God or no God?

Question

i've been having a hard time with whether or not he/she/it exists. i go to a christian high school and it seems like what they do to try to help only pushes me away. it all seems so fake. i dont need advice, i just want other peoples stories or ideas!

Answer 1

I know how you feel

I was raised christian untill high school and started asking questions that no one could answer and i got labled everything from a trouble maker to a satanist for asking questions about the bible. I was not being a smart *** i had honest questions and got no answers so i went elsewhere and found the answers myself.

Answer 2

"God" means different things to different people. People need God to provide an anchor, a reference point in a chaotic random universe. Whatever happens, people need to know that there is always enough love and care in the world to make it endurable.

Some people need a very substantial, personal God directing all the minutiae of the world. Others are content with an general, non-specific God-field that keeps the world in balance, Still others see God as an aggregate of everyone else in the world, offsetting each other's ignorance and wisdom. And some feel they can handle things without any divine delusions.

God and the purposes of God are hard to describe abstractly, so we resort to stories. That's essentially what the Bible is, a collection of stories of encounters between people and God. Again, some people need their stories to be very literal and their characters very real and historical. Others prefer a more allegorical approach, with the stories describing what the encounters would be LIKE.

But literalists don't like the idea of "interpreting" because it leads to uncertainty. Whenever possible, they prefer the obvious, straighforward reading, however unusual it might be. (WIth God, all things are possible.) An allegorical interpretation might open the message to more applications in life, but for some, that's a dilution of the power of the original story. It makes everything less "real" for them.

So, if your understanding is a little freer than another's, you may need to speak their "language" to avoid confusion and promote peace. But you certainly don't have to adopt their attitude for yourself. When trust is built up, you can share more of your own insight, even challenge them to go deeper than the superficial.

We all have guiding myths we filter our experience through, even atheists. If we didn't, it WOULD look like chaos. We probably need to adjust our myths several times during our lives, but we don't need to obssess about how "factual" they are.

It's good to know what "everyone else" believes just for the sake of cultural literacy, but only you can determine what kind of "God", if any, works in your life.

Sorry if this sounds like advice. It's more my experience. I started out as a strong theist but gradually became troubled by the logistics of "salvation". The "God" I was taught was too incompatibly legalistic and loving, and the doctrinal details too obscure and irrelevant. Through a deliberate process of determining which beliefs were the most essential, I narrowed it down to two, well, one, or-- none. I'm agnostic now. I don't believe anything we say about "God" is literally true, but I still appreciate the practical insight a religious filter can provide.

There is wisdom (and foolishness) in every outlook, so I try to stay conversant with everyone. For me, prayer, meditation, networking are all the same. It's getting a problem defined and put out there so available minds are thinking about it, possibly leading to a resolution. It works, but maybe not the way you imagined. We all have similar goals, to lead a "good" life, but expressed in different idioms. We all have heroic exemplars to imitate, religious or secular. I may not subscribe to another person's philosophy but I don't dismiss it out of hand. I try to translate it into terms that make sense to me, either for its own value or to better understand the differences between us.

Answer 3

Doesn't it make your heart hurt to believe there might not be a God? I think this is God himself talking to your heart. The Bible says, "Seek and ye shall find". Go find him! Pray, look at the evidence all around you. It's there, but only the ones who are not self-centered can see it. It took me awhile, and like you I attended a "Christian" school, but I found God and now have the peace that knows no understanding.

Answer 4

That's because it is fake.

consider the following: Read the Old Testament. REALLY read it.
Is this REALLY the all wise creator of the universe? He's into animal sacrifice, human sacrifice!(Jesus), slavery, killing girls suspected of not being a virgin, killing unruly teenagers, killing homosexuals, killing people who don't obey the Sabbath, and he agrees they should be killed by bludgeoning them to death....He orders women and children and babies killed. He doesn't see them as innocent, because they are not "jewish"???weird? is this REALLY the all wise, all powerful creator here? or Middle Eastern Jewish men?
come now.
This is obviously a God with a blood lust!

Consider the heart of Christianity: Human Sacrifice., so that we don't have to slaughter thousands of animals at the alter anymore, just 'believe' that God sent himself/hisson down as a human sacrifices too appease,....aaaaah...himself!

Consider the universe:
Everything, in it's awesome majesty, all the billions of species, including dinosaurs which obviously DID come before us, Everything in the universe, the immense, enormous universe that dwarfs the earth down to a speck of dust floating in a billion oceans.....was created.....to "test" only the human animal's souls in a soul game with the "devil" on a reward/punishment program?

This is stuff only a 4th grader could make up and a huge leap of faith and someone who has a huge capacity for denial to believe.

Answer 5

The belief in "god" seems to be ubiquitous through the ages.

