My Personal Crisis of Faith

reply to post by MyHappyDogShiner

If loving God ain't logical, I don't wanna be Spock.

reply to post by Thought Provoker


Which would you rather have, the passion to die or the logic to live?

That's how Spock would look at it.

Originally posted by GafferUK1981
Now when you use the phrase common creator to me that creator is evolution and not a god. Whether Jehovah, Zeus or the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

My belief carries evidence as evolution is an observable fact. I would like to know how you still can believe that we were created by god when evidence points to evolution.

With mankind's 5 senses, along with our brains, we can discern reality that is right before us.

But what about reports and data that we were not present to observe and witness? Would that means those reports and data are pure lies, didn't happen, figments of imagination, delusions, etc?

That's where 'logic' and reason comes into play - the rational methodology to sieve through reports and data to find the truth. Truth does create crisis, not only of faith, for it upsets your applecart of lies in your comfort zone, to face and confront realities bravely, painful as it often is.

I welcome atheists on ATS, as they often long to show their deluded sense of superiority in atheism and mocking others as irrational or delusional. This is nothing more than their suffering from an inferiority complex, to prove to others that they are right and find support for it. Guess it can be lonely being a minority in our faithfully religious world.

But it is not my job to change anyone. It can only come from their own free will and may it happen soon, than later, to be spared of the atheist's loneliness, delusions, longings for belonging and misery that lays deep down in their human hearts, when the layers of ignorance, arrogance and belligerances are stripped away.

Dear GafferUK1981,

You already answered your own question over who and what is God. "Now when you use the phrase common creator to me that creator is evolution and not a god". Re-read what you wrote. Will you deny or claim semantics as the issue over your belief in a creator, which was written by your own hand?

In the chronicle of the Jews - the old testaments - in the book of Genesis, it was said man was created in God's likeness and image.

Thing is,
1,) had ANY mortal ever saw God? Is he some white robed and white bearded figure sitting on a throne?
2.) how would the ancient scribes describe energies, molecular structures, etc, issues of science which they know nothing of?

'likeness and image' can mean many issues - physical mortal appearance, inward character traits, etc, and even something that no mortal had ever seen before - our souls.

We know today that our human body is made of DNA through the combination of other elements.It is not by random, but by intelligent design, for we do not see DNA forming other new kind of beings daily. We humans are one of a kind and had been for centuries, if not for millenia.

Our bodies contain 'electrical charges' - nerve cells from our brains to the rest of our body parts inorder for us to function. If those cells are dead, the human body shell cannot function.

But what of our souls? What are the chemical combinations, if any? They are none other than the electrical energies that give our brains and body parts functionality. We are light beings, existing in these DNA body shells to perform physical roles on this planet.

If we are light beings, then,' in His likeness and image were man created ' would mean...............

In our ancient past, when our ancestor plant a seed on the ground, water it, fertalize the ground, in time a fruit tree is grown. That's all they knew, unlike today when even a child is aware that based upon current known sciences, there is a lot more of processes happening then just mere planting of seed for food.

When an explosion occurs, we just see light, parts and smoke flowing apart. What else is created? How much do we truly know based upon our limited scientific knowledge today? And critically, what actually and really happens in a 'big bang' in the vacuum of space? Had any mortal witness it, beside just spouting infantile theories and hypothesis of current known science?

Sorry for the long post. My point is...there is still much to know and learn. Shutting the mind up only leads to ignorances, which will have impact and consequences upon our lives later when reality strikes.

reply to post by SeekerofTruth101

With mankind's 5 senses, along with our brains, we can discern reality that is right before us.

Please Google solipsism. Do your research, then come back to me and tell me that our reality is reliable.

That's where 'logic' and reason comes into play - the rational methodology to sieve through reports and data to find the truth. Truth does create crisis, not only of faith, for it upsets your applecart of lies in your comfort zone, to face and confront realities bravely, painful as it often is.

I welcome atheists on ATS, as they often long to show their deluded sense of superiority in atheism and mocking others as irrational or delusional. This is nothing more than their suffering from an inferiority complex, to prove to others that they are right and find support for it. Guess it can be lonely being a minority in our faithfully religious world.

