I stopped believing in God because I realized that I never had a good reason to believe in the first place. I believed because everyone else did. But then I started seriously studying religion. I read the bible, the koran, the vedas. I studied buddhism, hinduism and taosism. None of them made sense.
Seriously, have you ever read the bible? Just read Genesis through Leviticus. If that god exists then I want no part of him. But maybe the god in the bible isn’t the real god? So who is? Would a god really allow people to fight over the right way to worship him? He could clear it up pretty easily and save a lot of lives. That wouldn’t violate free will, it would simply be giving mankind accurate information.
If there is a god, which book does he want you to read? The bible? The koran? How could you choose one over the other. Especially when both of them contains stories that are adopted from older mythologies. There is as much evidence to support the existence of Zeus as there is to support Yehova or Allah.
Without religion in the world, there would be one less thing to fight about. The world could always use one less thing to fight over. Religion does no good for the world, yet the negatives are easy to see.
For the better part of my life i did not belive in God, or atleast what modern socities general image of god is. When i heard the word god i thought of some person or higher being that created us out of clay controls the weather. What I have realized during the past few years of my life is that we are notwhat we think we are. We are not images in our minds we are the creators and the ones observing them. And other people are not these images eitherthese images are simply created throguh our likes, dislikes and beliefs about what we see the person doing or saying. This is not just limited to people but everything, to realize that the mind is completely virtual can be the begining of true self awarness, and that all the images we create are simply conceptual ideas, a mirror of the truth but distorted throguh our own point of view and belifs about the image, including God. From what i learned the word god wasfirst meant to represent that of witch can not be spoken, a connection a force that binded all people, plants, air and the universe together. This undeniable connection between everything that is. What i came to realize is that god is not an image in our minds, that god is everywere god is life. We are this force of life we are god, we are the force that makes the grass grow the force that moves the clouds that allows for a child to become an adult, that allows our cells to move, and our lungs to expand. This all powerful force with in everything all people, animals, plants and objects. Every single atom is alive with its own intelliganc
I’ll just jump right in, I guess.
I was baptized catholic, then when I was four my family left and became non-denominational. Long story short, I’ve pretty much distanced myself from organized religion since age sixteen. I haven’t really had a life-changing experience in terms of my belief or disbelief in God, nor have I ever harbored any ills against those who call themselves Christians. I am not agnostic, nor do I profess to have any solid answers to questions of profundity. Basically, I am spiritually at peace.
I believe in God, but not insofar as to claim He is indeed the God of the Bible with unwavering conviction. I believe Jesus was definitely a spiritually enlightened man, perhaps more so than many non-christians seem to understand. I also do not think he was wrong to claim that he was the Son of God. The people of that time period could grasp that concept, wether or not they believed him when he said it. However, I also don’t think that means there haven’t been other ‘Sons of God’ throughout history.
There are COUNTLESS Eastern philosophies and religions that intertwine with the numerous cultures that are and have been there. Too many actually, to list in one internet post. Here are three belief systems from Asia with which I’m fairly familiar through study that I hope will illustrate my ‘Son of God’ statement a bit better.
Siddhartha (the man who, for all intents and purposes, founded the basis for Buddhism) also claimed to have a perfect comprehension on the spiritual world, and proceeded to spread his teachings to the peoples in his region of the world.
Lao Tse, the father of Taoism, while he didn’t claim supremacy in a spiritual sense, did indeed try to spread what he professed to be ‘The Way’ to live one’s earthly life.
In Traditional Indian Hinduism, people believe in a thousand-or-so different gods, but they’re all manifestations of one God. Many of the unnamed forms of God are overlooked often, but there are a handful of named gods that have had more significance in Hindu history. Among these are Shiva, Brahma, and Vishnu. Vishnu is believed to have ten incarnations of earthly form, each of which exist one at a time in the physical world. Apparently, most mainstream teachings claim that these seven avatars (as they’re called) have already come and gone, six of which were animals, one of which was human. The remaining three have yet to appear on earth, but it is thought that the eighth avatar will be a tree, the ninth a horse, and the final avatar will be a human, and he’ll bring an end to the world.
I didn’t intend to write all that much, but if it helps make my point, so be it.
To sum it all up, I can honestly say that I DO believe in God. I believe in a superior spiritual entity that somehow exists beyond time and space. I also believe God has indeed imprinted himself upon this earth through the existence of humans, but of course, I’m unable to say we’re the ONLY beings to bear this honor. I further believe that no human can claim to have ALL the spiritual answers, even if they attain some super-enlightened state, but only some.
