I am an atheist and I would Like to believe in God and yet I don't?

Question

It is easier, in life, to believe in a Deity and I don't.

I am interested in people who didn't believe in a Deity and then decided differently.

What changed your mind, irrefutably?

I am not in the slightest bit interested in deciding to believe in God as a crutch because I may be too scared to face the death of my friends and family or my own death. That's too easy.

And look into yourself before you answer this question:

Have you decided God exists because the idea of extinction at death is intolerable?

Be honest.

I am not in the slightest bit interested in answers that say 'of course there is a God because there is'

I welcome sane, logical, sensitive answers from believers, ex believers and atheists who became believers.

Answer 1

This is going to be one of the weirdest answers you will ever receive. But I will tell you everything and why very honestly...

Firstly I don't believe in "God" because death is intolerable. I had been studying philosophy and religion for a while, trying to understand an experience I had when I was around 8 years old. I had a strange idea about perception. I felt like I was a part of God and didn't understand why. I felt like everything was NOW and that there really isn't such a thing as death. My parents weren't religious, no one in my family was. But for some reason I found myself centered upon the "idea of God." In my mind God wasn't an old man in the clouds. I began to quickly hate Christianity because my idea of heaven and God were so different than what they were telling me. I thought that I was in Heaven and in Hell in my current experiences of "NOW" and that God was all around me and inside of me. I thought God was existence. So I grew up thinking that I was completely screwed up in the head.

When I turned 20 I was lead into reading "The Book," by Alan Watts. It was very boring, but it reinforced what I had felt. So I had an intelligent understanding of it, but the experience I had had was so long ago I couldn't feel completely accepting of the idea....

Soon after I read "The Book," I took a pill called Ecstasy and I did it with the purpose of learning something from it. Well when it peaked I felt my crown flame with energy and I KNEW. I began telling my husband that I had always KNEW that God was existence. We had talked of this before, he had always reassured me that I wasn't crazy. I felt completely one with God.

And crazy enough... I opened the Bible with the knowledge that God is in words. But that God can only be described in them because there is a limit to language, where as there is no limit to God. Anyway, as I was reading the Bible and actually any other book I could read, I understood the words beyond the ordinary. A passage I read from Exodus has kept with me. God told Moises to tell the Jews,"I am that I am." That was the title God had chosen Moises to tell the Jews of. That is the "title" of God... That which is.

Like the Hindus say "tat vam asi." Which means "you're it!" Similar to saying "tag you're it."

You know why Hindus and Buddhist bow? They say they bow to the God inside you. I also bow to you, namaste.

Anyway, I hope that helps,
Randi

Answer 2

Being an atheist, you believe more in god than you would think. Look at it this way: a person who believes in god at least has some idea of what god is, be it everything, a person, something they can't understand, but they have an idea. So, someone who believes there is no god needs an idea of god to say that there isn't one. To be an atheist, you still have an idea of god to say that there isn't a god.

To me, god is irrelevant. Lets say there is a god, what changes? The cars will continue going down these roads, the food will still be eaten, the stars will shine while the sun is elsewhere. And what if there isn't a god, the same thing happens. So, whether you believe in god or not won't change the situation you find yourself in. The clouds will still be clouds, the water will still be water. To ask the question whether there is a god or not is to put yourself on a merry-go-round. I'm not saying I've got a true answer to this, but who the hell really does. Ultimately this is a question only you are going to find the answer to. A few people say there isn't a god, a few say there is, others say they don't know, I'm telling you its not important, but only you are going to end up with something for yourself, only you are listening to all these people, what the hell do you think?

Answer 3

Ok you sound like a philospher, I took some classes in it including logic and history of religion so ill try to give this a try to explain how I understand it. One famous philospher said the universe is like a watch it is orderly, put together and works in harmony as a watch must have a creator then so must the universe. It is agreed among philosophers and atheists alike that if there is a God then there must be a universal definition of God and that is he is 1) all knowing 2) all good and 3) all powerful . A big question atheists pose for theists is the infamous "Problem of evil" in which atheists state "If there is a God, why does he allow all the evil in the world to occur." of which theists reply something along the the lines "that in the great midst of things, we as mortals and iniferior to a supreme and all powerful being do not fully comprehend what we see as evil and do not know "yet or will ever know" how it will work out in Gods divine plan."

I am an ex-beleiver trying to be a believer again. What has made me have faith first was through prayer and how it affected me, then I started to study this psychobabble in college that leaned me towrds thinkning pray and scripture study is nothing but like a mental conditioning which leads you to act different. IE..i star readinig a chapter of the bible a day, i notice I sin less, prayer more and feel more close to God..some psychologists say this is alike a overweight person who suddenly starts conversing with fit people, read fitness magazines, watches sports..and it changes them. I know thats not the best analogy but Im sure youll get it.

