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I don't know whether or not this is just a phase or a slowly building intellectual decision (oh dear - not that) but I'm starting to lean towards atheism and agnosticism in my thoughts and this is bothering me because in some way I am, thankfully, still a Christian. I'm struggling to stay a Christian right now. Can you please pray for me. Thank you.

I'll be praying for you, man. It's hard struggling with all sorts of doubts. I recently went through a period like that when I was sort of questioning everything. I guess the important thing to do when you come to an area of uncertainty is to hang on to the things that you do know, for instance, the origin of matter and life. How could it have happened without God? If you would like to talk about this, please PM me within the next 12 hours or so, cause I leave tomorrow.

i'll pray

God even states He will hide His face from us at times, even though He is always there. What caused you to be concerned about it?

I'll pray too mate. I've struggled with such thoughts, esp since I am an intellectual type person who looks for facts, not feelings. I had a very hard time with it, esp when a non-Christian friend began to come up with 'facts' that questioned the Bible. It got me really down for a long time, and I was being torn between my analystic nature and my belief in God. However, I remembered one of my pastors sermons, in which he said that one day he made the promise that he would continue to believe in God and the Bible no matter what came his way.

I thought about that for a bit, then decided to do the same thing. Before long, the thoughts began to go away. Put your trust in God, BSJ, and you can't go wrong I'll pray for you mate

God even states He will hide His face from us at times

Yes, he even hides His face from animals.

You putting this on the prayer list and saying that you're thankfully still a Christian should be a big sign to you that atheism is NOT the way to go!

Indeed, all of us face doubts at times. I'll pray that you are able to work through this period and can feel yourself fully within God's presence again.

My spiritual problem were ignited by the attacks by people (to use their words) on whether "monotheism has any sort of value as opposed to atheism and paganism / polytheism". Off course my oppinion is always that humans are humans and would misue any sort of philosophy or religion for their own purposes wether political or personal, but does this in any way prove or disprove the existance of God? But that's just tip of the ice-berg for me. My struggles include nihilism (not the Nietzche variety which I deplore but the more low-brow 'devil may care' kind) and Absurdism, which is a branch of the former to a degree. There are times when the universe seem so meaningless.

I suppose that the big question for me is validating wether or not I really believe in God or wether these feelings I feel for Him is just, well, my mind playing tricks on me, wether or not He exists. I suppose that is what all my current anxieties boil down to because its all I think about - the above mentioned worries are just filler really although they are present still within this struggle. I still feel God's "warm love" and I still dislike any sort of attacks on Christians, but I can't seem to justify it to my so-called "intellectual side" (a part of me I've never liked). These struggles have prompted me to sometimes wish I died as a baby so that I did not have to live through them.

Another thing that help but me in this state was something that happened last September. For two years I've been writing a Christian fantasy that, during the final chapters the story began to get, admittedly, EXTREMELY dark. Now two years and 200 000 words means I've invested a lot of time in this and I prayed constantly during the writing. But (and I have no way of explaining this to you without you thinking I'm crazy or something) but I felt that God wanted me to abandon this novel and subsequently I did. This has been very hard on me especially since I never finished writing it. Off course I should have paid attention to theological issues which were in the final pages NOT correct but I learned the hard way that "Art for Art's sake" is in direct contrast with "art for Heaven's sake" because from an artistic point of view the part that led to this was the better route to follow but did not fit with theology or Christ's workings in any way (I was hoping to fix these "discrepencies" in the rewrite which was the wrong thing to do). Doubtless to say that this sparked off some spiritual issues as well for me.

A Christian life is not like a self-sustaining reaction that proceeds once the activation energy barrier is surmounted (forgive me for mixing Chemistry jargon). You cannot be baptized/confirmed/say the sinner's prayer/whatever and hope to remain a Christian forever. A good Christian life requires cultivation, vis-a-vis prayer and meditation. If perhaps you have neglected to do these things, maybe that is the problem.

Anyone here who knows me knows that I had a brief flirtation with agnosticism. I can't exactly tell you how I got over it, because frankly, I don't know. But about people who try to "disprove" the Bible or make God look like the bad guy. Often, they are showing you the facts out of context to present the God they want to see. To be sure, good Christians do that too. But it is important to read and study the Word, IN THE WAY IT WAS MEANT TO BE READ, to avoid such pitfalls.

I can't offer any evidence to disprove the existence of God, but I can't offer any evidence to prove it, either. If it is any comfort to you, long-time atheist and philiosopher Antony Flew now believes a God exists, though not necessarily of the Judeo-Christian mold. Paint that how you will, but that certainly strikes me.

