Why have I lost my faith in God?

Question

I was raised as a Christian and up until I was about 22 I had faith, went to church and believed. Somewhere along the line I just lost it. No matter how hard I try, I feel nothing. When I go to church, cause I still do, (for weddings and such) I sit and think how fake this all is and its a big false way to live. How I feel sorry for the people that truly think they believe because its all nothing.
I know the non believers will say ''because there is no God'' or something like that but thats not what I am looking for. How do I reconnect? I feel like its Santa Claus. I feel that there cant possibly be a creator and that the bible stories are just stories. I have a good life. I feel ungrateful, how can I reconvince myself. I have to believe in something but its impossible. Im not a bad person and no I dont believe some force has taken over me. I just dont understand how it can all possibly work. Am I an Atheist? An agnostic? I feel no comfort in religion.

Answer 1

A key to the answer is understanding that it is not a feeling..it is an act of will. It is a step of faith you take into the unknown. You said no matter how hard I try, I feel nothing.

Plenty of intelligent people believe in God. Myself and my kids are all gifted with my youngest having a 167 IQ so to the answer who said you are too intelligent to belief, that is just how he makes himself feel superior to people of faith.

The key is faith, taking a leap of faith, even if it seems unbelieveable. Faith is the assurance of things not seen (or actually felt).

The bible points out the the wisdom of men is foolishness to God and that the intelligent are often confounded and lost for what is required is having the faith of a child. A child doesn't reason everything out, they just believe. But God is not like a fairy tale or Santa..there are eternal consequences (or at least possibilities of consequences from a lack of belief)

However, I found that once I believed God with childlike faith, He did not leave me intellectually unsatisfied. He gave me clarity of the unity of the Bible which before had seemed disjointed and hard to understand. It became clear. He also gave me many intellectual assurances of the truth. Believing theories like evolution with its holes like no transitional fossil records, etc requires faith too. I find that science, anthropology support rather than deny the existance of the truth of the Bible. It seems God gave me more intellectual understanding and reassurance when I took a leap of faith first. Perhaps He will do that for you if you truly seek Him and the answer out. Do not give up..that spark that wants connection is God calling you back perhaps.

These are your feelings born from not being able to understand things or feel God's presence..to understand evil in the world and to pray and not have some prayers answered or feeling utterly alone. This happens to Christians too. I myself have experienced years of suffering and darkness and feeling God wasn't there and so alone. Yet somehow, my faith though small as a mustard seed sometimes, stays there.

I remember a song that played in my head when I returned to college 15 years ago at age 40 and my faith was solely tested by all I was learning. Things that challenged mightily my faith. Years earlier I had sought out many religions (raised Catholic..eventually becoming a now born again Christian). This song by Michael Card seemed to help me. The lyrics are copied below.

Seems I've imagined Him all of my life
As the wisest of all of mankind
But if God's Holy wisdom is foolish to men
He must have seemed out of His mind

For even His family said He was mad
And the priest say a demon's to blame
But God in the form of this angry young man
Could not have seemed perfectly sane

Chorus
We in our foolishness thought we were wise
He played the fool and He opened our eyes
And we in our weakness believed we were strong
He became helpless to show we were wrong
And so we follow God's own fool
For only the foolish can tell
Believe the unbelievable
Come be a fool as well

So come lose your life for a carpenter's son
For a man who had died for a dream
And you'll feel the faith His first followers had
And you'll feel the weight of the beam
So surrender the hunger to say you must know
Have the courage to say I believe
For the power of paradox opens your eyes
And blinds those who say they can see

Chorus

So we follow God's own Fool
For only the foolish can tell
Believe the unbelievable, come be a fool as well

the Bible is full of paradoxes..the last will be first and the foolish are wise etc.

Your answer, like everyone elses, is just faith in that not seen. Also I suggest not thinking thoughts like it's fake and a false way to live all the time. Puish those thoughts out of your head when they come and said instead "god, help me in my unbelief."

How anyone can study the detail and intricacy and order of nature and the human body and the universe and flowers etc and think it just happened, needs more faith than the believer. I once heard a tape by a doctor whose hobby was the study of nature. He pointed out things like all hands of banana as they come from the trees have the same numbers of bananas, the bee is all built around the number three, all watermelons have the same number of stripes, the waves, whether big or small and in any place in the world always come so many to the minute etc. This stuff doesn't just HAPPEN with a big bang..for the order and detail of creation (people, plants, etc) to exist in such intrincate detail, order and perfection they must have had a designer, an intelligent designer. For there to be plants loaded with pytochemicals that cure and prevent every disease just happened. I don't think so. Christ's story is in the very trees around us..For the way nature of spring, summer, fall, and winter show the resurrection story of new life coming from death That nature inself reflects the works of Jesus is so interesting. The Bible says the heavens reflect the glory of God and the earth his works.