In my case what i have felt, unregrettable strong which led me back is terror. I cannot describe this and was in a state of comming out of sleep. I cant even describe in words what I saw, it was not a physical pain or a mental pain it was not scary..I didnt know how I was going to be hurt or killed I knew that I was I just didnt know how. I awoke after seeing this picture of this demon and my heart was beating so fast I thought I was going to die and it was not a panic attack. I never get those. Lets just say something I saw out of that dream was not human. It would definetly be evil or of demonic nature. Some people who have strayed from a faith in my case Catholicism, are "strictly warned" somehow someway before our death it is thought to be believed through a near death experience or through a dream.

Answer 4

I dis-agree that it is easier to believe in god than extinction. If god is real to someone, then they must spend they're life living to his expectations. Once they are a commited believer, how disappointing would it be if he turned out to be nothing more than an over-fabricated story?
I'm a non-believer, not an athiest. That word comes from religion. I believe in life, in being a good person. I believe that i should strive to be the best person that i can be and everything else will fall into place. After life, i will be nothing, i will no longer exist. That is not frightening to me at all, its frightening to think i might not be remembered, LIFE is whats important, not death. I'm not sure, but isn't ASSUMING a sin?? I don't believe in jesus mainly because the stories about him and creation are rediculous.
Heaven is available to those who create it during thier lives apparently, they spend they're lives dedicated to getting there, life isn't a test for something better. I create my own heaven on earth and if there is a god he will love me for making the best of his gift.

Answer 5

I'd like to start by saying that I don't believe in 'God' but I do believe that there is a greater being somewhere 'out there' - the numnious.
I don't believe that this can just be it , I mean it's pointless (and depressing) to believe that we ,as humans, are just brought into this world to be born, live and die - there's got to be something else/ more to life than that.
We were discussing a similar topic to the in my As Ethics class, in which we discussed that if you (when you reach 40) look back on your life and say that you wish you could have done more - then you basically admitting to yourself that you have not lead a fulfilled, happy life.

Getting back to your question, my answer is that; in my opinion, there is not a 'God' but there is a greater being to which many people may call God.

Answer 6

I prefer to call myself agnostic, I really want God to exist and I pray probably more often than the Pope. I want to make real changes in this world and I know I can't do it alone so I call out to God and ask for help and sometimes I think, maybe He does exist, other times I don't. I give thanks for the perceived help I receive because I WANT God to be there and hear it but on the contrary it couldn't possibly hurt to thank "no one."
You know the thing that really ticks me off? That years ago I thought I saw an angel, and that experience got me through some tough times. Now I have completely convinced myself that I actually was dreaming or saw a blanket draped on something in a certain kind of light, or I was just hallucinating.
Religious people would have written a book on the hereafter and gotten rich following an experience like that, but me...no, I can't do that I have to be the scientist and want proof. I'm actually quite angry with myself that I "thought" God out of existence for myself.

Answer 7

How old are you?
The reason I ask that is because in your life travels, you will sometimes find the deity you are looking for.
I am inclined to say to you "If you dont believe in a deity, dont sweat it"
It is actually more important that you live a reasonably good life and become a useful human being to you fellow man. Do acts of charity, lend a helping hand, shed light into the darkness of the world.
As you own light glows, you will begin to feel the reflection of God-deity. Light begets light.

Answer 8

The only explanation for faith remains to be that "the heart has reasons that reason does not know." (Is that from Augustine? or Pascal? I can't remember.)

Believe it or not, I used to be active in religious orgs and once had to deliver a speech about what faith is, and that it is simply a response to God's love.

There is no "logic" to it as you know it. Faith is not reached by reason. You will have to wait for an event in your life, that for an unknown reason you just had to believe.

The film "Contact" with Jodie Foster tried to explain this but I felt it still wanting. Whatever explanation would never suffice someone who looks for proof anyway.

Basically we all have a choice, and a better illustration of that choice is Graham Greene's The Heart of the Matter. We have the raw imperical data that this world gives us. When we see patterns, do we interpret them as coincidence or signs? The theist see all that has happened and choose to believe that there is a divine hand behind creation. The atheist does not and believe that it is merely accidental.

It is normal for you to want to believe that there is meaning and that we are more than just an accident, but your logical side is looking for proof and is preventing you. If you look for God in your logic you will not find him. Only in Faith.

Answer 9

I am an ex Christian who is no longer able to accept the Bible, or any other "holy" book to be the word of God, and yet, I see evidence of a Creator everywhere I look.
The simplest form of life in existence is just too intricate to have come into being accidentally or spontaneously. Each step up the levels of development becomes more intricate than those before. Nothing in existence, from the precise balance of two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen in a molecule of water, to the intricacy of the human eye, can be satisfactorily explained by any theory other than creation by an intelligent being.
I believe in God because, intellectually, I cannot accept any other explanation for existence.

Answer 10

Well as a believer I would be happy to share my reason for believing. It is really as simple as the movie Signs. I have been led to belief through series of events in my life that are just way too spectacular to be coincidence. Also I believe because sometimes when something is troubling me and i relfect on it then I get that little voice in the back of my head saying something like, "if you weren't so selfish" and I know that it didn't come from myself but something greater, something right. I hope that one day you see Signs. Who knows this may be the first. Blessings.