How to cope with unbelief?

Question

Just asking questions...

For my fellow Christians....Do you ever find it hard to believe? What do you do to help during those times? How can we really know for sure? Do you have a harder time believing when confronted with scientific evidence, i.e. creation,evolution, society's need for comfort concerning what happens after death... or when confronted with different beliefs? (Because if we are, all honest with one another, everyone believes that his/her religion is "right" and all others are "wrong".)

Atheists.... I respectfully ask for your personal reasons for not believing and how you can be certain yourself of your beliefs. Do you ever have a hard time not believing? lol.

Thanks in advance.

Dolly Dewdrop.. I think it's important what we believe because what we believe is what ultimately defines us. NO.. I'm not saying that one belief, (Christianity v. Atheism) makes one person better than another. What I am saying is WHAT we believe shows through our actions, our motives behind all that we do. Though I'm not a fan of people hiding behind their religious or non-religious labels, I think it's important to define what we believe in.. just so long as we don't abuse that label.

Answer 1

When doubts arise in my brain, I stick to the facts. And the facts include many things that I can only attribute to God, such as my conversion experience (atheist has an encounter with God and becomes a Christian), a number of miracles, and, most importantly, the personal transformation I have been experiencing ever since, going from a wholly self-centered hedonist to somebody who lives simply as possible with little desire for material gain, etc. You never would have caught me volunteering in a soup kitchen before I met the Lord, but I'm happy to do it now.

All this to say, there are most certainly FACTS in your life, things you have personally experienced or witnessed, that you can use as "touchpoints" when you doubt, along with Peter's prayer to "Help me overcome my disbelief!" Also, remember that the more you pray to God to make you over into a person of Christ, the more He will fulfill your desire, and your doubt will fall away.

BTW, I'm a Christian who believes God used evolution and other "scientifically proven" truths of the physical realm, so it's not like you have to choose between the two.

Extra note to Archy: I am so sorry you lost your mother to a disease that brought so much pain and suffering. But I did want you to know that for Catholics, we take the Biblical passage about "sharing in Christ's sufferings" seriously -- we know that through our sufferings we assist Christ in His work on the Cross...so it is the really devoted servants who are sometimes best suited for this role. It doesn't mean God doesn't love your mother that she suffered...more likely, it means her love for Him was so great, she would endure anything He asked her to. Just to give you a perspective on what she may have been thinking as she went through cancer. I know it won't make up for losing her, but I thought it may give you some ease.

Answer 2

"Atheists.... I respectfully ask for your personal reasons for not believing "

After many years as a Christian, trying to teach only what was right from the bible, it got more and more difficult the more I studied, (Increasing awareness of context, history, hermeneutics... just for one group of things)
Eventually it was a matter of taking two fundamental frameworks or world views:
"This is essentially God's created universe. He is there"
"This is essentially a universe of indifferent physical forces. God is not there."
...and seeing, as honestly as possible, on which framework all the data and evidence sat better.

NOT which I would like to be true or felt to be true, or the majority said was true. Those were all points worth noting, but hardly clinching arguments.

I concluded, and it took some years of work, that god is not there. And this starting from a position of committed belief.
It would have been much easier and more comfortable to have come to the other conclusion.

Answer 3

this sums it up very well...

Top Ten Signs You're a Fundamentalist Christian




10 - You vigorously deny the existence of thousands of gods claimed by other religions, but feel outraged when someone denies the existence of yours.

9 - You feel insulted and "dehumanized" when scientists say that people evolved from other life forms, but you have no problem with the Biblical claim that we were created from dirt.

8 - You laugh at polytheists, but you have no problem believing in a Triune God.

7 - Your face turns purple when you hear of the "atrocities" attributed to Allah, but you don't even flinch when hearing about how God/Jehovah slaughtered all the babies of Egypt in "Exodus" and ordered the elimination of entire ethnic groups in "Joshua" including women, children, and trees!

6 - You laugh at Hindu beliefs that deify humans, and Greek claims about gods sleeping with women, but you have no problem believing that the Holy Spirit impregnated Mary, who then gave birth to a man-god who got killed, came back to life and then ascended into the sky.

5 - You are willing to spend your life looking for little loopholes in the scientifically established age of Earth (few billion years), but you find nothing wrong with believing dates recorded by Bronze Age tribesmen sitting in their tents and guessing that Earth is a few generations old.

