These last few threads seem to be getting heated once again so I wanted to momentarily try and break up the never-ending battle over trying to “prove” whether God exists or not.

I have sat at my computer and read a LOT of these daily quarrels and, on occasion, I might ask a question or throw in a comment but for the most part I just read. I try to be non-judgmental and un-biased in hopes that one side or the other (Christians or Atheists) will win me over on whatever the subject matter is for that thread. ALL of you are extremely intelligent and very articulate and I enjoy reading your posts most of the time. It’s obvious this battle has been going on long before I started being a bleacher creature and each of you seem to know a lot about one another’s backgrounds and beliefs which leaves us readers in the dark sometimes.

Since I haven’t been around from the beginning, I’m wondering if each of you would mind giving me (and the rest of the bleacher creatures) a little insight on how you reached the mindset you have today regarding the existence, or lack thereof, of God. From what I gather most of your beliefs regarding God have either strengthened throughout your lives or diminished all together but I may be wrong about that and am hoping you don’t mind my asking for a little history regarding your individual mindset.

If you don’t feel comfortable sharing this information I completely understand but I at least wanted to ask. I also thought this might be easier than my random interjection of questions in the middle of HIGHLY DEBATABLE subject matter. :0)

Hello Idle mom,
Here's a response I gave to 8 Ball a couple of weeks ago.It sort of answers your question.
I copied and pasted the entire response.Some of it is not in context to your quesion.

8 Ball,
When someone is willing to discuss the Bible, I take it very seriously, because I believe their eternity is at stake.You said you were looking for a noted historical figure that documented Jesus and His works, “Just one.” I pointed out several.

“I'm supposed to believe in a book that talks about talking snakes, the rising dead, great pleagues, parting seas, angels, demons, and more just because some person, my next door neighbor for instance, says it's all true"

No.

I haven’t always believed the Bible either. All Newly Saved Christians imo, would probably say the same thing. I remember, I laughed to myself when I first heard a SS teacher talking about Noah’s Ark as if it were actually true. LOL… .

However, as the months went on, and then years, I came to the conclusion that the stories of the Bible are true. Not because my Pastor believed it, but because the Bible itself I discovered, is beyond reproach.There were no contradictions, there were hundreds of prophecies written, then hundreds of years later they came to be.Archeological discoveries give strong evidence how accurate the Bible is.

There has been lots and lots of critics of the Bible, over a period of many hundreds of years . They make statements such as “one can’t rely on the Bible, because the Bible contradicts itself.” I’m here to tell you that I’ve heard hundreds of these apparent contradictions, never has one been able to stand up to the test of scrutiny, once the charge has been put forth…not one!

That in itself is amazing.We all know that humans make mistakes and have poor judgment. Ask most policeman who arrive at a wreck, if there are 5 witnesses, odds are you’ll get slightly different versions of what happened. There will inevitable be contradictions in the story.

Now we have a “Book” actually it’s not one book it’s a total of 66 books, put under one binding.One of your neighbors didn’t write it, 40 did.
Those 40 men documented 1500 years. The Gospel writers documented what they saw over a 3 year period.They didn’t document one accident scene where they were sure to contradict themselves. They recorded dozens of events of a 3 years period.

If humans can’t get the story of one accident scene correct, what are the odds of 4 people getting 3 years worth of events w/o contradiction., If you’re honest, its not humanly possible, yet it was done, because God had his hand in it.The Bible proves the authenticity of the author.

What I came to understand was the Bible authenticates itself. It’s strong evidence that it can only be from God, because humans couldn’t have pulled it off all by themselves.

Consider too that the Bible is in large part a documentation of human history. There has never been an archeological find that contradicts a story in the bible. No single archeological discovery has ever contradicted a story of the bible. That’s evidence to me the Bible can be trusted in what it recorded.

“Why should you believe the Bible because your next door neighbor does?”

I don’t believe the Bible because my neighbor does, or my Pastor does. I believe it, with the assistance of the Holy Spirit, which I believe one must have, in order to even begin to understand the Bible, The more I understood the Bible, the more authentic it became to me. It didn’t become authentic because as you said, my neighbor thought it was. .