Many smart people of history have believed in God, many have been murdered and their kids martryed before them for ther faith. Why? Are you so smart that only your theories are right...as the book of Job says were you there at the foundation of the earth and did you hang the stars and tell the waves to go only so far and then stop. Since you are just a man, can you know the mind of God. Are you wiser than so many others before you? Pride goeth before a fall..maybe your answer to why goes to that root.

Since no human can know for sure if there is a God, since Atheism is a type of religious beliefs system in itself, it all stems down to what you will believe in. If Christians are wrong, they will have perhaps wasted their lives but if those who don't believe in God are wrong, they will have wasted their eternal souls. (Paschal's wager)

If you really want to reconnect, pray that God will send books, messengers, and people, and signs into your life to help you in your unbelief and then believe He will answer, but even if He doesn't do this or you miss the clues, still have blind faith and perhaps one day the pieces will fall in place or your feelings and thoughts will come to match your will. I know this isn't perfect advice but I still hope it helps you. Remember that faith comes from hearing and hearing the word of God so church attendance and bible reading will enhance faith.

Often our questions are not answered in this life. The fact is no one is promised comfort in life in religion or otherwise..but we are promised salvation if we believe in Christ's finished work on the cross. Even Christians have a lot of doubts during the course of their lives. May you reflect on these words and find god again, friend.

Reread what Pilgrim wrote as that is a good answer and Leanne too

Answer 2

Why are you trying to 'make' something happen? That isn't how 'faith' works.

Faith is partly about the process of learning that certain things can' be 'willed' into being. This is not about a Big Mac that you can simply wait 5 minutes or less for, and then complain legitimately to the manager and hope for a refund.

What was it, precisely, that caused you to lose your faith? Most people say they don't know, but there is always a turning point, a moment/encounter when something stepped in between the person and their faith. It could have been a comment, an experience, a person's behavior, etc etc, anything.

Part of the problem is that you 'feel' that you have to believe in something. Why do you 'feel' you HAVE to believe? Do you honestly think God is worried about whether or not you believe in him/her/it? Imagine, if you will, creating gravity, and then sitting back and thinking "oh sh**, look how long it will be before Issac Newton comes along and explains to people what that thing is.....darn." Do you honestly think that's what God was thinking...... I don't think so.

God created 'things' and then said... "I am not worried. The (blank) will still be there when they are ready to accept it, or not." When you are ready to believe, the belief will be there waiting for you, sitting with a cup of tea and a spoon of sugar (if you like your tea that way, or coffee if you prefer): "Ask, and you will receive. Seek, and you shall find. Knock, and it will be opened to you."

Maybe what caused your lack of faith was other people trying to 'make' you believe: "Be on your guard against false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing but underneath are wolves on the prowl. You will know them by their deeds... Not all who cry out 'Lord, Lord' will enter the kingdom of heaven."

When you are ready, you will find what you are looking for. It is looking for you as well.

Answer 3

What you are experiencing is called time in the desert where God draws away from you for a season. Keeping your faith through a time like that is what strengthens you as a person. Trees grow their roots the deepest when there is no water and that's why periods like this exist. The best way to reconnect with God is to do something helpful for someone else - start serving and change your focus from you to others in need. God will certainly make Himself felt soon enough. You are not an Atheist because deep down you long for the connection you once had with God. Have you told Him what you just told us? Sometimes it can even be a sign that we are to move to a new church and we lose the emotional attachment to the old one. Don't give up on what you know is true.

Answer 4

This happens to loads of people, maybe most people who've been into Christianity. Consider that we have never seen God, never heard God, never touched God. So everything we know --or think we know-- about God is second-hand hearsay. Now ask yourself if you ever really had faith in God or rather did you actually have faith in the the parents, teachers, ministers, etc who told you what to believe?

A big part of Christianity is the guilt trips they use to control people. You say that you feel ungrateful and that you feel a need to reconnect. Do I guess correctly that this is about the guilt that Christians planted in you? Fear of going to hell?

I went through a similar thing. I finally came to terms with it when I came to understand that you cannot force yourself to have faith. If you pretend to believe out of a sense of duty or the threat of hell you're just going through the motions. You can jump through all their hoops but if you're doing it because they're cracking the whip it's not real faith.

