Ok im 21 years old grew up going to church but now I just find it absurd to belive such a thing. ( just so you all know im not bashing religion just sharing my views hoping for some advice) I Find most people that belive in god/christ to be very ignorant. for example most belive God pretty much just snapped his fingers and there was life. What about all the other religions are they wrong? are they all right? what Religion is is a belief it is an act of faith so most need nothing to prove it to them ill give my mother as an example (who i love very much) she doesnt question anything about religion and hates that me an my dad talk about diffrent things about religion and question it. and my dad does belive in God but he does questoin things. And I am a good person I dont steal I dont cheat I havent done anything real wrong when i was young 13-15 i stole some little things from stores but havent in 6 years.
So does this make me a bad person in your eyes?
I do have my beliefs but they go by no religion.
Thanks to everyone who will/has read my post
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I'm in a rush but will do my best to answer your post with God's leading.
Ok im 21 years old grew up going to church but now I just find it absurd to belive such a thing. With the examples you see today I can totally relate to where you are coming from.( just so you all know im not bashing religion just sharing my views hoping for some advice)ok I Find most people that belive in god/christ to be very ignorant. for example most belive God pretty much just snapped his fingers and there was life. No my friend..it's not ignorance ..it's called faith. Most real Christians are simple folks who trust in God's Word 100%. His Word tells us that God simply spoke the world into existance. God has given us HIs faith in our hearts to believe not only that but believe unto salvation.What about all the other religions are they wrong? Yes they are all wrong. none of their founders has ever risen from the dead. They all have bits of truth but our God is the Truth.There is none other nameto be saved by except by Jesus . This of course is inHis word as well.are they all right? what Religion is is a belief it is an act of faith so most need nothing to prove it to them ill give my mother as an example (who i love very much) she doesnt question anything about religion and hates that me an my dad talk about diffrent things about religion and question it. and my dad does belive in God but he does questoin things.{ Probably why you question things..nothing wrong with questions. I would encourage you to read your New Testament from cover to cover..I'm confident if you do God will reveal Himselfto your heart.}And I am a good person Jesus said thereis none thatis good. WE were born into corruption because of Adam..Read the Word ..it willshow you more about you than you ever knew.I dont steal I dont cheat I havent done anything real wrong when i was young 13-15 i stole some little things from stores but havent in 6 years.
So does this make me a bad person in your eyes? YOu are lost my friend. Read the Word...and God will reveal Himself to you and your eyes will be opened. Begin praying each mornign for God to save your soul. Talk to him..He loves you. I do have my beliefs but they go by no religion.
Thanks to everyone who will/has read my post Your are quite welcome c7
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Ok im 21 years old grew up going to church but now I just find it absurd to belive such a thing. ( just so you all know im not bashing religion just sharing my views hoping for some advice) I Find most people that belive in god/christ to be very ignorant. for example most belive God pretty much just snapped his fingers and there was life. What about all the other religions are they wrong? are they all right? what Religion is is a belief it is an act of faith so most need nothing to prove it to them ill give my mother as an example (who i love very much) she doesnt question anything about religion and hates that me an my dad talk about diffrent things about religion and question it. and my dad does belive in God but he does questoin things. And I am a good person I dont steal I dont cheat I havent done anything real wrong when i was young 13-15 i stole some little things from stores but havent in 6 years.
So does this make me a bad person in your eyes?
I do have my beliefs but they go by no religion.
Thanks to everyone who will/has read my post
Are you a bad person? We are all bad people, and deserve to burn in a firey hell. Once a person get over themselves, and realizes this, and realize only good is Christ in us, they are better off.
I used to question it, as you, and I am not ignorant, I think. I am a Lead Engineer for a optics company. My friend, your just a little mislead, is all I can say. Work with someone to explain the Bible, and God. And make a decision. I used to question everything as a sciencetist, but God bascially talked to me, when one day I was completely broken.
If you have life by the tail, and count on your own freewill only, then you have no room for God, and its almost impossible to hear or feel what he is trying to tell you. Thats the reason, its more of a belief for the poor.