I can tell you my own “experience” was a night and day one. I got saved by a co-worker who shared the Gospel message with me He’d been bugging me for months to become a Christian. He really got to be annoying after a while. Finally, one day,just to shut him up, lol. I was having lunch with him, he convinced me now was the time. So, he lead me in a prayer right there in the restaurant.

This guy didn’t have a church he went to on a regular basis. I had no church. I had no direction at all of what to do next. I really didn’t know I had to do anything next.

However, there was something new started to happen to me, that never happened before. For some reason I was motivated to listen to Christian teachers on the radio and TV. I remember, I couldn’t get enough of Charles Stanley. I couldn’t get enough of Chuck Swindol.

I would seek these guys out everyday, At the time I had a roommate, I would actually hide the fact I was doing this, because it was such a drastic change with me, that I couldn’t explain, I was sort of embarrassed by it.

The point is, no one was telling me to do this. It was all coming from inside of me. I never before had this motivation to learn about God, but all of a sudden it was an overwhelming urge that I couldn’t resist. It was a night and day transformation I will also add, at the time I had one particular habit, that was not, shall we say, “Biblical”. That habit completely disappeared. There was no struggle, no battle to quit the habit, and there were no withdrawal symptoms either. The urge to do it, simply disappeared. How does one explain that? A the time, I didn’t try to explain it, I was just going along for the ride, a life changing ride.

Here I was, a new Christian and no one was giving me any direction on what to do, but imo, God Himself.

I eventually found a church to my liking and meet more people who felt about God the way I did.

I believe your experience is real, but no more real than mine and millions of other Christians. I know you’re convinced you’re right. Don’t stop searching, as you have appeared to have done. You’re eternity is on the line. Spending all eternity w/o God as you’re doing now, will be a lot different after you pass from this life to the next.I can assure you it won’t be comforting. I'm assured not because my neighbor or my Pastor believes it, I'm sure because this is what the Biblesays, and I've never found the Bible to be wrong with anything it says. Continue your search now while you still can, don’t shut down.

I've been in and out of church most of my life. I've attended Pentacostal, Baptist, Episcopalian, Charismatic, Bible Missionary and a few others. During hard times in my life I would cling to the church and do a lot of reading and "seeking." I would spend hours praying and studying the bible. But I had a hard time believing. I wanted to believe with all of my heart, but I just didn't know how. I didn't feel anything. I asked god to make the belief in my mind match the devotion I felt in my heart. In the end I just felt like I had been talking to myself.

To this day I have never felt what others feel. They claim to feel the presence of god or the presence of the holy spirit. The most I've ever felt is the same basic feeling of contentment or happiness that I can get out of watching a good movie or buying myself something. And I know that that contentment was just the happiness I felt from believing that I had found what I was looking for and had obtained the structure in my life that I craved.

I have found that religion is what you make it. If you believe that god speaks to you every day, then he basically does. You will hear him whether he is there or not. If you believe that god takes care of you financially, then he will. Because even if he is not there, you will pray when finances are hard, then praise him when finances are good, and claim that the fact that your needs are met are all because of him. When in fact, it would have all worked out the same whether you believed or not. Whatever you attribute to your god is what he does in your life. But I digress.

I've accepted that my life is the same without or without believing in any god. The only things that change are my outlook and attitude. My life may improve a bit, but it's only because of the confidence and contentment that comes with believing that an all powerful god unconditionally loves and takes care of me. But eventually I start realizing the truth, causing the foundation for my confidence and contentment to crumble. I'd rather be honest with myself, accept the truth as I see it, and move on with my life.

This post was last modified: Jul 23, 2008 09:41 AM by 8 Ball.

Dear lde,
Though I'm not posting much anymore, I would like the opportunity to share my experience with you and the other bleacher creatures.

I visited many different denominations in my 40+ years. I really wanted to be a Christian, but I didn't know how. I had read enough of the Bible on my own to know that all the denominations I visited did not line up with the Bible. I got involved with a large, non-denominational charismatic church for several years. When my mother died, I realized that their teaching was the farthest from the truth. I became very bitter and quit my search. I wanted nothing to do with churches.

