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Remember one thing...GOD is so vast and so out of our comprehension that it or HE does not care if you believe in him or not. The problem here is religion..Most of us have this taught notion of what GOD is..that he is a human being...a guy with a long white beard who fires lighting bolts at badly behaved people. Myth will refrain some of us from believing. Toss the myth aside. There MUST be a force or source of all. The older I get the less I believe in a God of myth...which is a comforting concept...I do believe more in GOD as I mature - a God that can be distant...with out any human attributes...A cold God...a God of ice- and of fire....People will foolishly say - How could God allow that poor child to die of cancer? - billions are born and billions die....either you believe that you are eternal or you don't - It's actually a choice. I choose to believe because it is more intelligent to do so...All I have is my human intelligence...and it states...without religion..THERE IS A GOD...You might not like what IT is - but it exists.
Remember one thing...GOD is so vast and so out of our comprehension that it or HE does not care if you believe in him or not. The problem here is religion..Most of us have this taught notion of what GOD is..that he is a human being...a guy with a long white beard who fires lighting bolts at badly behaved people. Myth will refrain some of us from believing. Toss the myth aside. There MUST be a force or source of all. The older I get the less I believe in a God of myth...which is a comforting concept...I do believe more in GOD as I mature - a God that can be distant...with out any human attributes...A cold God...a God of ice- and of fire....People will foolishly say - How could God allow that poor child to die of cancer? - billions are born and billions die....either you believe that you are eternal or you don't - It's actually a choice. I choose to believe because it is more intelligent to do so...All I have is my human intelligence...and it states...without religion..THERE IS A GOD...You might not like what IT is - but it exists.
Belief is not a choice, Oleg. Either you are convinced by the evidence or you are not.
Actually belief is a choice John, atheism is a conclusion based on lack of evidence.
True in a sense that believers choose to believe, but what they are really doing is choosing to live AS IF something were true. Their knowledge of and belief about what is really true is belied by the fact that when faced with life threatening illnesses and situations they fight as much as anyone to stay living.
At some level most people have enough neurons in communication with one another to know what's really true about life, death and everything in between but for a variety of reasons choose to act contrary to it. The biggest fundamental reason is that they've been conditioned from birth to think that they can't handle reality and that they need religion's Chinese walls to protect them from it and keep it out.
I started having doubts about the existence of God about 10 years ago.. I just couldn't believe in something I couldn't see. I also didn't think there could be a God with so much bad stuff in the world.
Well, now I kind of wish I had some kind of faith. I'm scared of dying and losing the people around me. Would having some kind of faith give me some comfort and peace? I also can't imagine dying and being at all. There has to be something after death, right?
I'm just so confused and don't know what to think. I don't believe what religion represents, so I don't think I'd ever be a church goer.. but I wish I had some kind of faith.
Any advice?
I'm sorry. All I can offer is empathy. This seems to be very much the way I felt some 15 years ago (except for the scared of dying and losing everyone around me part). I hope you will be alright.
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Originally Posted by kgordeeva
I also can't imagine dying and being at all. There has to be something after death, right?
There doesn't *have* to be anything. The most logical thing to happen at death is to not exist anymore. Did you grieve for anything before you were born? Imagine how it was before you were born and then you can imagine what it might be like when you die.
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Originally Posted by kgordeeva
I'm scared of dying and losing the people around me. Would having some kind of faith give me some comfort and peace?
Faith can certainly be an entire delusion. There is no proof to back it up. The comfort I take in that then is that death will end for me the painful sense of loss I have. There is nothing I look forward to more than to that. I'm not sure if faith would give you comfort and peace; I imagine that it would but then it might be different for everyone. Usually faith grows weaker at times and then grows stronger again (for some; for others it just goes away), so there will never be, in my opinion, an absolute feeling at all times of comfort and peace even if you do have faith.
Well, to the Op, kg, that's a slice of advice and suggestion. I do hope it might be useful and you find a way of getting into coping mode - whichever way you do it.
True in a sense that believers choose to believe, but what they are really doing is choosing to live AS IF something were true. Their knowledge of and belief about what is really true is belied by the fact that when faced with life threatening illnesses and situations they fight as much as anyone to stay living.
At some level most people have enough neurons in communication with one another to know what's really true about life, death and everything in between but for a variety of reasons choose to act contrary to it. The biggest fundamental reason is that they've been conditioned from birth to think that they can't handle reality and that they need religion's Chinese walls to protect them from it and keep it out.
I believe what you are describing is "faith". And, of course we know, that faith can lead to belief, as a form of pseudo-evidence.
Why be scared of that? There's more to be scared of in living and in gaining more people to worry about. There can be an infinite amount of things after death, all happening at the same time. Worry about all of those. Do you remember what happens to you while you sleep and don't dream?
Would having some kind of faith give me some comfort and peace?
Only you can answer that for yourself. Do you think lying to yourself.... in order to make yourself feel better about things you can not change anyway.... would give you peace? I know for me the answer is no. But clearly some people answer yes.
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Originally Posted by kgordeeva
There has to be something after death, right?
I see no reason to think there is anything "after death" let alone that it "has to be".
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Originally Posted by Miss Hepburn
You might enjoy reading near death experiences.
That is somewhat off topic given the OP is asking about after death. Actual death. And how to mediate his life and emotions in the face of the apparent facts around it.
The problem with NDE is the N. NEAR death. They patient/people did not die. They just had experiences while still alive. And many of them insist on extrapolating that experience into the total false and unsubstantiated non-sequitur that there is an after life or souls or some other kind of nonsense.
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Originally Posted by SeekerSA
Actually belief is a choice John
Speak for yourself. I for one am entirely unable to believe unsubstantiated claims. It is not a choice on my part. I am simply incapable of it.
Speak for yourself. I for one am entirely unable to believe unsubstantiated claims. It is not a choice on my part. I am simply incapable of it.
Belief is only a choice in the manner that you can refuse it. But you *cannot* believe on your own, and you are absolutely correct in stating that you are unable to believe unsubstantiated claims, that you are simply incapable of it. It is not your fault, and it makes me sick, sick, sick to see Christians look down in contempt on atheists just for their inability to believe (now, they can hold them in contempt for some other things, like they if they get all rude, vicious, and ridicule them for their own beliefs).
Rather, a believer should grovel on the floor in complete humiliation and abject remorse for their pathetic state of existance at the knowledge that God should gift them, an entirely unworthy, despicable being with such an awesome, holy and wonderful blessing. It is sick, it is disgusting, and it infuriates me to no end. I apologize whole-heartedly for the rant, yet I just cannot stand to see this sort of thing going on.
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