I want to believe in God but it's too hard how do I believe in God?

I want to believe in God but it's too hard how do I believe in God?

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You have to surrender your doubts and put blind faith in Him.

this is pre gud

I want to believe there's a woman out there with good looks who cooks and cleans and who isn't a complete cunt. But the evidence doesn't seem to support it. Sorry, user. There's still some amazing stuff in the universe though, you just have to have a positive attitude.

Read C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity

He makes a bunch of really good logical arguments for the existence of a standard for morality, then a creator, then THE creator, and so on and so forth.

If you'd like I could post a few quotes from it that rlly make u think

Faith comes by hearing the message, and the message is the word of Christ

Please do! Not OP btw but I might get that book for my gf who is Buddhist

okay, this is one that encompasses that universal feeling of the need to worship, or at a more base level, feel like you belong to something greater than yourself

>“The Christian says, 'Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A baby feels hunger: well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim: well, there is such a thing as water. Men feel sexual desire: well, there is such a thing as sex. If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing. If that is so, I must take care, on the one hand, never to despise, or to be unthankful for, these earthly blessings, and on the other, never to mistake them for the something else of which they are only a kind of copy, or echo, or mirage. I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country, which I shall not find till after death; I must never let it get snowed under or turned aside; I must make it the main object of life to press on to that country and to help others to do the same.”

Essentially what Lewis is saying is that within every human being is a desire to be a part of something that this universe cannot fully offer, but rather that this universe is full of echoes of that greater belonging itself.

another quote, this time regarding a Standard of Morality. CS Lewis uses the Nazis as an example because the original format of Mere Christianity is actually in the form of radio broadcasts during WWII

>The moment you say that one set of moral ideas can be better than another, you are, in fact, measuring
them both by a standard, saying that one of them conforms to that standard more nearly than the other.
But the standard that measures two things is something different from either. You are, in fact,
comparing them both with some Real Morality, admitting that there is such a thing as a real Right,
independent of what people think, and that some people's ideas get nearer to that real Right than
others. Or put it this way. If your moral ideas can be truer, and those of the Nazis less true, there must
be something—some Real Morality—for them to be true about.
The reason why your idea of New York can be truer or less true than mine is that New York is a real
place, existing quite apart from what either of us thinks. If when each of us said "New York" each
meant merely "The town I am imagining in my own head," how could one of us have truer ideas than
the other? There would be no question of truth or falsehood at all. In the same way, if the Rule of
Decent Behaviour meant simply "whatever each nation happens to approve," there would be no sense
in saying that any one nation had ever been more correct in its approval than any other; no sense in
saying that the world could ever grow morally better or morally worse

Thank you so much user! I'll make sure to get this book!

And thank you for explaining the examples!

It's neat and np, even if you don't totally ascribe to the idea of Jesus being the son of God (it's something I personally struggle with), but in that case, I will leave you with a final quote


>“I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”

> Bible
> morality

Only someone who's never read a page from a Bible could think there is morality in it.

>appeal to morality to disprove god

KEK

Don't.

Why does it matter, OP? Just live your life to the best of your ability; if its not real, then it won't have mattered, but if it turns out to be real you'll still have been a moral and just person.

I attend mass at a christian church. I believe more in the values and the community that I experience.

If you want to believe in a tangible thing, just think of God as the ideal consciousness from all sentient living beings(human and non human). "God" exists in all of us as an idea, but not as a physiological entity. That's what gives me pretty good closure.

>I attend mass at a christian church. I believe more in the values and the community that I experience.
You don't get to pick only the stuff you like, your god is very needy when it comes to worshiping him. While you have good intentions and I wish more people were like that, please don't think you're Christian for going to church. Read at least a small part of the Bible and you'll realize the hipocrisy.

Believe that the common course between lovers is putting another man to between you two, or to between your legs as a way of saying that your husband comes first and before then my boyfriend does, the real one.

God is more a female facade, anyway, because men naturally have to object themselves to very real outcome that we have nothing unless someone grants us a body of their image as a way to confer that within them we hold ourselves glory and no other way around it. Otherwise women entrench in ideas of deceit and lie and without them we have only the hope that a loveless marriage will offer up a consequence of a life of love or a love of life as the way that we make ourselves useful to women by making them spoils of petty cash.

I didn't say I was Christian, but I will take you up on your offer to read the bible. Always shied away from it.

Start with something easier, like your invisible childhood friends. Work your way up through Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, etc.

They exist, just not for the likes of you

Not being a dick because you're afraid of "hell" and "gods wrath", isn't actually intrinsically moral at all.
It's hard to believe because it's absolute bullshit.

A lobotomy is a good start.

>I didn't say I was Christian, but I will take you up on your offer to read the bible. Always shied away from it.
I wish I could convince my mom to read the damn book. She has "discovered god" (not through the bible, obviously) and now thinks non-christians are lesser people :-(

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A Grace is needed. Pray for it.

>them both by a standard, saying that one of them conforms to that standard more nearly than the other.
>But the standard that measures two things is something different from either. You are, in fact,
>comparing them both with some Real Morality, admitting that there is such a thing as a real Right,
>independent of what people think, and that some people's ideas get nearer to that real Right than
>others. Or put it this way. If your moral ideas can be truer, and those of the Nazis less true, there must
>be something—some Real Morality—for them to be true about.
>The reason why your idea of New York can be truer or less true than mine is that New York is a real
>place, existing quite apart from what either of us thinks. If when each of us said "New York" each
>meant merely "The town I am imagining in my own head," how could one of us have truer ideas than
>the other? There would be no question of truth or falsehood at all. In the same way, if the Rule of
>Decent Behaviour meant simply "whatever each nation happens to approve," there would be no sense
>in saying that any one nation had ever been more correct in its approval than any other; no sense in
>saying that the world could ever grow morally better or morally worse


That's an offered proof for the existence of a moral standard. It certainly doesn't depend on Christianity. Buddhists have moral standards and they don't believe in God.