After my third divorce, I began going out to clubs. I started drinking and smoking again. Something I hadn't done in many years. After a year or so, I married into a wonderful holiness family. I had never heard of holiness. My husband was the black sheep of the family and had been back slidden for almost 20 years. His family had some very strict standards and I thought they were a little weird at first. They were so kind to me and accepted me into the family. For 5 years I watched their lives. All of them. They lived the most godly lives of anyone I had ever seen. They never did anything un-Christ like. They never did anything "in the flesh" as I've heard some put it. Even their children, all ages, were respectful, obedient and mannerly. They never argued or talked back. They all made quite an impression on me.

Little did I know that they were praying for me all those years. One summer, I began to feel the Lord nudging me (conviction) about some things in my life that weren't right. I was beginning to think that there might be someting to my in-law's beliefs. My husband was already planning on leaving me, and I just knew if I told him what I was feeling, that he would be gone for sure. He had told me many years before that he would never go back to that life. I didn't tell him what was going on with me.

We went to visit a church camp meeting one Sunday. It was kind of a reunion for my husband. I felt such conviction in that service. I knew that even if I lost my husband, that was where God wanted me to be. I told my husband the day what had been going on wth me. I was shocked to find out that the Lord had been dealing with him too. He was afraid to tell me. We were going thru the same things and neither of us knew about the other. He too, felt like that was where God wanted him. We agreed that we would start going to church. Not long after that we both got saved. It has been wonderful. God has not only restored our marriage, but made it everything I ever dreamed of. I thought relationships like ours were only in the movies and romance novels.

That's been 5 years ago. It's been so wonderful serving the Lord. I have no regrets. He has met every need we have had. He has blessed us abundantly. Not just materialy, but spiritually. He guides us day by day. He answers so many prayers. His love, grace, mercy and kindness are more than words can describe. I love Him with all my being. If He never did another thing for me, I would still love Him and serve Him.

There is such a differnce in going to church, or having a lot of religion, and really serving the Lord. Many people now days, think if you go to church you're a Christian. Or if you believe in Jesus, you're a Christian. It's so much more than that. It's a lifestyle. It's having a clean, pure heart. It's keeping yourself clean and pure before Him. It's daily dying to self, and living only for Him. And it's a joy.

I grew up in the church. At first we were Baptist and then we went non-denominational, and then finally ended up in the Church of God, which is kind of like an off-shoot of the Assembly of God church. I loved children's church when I was younger, and as I became a teenager, I was very active in my youth group. I eventually took up music and became the bass player for the last church I attended. At age 18, I had my first conversation with a couple of new friends who turned out to be Atheists. We talked rationally about belief and faith, but I wasn't convinced one bit that what I believed in was wrong. I KNEW god existed and I KNEW jesus was my risen savior. At this time, I was a senior in high school and I was the vice president of my school's CSU (Christian Student Union).

After high school, I went to college off and on for a while, taking semesters off here and there. During this time, I was still active in my church, still playing bass. This is when things got a little strange. The pastor of my church decided that he wanted to take a leave from ministry for a while, so it was time for prospective preachers to come by and apply for the position. The first preacher didn't set too well with me and the church voted on him at the end of the sermon. Instead of a silent vote with ballots, the church decided that we would stand to show our votes. The drummer and I were the only ones that stood. I just didn't agree with his perspectives on things. After this, multiple members of the church confronted me about why I would choose to vote against him, and acted kind of nasty to me. These were people that supposedly loved me, who acted out in irrational anger. But whatever, I blew this off at the time and went about my participation in the church.

At age 21, I decided to get serious about college and started working on my major. During this time, I needed to fulfill some humanities credits, so I ended up taking sociology and philosophy courses. Studying sociology opened my eyes to the development of human society, while Philosophy opened my eyes to ideas that I had begun to have in my own mind at the time, about justice, tradition, etc. I also dabbled in studying psychology at this time as well. I was still a devoted Christian at this time. With new perspectives in hand, I started having discussions with many of my Christian friends about the nature of sin, the ideas of original sin, the concepts of eternal reward/punishment, etc. Basically I was asking questions that didn't set well with them. Many of them shut me down and excluded me from the group, fearing that I was becoming an Atheist.