First you praise rationality, then demonize those who USE rationality. Make up your mind.

Sorry for the long post. My point is...there is still much to know and learn. Shutting the mind up only leads to ignorances, which will have impact and consequences upon our lives later when reality strikes.

Goes for both theists and atheists.

reply to post by AfterInfinity


Thanks for you quick reply proving your incomprehension of what I had simply wrote, and your one liner replies.

Proves my points in my post exactly.

reply to post by SeekerofTruth101

Guess it can be lonely being a minority in our faithfully religious world.

I can see what kind of mind you possess from THIS line...not that I'm concerned. Such insults are the tantrums of a four year old who has yet to understand the laws of a reality it is reluctant to accept.

I don't need religion to be a good person. All I need is my big boy pants and an honest heart. What do you have? A desperate need to preserve yourself by proving to your imaginary deity that you're worth sparing. Okay. Right. Have fun with that.

reply to post by AfterInfinity


Running away, to fight another day? Seems happening pretty often around here, sadly, but nevertheless, logic and truth will always truimph.

Atheists often MISUSE 'logic' and 'rationality' as their exclusive right, that others who disagree with them are 'irrational' and 'delusional'.

Let's start with an example on their 'rationality' or 'logic', using Darwin's theory, based upon supposed 'science' that mankind descended from apes thousands or hundred thousands of years ago.

Fine. I have an open mind. I will play along with their 'rationality', 'logic' and 'science' that they determined as the rationality methodology to determine truths. NOW...which ape had built cities and stepped on the moon?

All I see is only homo sapiens doing it, while monkeys are still swinging from trees to trees and bananas are their treasured fruit. Is this my 'reality' alone, or is everyone else seeing the same thing as I do?

I can go on and on with many more examples, but many will get the drift with that simple example.

My humble point again - Never be proud with one's ignorance. There is still much to be learnt and know, with open minded rationalization, than close minded stupidity posing as 'rational' minds. But still, it is one's free will and choice, to seek truths, or be comfortable with stupidity.

reply to post by SeekerofTruth101

NOW...which ape had built cities and stepped on the moon? All I see is only homo sapiens doing it, while monkeys are still swinging from trees to trees and bananas are their treasured fruit. Is this my 'reality' alone, or is everyone else seeing the same thing as I do?

You might be seeing the same thing as other logical people but your not understanding it.

I guess, it safe to assume you have no knowledge on evolution soon as you stated we were from monkeys and why monkey still swinging in the trees.

If Americans and Canadian came from England... why do England still exist?

Apes are our cousin, us and apes shared same ancestor.

We've adapted to a system where we started using tools and apes stayed on the system where they developed skills in the their habitat that did not need invention of complex tools.

reply to post by grayeagle

If you genuinely ask these questions, how is that evil? If asking these questions means you're condemned to hell then there's no freedom in heaven, is there? What freedom?

Free will means little if there're too many rules and only two roads: hell and heaven.

I confess I stopped being a christian probably 10 years ago almost. It was a long time before I could say "%$$ God!" inside my mind without feeling bad about it. It came to a point where I realized that I have no reason to believe God exists so it's like saying "#$%@ the cookie monster!" Why worry about something that's just a fairy tale inside your mind? So basically I've not been a christian for a while and I see no reason to be one. Besides, the world as it's is too complex for a monotheistic religion or a religion that's not tolerant of "sin". Sin is just another word for secularism or dramatic shifts in people, generally. What's evil about secularism? In my view, unless a person directly harms another or commits an obvious crime, they're a human to me and I desire to refrain from judging them.

Religion is a mind trap. It's an addiction. It's a crutch. It's just a way for adults to leave their parent's home and still feel like they have someone to watch over them and fix every problem they have. Religion is a hand to hold when your mind feels alone or confused about the world. It's dogma. It's where the blind go or would like to be. Unthinking people who do not desire to be mentally free.