>Essentially what Lewis is saying is that within every human being is a desire to be a part of something that this universe cannot fully offer, but rather that this universe is full of echoes of that greater belonging itself.


Again, proving nothing about God and certainly nothing about Christianity. Buddhism covers this as well.

Why would you wanna do that? There are infinite universes with infinitely different laws of physics. That means that any religion you can imagine is true somewhere. It also means there must exist universes where it seems like one religion is true when it is actually false. We may be ruled by evil aliens, how would we know? Maybe Yahweh and the Bible is real, but he specifically designed the religion so as to only reward those who didn't see any reason to follow Christianity. How would we know? Since everything is possible, a grand God must exist, but there's no reason to believe it interacts with our universe, our that it wants us to worship.

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Yeah the first level of hell is where all the cool dudes that didn't believe in God went, so you get to chill out with the ancient Greeks.

You have to pray for faith.

In other words by making people more scared thet become right wingers, that makes a lot of sense actually.

>There are infinite universes with infinitely different laws of physics

This is an article of faith, not a scientific fact.

Substitute soubtd with critical thinking and you're right on the money.

Look at the world and how everything just kind of works. Do you think that all this got here from a random explosion?

I dont share this desire, tgis makes no sense. He is confusing desire with instinct in regards to the animals. I desire a godless universe, well if i desire it, it must exist. Its stupid. Not even all creature have the mental capacity to desire.

>standard morality

There is no standard morality, and there is no morality that is more "moral" than othere. There are moral doctrines that provide and make for a more cohesive and productive society. This does not make them more "good" OR "moral" they are simple more beneficial to human society and survival.

>the jesus qoute

An omnipotent god is very capable of doing what jesus did, and would be in the realm of possibility that he was god. Its also possible he was a charasmatic cult leader. There is very little evidence to suggest his god hood, so i'll leave it at that. Although, if he was a god or had god like powers, it does kinda take the power and importance of his crucifiction away. Is it really a sacrifice of you are an omnipotent being, knowing the future and being able to change all at will? I do not think so.

Btw this is also a misqoute

There is no god, but there is a caveat to this.
Humanity has an anthropological need for religion.
It used to be a glue for society that taught morals, and encouraged prosperity.
I think this is why a lot of smart successful people still claim to be religious.
It's not meant to be taken literally.

>who isn't a complete cunt.
Maybe women aren't the problem, user.

There is no God. Religion is just an excuse to control people, don't fall for it.

God is energy, energy can neither be created or destroyed, is everywhere, has power over all things (i.e energy is gravity but also defies gravity) and energy caused the universe to be created. I think what you're prioritizing first is wrong, if you cannot believe in God because of your faith in "reason", then put it to the test of reason, do what Christ commands, see if you gain some sort of connection. The meaning of life is to love, love is denying yourself to benefit another, this is what a lot of religions teach, there's clearly some universal truth to it.

This falls apart when you think about it from an evolutionary point of view. Wouldn't blame Lewis, as he's early 20th century but come on dude it's 2018.

why do you want to believe?

Even so, I cannot know the truth either way, so I should live as though any truth is possible. I may know many particular details and relations within the universe, but I don't know the whole, which gives the most accurate and relevant relation among all existence.

>so I should live as though any truth is possible.
That's impossible, there are many truths which are contradictory, you can't live as if all of them are true.

Sure, I can't go through life thinking that my food has been secretly poisoned, but that's not a practical way of living. As for more theoretical and abstract ideas, like religion, I don't really choose one over the other, but accept that one of them could be true. In other words, if God told me a true statement, no matter how absurd it is, I would have no trouble accepting it, and not just because God told me. If aliens told me, I would bring the idea much closer to my mind, seeing its validity, but still leaving the possibility open that the aliens are lying, or they're as relatively ignorant of the world as we are.

god isn't real

>As for more theoretical and abstract ideas, like religion
If you think religious ideas are theoretical and abstract, and can therefore be sequestered away from the practical, then you don't understand religion at all.

Anything related to survival or reproduction is practical, since staying alive and sex are our main desires. All else isn't that practical in achieving our biological goals. I don't need to stress over which one is correct when I don't perceive any effect on my life.

which religion*

If you don't believe religion would have any practical effect on your life you clearly believe none of them are true, not all of them. So why not just say you're an atheist instead of whatever weird opaque self definition you keep using?

I believe it's possible for all religions to be true. Since I cannot know which is true, I don't see feel the need to choose one. I'm not atheist because I do believe in the existence of gods (they must exist somewhere). I tend to agree with the Greek myth about the gods being created by the universe (Chaos), and not the other way around. I prefer this belief, but I don't claim that I'm right. I haven't yet formed this into any practical lifestyle because I don't have much knowledge to work with when dealing with such a shallow belief.

Someone mentioned C.S. Lewis. I'd recommend Kierkegaard.

There's a parasite that removes mice's fear of cats; they end up getting eaten.
Only a fool conflates the beneficial instinct of fear with the vice of cowardice.

you dont
if you arent stupid and dont easily fall victim to self-deception
YOU ARE FUCKED