Since I’ve obviously neither clarified nor concluded anything, I’ll just end this post by saying this:
In all I do or think, I feel most spiritually sound when I keep my mind as open as my heart and hands should be to anyone with true sincerity. I try to love all, judge none, and live with passion, peace, and purpose.
in the beginning I was living 110% in the world. I lived with a drug dealer. When I became pregnant I still used drugs without a care for anything or anyone but myself. When I was 6 mos. pregnant, still in street clothes, I didn’t know why, but found myself walking with only the clothes on my back to Teen Challenge. I had nowhere else to go. Knowing Teen Challenge was only for males, I was hoping they knew of a place I could go to. They referred me to a newly-opened women’s christian home. I was taken in and literally forced to go to see a doctor. I don’t recall ever being so scared. The doctor, after hearing my history, sent me for an emergency ultra sound. I recall him saying - this baby will never be normal! The ultra sound was ok. I was put on prenatal vitamins and sent home, having to see the doctor once a week. Three days after I got to this home a woman visited from an African missionary. She talked with me for hours. She prayed over my unborn child. It was an amazing experience. I knew my child would be ok. I felt something take place inside of me (spiritually and physically). Each week thereafter my baby grew to the exact cemtimeter. The doctor was amazed. I was amazed. I gave birth to a healthy baby boy. This happened as a direct intervention by my Lord, Jesus. He healed me from drug addiction. He healed my son from the addiction and harm I passed onto him in utero. This is one of many experiences I have had and this is why I believe in God.
Thank you for opening up this forum to express some reasons to reject the god of the Bible and the Christian church. Many, if not most, of these reasons are succinctly and forcefully expressed at this website. I’m sure you don’t wish to plow through all 25 reasons in a discussion, however, so I’ll put just one on the table:
The New Testament Gospels, while perhaps containing some factual elements, are largely works of fiction. There is very little reason to accept them as an historical record.
Why do I believe? It’s an interesting question for me to reflect on, because I don’t feel like I necessarily made a choice to believe. It feels more accurate to say that belief chose me (if that makes any sense). For the first 18 years of my life, I believed there was a God much in the same way that I believed there was a moon - sure it was there, somewhere up in the sky, but as far as I knew it had no bearing on my life. I never really thought about it, nor did it make a difference to me. I considered myself a pretty good person, but it wasn’t because I believed in God. I was a kid whose life always seemed to go the way I wanted it to go, and I rarely had reason to think about God.
The summer after I graduated high school, I was invited to a church youth group that three college kids had decided to run, just for that summer. I honestly can’t remember much that was taught at that group, but I do remember recognizing that there was something real there, something that was unexplainable and different than anything else I had ever experienced. I was beginning to realize that it was possible to actually know God, that somehow there was more to God than my concept of some distant, unknowable being.
Near the end of that summer, I had an experience which shook me enough to make me realize that my confidence in life was simply due to the fact that everything always went my way, and I was hardly as together as I thought I was. When I went off to college that fall, I went around to all the parties the first week of school, but for some reason they all seemed fake to me now. It was as if I had experienced something real that summer at that youth group, and now the party scene just seemed fake and lifeless. I went back to my dorm room that second day of college, got on my knees, and told God, “I know where I belong, and it’s with you.” Nothing miraculous, no fireworks or angels singing or anything. I just climbed into bed and went to sleep.
A couple weeks later, as I was reading the Bible, I found Matthew 7:24-27, the end of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. In that passage, Jesus explains that anyone who hears his words and lives his life by them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock, so that when the storm comes, the house still stands, while anyone who hears his words and does not live his life by them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand, so that when the storm comes, the house collapses. As I read that passage, I understood what had happened to me that summer. I believe God had shown me, in the gentlest way possible, that my life was built on sand. As long as everything went well for me, I had no need for God. But when the “storm” came, I collapsed. I was beginning to realize that the only secure place to build my life would be on God.
That was fourteen years ago. Like I said in the beginning, I don’t really feel I like I chose to believe. Even though I never really thought about God or even knew there was more to life than what I could see, God graciously pursued me, showed me that He was real, and that nothing else in life could compare to knowing and following Him. And, having experienced the reality of God, there is no possible way I could ever go back. Following Jesus these past fourteen years has been in many ways much harder than the alternative. I’m constantly being challenged to be selfless, to be generous, to forgive, to live fearlessly, and to trust in what I can not see (but then again, I’m following someone who was executed on a cross and experienced the punishment we deserved for our sin, so I really can’t complain). But I’m fortunate enough to see the before and after, to know what my life was like before Jesus and what it is like now, to know that this Jesus thing is real and has transformed me to the very core of who I am. In many ways, it has been like waking up to reality as it truly is, understanding who I am and what I was created to do.
This belief in Jesus thing, this living in the way of Jesus, is not an easy thing to get across to those who have never experienced it for themselves - I mean, how do you explain that reality as you are living it is not really reality, that there is a quality of life that is infinitely more ALIVE? I know the Matrix analogy is sometimes worn out, but it may be the best there is - you can choose the “blue pill” and believe whatever you want to believe, or you can “take the red pill” and experience true reality for yourself.
