Why is it so hard to just BELIEVE in Jesus?

Question

Why is it hard to believe that Creator God sent his only begotten Son to us to show us a better way? Please don't say no evidence!

Answer 1

The only evidence we have for any of the claim about Jesus as son of God comes from the Bible, and believing in the Bible as literal truth is simply not rational. Suppose, just for the sake of argument, that you had never heard any Bible stories until this very moment. Now suddenly someone starts telling you about some guy that built a boat and collected two of every species on earth. Wouldn’t this sound more like a fairy tale than a historical record? Would you just say “Oh, yeah, that story makes perfect sense!” and convert to Christianity on the spot? And then there is the guy who was swallowed by a whale, the guy who parted the sea, the guy who walked on water and came back from the grave… And now suppose that you are also suddenly introduced to mythologies of various sorts from various cultures throughout human history – like the Indonesian culture that believes God created people by baking them like bread in an oven and was especially please by the ones that came out golden-brown. The ancient Greeks, who told stories of jealous gods and goddesses plotting against each other. The modern-day cult which believed that aliens were coming to earth on a comet. And so on. Now suddenly you have all these wild stories in your head and you are asked to pick one of them to believe in. I would say that the only rational answer is to say “I don’t really believe in any of them.” They all sound like fairy tales and there is really no more evidence for one set of beliefs than for any other. I’m not saying that all mythologies are completely false, but I am saying that there is really no rational reason to pick one set of stories and say “I totally believe in these.” There is simply nothing about the Christian Bible stories that makes them more believable than any other religion or mythology. So unless you have some sort of personal experience that leads you to believe on the basis of FAITH, then you will not be very likely to believe in the Bible as the literal word of God. And notice that FAITH is NOT the same as REASON. Faith always requires that we go BEYOND reason. Thus, if you think about it, there is really no mystery at all as to why so many people do not believe in the Bible. There is simply no good REASON to believe in the Bible unless you have some sort of mystical epiphany (like an angle visits you, or whatever) – something that brings your intuitions in line with a set of believes that otherwise you would have considered just simply too incredible to believe. In fact, a major point of Christ’s live was precisely that it IS suppose to be too incredible to believe on the basis of reason alone – that’s part of the point of performing miracles, etc. You can’t get to God by rational argument, but only by faith. Personally, I do have a spiritual faith – it's just not the same faith that you have (assuming that you are a traditional Christian). So I could ask all sorts of question about why you don’t believe the various sorts of things that I believe, and in the end you would have no more luck convincing me of your faith than I would have convincing you of my faith.

Answer 2

Because we humans don't believe until we see. As we didn't see what happen back then, we don't have anything to proof that is true, only books, that could be written later by common people.

Also because some people, organizations, and religions, want to promote the idea of leaving us unknown, if he existed or not.Da Vinci Code is a great example, all what he shows there is to weak the Christian church, and he did. Everyone, including Christians like to see polemics issues and controversy, that is all what Da Vinci Code is about.

Now Dan Brown is rich, not because the movie is great or true, but because of so much controversy, the people wanted to look at it.

These thing make people to think if Jesus really existed or it was faked.

Also, because we don't believe in supernatural things, as in UFOs, every time they say there is one, the government denies it, so the people think we have this plain world without any of this supernatural matter.

For me it was hard to think about Jesus lived, but that is all what faith is, faith is believe without seen.

Answer 3

First you have to have an open mind to accept any of the answers to your question. If you firmly believe no matter what anyone says, then your question is pointless.

Most beliefs are based on what we ourselves feel to be acceptable evidence. It's partly a matter of our own interpretation of what is written in the Bible.

The writings in the Bible can be questioned due to the questionable credibility if the writers, and translations through the centuries.

You have to consider that religion's founders had their own beliefs. Don't forget, at that time they still thought the earth was flat. Actually it wasn't accepted to be round until the 1600's or so. So their intelligence is definitely questionable. Because of that alone, anything they wrote about or claimed to have witnessed can be questioned.

Religion may have been created as a way to control the people. Think about that for a bit. The world's largest church is one of the oldest religions. Convincing people of their beliefs is very easy if they have no common sense, or the ability to reason and analyze facts. And who crucified Jesus?

There may be facts to prove he existed. But are there any to prove he was the son of God? First you have to prove God is real, don't you think? Jesus could have been trained from birth to act as a messiah, to support the hoax. Many say he healed many people and did many miracles. But, suppose he was just capable of using parts of the brain that we today don't. Scientists know we only use about 10% of our brainpower currently, except a rare few.

There are many ways we could argue the question both for and against the existance of God or Jesus.

I still think that if God is real, and he is really just a spirit or energy, and he always was and always will be (alpha and omega) then he really could not have any concept of life or death, love or hate, pain, hunger, etc. So how could he create life not knowing what it is?

