Yes, I have done so. In a most foot-stompy uppity irreverent manner, at that: Yo, God! Do you exist, are you out there? If you’re not, you oughta be. Someone ought to be answerable for this shit. I want some answers! I want to know why the fuck things are like this instead of how they’re supposed to be. I’m going to keep this up until you show up and answer some questions.
To those who claim their prayers were unanswered, I have a question – what, exactly, did you pray for? Was it for something specific (such as appearing in a taco, or some other kind of miracle) or was it merely asking for “a sign” in some vague manner, something that could seem connected via confirmation bias? I’m interested in hearing more specific details about these spiritual (non-)experiences.
Not for a personal appearance, no, but I did pray very hard for God to give me a sign he was real. I was seven at the time, and hadn’t quite worked out yet that He didn’t do the burning bushes thing anymore.
Believe in God to avoid Hell? That is probably the worst reason to believe in God among all the other bad reasons.
Any deity who maintains or allows eternal torture is not worthy of your respect or worship. As a responsible human being you should consider it your duty to rebel against such a Being and not truckle to such a despot.
Punishment for transgressions must be swift, just and proportionate to the offense. There is NOTHING a person can do in a limited lifetime that could warrant eternal suffering.
I didn’t ask for anything. What I hoped for was a response. I didn’t get it.
The problem here is that I’ve read the Bible, more than once. The God described there is an unspeakably evil tormentor (and occasionally destroyer) of people, cultures, civilizations, and on two occurrences all of humanity. What it does NOT say is that there exists a hell, or that you need to believe in God to not go there.
I don’t believe such a being can exist or could exist. And that brings me great comfort. Why would I break into jail? (Even assuming that “belief” was a choice, as many folks seem to think.)
It is conceivable that demons are trying to undermine people’s faith. That’s what my sisters believe and their pastor preaches it. C. S. Lewis’s “The Screwtape Letters” is based on that idea. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Screwtape_Letters
Also there is the story of Job where Satan asked God if he could make Job suffer to see how strong Job’s faith was.
Also this was written by King David: (apparently)
http://biblehub.com/niv/psalms/10.htm
“Why, Lord, do you stand far off? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?”
http://biblehub.com/niv/psalms/22.htm
“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Why are you so far from saving me,
so far from my cries of anguish?
My God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer,
by night, but I find no rest.”
So if you actually look at the Bible, this kind of behavior is fairly normal for God…
It only really matters if that real God would dish out a really bad punishment while they’re mad… so I think the Christian God is the one to fear the most.
I thought that’s what the gospel message is about - we deserve to go to hell but Jesus sacrificed himself for us so that if we believe in Him, etc, we are saved.
Check out this video:
The pastor is saying that eternal punishment means that God is really great and glorious.I agree it isn’t just but since God is the creator he can do anything he pleases.
What if there is a heaven . . . and only atheists are allowed in?
Then it is our solemn duty as free-willed spirits who respect life to join the forces working against such a monster.
I prayed once, when I was a kid. They told everybody that they should pray for some terrible thing that had happened and, not being raised with religion or knowing even a single prayer, I just prayed for understanding about why I should pray. I was very specific about it, too. LOL! I didn’t want “proof” that something somebody said was true, if it wasn’t, and I didn’t want an answer from some puny, little God who couldn’t get the job done without my piddly, little attempts to “help”.
I didn’t think I got an answer, but I guess I actually did. Because from that day on, I decided praying was useless because it all belonged to God to do with as he pleased. And I also concluded that if it’s all God’s and it’s all as he wants it, then that’s just about the worst wrath there could ever be for most people.
So, the answer I got was that the wrath of a loving God is his love for the whole of his creation, including everything we hate.
And, of course, that frees us up to just enjoy life without having to worry about what God or anybody else is doing which must have been like music to my ears, as a kid. Plus, you don’t have to pray all the time because God’s going to do his thing no matter what you say and who wants some ratty little God that needs his pride and petulance fed every five minutes, anyway? Screw THAT! I want a great big scary God that doesn’t give one wit what I or anybody else thinks rather than one who can be knocked off his game by any Tom, Dick or Mary that comes along. Pfft! That’s not a God - that’s a human being and there is no way in hell that I’m going to worship some petty, tantrum-throwing human being.
To continue my thoughts a little.
The willingness to torture does not confer moral authority. Anyone who tries to rationalize this is a victim of Stockholm Syndrome - where a person convinces themself that they share the goals and ideals of their captors.