I'm not offering you a cookie. To a standard issue christian I'm a blind sinner, a heathen, an evil doer by proxy, a person to not be trusted since the devil is the biggest deceiver of all. When I was younger, I too feared secuarlism and humanism and other religions and so on. I knew that fear. Anytime I was faced with adversity I would shun it because I feared being turned to the dark side by the devil. But I never really knew the light. Christians don't get it that they're not in the light. They're not really even in the dark. They're just in safe place, a sheltered place. They don't know how to think on their own. They're kept there by their reliance on the dogma and their fragile nature.

I'm not trying to trick anybody, unless it's myself that I'm tricking. I simply am offering an olive branch, a symbol of peace and freedom. But I also know that freedom is not free, so much. Along with freedom comes adversity and responsibility. Mental freedom is just as scary as physical freedom. They both have their lonely and frightening places. Freedom is never easy to learn. So as I say all this I'm dreadfully aware that the moment you leave religion and dogma and float freely as a mind, your life will change and may not change for the better, at least at first. Just like when a child grows up and leaves the family into the big scary world, you don't want to move too quickly and get hurt.

I would love if there was a God just to wrap everything up. Or if there was just a way to forever remember past events so that things aren't forgotten. I would also love there to be some sort of after-life for the same reason. Sometimes I find myself hoping that heaven and hell really do exist. Not for myself (I'm going to hell for sure), but for those who believe. I pity them sometimes and feel sorry for them. I also am brutally aware that when we die we probably don't go anywhere ... our mind just shuts off and our body decays and is reabsorbed into the earth. But if heaven and hell are real, at least people go somewhere. At least my aging dad won't disappear from the face of existence when he dies, although I can't say he'll actually make it to heaven. It's strange. You would think that I'd want believers to not be believers. But I pity them so much that I sometimes wish they were right. I also understand that my mental freedoms would not be understandable to believers. In fact, they might be threatening or worse. So I often keep my thoughts to myself in the midst of believers.

Just know, I, a sinner or not, love you. As a human. As a life-form. We're all life-forms. From the single celled to the multi-cellular, from the simple life to the complex life, from fish to people. Cell per cell, ants are as plentiful as humans. There're so many life-forms just on this single planet.

reply to post by jonnywhite


You don't understand a whole lot about the conservation of energy, do you? That's why I don't think my personal beliefs are about faith so much as incomplete data. Science supports everything for what we would call a "god", although the word "god" is like calling a unicycle a motorized vehicle. There's way too much stigma attached to the word.

Don't get me wrong here, I'm glad you recognize the implausibility of the CHRISTIAN god. That doesn't mean there isn't a certain consciousness, it just says we don't know crap about it. That's really the healthiest place to begin.

reply to post by guitarplayer

One of my concerns is if we are not to be just observers, withholding help when we know how to do good, but to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the sick, is God holding us to a higher standard then himself? I am talking about the here and now. If nothing escapes his notice, the bird that falls to earth, then how does he stand by and watch the children I have seen abused. I know many will say that it is man's sin that is causing it. I agree it is man's fault however that doesn't answer my question. Could you stand by while a little child is raped. Then my painful question is how can God? Pain and sorrow are things I experience in immediacy. I have trouble denying their immediate consequences. To take that position that pain and suffering are all good because it strengthens us and makes us better people allows us to dismiss the pain and suffering of others as inevitable and to be desired. Could you stand next to that small child and tell them to rejoice in their pain and suffering because it will make them better people? There has been a whole lot of pain and suffering in this world and I don't see any positive results. I don't see the world or people getting better. If we see evolution as the effort to better survive then why don't we see it not just change the physical but change the more important behavior. If we look around at human behavior it appears to me that it has gotten worse. We have less assurance of our survival every day. I ask these question with all sincerity! I am not ashamed to ask them nor do I think that I blaspheme God because I ask them! Obviously it is important to me!

reply to post by SeekerofTruth101

Running away, to fight another day? Seems happening pretty often around here, sadly, but nevertheless, logic and truth will always truimph.

Point number one: your logic and wisdom could be beaten soundly by a third grader, but that requires you to listen and comprehend. All you're good at is parroting.

Point number two: I don't argue with idiots. They drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.

Point number three: every time I read one of your posts, I can feel my IQ dropping, so for the sake of my rationality, I'm going to save myself the trouble of rising blood pressure and just accept that you are incapable of critical thinking skills. Your previous posts are examples of this, considering you mistake popular opinion held by drones for incontrovertible fact, and won't listen to a word otherwise.