EDIT: As for your "intellectual side," I consider it just as much a part of your Western cultural baggage as antitheistic scholars consider Christian ethic a part of Western cultural baggage. The West in the past century has not exactly been kind to religion, which reaped disastrous results all over the globe if you consider the millions of lives lost due to non-theistic, atheistic or antitheistic ideologies.

bigsleepj wrote:I still feel God's "warm love" and I still dislike any sort of attacks on Christians, but I can't seem to justify it to my so-called "intellectual side" (a part of me I've never liked). These struggles have prompted me to sometimes wish I died as a baby so that I did not have to live through them.

I would encourage you to study up on the intellectual side of Christianity. Not only is it interesting, but encouraging as well. Throughout our cultural development in western civilization, there has been somewhat of a separation of "faith" and "fact," and what you said has reminded me of this. The truth of the matter is that our faith isn't based on mere sentiment or "feelings," if you will, but it was based on things that actually happened, one of the most obvious being the creation of the universe.

A website that you might check out is http://www.drdino.com
This is the homepage for Christian Science Evangelism. They have great seminars and debates for download by Dr. Kent Hovind. Some of his beliefs are a bit extreme, but even so, they are well-founded and you won't find any heresy in what he teaches.

There are other sites like this as well, but can't think of any off the top of my head. I probably won't be able to post for a few days, so I hope this helps. I'll be praying that you will be established in the truth of God and not discouraged by accusations against Christians or the Bible. It's an intense spiritual battlefield; don't forget your armor (Ephesians 6:10-20).

Hey, Sleepy (lol), would Jesus' followers in the NT have died like that if they didn't 10000000000000000000000000% believe that God was real???

And what about the martyrs? They died because they've seen the evidence that God is real.

And a very trustworthy friend of my dad's has seen Jesus. Seen-him-seen-him. And she fell once and she felt an angel catch her and pull her back to safety, but when she turned around, she couldn't see anyone.

The LORD is real. I promise you with my life.

I believe it was James, or Clifford.... (I can't actually remember, but I heard it in a philosophy lecture) who said that You either believe (know) that God excists or you don't. There is no such think as a middle-i-don't-know-ground. You either do or don't, by taking the i-don't-know stance you are just kidding yourself, because if you leave an option open for God existence, then you already believe that he exists. Or something of the sort... Plus agnosticism is intellectual suicide! A skeptic will say okay i don't know but I will research and look into it, while an agnostic says that there is no way we will ever know and won't even start looking or searching for anykind of yes or no answer to Gods existence.

Don't let yourself be caught out thinking you can understand God or find him in the 1st place, because God has to reveal himself to us in order for us to encounter him, he is a good hidder. The only reason we know God as the LORD Almighty is because of a humble jewish carpentar claimed the most profound things in history (i created the world, i forgive you for hating your sister) and proved himself to the amazement and witness's of many. If it gets tough with philosophy and the intelletual side of things look back at Christ. Look at History and the character of Jesus, after all that is reality, not theory. Is it not the most daft thing in history to believe some crackpot guy 2000 years ago is God? It is absurd, and as Paul said to the Corinthians (i think) the only reason why we can possible believe this is because his spirit dwells in us and gives us faith to believe what the world can not. Jesus as King. Its not a matter of you holding onto God, but you allowing God to hold onto you. I hope that helps mate.
I will pray for you Jay.

Hey there BigSleepJ,

I hope things are going well for you and have improved somewhat. I am not the biggest intellectual person but I hope I can offer you some encouragement.

My answer to doubts have always been that if God isn't real that there is no point for my existence except myself, which is meaningless because of inevitable death. Also, I look back at the things God has done in my life, and the beauty of his creation, and find hope and thankfulness there. It's hard, and I have my doubts too but I've decided that clinging to God and living for him is worth far more than going to a broken world that offers bittersweet hope and disullusion.

It's not a blind faith. I see the many things God has done in my life, the miracles, big and small, that I have seen.

I don't know if that helps any but I hope it does and that things get better for you. I will pray for you.

Uh, I don't why this thread popped up as it's a big old, but...

I don't have enough faith to be an atheist.

I will pray. I have gone through a time away from God, searching, and my search inevitably led me back to Him. Or rather, He led me back to Him. ^___^

Sorry to grave-dig but I can really need some prayers right now. An old spiritual problem that I thought had gone (or at least got under control) has now popped up again and I'm now going through a series of temptations. Unlike my most spiritual problems this one is fairly common and is not connected towards my intellectual side.

Thanks for the prayers and for putting up with me.

-Johnnie

I'll pray.

I'll pray, and make more character sketches.