I took these questions/ideas to my pastors and sunday school instructors. I was bascially told that these were ideas that were meant to distract the mind from focus on god and that they were evil in nature. I was pointed towards apologetics, which proved to be fruitless. I then took these questions/ideas to my mother, who had been a devoted Christian and teacher for many years. She tried to meet my ideas with her faith/religion, but in the end, they proved to be non-answers/constructs of tradition. I then spent the next few months, living in a small cabin-like house out in Anahuac, TX. I went to work/school and when I came home I devoted myself to prayer/study to seek out the existence of god. I pleaded for some type of revelation that would reassure my mind that the god I had believed in from my youth was real. All that time, I was alone. I was talking to myself. I was waiting for my traditions to answer me, but as accepted constructs of the human psyche, I would get no answer.

At this time, philosophy was a great interest of mine and I also devoted myself to learning more and more about the various philosophies throughout the world. I started focusing on the philosophies of Plato (including his works about Socrates), Nietzsche and Kant. One, day, in my sociology class, we studied Plato's Allegory of the Cave. This is a pretty introductory philosophical text, but it really spoke to me. My situation at this time was very much like the chained-up shadow watchers in this story. Here I was, sitting in my cave-like cabin, calling out to the shadowy figures on the wall to give me comfort and reassurance, when all the time, they were an illusion that I accepted as real, because it was taught to me to be real. It was about this time that I withdrew my belief in a god or gods, effectively becoming an atheist.

After this, I started trying to study and learn things that would help me understand human nature/history/psyche. I have continued with this study to this day. At the time of the incidents with my church family and friends, I will admit that I was a little hurt, but at no time did I blame their actions on god, or let it influence my ideas on god. I understood that people aren't comfortable with difficult issues that challenge their deeply held beliefs. My deconversion from Christianity was one of searching, learning and understanding.

"G"

I was raised in the Baptist church. As a child I was forced to go to church by my father with the rest of my siblings. My parents had an awful marriage. He wasn't interested in how his wife or children felt about anything. We were all dictated to and pushed around. It was terrible. He was a roaring racist, homophobic, and sexist. He abused the Bible by picking and choosing scripture that suited his agenda and subjected us to long sermons at home. He had the respect of a lot of people in my church and was given a lot of leadership positions. Everyone loved my dad. Kids at youth group would tell me that they wished my dad was their dad. No one saw the real man. My mother had a lot more guts than any of the rest of us. When I was around 9 she started flat out refusing to go to church anymore. She basically told my dad that if he was the prototype of what God wanted something was way, way off. It was that summer that my mom took off and left me and my brother and sister. We would not see her again for 9 years. I cannot describe the anger. I wanted to go with her!

After my mom left things just got worse. It was like my dad had to compensate in front of the church to explain why my mom left. He wouldn't let us out of his sight. He pulled us out of school to be homeschooled. I think because he didn't want me or my siblings to tell a teacher what was going on. That year we were homeschooled was the worst year of my life. We learned NOTHING. My siblings and I had no outlet. We never got to get away from any of it. The lady from church that was teaching us also happened to be my dad's little [censored] on the side and she had no problem letting us know that she was going to be our new mommy because our mom abandoned us. Almost everyday our dad would let us know that we were the reason our mother left. I knew better but my little brother still struggles with issues with women to this day. He has anger-management problems. My little sister was pregnant by 15 (I firmly believe she was molested by a member of the church but she won't tell) and that resulted in an abortion and I took her. My father would have beaten and humiliated her. So for all of you who shook your head at me for my views on abortion maybe you should walk a mile in another person's shoes. I believe I saved her life that day. At this point...I had NO faith in God. NONE. My little brother would pray and pray. He would shut his eyes so hard that it would give him headaches. Nothing ever happened. Nothing.

I was 21 years old when I finally got it. I was mugged, pistol-whipped and left for dead. I remember being face down with blood running in my eyes blinding me and I couldn't move. The next thing I remember is someone whispering to me very softly and lifting me up out of a puddle and leaning me against my car. They said everything was alright but they would stay with me until the ambulance came. I passed out. Many weeks went by and I became interested in thanking the police officers who arrived on the scene and saved my life. I also wanted to thank the woman who stayed with me until help came. I contacted the officer and thanked him, etc. but I asked him about the woman and was her name in his records or anything. He looked at me blankly. To make this very long story short, there was no woman. No earthly woman anyway. I believe it was an angel.

I know that some may pick that apart and refer to the fact that I had head trauma which I did, but I know what I know and how I felt.
What I did with that experience is turn my life around. I felt like a higher power wanted me to live and wanted me to know he was there. Things haven't ever been the same since.