GX

Hello Susan!
I was once at the point that you are at right now (as Im sure many here were at as well). I felt that a God exists but couldnt believe the religious BS you have a hard time believing as well i.e. how could a loving God throw people in hell who dont believe a certain way etc. You are listening to your heart, common sense and in my humble opinion, God.

Im not sure which direction you wish to go in at this point but I will make some recommendations if you wish to explore the possibility of a God that isnt at all like the one earthly religions make him out to be. As far as tangible proof is concerned there is alot of near death experience research out there you may wish to look into and to consider. People who have died and come back report that there is no such thing as hell or the devil and that God is not the crazy hateful neurotic being that religions make him/her out to be and that there is more than one path to God etc.

The following website links to much research about near death experiences among other things: www.near-death.com
If you like what you see there, I highly recommend reading "conversations with God" by Neale Donald Walsch. It is not a religious book but a spiritual one that debunks the old idea of God and answers a lot of questions one may have. It really resonated with my core being on what God must really be like and answered a lot of questions I had about the purpose of life etc.

I wish you courage and the best on your search and quest
GX

susangail

Hello everyone, sorry I haven't been on in a long time. I see I have a couple questions to answer.

You know, it's funny, this has made me realized that I have no idea why I believe in god. Sorry for not being able to answer your question. I do understand that there is no real evidence to prove or disprove his existence, and there is no real reason to believe in him, so maybe I am just crazy. I've always been told that he's there, so I've believed it. And even now that I realize all that I've been taught may be bogus, I still believe god is real. I'm flat out confused about everything concerning god so bare with me.

Sorry for not explaining properly what I meant about what I believe. I believe in god, just not exactly everything I've been taught about him all my life. I don't think I can say I 'reject the christian concept of god' because that's the only one I know. I reject the modern church's concept of god. I'm sorry if that doesn't make sense but I don't know another way to explain it. I want to find out for myself what I believe and not just have blind faith in what others tell me. Also finding out why I even believe in god would be helpful.

And Skepticologist, I'm not sure what you mean when you ask what the god I believe in looks like. Maybe I misunderstood you, but I have no idea what god looks like. Ha or maybe you're trying to make the point that there is no evidence of his existence. Or maybe I'm totally off and I need to zip it and let you clarify.

Hope that clears some things up, and if there are more questions or I missed some, please post more. I will be around more this time.

Susan

debdodd

Welcome Susan ... and no need to be sorry about taking time getting back to us ... in the big picture ... we're not as important as the living of your life ... many of us get busy with life and find that we haven't checked in for several months ... take you time with all of this .... there are many opinions here some that make you question more and others that make total sense and some that make you say WTF?? You'll meet many interesting people on forum, so have fun and under no circumstance be afraid to ask questions of others. Remember you can always Private message (called PM) someone if you have a question and don't feel comfortable asking it on open forum. Enjoy your time here and once again welcome. Deb

__________________
"Ubi dubium ibi libertas."

"We are all lone souls. It pays to know humility, lest the delusion of control, of mastery, overwhelms. And indeed, we seem a species prone to that delusion, again and ever again ....."

Skepticologist

I certainly didn't mean "looks like" to connote anything physical. My response was more a reaction to your assertion that God exists for you, but in some form other than that depicted by Christianity. So, if you don't like the God depicted by Christianity, what are the alternative characteristics of the God you choose to believe in?

If you haven't already seen where all these questions are leading, I'll boil it down for you. It's pretty easy to reject the Christian, or for that matter the Muslim or the Jewish or the Buddhist concepts of God based on their assault on reason and logic. But that leaves you with the question, "What do I actually believe about God?" based on whatever your criteria are for belief.

Once you've rejected the traditional concepts of God, based on logic and reason (i.e., they make no sense to you), you step out onto a very slippery slope that leaves you devoid of anything to believe in with regard to a supreme being because you have no hard evidence for his or her or its existence. And that leaves you without a handy set of ready-made answers to all the questions of life (e.g., why am I here and where am I going?).

