Can anyone else not bring themselves to religion?

Question

I really can't. I was raised Protestant, but turned away after high school. I'm not going to say with that there is no God, but I detest most of what is written about him. The idea of a benevolent God that condones violence and suffering, as found througout religious books, and sends the vast majority of his creations to an eternal infinite hell really turns me off. Is there anyone else who feels this way?

Yeah but how can one claim that they send themselves? I'm sure no one wants to go.

Carpenter, you have never met me but you think you know me. I like the principles held in religion and live my life accordingly. I think I can still live a moral life without religion.

Answer 1

Heaps of us! Welcome to the Free Thinking Club!

For some fun reading try: www.positiveatheism.com or www.internetinfidels.org

Answer 2

I think that the majority of Christians have thought about this issue. I know that i sure did.. I was raised an atheist, and
these and similar questions kept me from God for years.

There is a fairly simple answer to this particular question. But the answer will not come from people who don't know God or those who hate Him. God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble.

If you truly want resolution of this question and your hostility towards God, then you are going to need God's help.
Honestly tell God of your feelings, doubts, anger. Be brutally honest with God - but respectful. Ask him to help you. You will be amazed at your change in attitude, and how things will begin to open up. You will begin to think of these things in ways that are impossible to you now.

Answer 3

I always tried to believe in a God but none of it made sense to me:

when I was a kid I went to church (Church of England), read the Bible and tried to pray - though it always felt like I was talking to myself. I could not make sense of all the bad stuff that goes along with religion and eventually drifted from church.

In my late teens I made one final attempt to embrace Christianity, I went to a very liberal Church and Bible study group - but was asked to leave as I asked too many questions. I was genuinely trying to believe and wanted to discuss the points that were confusing to me. At that point I gave up on Christianity.

I still wanted to believe in some undefined Higher Power. This took many forms for me well into my late 20s but in more recent times I have come to accept that I do not believe in any form of God. I am an atheist and I am much happier with this. I spend far less time and energy worrying about all the things that do not make sense and are not rational that I was trying to make myself believe.

Answer 4

Allow me to respectully suggest that you might find the Belief-O-Matic quiz over at Beliefnet.com helpful:

http://www.beliefnet.com/story/76/story_7665_1.html

It's fun, and it matches you up with a wide variety of religions and philosophies based on your answers, with write-ups for each one. The results can be very surprising.

The reason I suggest it is that not ALL religions believe the things that you find hard to stomach. Who knows? There might be a faith out there that suits you down to the ground... or, you might be cut out to be an atheist or a secular humanist. In any case, the Belief-O-Matic is pretty accurate, at least according to most of the people I've known who have taken it.

(And yes, I do not agree with the portrayal of God that you've laid out. This is one reason why I am not a Christian.)

Answer 5

In the great war in Heaven, two thirds of the hosts of heaven (spirit children of God) were valient and the other third were sent down to earth with Satan to torment the other two thirds when it was their turn to come down. If you continue to be valient as you were then, you can obtain a place in the hereafter compared to the Sun, Moon, or Stars, depending on how valient you are. You are here to be tested. Free agency is a God given gift and people who use it unwisely bring on wars and other troubles.

Answer 6

Wow ....now thats something that hurts god himself. There are so many lies about god that people are so confused. God does not send people to hell. Have you even tried to find out the truth about "hell"? Here's something to think about...the Bibles says that the dead have no conscious existence (Eclesiastes 9:5) then how is it that the bad people that die are tormented in such thing called hell? There is no such place....you should really study the truth of what the bible teaches and not base yourself on what people say

Answer 7

read the bible - there is no hell. gehenna was a burning fire pit that they dumped their garbage into. god is love. religion has tahght many things that arent in the bible. start reading. you'll find out that he really condems those who have used his book to put fear into others and the last book in the bible actually tells of god turning on false religion for that very reason. keep reading.

Answer 8

I brought myself out of religion. It was the best feeling ever. Even better than that Saturday night with the Peterson twins.