Think for yourself and do not confuse power with righteousness. We have eaten of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of Good and Evil - God expects us to apply that knowledge in our interactions with each other and with Him. Behaviour that is not acceptable in a tin-pot dictator in some third-world country does not become acceptable just because the perpetrator is the Lord of All Creation.
I remember being under the impression that god wouldn’t answer a specific request to prove himself, so the taco idea was out. Instead, I asked for something vague, but implicit in that was that it wouldn’t just be something I could blame on confirmation bias. So like, if I walked outside after praying, and a bird came down and landed on a branch in front of me and tweeted a little tweet, I wouldn’t have been satisfied. I’d seen birds, after all, and they tweeted.
I’m not sure what I was really expecting – I was just a kid, and god was frickin’ god, so I figured he could pull something off that wouldn’t violate any of his own rules. I mean, I was a believer who desperately wanted to keep believing. If there’s ever been a target audience for god’s message, I was it. And like I said, other people I was close with, people I trusted, had said that they opened their hearts up to god and felt his presence (nobody at my church claimed to actually talk directly with god), so at worst I figured he could make me feel the same thing.
Non-believer here. Just for giggles, I’ve asked God to reveal itself to me a couple of times. It always says “No.”
I’ve never prayed really hard for God to reveal himself.
Yes. During two personal crises (either of which could have killed me and I suppose it’s a testament to my tenacity that they didn’t, which I think is impressive for an 8-year-old), I prayed like hell for Yahweh / Jesus to intervene and help me. Neither time could Yahweh-Jesus be bothered, so I eventually moved on to a faith community with far fewer hypocrites and zero dogma about how thoroughly the Church rejects and marginalizes me for being a woman and for being queer.
Technically, I suppose, I believe that Yahweh could/might exist, but he’s only one out of many gods, and he’s kind of an asshole according to what’s been written about him, so why would I want a relationship with that guy?
I think the excuse that’s most often used is “He’s so sweet when he’s not being an abusive asshole!”
Me too. I was pretty devout as a kid, but eventually realized I didn’t really believe what I thought I was devout about. It was a shocking and unsettling discovery. Also at this time, I fell in with (at a boarding school) a church of fundies. Great people whom I really admired and respected. I envied their apparent certitude. For a number of years I strove to believe, but found that even though I wanted to, I could not.
Wouldn’t it be a shame if God really did make us suffer eternally for what for me were unavoidable reasons?
Yup, did that. Didn’t work. I tried pretending I believed, and acting as though I believed, hoping it would sink in. Again, fail. Now perhaps I was doing it wrong, but I was doing the very best I knew how, and trying different ways. So, I’m pretty darn certain that the part in the Bible that says God will bless you with faith if you give him the chance is, at least in my case, pure BS written by someone without a clue.
I didn’t expect a response. I may have hoped for, but didn’t expect a sign. I just wanted to believe.
Or loathe the most. If the best reason to worship God is to avoid punishment, that makes Christianity a pretty craven religion. Anyone should be ashamed to worship such a monster. They’d be doing only to save their sorry asses.
How can you respect, let alone worship, such a beast?
How can anyone who has the least understanding of infinity worship the infinite evil of condemning anyone to an eternity of punishment, for a finite sin? But, as mentioned above, Hell is mostly an invention by the Church, and not much covered in the Bible. It’s just a device to get those heathens to kowtow.
Yeesh. Enjoy your masochistic myth.
[quote]
The pastor is saying that eternal punishment means that God is really great and glorious.[/quote]
LOL. By that logic, Hitler, Stalin, and Pol Pot were the most sacred men on Earth.
So why would he choose to be a complete asshole?
Now wouldn’t THAT be ironic?
I didn’t realize it until a long time later, but Christianity, deep down, is a very sick, very disturbed religion. It scares me that it’s such a successful meme. It says bad things about humanity, despite it’s Savior seeming to have such virtues. The problem isn’t the Savior, but the God behind him, who makes him necessary.
Finally, if any religion were real, it wouldn’t need a book. I mean, seriously! What a sloppy way to spread The Truth. Doh!
I better quit now before I really get going.
The more I learn about Christianity, and the more I think about it, the more I wonder how any self-respecting person can follow it. I wonder how anyone with any compassion, any love, any empathy can call themselves Christians without shuddering.
And then I remember that I know people, wonderful, respectful, worthy people, who are Christians.
I guess they just must not think it through. And I try to be respectful, or at least, act respectful, out of respect for those people, not out of respect for the religion.