus’ life. This is what you would expect if they were independently compiled, and not what you would expect from a group who edited and embellished the Bible.

In terms of the accuracy of the New Testament, it is by far the most evidenced book from the Roman era in terms of early manuscripts, number of copies etc and by working backwards we have a pretty good idea of the accuracy of some passages within a generation of Jesus’ death (not the complete thing though).

Finally, a lot of people died for their beliefs in the early years of the church. These were years when many eyewitnesses were still around (see Paul’s letters). I would be very surprised if they were happy to die for something they knew to be partly lies, particularly the resurrection, which is the cornerstone of Christian faith.

I hope this helps. Sorry it’s so long, I got carried away. Feel free to ask any more questions, but not about potty training as I haven’t got that sussed at all!

@Babdoc it would be interesting to hear your views on this too!

peapotter, I agree. My late aunt, a Cambridge history graduate and no fool, looked at her Christian faith with a historian’s eye and examined the evidence for the resurrection.
The disciples, after the crucifixion, were demoralised and terrified of being arrested themselves as Christ’s followers. They were hiding in a locked room in Jerusalem, planning how to sneak back to Galilee and resume their old lives as fishermen.
It would take something absolutely cataclysmic to turn these terrified men into the heroic martyrs who went out and spread the gospel of the resurrection, in many cases being tortured and crucified themselves as a direct result.
That cataclysm could only have been that the resurrection was true - that they met the risen Christ.
Also, I agree with your point that the slight differences between eye witnesses suggest the veracity of their accounts. If conspiring to cook the evidence, they would aim for exact corroboration.
St Paul met St Peter in Rome, and heard the account direct from the horse’s mouth, so to speak. His letters show he was fully convinced of Christ’s divinity, and of course he had his own encounter with Christ on the Damascus Road.
I think simple misogyny may explain the differing accounts of the events at the tomb. First century males may have been incredulous that Christ should appear first to a woman, Mary Magdalene. They may have discounted her as a hysterical woman, and focused on the later arrival of Peter and John at the tomb.
As I have said before, my own faith after years of atheism, like that of doubting Thomas, was based on a personal encounter with God, so is “certainty” rather than “faith”. As Christ said, how much more blessed are they that have NOT seen, and have believed.

babdoc its funny isn't it, how everyone who has had a 'personal encounter' with God that has convinced them of his/her existence, always encounters the exact God they are already familiar with?

Jesus never seems to appear to Ishaan from Mumbai, and Lord Vishnu never reveals himself to Jenny from Nuneaton.

Hell of a coincidence.

Peapotter yes the argument from fine tuning, of course.

Look up the video of the Douglas Adams 'puddle' argument.

Its a few minutes long but to summarise, he talks about a puddle that wakes up one day, looks around itself and says 'this hole im in must have been made for me, after all I fit it so perfectly'

Obviously the puddle is wrong and is looking at things in 180° the wrong way, as are you im afraid.

Thank you so much for the thoughtful replies @peapotter and @Babdoc I consider myself agnostic but am extremely interested in faith and humanity in general, but feel I can’t ask these questions in real life.

“I would be very surprised if they were happy to die for something they knew to be partly lies, particularly the resurrection, which is the cornerstone of Christian faith.“

As I read this comment, my mind instantly jumped to how the Trump supporters were happy to potentially die/be killed/hurt in the recent Capitol riots. They believed Trump to be their great leader and what he says is the truth, but just because they believed that to be the case doesn’t make it true. Therefore, what if those people you mention who died, did so out of some misunderstanding or different interpretation to reality. My apologies if that analogy is offensive, it’s so current that it came to mind.

”That cataclysm could only have been that the resurrection was true - that they met the risen Christ.”

That to me is a massive assumption, sorry. Could it be they had nothing to lose if they were going to be arrested anyway? Just looking at it if I were in that situation!

Also, what is your opinion on the theory that religion was developed to instil fear in the masses?

Thanks again, it’s much appreciated.

This would be a fascinating thread if it wasn't for the attempts to start a debate on the existence of God. I really want to read about people's spiritual experiences, something I rarely hear discussed and would love to understand better. If I wanted to listen to someone trying to disprove religion I could read...eh, most other threads on the Philosophy and Religion board, for a start, or ring my dad up. It's not a debate, it's people sharing their experiences and opening their hearts.

Apologies @waltzingparrot for coming over all thread-police on your thread