Answer 9

Get some spiritual counselling. You are heading for becoming an atheist. Don't blame God for the devil's work.

Answer 10

Exactly! If there is a "God" in the Christian sense, then we are all his/its children, down to the baddest, smallest and most imperfect one of us. As a father he/it would have the deepest love for the worst of us. It doesn't make any sense to argue that God plays favourites. It's illogical. A father loves his bad children just as much as his good ones. That's the purity of a parent's love for his or her offspring. To suggest that God loves one group of people less than another would make God impure. To say that God is capable of hate or indifference would make God flawed. If he exists in the Christian tradition, then God would even love Lucifer, one of his own angels. Yes, he would want Lucifer to repent, but it wouldn’t change his love for his child/Lucifer. To state otherwise would be to admit that God made a mistake. Not possible according to Christians.

There are many schools of thought that paint a much broader picture of God. Conventional religion personifies God reducing him/it to digestible chunks of understanding based on ourselves as point of reference or comparison. Whereas I suspect that if there is an intelligence in the Universe then it is far beyond our capacity to fathom with our small brains or to contain in a book like the Bible. This being the case then it follows as well that we place far too much importance on ourselves. We are important, just as much as a single electron, a blade of grass, a bird or an entire star are important. The Universe is an intricately complex machine where every single particle plays an equally important part as the next. A fine Swiss watch would be reduced to worthless junk with the missing of a single tooth in just one cog-wheel of many in the entire instrument. We are the same way. But to say that we are above God’s other creations is human arrogance and pride. Ironically "pride" is one of the seven deadly sins in Christian mythology. This said, the scientific evidence for the evolution of both the Universe and species on this planet are in perfect harmony with God’s plan. The Universe is an ongoing project for God and continues to be created to this day. This makes far more sense to me than the Biblical version. Understanding this also helps explain human suffering and what we think of as meaningless death. It’s not meaningless. If there is a God in this sense of the term, it created the Universe, the laws of physics, in essence a game board, the rules and the pieces to play with. It’s up to us to play the game with no outside interference from the creator. “Freedom to choose”. We are allowed to decide whether we help each other and reduce the suffering or destroy each other in the process. That would be ultimate love, total freedom to choose our destiny.

Regarding "Heaven and Hell"... the same schools of thought also suggest that we are living either one now by personal choice. In fact, the concept of the Biblical Hell wasn't described in detail until Dante. It was adopted by the Catholics as an effective means of frightening the populus into good behaviour and submission to the churche's will.

I'm against "organized religion" in principle. Religion is a dangerous thing. More people have been killed throughout history in the name of religion than any other cause. And today people practice legalized robbery by using religion as their cause to take money from the less fortunate and the elderly in the form of televangelism. What God needs a Rolls Royce and a mansion in Beverly Hills?

If I'm wrong about all of the above, I'll be the guy in Hell shoveling the coal and asking you if you want it hotter, as you pass through the gates. See you there.

I just had to add this... leo4js says that the Bible says that the dead have no consciousness. Ok fine, I'll take your word on that. Sorry, I'm not a Bible reader so I have to ask, what part gets risen to join Jesus in heaven then? Is it populated by zombies?

Another point, if God gave us brains and the capacity to use it. Does he not want us to think and to ask questions? Or are we supposed to force ourselves to run around like a bunch of mindless sheep knowing full well we might have an intelligent thought about the whole situation and want go home to a beer and a football match on the TV? If the Bible and all that religion teaches is indisputable truth, then the capacity for thought is pointless. Just follow the rules. Right? To give man a mind and so called free will and only two choices, between following God's will or not, is just cruel. I'm starting to feel like an experiment in God's giant maze.

And for Frak, I wouldn't hate God in any shape or form. He's my dad. But I might resent him if all I have is two choices the result of which might last me all of eternity. I'm assuming the Bible doesn't allow for change of heart?

Answer 11

More of us than you can count.
You sound as if you are on the verge. Step over that line and cure yourself of the disease of the mind that religion truly is.
Welcome to the 21st century.

If it helps, you might like to read all contained in www.godisimaginary.com