Christians will tell you that you're doing something wrong, that you should try harder, pray more, study scriptures, etc. I think that's the great Christian guilt trip. My solution was to stop pretending to have faith in what other people pretend to believe. I believe that how we live is more important than what we believe.

Answer 5

I am with you there. I am a Christian, but struggle with my relationship with him a lot. I still love Jesus and the Father very much.I do not go to church as I am not a church going person. I believe Jesus died on the cross for me and rose again on the third day and sits at the right hand side of the almighty God. Look at it this way, you are still alive are you not? You have not died yet. Look at it this way too, the reason you are still alive maybe is that God does not want you to go to Hell, and is waiting for you to come back to him. Yes God is patient, more patient than any of us, because he is God. He does not want anyone to perish. Yes I know most people that do not believe think I will not believe in anything I have not seen. they say i will not have faith until I can see. But you have to remember without faith nobody will be able to see God. Faith comes by believing and believing comes by hearing and hearing comes by the word of God. The just shall live on faith alone. Without faith you cannot please God. One of the things I love about God is that he has not left me and never will, although I feel he has, he will never leave me. He will never leave us nor forsake us. Even when you feel flat like I do, remember God will never let you down. My favorite psalms is psalms 91. Please read it, and that will help you like it has helped me. God bless and I hope you get back on board with God, he is waiting for you to come home to him.

Answer 6

Oh boy, if only people paid attention to the scriptures, they'd see HOW Jesus NEVER EVER berated a woman, belittled them! Come on, the guy was contesting every abusive law of the religious authorities of his time. Do you really think that God intended for women to be ad vitam aeternam mistreated and humiliated by men? The same God who put a sign on Cain so that he won't be killed, even after he cursed him for killing his brother? God loves and treats every one equally. I had my issues with that whole "being submissive to your husband" part, especially having brought up in a culture where men treat women like pieces of **** and women allow them to do so because they were told that it's their role to be "subservient", oops, "submissive." However, St Paul said that both Christians, BOTH MEN AND WOMEN, have to be submissive to each other. So, I guess, you see where I am going with that. He also said that men were the head of the household (I won't even start with the cultural historical context here) JUST LIKE Jesus was the head of the church. Did Jesus see to be a despot to you? The guy who washed his disciples' feet and sometimes cooked for them? The good shepherd who is ready to move everything to find one lost sheep? That's what people, LOTS OF MEN DO NOT GET: being the chief means HAVING TONS OF RESPONSIBILITIES AND OBLIGATIONS towards the people who are under you. You owe them not the way around. They'll be submissive to you because they know you will protect them WITHOUT abusing your power and that you're ACCOUNTABLE of the charge given to you. So DO NOT LOSE FAITH IN GOD because human beings had the audacity to pervert his words and commandments for their own benefits. God's a feminist: he wants men and women to have the same rights.

Answer 7

There is no reason to accept a bronze a conception of an imaginary deity. Pantheism is a more intellectual approach to the need for feeling a sense of wonder and humility while not suspending common sense and reason. Belief in "god" does not require the childish notions of some white bearded sky wizard that is seems to need meds for bipolar disorder more than our praise and adoration.

Answer 8

Sounds like you're a reluctant atheist. I've never heard of that before...

However, you don't need to believe in a religion... You can believe in life. It seems that, although unintentionally, you have discovered how insane christianity is. You'll never be able to go back to the way it was before. What you can do now, though, is get on the right track, and perceive the world with new eyes.

Answer 9

The fact that you are on the edge at this point in your life shows you are probably too intelligent to ever really reconnect with religion. We would all like for religion to be a valid concept, but since when does the universe bend itself to accommodate the egos of men? Isn't it better to accept reality and get on with your life? Contrary to what christians believe, Atheists are very comfortable with their mortality. Your mind will adjust in no time. Good luck.

Answer 10

Religious denominations are like drinking water. What if after you drank for a certain source for a long time you found out is poisoned, would you still drink from it? I personally wouldn't, I would look for another source of water that is not poisoned nor contaminated...a clear/pure one. Its because I value my life.

There are certain bible verses that I always am thankful for.

“This means everlasting life, their taking in knowledge of you, the only true God, and of the one whom you sent forth, Jesus Christ.” (John 17:3)

John 8:32 and YOU will know the truth, and the truth will set YOU free.”
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Just like being freed from poisoned water, I left my former religion (Catholic) and looked for the pure one. I have found the truth in the knowledge I acquired about Jehovah and Jesus.

Answer 11

Well done! You are finally free from the thought police. Don't be guilty about no longer believing in a make believe entity. Religion is at turns silly and, in it's extremes, detestable.