Cowboy, there's a major league difference in questioning and them being honest concerns, and using 'apparent' conflicts to hide behind. . I grew up in the church myself, but went through a period of questioning as well--deep questions. I approached them honestly and openly wanting to know. Some people have concerns about their health. One will go to the doctor because he wants to know what the problem is and what can be done about it. Another ignores the symptoms, and doesn't want to face the problem, because he is afraid of what he might find, only to see the problem eventually become irreparable.I found that there are answers to most questions, and more than enough to confirm the validity of our faith. Another point is that faith is not some stab in the dark that you just 'believe' without any substantiation. God says Himself, "Come let us reason together. Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow." Faith is only as good as the object it is placed in. Before you place your faith in anything,it should be checked out and your mind should be involved. The biggest problem is that people's hearts get in the way of their minds--the don't want there to be a God, because if there is , they have to be accountable to Him,and remain in charge of their ownlives--so they use all kinds of reasons to explain Him away. If you truly want to know, you can. If you don't,there's not enough vidence available to change your heart. God provides sufficient evidence to those who are open to seeing it.
If you are serious and want to know, let me recommend a couple of books by a former skeptical lawyer who was challenged to disprove Christ, and His resurrection. One of his students challenged him to use the same methods that he would use in a courtroom, to prove or disprove the historicity and validity of Christ and the resurrection. He took the cahllenge expecting to show the student up,but ---long story short---when he had his eyes open , he saw the inevitable, and is now a leading defender of the faith. He certainly isn't ignorant or unlearned. His name is Lee Strobel. The books I recommend are; A Case For Christ, and A Case For The Creator, and one by Josh McDowell called, Evidence That Demands a Verdict.I pray that you won't be influenced by outside pressures, such as you mentioned(your father in this instance) to keep you from finding out for yourself.Faith is anything but ignorance. Those that IGNORE the facts or turn their backs on the obvious are theignorant ones.
I dont know. thanks for your responses though. I just dont find the things in the Bible plausible such as I cant belive in Genesis They talk about there being giants. And I think the craziest thing of all is beliving in Adam and Eve because if that where the case then there would have been Imbreeding and that would mean everyone on the planet is related. correct? It has to be if we started from a singleMan and a Woman. and the last person that posted before this said "I pray that you won't be influenced by outside pressures, such as you mentioned(your father in this instance)" but my dad belives in god but he questions diffrent things. I Find enjoyment in Watching the History channel and reading books about this kind of subject and I have found nothing that I can belive. I would like to dont get me wrong but it just is so hard to belive in something that just seams so impossible.
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Just a little nugget of truth.
It makes a lot more sense when one realizes that God knows more than he does. As long as we are thinking that we as the created, are more intelligent than our creator, we will have problems serving God.
I think you will find that most on this site are not ignorant, neither are they stupid. I may be the exception to that rule.
I believe it was Benjamin Franklin that said: All men are born ignorant, but one must work hard to remain to remain stupid.
The bible says that if a man thinketh that he knoweth anything, he knoweth nothing as he ought to know.
I dont know. thanks for your responses though. I just dont find the things in the Bible plausible such as I cant belive in Genesis They talk about there being giants. And I think the craziest thing of all is beliving in Adam and Eve because if that where the case then there would have been Imbreeding and that would mean everyone on the planet is related. correct? It has to be if we started from a singleMan and a Woman. and the last person that posted before this said "I pray that you won't be influenced by outside pressures, such as you mentioned(your father in this instance)" but my dad belives in god but he questions diffrent things. I Find enjoyment in Watching the History channel and reading books about this kind of subject and I have found nothing that I can belive. I would like to dont get me wrong but it just is so hard to belive in something that just seams so impossible.
Lets settle some questions. If you believe there is a God, do you think he can do anything? Also, if you believe there is a God, that can do anything, and nothing is impossible, do you really feel you as a man could ever comprehend his ways or him? And if you could comprehend him, or his ways, would he be much of a God? I mean we are mere humans, we have only scratched the surface to the mystery of the universe. In the big scheme of things, we are like ants on the ground trying to understand who are these large animals walking aroundwalking on us. They have reached thier limits for understanding, and I bet think they got it all figured out. When in reality, they have very little figured out besides how to survive. You ever believe us humans are like that? At the limit of our understanding, and thats not much?
Do you know what emperical science is? Many scientist believe its the only known science, only real fact or truth. It means an experiment can be repeated and proved. Rest are fancy stories we call hypothisis, or theoies. I am sure the ants on the ground has theories about us walking around. The beginning of the universe, or big bang theory, or even Adam and Eve can not be proved by repeating over and over. Its beyond our understanding. Closer you get to God, the more you see how weak man is. How he lacks understanding of something bigger, due to arrogance.