My humble point again - Never be proud with one's ignorance. There is still much to be learnt and know, with open minded rationalization, than close minded stupidity posing as 'rational' minds. But still, it is one's free will and choice, to seek truths, or be comfortable with stupidity.

Coming from the fundamentalist. You crack me up.

Have a pleasant day, and may every higher power in existence have mercy on your soul. You're gonna need it, I think.

reply to post by SeekerofTruth101


Why do you assume I am lonely. I'm not the one with an imaginary friend. I have good friends and family and a beautiful girlfriend, I am far from lonely. Also I don't believe in spirituality so I'm not lonely in that sense either.

For such a long post you still can't offer evidence that god exists, all you can say is that there are answers we don't know. I strongly agree but that doesn't mean a god did it. Science has dismissed tonnes of things that people thought god did.

reply to post by GafferUK1981


There are Christians who make a point of displaying the rationality and reasonable intelligence that theists are capable of...and then there are Christians who throw every rule of logic that has ever moved our species forward straight out the window and dance around saying, "My imaginary friend rules! My imaginary friend rules!"

And then people wonder why the atheists are so determined to separate themselves from the madness. I would compare it to giving a psychiatric patient wide berth. There are many solid cases to be made for the existence of consciousness much deeper than any of us is used to accepting, a consciousness that can be said to be responsible for the cohesion of our physical and metaphysical reality, but Christians take it and turn it into a giant cartoon before insisting that's the only way to look at it.

reply to post by grayeagle


Only God can answer your question, but religious faithfuls will share their expirences.

The hurt and harm you see in our world, as explained by many on this thread, is only of our doing, through either our apathy or selfish desires.

Imagine yourself as having superpowers, to save every human being from harm. You CAN, as you have that power to do so. But at the end of the day, what purpose had you truly served?

You had only given a 'crutch' mentality on mankind, to depend ALWAYS on you to appear to set things right. But would mankind be able to learn from their mistakes, progress and evolve? No they won't. They will forever be retards, and be robots waiting for the technician to repair. But we were not created to be robots, but to be thinking, analytical and rational beings to fulfil His destiny for us to the stars.

I comprehend your pain, for the insignificant nobody me is an empath too, and suffer with even one reported harm done to an innocent, man, women or child. We have to grow up, help ourselves and confront realities with the gift of free will given, to find ways to alleviate sufferings so as to leave none behind.

It is not impossible. Alone, you and I are powerless. But when combined with more and faith in the moral and ethical teachings given to mankind to progress and evolve, we have the ability to move mountains given time and change the world. And metaphorical mountains had indeed been moved by our forefathers as history had provened.

reply to post by SeekerofTruth101


Also I don't think you are smart enough to grasp evolution. We have not evolved from monkeys, we have evolved from a common ancestor to the monkeys. They have also evolved, they haven't just been the same swinging in trees forever. They like us have evolved to suit their environment.

I strongly suggest you bin that bible, it won't teach you anything. Read a science book and allow yourself am education even if it does contradict with your desires. You'll just have to accept that you're wrong.

Originally posted by grayeagle
reply to post by guitarplayer

 

One of my concerns is if we are not to be just observers, withholding help when we know how to do good, but to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the sick, is God holding us to a higher standard then himself? I am talking about the here and now. If nothing escapes his notice, the bird that falls to earth, then how does he stand by and watch the children I have seen abused. I know many will say that it is man's sin that is causing it. I agree it is man's fault however that doesn't answer my question. Could you stand by while a little child is raped. Then my painful question is how can God? Pain and sorrow are things I experience in immediacy. I have trouble denying their immediate consequences. To take that position that pain and suffering are all good because it strengthens us and makes us better people allows us to dismiss the pain and suffering of others as inevitable and to be desired. Could you stand next to that small child and tell them to rejoice in their pain and suffering because it will make them better people? There has been a whole lot of pain and suffering in this world and I don't see any positive results. I don't see the world or people getting better. If we see evolution as the effort to better survive then why don't we see it not just change the physical but change the more important behavior. If we look around at human behavior it appears to me that it has gotten worse. We have less assurance of our survival every day. I ask these question with all sincerity! I am not ashamed to ask them nor do I think that I blaspheme God because I ask them! Obviously it is important to me!