And it's precisely at that point that you either come to grips and get comfortable with the idea of simply not knowing, or reject that idea and fall back on a concept that doesn't make sense to you, but at least provides you with some answers.

__________________
"I am an agnostic; I do not pretend to know what many ignorant men are sure of."

Clarence Darrow

susangail

Ok, I see what you're saying, and first off, I'm going to have to say that for me, it wasn't easy to reject the christian concept of god. It was a slow and painful process that I'm still not finished with. But I do have to agree that the aftermath is worse, and I'm afraid I'm going to have to say that I don't know what the characteristics of the god I believe in are. The fact that I'm rejecting my christian upbringing is still very new to me. It may be for that reason that I still believe in god, I don't know. I am rejecting just about everything I've been taught about him, but for some reason, I can't reject his existence all together.

In all honesty, I have no idea where I'm going with my beliefs. I may, like you said, fall back to my christian beliefs with the convenient answers. Or I may take the other extreme and reject god altogether. I admit, I am afraid of not having something to believe in and to answer all my questions. I haven't considered the idea of simply not knowing. I've never had to consider it and I don't know if I'm brave enough to just 'not know'. I think I would be more comfortable with atheism or christianity, which would be one crazy extreme to the other. Agnosticism makes the most sense, but in my opinion, it's the hardest concept to accept (at least for me).

So I'm basically just restating what you already said and providing no answer to the question you've asked more than once and I'm sorry for wasting your time. But thank you. You've given me a lot to think about and I might actually get somewhere this time.

Susan

__________________
"...I firmly believe, looking at these results, that if there is a God, it has to be a man. No woman could or would ever [screw] things up like this." ~George Carlin

Og

Buddhist concept of god is "you are it"... The divine is all things. Buddhism is about recognizing your unity with the divine and escaping from the ego prison that separates your awareness from this reality.

There's nothing unreasonable about this. I'm not buddhist, but I think that their philosophy makes a lot of sense.

__________________
Vi veri veniversum vivus vici. (By the power of truth, I, while living, have conquered the universe)
The self is not a fixed entity but a dynamic process of relationships
You & I, no distinction. - Tat Tvam Asi
Become Who You Are

Skepticologist

Hey Susan,

Nobody, at least here I hope, said it's easy.

First, I feel a very real need to acknowledge and applaud you honesty. It's very refreshing to me, at my age, to know that there are younger people out there who refuse to swallow the BS that organized religion, or organized politics, or organized anything tries to shove down their throats. From my perspective, as long as there are thinking people who ask relevant questions about how things are, there is hope for the world. Consequently, you're in no way wasting my time. You are, instead, making the time I spend on this forum essentially worthwhile and, for that, I thank you.

With regard to your post, it wasn't easy for me to reject the Christian concept of God either. It's what my whole life had essentially been based on over my first 40 years. It's what my parents and my first wife believed, and what my one remaining parent, and my ex-wife, and all three of my children, continue to believe.

Rejecting it meant alienating myself from a lot of people who were, and still are, very important to me. But, in the final analysis, I really had no choice in the matter. I could have continued to espouse a set of beliefs that would have kept me in the good graces of the family members and friends I had cultivated, but only at the expense of my own integrity. And I discovered that, even though parting with my previous beliefs set me up for alienation from people I loved and cherished, I couldn't continue to espouse them if they were incongruent with established science and my own personal experiences.

So, here I am, and here you are, with virtually no clue as to what life is about, or why we're here, or what lies ahead for us. But I've come to the very strong conlusion that I'd rather end my life without answers to all the quetions than to adopt some fantasy that has no basis in reality or logic.

__________________
"I am an agnostic; I do not pretend to know what many ignorant men are sure of."

Clarence Darrow

laceknitter

I'm in the same boat. As I find the Christian concepts failing me, I don't know WHAT to believe.

Danlo

I think there is a lot of pressure on people to be seen to 'know' what they believe. In my opinion, what is more important if for people to be constantly questioning their beliefs. ie. a state of limbo isn't necessarily a bad thing!