God

[bash]

this forum has been pretty lonely, so i thought i'd start a thread about God.

i used to believe very deeply in God. in fact, I was a missionary.

now i'm about 99% convinced that there is no God.

i'm not happy about this, but i just don't believe anymore.



(how's that for a conversation starter? ;-)

[Sharon]

That's quite a statement from an (ex?)missionary. #When or what happened in your life to make you change your mind? #How long were you a missionary and what part(s) of the world did you serve?

[bash]

i was in thailand with a group called the navigators. i can't say what exactly changed my mind. i guess it was the implausibility of me being absolutely right and everybody else being absolutely wrong.

[Sharon]

"i guess it was the implausibility of me being absolutely right and everybody else being absolutely wrong."

If you are referring to God and Christianity I doubt you found many believers there, but I wouldn't give up my "faith". #I was raised a catholic and really didn't have much faith in religion back when I was younger so I left the church after 30+ years. #There was alot of tragedy in my life (before and after leaving the church) that finally turned me toward God and that is when I found my "faith" and the strength to go on in life. #

I know that God exists. #I see it everyday, especially in the little things. #When people tell me they don't believe in God I always say; "Well, maybe you don't, but God sure believes in you." #I know it's kind of sappy but it's true. #By the way, I'm not the type that tries to convert anyone. #To each his own, on their own and in their own time.

[bash]

i would love it if you could covert me. i don't want to give the impression that i'm happy about my fall from grace.  i was much happier when i believed in god, and i would very much like to have that faith again.

the problem is i don't see God everyday, in the "little things" anymore, like you do. if God believes in me, I wish he would tell me about it. for ten years, i interpreted all kinds of things as signs from God. but God only sends you signs if you believe he does, so it's kind of circular reasoning.

there was a women i knew in thailand who was supposedly possesed by a deamon. all the missionaries made a big fuss over her, especially when she would have her "fits". they all saw this as proof positive that spiritual forces were at work. to me, it seemed pretty clear that she was just trying to get attention.

i think that once you decide to believe something, you fit your experiences to what you have decided to believe. for example, if you are crossing the street and a car almost hits you, you might believe that God sent an angel to protect you (i'm not saying that this is what you believe, it's just an example).  if a thai bhuddist had the same experience, he might think that his good karma protected him, but since it was a close call, he had better go to the temple and do some good stuff to recharge his karma for next time.

but i've come to believe that life is just something that happens to you, and there's no master force in the universe directing it all. that's kind of a depressing world view, but it's the one that makes the most sense to me after 36 years on this earth.

of course, i could be wrong. if so, i'm f***ked for eternity. that would be a real bummer. but what if i lived my life according to the teachings of jesus, and it turned out that bhudda was the real deal. how do you know?

[Sharon]

Like I said, I don't try to convert anyone. #It may be harder for you to rediscover your belief. #For me, seeing the "little things" makes it easier to handle the big nasties in life. #I don't try to interpret things as signs from God. #He gave us free will so if I do something really stupid it's my fault not his. #Most (not all) of the unbearable things that have happened to me are not because I did something wrong but because someone else caused the problem. #I don't blame God for these things, nor do I think he is out to get me. #

My experiences have taught me that while I may forgive someone for their wrong, I won't forget (Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me) and just go on. #I have become wise beyond my years, discipline and use of common sense are good traits also. #If something in your life is amiss, change whatever it is (lifestyle, friends, family, job, etc). #And most importantly, don't let #the past haunt your future. #

Sometimes it's impossible to change things fast enough and you just have to live through it. #It helps to see the light at the end of the tunnel and keep a positive outlook during this time.

[vraiblonde]

bash, how plausible is it that there is one God and one Jesus and they only care about Christians?

I've gone from atheism to fundamentalism over the years, and what I've come up with is this:

There is no "God" as purported by the various religious groups. #The entity that we call God isn't #a seperate being, but rather a part of each and every human's person - call it your soul or spirit, whatever.

If you read the Bible, you'll find that all evidence points to this. #I'm not talking about the watered-down version they teach you in church or Sunday school, but the real honest-to-goodness read it yourself Bible. #I'm an Old Testament kind of gal - I love history and the OT is rich with it - stories of human nature that hold up even today, because people don't really change, they just think they do. #You'd recognize our world leaders, your neighbors and possible even yourself in the stories of David and Nathan, Naomi and Ruth, Jacob and Esau.

We laugh at Greek and Roman "mythology", but what gives Chrisitanity any more credence than stories of Zeus, Hera and Aphrodite? #There are many different religions in the world - who's to say that one is "right"? #Because, by definition, if one is "right", then the others must be "wrong" and I'm not willing to believe that a small segment of the population has all the answers.

Why is Jesus the savior and not Buddha or Mohammad? #Their lives virtually parallel one another. #Also, why is Jesus always depicted as a blue-eyed Caucasian when he was most certainly dark like his middle-Eastern country mates? #None of it makes sense, which I guess is where faith comes in.

I think that if you find the God within yourself, you'll have no need for organized religion.

[bash]

it sounds like me and blonde have walked similar paths.

the bottom like for me is, i don't know the answer, and i'm not even sure i'm asking the right question.

i have a hard time beleving that evolution is responsible for life as we know it on this planet. there's just too many holes in the theory, especially how it all got started. even the simplest amino acid is impossibly complicated, and putting one together by chance from random chemicals in a swamp is highly unlikely. then you need a bunch more of them to get together to form one protein, which you need a bunch of to form dna,  and after all that you still don't have life. even a zillion monkeys in front of a zillion testtubes for a zillion years couldn't make an ameoba.

if fact, francis crick, who discovered dna, believes that earth was seeded with dna by aliens from another planet.

given that option, god makes more sense.

but, be honest blonde, the God of the Old Testament isn't anything like the God you describe. you don't find him in yourself, you find him killing babies in egypt, or raining fire on homosexuals, or smiting the phillistenes. if he were doing that today, we'd be slaping him with trade sanctions ;-)

i'm just yanking your chain...

[Frank]

"if fact, francis crick, who discovered dna, believes that earth was seeded with dna by aliens from another planet".

That would certainly explain the sudden explosion of life on this planet. Earth was a completely lifeless ball for a few billion years, and then wham! life covered the planet. Of course, once life got started, even if randomly, you'd expect it to spread fast.

I have a lot of feelings on the subject as well. I once was a fundamentalist, and I once gave up my job in hopes of becoming a missionary (it didn't work). And I'm not sure what I believe now. I want to believe that my existence continues beyond death, but I can see no reason to expect that, from nature - I was created from practically nothing and grew into what I am, and beyond my intelligence, I see no reason to suspect I have a "soul" any more than I'd expect it to be in an insect.

I guess what I've wanted all along is enough of a mystery to give me hope that there's more to life. Something I can't explain away, and convince me that hope for life beyond death isn't just wishful thinking.

[bash]

it's depressing as hell to be an exsitentiallist.

why do we worry about what happens to us after we die but not about where we were before we were born? if life is eternal, shouldn't we have a past as well as a future? this is where bhuddism has a better argument than christianity.