Originally posted by TheSkipper
Well, that is a tough question to answer. I mean, when I was a Christian I certainly believed I had a relationship with God. Heck, I was in a state of almost constant prayer for a good portion of my teen years.
Looking back, I now understand that what I was feeling was not communion with God, but a combination of wishful thinking and herd behavior.
God does not exist, and if he does that the NT authors were more accurate than the OT authors!
Skipper, look out for the, "Oop!".....tree. Sorry, its a Gilligan quote. Just could'nt resisit.
The reason I use it is because what we see and what we believe is directly related to what we have our eyes on or what we are not looking at. Biblically we are told that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. Really, you can say this about anything. The more you hear something the more faith you typically have in something or loose faith in something. For example, we buy into things we have no direct proof for all the time. I am sure you believe that pluto exists but have you seen pictures or been there or done mathmatical calculations pointing to its existence? I know I have not, however, we simply defer to others that there is enough proof out there that it exists and the proof is sound. In essence, we place our faith in them. That is why we are told to renew our minds continually in the Bible. My guess is that for whatever reason, you took your eyes off God and began giving place to those that disbelieve. As for my proof, it is wrapped up in the Biblical saying that God is love. Really love is ALL that matters to us. Now you can say that since man places such a premium on love that he created God to be a God of love or you could say that we were simply made in God's image and is why we place such a premium on love. Nonetheless, the fact remains that we place such a huge emphasis on a phenomenon that we cannot see or prove but only experience and even at that at times we question whether it exists at all. Sound familiar? In fact, there seems to be an annoying pain ratio associated with loving other people because there is no garauntee that they will love you back. In fact, there is an almost certainty that you WILL get hurt at some point. However, there is an almost equal certainty that you will find love that is returned your direction. Knowing this do you think it is all still worth it? I say it is although there have been times in my life I would have said otherwise. It reminds me of that song, "Love Stinks". I am sure we have all song it at times to ourselves and even believed it were true at times.
As for your last quote about God being a monster, this also speaks volumes as to why you ended your faith. After all, the greatest commandment is to love God. How can you do so if you think he is a monster? As for myself, I struggle with aspects of various suffering, including suffering he seemed to have been directly responsible for, however, for me it is simply a struggle between good and evil. I don't know of any war minus casualties and suffering. It simply would not be a war, would it? As for the OT God, we can second guess his actions and why he did what he did, however, his motivations seem to have been to end wickedness which is at the opposite spectrum of love. I would even go so far to say that if God were not "love" he would be 100% irrelevant to us in our lives. However, if I could explain to you 100& why God did everything he did and how he did it I would be God. It is only then that faith would not be needed.
Now as for our greatest example of love, lets look to God in the flesh, shall we? In fact, I have a sense that you still love Christ and his ways just as you did before you lost faith in him. How we managed to get by before he ever came remains a mystery to me.
Just some observations from a crazy theist.
Peace.
Does God Exist?
10 Feb '08 02:33
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