Everybody sooner or later in thier walk will question things. Its very difficult for us to not believe and question and struggle to understand, but wait one day until you find out how easy it is to believe. At least I pray you will.
Seth, is that your real name? If not, PM it to me. I would like to pray for you, my friend for understanding and grace. And I can't pray for a user name. It just doens't feel right.
I was like you at one time, and God showed me his power, or a glimpse of it. I don't know why he picked me. I had life under control. I grew in my company to high levels of engineering. I had people underneith me. When I talked in board meetings, people listened. I never liked the idea that I wasn't in control. I had 8 million dollars of stock options. I had big expensive toys. I traveled all around the world, and controlled my own destiny. Failing was a unknown feeling for me. But starting in 2001, my wife left me, while I was traveling in California for business for almost a month. All I cared about was my career and my money. I thought no big deal, still got my job, and still got my green. Our stock dropped from 200 dollars a share to 1 dollar during the tech crash along with the scandals and all. Well that sucked, but hey I still got my health and still got my job. I was laying off people by the dozens. We went from 4500 people to 1000. Friends, good engineers, all of them without jobs living beyond thier means driving 100K cars, and living in 8K sqrare feet houses. I thought at least I am strong and have my health. I got diabetes, lost 30lbs in like 3 months, had liver damage, and all kinds of other issues. (all this in 2 years). I started stumbling. I was failing everyday now. I lost over half my strength. And around march 27, 2005, I was driving to Kentucky to see my family. On the way, around Morgantown, WV, I heard God tell me, "are you ready to submit to me?", "or do you want to keep living living by your own will, only calling out to me when you are down". I took one step in his direction that day. Just one little bit of faith towards him. And next I am in a old pentacostal church. Crying uncontrollably, and I got a glimpse of the glory of God almighty. It was incredible.
Cowboy, it's normal to question what you can't explain. I would bet that most (if not all) of the professing Christians on this site probably questioned their beliefs at one time or another. Manuman gave you some excellent books to read to give you an idea of how you can be sure of what you believe. Let me add Josh McDowell's More than a Carpenter to the list. It's a paperback, not too long and easy to read. It was written by another man who set out to disprove the belief in God . . . and found out the truth.
I don't have the time to write down a list of Apologetics (reasons to believe), but just for example . . . all but one of the 12 Apostles was martyred for their faith -- horribly tortured for believing in Christ and teaching about Him. They KNEW HIM and would not have been willing to die so horribly for something they knew was a lie. How about the guards at Christ's tomb? They knew that they would be executed for allowing anyone to steal Jesus' body from the tomb, and yet He arose and walked away. Why would they die for something they didn't believe in?
Thousands of reasons like this exist for believing in God, but one more. . .
Look around you and see everything out there. God created all of it, from scratch using nothing. He can do that because He IS God and has no limit to His power. It didn't just get there by pure chance. Now THAT would require real faith.
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Cowboy, I'm 21 years old too. Like you I grew up in church and went through probably alot of the same stuff you're going through around my sophmore year of High School. I won't say that I lost my faith for a season...but I found it so hard to actually buy into all the church's "stuff". I never considered the creation theory less likely than the evolution theory. Had no doubt that the bible was written by men who meant well. But did it all add up? What held it together? If so, why are so many people who claim to be different no different at all, or worse yet, restraining themselves because "so-and-so" told them to? I never lost a "want" to believe it all, but sooo many questions with sooo few answers. The generic bible-school answers didn't even come close to answering the stuff I wondered about. In a nutshell this is what I learned from all of it: Religion, and church, is really really screwed up and just wrong on so many issues. Right on some, but wrong on others...and not always because they mean to be...but they just are. Human nature takes something perfect and can completely ruin it. Religion and church are unimportant in my eyes. (I realize I have a different definition of "religion" than some people...so for all the other guys out there please don't get too hung up on that.) Its about a relationship with a man named Jesus. And if you've ever had a serious relationship with a girl you know that relationships take effort on your part. You won't always have the answers or know if what you're doing is right when you first start out...but you better put an effort out there or the thing is over. I think it kinda works out same way with Jesus. The good part is that he won't high-tail it and run the first time you screw up.
I know this doesn't really answer any questions but it lets you know another's been where you are and decided that its good and true. Feel free to PM me if you'd like. We can chat out some of the details to whatever topics you're wondering about.
God Bless,
Houston
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Anything I say is my opinion, just that...and only that.
"...and what does the Lord require of you, but to do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God?
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