We know, for example, that the ancient Egyptians believed in their gods so fervently that they built massive structures like the Great Pyramid -- still today one of the largest and most enduring human constructions ever created. Despite that fervor, however, we know with complete certainty today that the Egyptian gods were imaginary. We don't build pyramids anymore and we do not mummify our leaders.

More recently we know that tens of millions of Romans worshiped Zeus and his friends, and to them they built magnificent temples. The ruins of these temples are popular tourist attractions even today. Yet we know with complete certainty that these gods were imaginary because no one worships Zeus any more.

Much more recently, we know that the Aztec civilization believed in their gods so intensely that they constructed huge temples and pyramids. In addition, Aztecs were so zealous that they were sacrificing hundreds of human beings to their gods as recently as the 16th century. Despite the intensity, however, we know today that these gods were completely imaginary. The Aztecs were insane to be murdering people for their gods. Killing a person has no effect on rainfall or anything else. We all know that. If the Aztec gods were real, we would still be offering sacrifices to them.

Today's "God" is just as imaginary as were these historical gods. The fact that millions of people worship a god is meaningless.

The "God" and the "Jesus" that Christians worship today are actually amalgams formed out of ancient pagan gods. The idea of a "virgin birth", "burial in a rock tomb", "resurrection after 3 days" and "eating of body and drinking of blood" had nothing to do with Jesus. All of the rituals in Christianity are completely man-made. Christianity is a snow ball that rolled over a dozen pagan religions. As the snowball grew, it freely attached pagan rituals in order to be more palatable to converts. You can find accounts like these in popular literature:

"The vestiges of pagan religion in Christian symbology are undeniable. Egyptian sun disks became the halos of Catholic saints. Pictograms of Isis nursing her miraculously conceived son Horus became the blueprint for our modern images of the Virgin Mary nursing Baby Jesus. And virtually all the elements of the Catholic ritual - the miter, the altar, the doxology, and communion, the act of "God-eating" - were taken directly from earlier pagan mystery religions."

"Nothing in Christianity is original. The pre-Christian God Mithras - called the Son of God and the Light of the World - was born on December 25, died, was buried in a rock tomb, and then resurrected in three days. By the way, December 25 is also the birthday or Osiris, Adonis, and Dionysus. The newborn Krishna was presented with gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Even Christianity's weekly holy day was stolen from the pagans."
It is extremely hard for a Christian believer to process this data, but nonetheless it is true. All of the "sacred rituals" of Christianity, and all of Christianity's core beliefs (virgin birth, resurrection, etc.) come straight from pagan religions that were popular around the time of Jesus. Articles like this and this can help you learn more. Once you understand the fundamental truth of Christianity's origins, the silliness of this whole thing becomes apparent.

Answer 6

I think that who ever is talking to you about God, they do mean well. Their intentions are good that is, but they should not pressure you about your beliefs in God. I am pretty sure that being in a Christian school, they teach you about prayer, teachings of the Bible etc.... do you not accept their teachings or doctrine? If not, then you shouldn't be in that school.

In order to understand God, you first need to understand His words. How could you not believe in God when He is the creator of all things. The earth is perfectly made that it stands on its axle so perfect that the sun is able to warm the earth. Everything in the sky are put in God's orderly form. You need to ask for understanding, wisdom, and knowledge, but do that in your own private prayer with God. He knows your wants and needs.

There are no ideas with God, God is for real.....you either are for him or against Him.

Answer 7

So many people think that God can be found at a Christian school, or Bible camp, or even Seminary but the fact is Christ is in your heart. If you don't first find Him there, you won't find Him anywhere.

Answer 8

No god for me.

I was 9 when I began to ask my religion teacher many reasonable questions. I was labeled a trouble-maker and a miscreant, and a servant of satan. That was the end of my parochial school education. I decided to find the answers for myself, and researched those questions in a local public library (no internet at that time). I came to my own conclusions....I am an atheist.

Answer 9

There is nothing wrong with questioning your beliefs, questioning what should be believed, what you want your faith to be. If you are questioning, maybe it is time to research, look into your religion, maybe look at a different church, join a church group...get out there and get information, and even look at other religions, read up on them inform yourself then think about what you learned...and take what works for you and form your own decision as to what religion means to you and what God means to you

Answer 10

My only advise for you would be to call upon Him until He answers your cry. He will reveal Himself to you. Once you have met the living God you will know He is very real, loving, caring, kind and there is no one better to know. I wouldn't trade my relationship with Him for anything on this earth. All the love I've ever wanted, needed etc... Keep on calling out to Him to show you. Look at all the prophecies of Jesus that came to pass. Near to impossible for only 10 out of 350 prophecies to be fulfilled in Him. You will know Him by faith. If you are struggling with this look up Evidence that demands a verdict. This book was written by an atheist who set out to prove there wasn't a God and became convinced there is a God and found the Bible to be the most factual and accurate of all documents proved by science and facts of history. He couldn't dispute the truth we have had for so many years. Yea!!!