Answer 4

I would suggest it is probably because the underlying belief appeals too much to the intellect rather than the heart. And by nature (hopefully), humans are not robots.

Let's consider the fundamental beliefs of Jesus as they pertain to Christianity:

(1) He was the Son of God

(2) He died for our sins (mostly meaning the original act of disobeying God in the garden of Eden which was transmitted to all subsequent humans) on the cross

(3) This act allowed for humans to renew a
contract (which includes eternal life) with God originally established in the Garden of Eden

(4) The fine print in the contract stipulates that if you do not believe in #(1-2), you will have the worst sunburn for all eternity.

The difficulty does not lie in a belief in Jesus, per se, but probably has something to do with belief #4, which seems like a fear tactic of some kind. Furthermore, if Jesus is simply a stranger to most persons (or, they don't accept this individual as at least being symbolic of love), these beliefs are nothing more than an intellectual exercise (i.e., they are not taken to heart).

So the basic answer to the question probably boils down to an issue concerning the question, "What is love?"...

For which the appropriate response can be found in 1 Corinthians 13:1-13.

Answer 5

I wonder what happened to god between the old and new testament. In the old testament, he was angry, jealous, and vengeful. In the new testament, he is loving and forgiving. So what happened? some guy who was supposedly born from a virgin (an idea that I've never been able to believe) became a spokesman for the kinder, gentler God. Perhaps Jesus believed that he was the son of God, or that some divine truth was spoken through him...who knows, his teachings about kindeness and such were pretty nice, but not different from Karma and Buddhist thoughts either.
So why is it hard to believe? I think we know too much about the world to follow blindly. The "christians" have commited countless atrocities in the name of their faith, which provides us with some of the purest examples of hypocrisy in history.
I refuse to follow blindly, and seek my own path to spirituality and enlightenment. I'll take some of Jesus's advice under advisement, but I cannot and will not beleive that this MAN was the son of any God...no more or no less than than Hercules was a son of Zeus.

Answer 6

I wish I knew. I used to believe, now I'm trying to decide if I still do. I think it's because I have so many friends that don't believe in him and when we are talking about God and stuff like that it seems to me that there is more facts prooving that he doesn't exist than fact that proove that he did exist. I think It just makes more sence to believe that its all just lies or something. Even though I dont blame other people for believing and I have no problem with them. It just makes more sence for me this way. And a lot of stuff has happened to me before in my life, Abused when I was only 9...dad cheated on mom...and alot of other stuff, and it makes me think, if God//Jesus actually did exist, why would he let this happen to me.

Answer 7

It is hard because you do not know for sure that some gyu named God made Earth a real place. Also you don't know if some guy made him up and everyone belived him or if he really is a person and if he did have a son named Jesus! You just have to believe in whatever you want to believe in. don't just believ in something because everyone else does!

Answer 8

Because people listen to other people and pastors and rely on what they are told. To really understand there is a Jesus, you must read the Bible, more than once. People don't read the Bible enough. That is my answer. There is proof. All of the prophecies have come true in the Bible so far. There are strong evidence that the Bible has a code. It has been determined thru leading Universities in the USA. By using computers to find these codes. Jesus is real. He lives inside of me. Praise God!

Answer 9

Alot of people don't believe in things they can't see, maybe they're scared for one reason or another. There has to be more to life than only us. I find it hard to believe that we are the only living people in the universe. With the universe so big, who says it can't be a possibility. Stick to your beliefs and don't worry 'bout what anyone else thinks, at the same time don't try to change people. Let them make up their own minds. Accept others for who they are and what they believe, whether you agree or not. CHILL OUT!!!!

Answer 10

I believe. Mainly BECAUSE there's so much evidence. If you've never read "More than a Carpenter" by Josh McDowell (you can find it at his website http://www.josh.org ) I highly recommend it.

On top of the evidence presented in the book, there are miracles occuring every day that are evidence that Jesus Christ is real. For inspiring miracle stories check out http://www.cbn.com or buy the book "Miracles" by Pat Robertson. I read his last book on miracles and it was awesome.

Answer 11

It became impossible for me to believe in the way that you do after I witnessed some "good Christians" in actions that were not Christian-like. Then they had the nerve to accuse my family of being anti-Christian because we didn't attend their church in our small community. That made me begin to question and study and I found that there was no reason to believe this way except the pressure from others who wanted us all to think alike, and I didn't want to think like they did. They were not nice.
Years later, after attending many churches and studying many religions, I found that I had developed an revulsion to standard religion. Christianity is the one that bothers me the most. Perhaps because I was raised in it.
In any event, I can't believe as you do but I do believe that Jesus was a teacher. One of many who came to us with a direct memory of where he came from and the knowledge that he tried to give us. But a man. And I don't think that is bad.