I do not believe God is holding us to a higher standard. I believe that God has all the power to stop the conflicts of the world and more, but that he wishes people to be more than just observers and take action against it simply for the reason that we can. He gifted us free will, and with that we can make many changes, good, and unfortunately, bad.

I think another simple mistake you are making is to humanize God. God feels pain for a raped child, for the hungry, for the unjust, but I believe (I can't prove anything, it's just belief) that God sees the possible outcomes as well, the possible futures, the potential we have to stop this. He sees also in a higher aspect than just and unjust. He sees the interconnectivity and the light at the end of the tunnel, so to speak. Therefore, God can be as patient as he wants to be.

I can't really explain myself well here, but I know I got a really new view of God from looking up ascension and discerning what was important from key sources. That helped me not blame God as much and blame more of the human corrupt.

reply to post by AfterInfinity


I have to admit I find it hard to have a conversation with a Christian. I feel the same way talking to them as they would if I told them I believe in the tooth fairy.

Yes us atheists may be guilty of acting superior but we have educated ourselves so our knowledge is superior. I'd much rather keep reading facts and learn more about the world than to read an old book that is just becoming more redundant every day.

Thanks for the support sometimes it feels like the lunatics have taken over the asylum here.

reply to post by GafferUK1981

Yes us atheists may be guilty of acting superior but we have educated ourselves so our knowledge is superior. I'd much rather keep reading facts and learn more about the world than to read an old book that is just becoming more redundant every day.

I feel I should inform you that I am not atheist, but theosophist, as I don't believe in a deity so much as I believe in conscious energy. That is, I believe that we have mistakenly defined an entity that is not an entity so much as a law in and of itself. It's a behavior more than anything, and that behavior, that law, determines everything else because everything else relies upon it. It is the one key element that connects everything, but it isn't a "god" - yet there is an intelligence to it, only because the sum of its pieces gives it intelligence, so I can't say that it isn't divine either.

I hope that makes sense.

What's with the atheists on this thread?

Had I offended them? If, so, let me state clearly my apologies to each and everyone of them. I meant them no harm, for they are my fellow human brothers or sisters, children of our common Creator, so long as they had hurt or harm no one.

Don't they have threads on their own, to wallow in their self pity,self delusions of intellectual superiority, misuse of logic and reason, misplaced absolute faith in our current limited knowledge of science, in their infantile mocking of God and the majority of faithfuls in our world, and find comfort and solace with their own kind?

After all, the OP had stated clearly he is no atheist but a religious faithful, and had categorically stated he blamed not God. So why the atheist's angsts, mockery, display of their inferiority complex, confusion and ego boosting on this thread? Had they lost even their common value of compassion for a religious faithful, who is equally a fellow human brother to them all, with shared common values in life sharing our world?

Karl Marx is the prophet of Atheism, but he was NOT born an atheist. He only became one when he saw the depredations of organised religion that had misused the teachings of the divine for their own selfish agendas, the way it is common even today, more so once again with the orthodox church in Russia.

It is good for religion to support a secular democracy for peace and stability, but equally, religion must make a stand if the human masses rights had been trampled upon. It was not done in the past, only partially done in today's world, and thus the rise of a few mankind who foolishly believed those beasts represent divine teachings, which is not.

Karl Marx was the product of when religion was misused. So too the many mainstream terrorist militant groups whom wilfully misused religion for their own ends. But there are many more whom seek for the truth, and do have the ability to discern between earthly religions and divine teachings by our common Creator.

May the atheists be equally discerning, and seek for the truth, not just based their beliefs on our limitied knowledge of science or misuse logic and reasoning.

The insignificant nobody me is NOT the epitome of truth, for I am still seeking and building upon what little I found, the way a true rational being who calls himself a human would. However, it seems all atheists on this thread had stopped searching, and believed themselves the epitome of truth. I lie not, just refer back to their posts and see their arrogant remarks.