4 - You believe that the entire population of this planet with the exception of those who share your beliefs -- though excluding those in all rival sects - will spend Eternity in an infinite Hell of Suffering. And yet consider your religion the most "tolerant" and "loving."


3 - While modern science, history, geology, biology, and physics have failed to convince you otherwise, some idiot rolling around on the floor speaking in "tongues" may be all the evidence you need to "prove" Christianity.

2 - You define 0.01% as a "high success rate" when it comes to answered prayers. You consider that to be evidence that prayer works. And you think that the remaining 99.99% FAILURE was simply the will of God.

1 - You actually know a lot less than many atheists and agnostics do about the Bible, Christianity, and church history - but still call yourself a Christian.

Answer 4

I believed for 28 years. I was raised catholic; church, school, etc. The problem was that I was also taught to question everything. Supposedly, it was going to reassure me. The problem was that I never got answers.
Then, my mom was diagnosed with cancer. She was in the choir, went to mass 3 times a week (more than most catholics). She always was the first to help anybody. Essentially, she was the best person I have ever known. Then, "god" let her get diagnosed with lung cancer (she hadn't smoked in 17 years). Over the next 5 months I watched her deteriorate into nothing. Then, after she passed, I kept hearing "she's in a better place", "god had other things for her to do in heaven", "she had too much love for this world". I found no comfort in this. My questions were "If god had things for her to do in heaven, why would he make her suffer so much? Why would he not take one of his most devoted disciples faster or more painless?"
After this, I researched religions (read the bible, looked up different beliefs, studied them). After all my looking, the answer was right in front of me. It is the most logical, most comforting, most likely; (and Thomas Jefferson said it best) "Religions are all alike - founded upon fables and mythologies."
Since this realization, I am much happier, more alive, less afraid, etc. I live life to its fullest every day because I never know when it is going to be my last.

Answer 5

I simply could not make myself believe in something that I could not see or experience. Like Santa Claus or elves. It made no sense, most theistic practices and beliefs.

I wasn't raised particularly religious, stopped going to church by age 6. So it wasn't hard for me to study religion without a lot of dogma or preconceived notions that one was inherently better or more worthwhile than another.

I ended up as a non-theistic Pagan. Plenty of good, self-empowering messages and positive practices, no gods or superstition or dogma. It's worked well.

Answer 6

I have been asking all my life "what difference does it make what I believe?" I can never get any sense out of any religious person on this subject. They seem to take it for granted that belief is necessary, without ever asking why. So I might as well ask you.

Why do you think it matters what people believe?

Answer 7

I might watch out of having too near. I am relationship a man, correctly, engaged to a man who does now not feel in faith. So making plans the marriage ceremony is a nightmare. He does now not wish a church marriage ceremony, I do. So how are you able to be pleased at the primary day of your existence, while you recognise the man you're marrying, is depressing given that it's in a church. And, he thinks all clergymen are liars and pedaphiles.. Not a well predicament. You will ought to quit your goals of a church marriage ceremony. Baptism of your youngsters and primary communion and affirmation, will all be matters he's going to now not wish to wait. You shall be unsatisfied given that he doesnt wish to be there. You will think sadness over this, except you're inclined to quit God for him. It can simplest result in center suffering, as I am deciding.

Answer 8

In an effort to keep it short . . . the Bible says: Faith comes by hearing, and by hearing the Word of God.

That is what I do: I listen, and I listen to the Word of God

I can listen by reading the Bible or books by Christian authors (the creation science reading is very informative), by speaking/asking other people I know that have the Truth and then listen, go to church and listen to my Pastor, my Sunday School teachers, turn on the radio and tune in Christian Radio . . . websites . . .

there is so-o-o much out there when it comes to listening, and listening to the Word!

Answer 9

I am an agnostic/pantheist, I don't have a hard time at all. I love the journey of discovery, not faith, peer-pressure or dogma.

I do wonder why you only address Christians and atheists?

Answer 10

i have had a few temporary bouts short of complete certainty in the past few years when the enemy seems to be attacking w/ all his might.
but this never lasts for very long b/c God will do something ... answer prayer, speak to me personally, speak through tongues & interpretation or prophecy .... or sometimes He just brings scripture to my mind that is so overwhelmingly powerful that i know that He is real & that i am His child.

praise the LORD!