Seeking help on how to address these questions from a seeker

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cho_pilo

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  1. Why good will it do me to search and find God?
  2. What benefit is there for me in believing in God?
  3. What will I really lose if I don’t believe in God?
 
  1. It will do you no good to search and find God. God finds you. Instead, one must empty the self in order to accept God’s search for us.
  2. Not believing in God is to deny reality. Believing in God will gain you sanity.
  3. Freedom
I remember the tremendous anxiety and sense of despair I had before I accepted all of this. I didn’t even notice the full extent of how bad I felt until I felt the contrast. I hope you are not in that place.
 
  1. According to CS Lewis, you will find joy, unlike any other joy you’ve experienced before on this earth. Any happiness, any enjoyable sensation, they will all fail to match the joy from one’s connection with God. It isn’t easily attained, and it requires faith and acts to maintain, but it is well worth it.
  2. Aside from the spiritual benefits, will could constitute a whole other thread, let’s focus on the more temporal aspects. First, there is a peace you receive. You have your faith in the Lord, and you trust that He will guide us, give us strength, and urge us to gain salvation. Additionally, you gain direction to your life. You now have what God asks of you as a compass in decision making. Whereas you may have done some immoral or less-than-noble action in the past out of self-interest, you will now act (God-willing) in accordance with what the Lord has commanded us to do. Lastly, you will join a community of believers who share similar interests, have faced similar struggles, and can help you, through prayer and action, when times are tough. However, I want to stress that NONE of these reasons are sufficient to ‘justify’ a belief in God. One must truly seek God for the right reasons - these are just things that happen as a result. For if you seek the temporal, you will not gain the eternal.
  3. You won’t really ‘lose’ anything in that sense. If you were a believer and stopped believing, you never actually lose anything (well, other than a loving relationship with God and the chances of salvation, but even that isn’t lost forever). You can ignore it, try to run from it, denounce it, detest it, do whatever you want with it. But once you know and believe in the truth, it will always be the truth to you, no matter how hard you try to convince yourself otherwise.
 
This might sound like a crazy answer but I used the argument on a friend to just get him to come check out mass and the community. He was a devout atheist and had been raised by atheist parents. He knew me in college and we stayed in touch when I went in the service. I am now retired. He came to visit me one time and asked how I could still believe given what I have seen around the world? I said something about seeing the best and worst in man and the good side gives you hope. He said why should I believe I can’t see this person or being you call God, I can’t touch him? I said why not come to mass with me sometime, I’ll explain whats going on and what we believe and you can make up your own mind. He did and said he liked the way we all get along and everyone being very welcoming. We were leaving to go back to my house and change, I think we were meeting a couple of girlfriends from college that still lived in the area for lunch. He asked so now that I have seen your church, and I like the atmosphere, why should I believe?

I thought a few minutes and used the argument from Philosophy class that is known as Pascal’s Wager. I said while you are figuring things out and exploring things it is better to believe and find out when we die we’re all wrong, than not to believe and figure out we are all right. He recognized the argument from class. He wanted to know how I still believed?

Simple, No you cannot see God or physically touch God. But I also cannot see or touch someone on the other side of the planet yet they are there. He was good with this, he asked to borrow a bible to explore the book see what it says…I couldn’t fathom not ever opening a bible at all. I gave him one of the bibles the Air Force Chaplain’s Service makes available to us when we deploy. I told him not to pay as much attention to the names and places but listen to the message, what lessons are being taught. Then look at you and your world and see if you can find the same values and morals in people.

He read and read. I got a call about a year later after coming home from a deployment. I was shocked to see him standing in church on Sunday. He joined the church and is now a practicing Catholic.

The short answer to my ramble. Be honest and sincere in what you say. Invite them to explore and discover for themselves and never force religion down someone’s throat, you will only push them away.
 
cho_pilo said:
  1. Why good will it do me to search and find God?
  2. What benefit is there for me in believing in God?
  3. What will I really lose if I don’t believe in God?
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Your need is only to discover your own purpose.

IMO you will not find that through any established belief system. One benefit to becoming a member of any belief system is that a number of others who have not investigated matters on their own will agree with you that you are right, so long as you agree that they are also right in such matters.

You cannot lose that which you do not yet have.
 
cho_pilo said:
  1. Why good will it do me to search and find God?
  2. What benefit is there for me in believing in God?
  3. What will I really lose if I don’t believe in God?
Click to expand...
These are very interesting questions.
  1. I’M not sure how you will be certain that you have found him. There are many different religions, and many different concepts that people have had of God throughout history. However, you will be participating in life by finding and creating meaning. I think this is good because you learn about yourself and grow spiritually, even if you never get all the answers. It may be the case that you have many lifetimes many purgatories many heavens or whatever to grow, so you may as well start now. I like to think we can go at our own pace. That the possibilities are our own to create. While we may at times be victims or maybe kings of an ultimate reality, we nonetheless play or create our role, whichever it may be. So much is mystery, but so much more can be found, if you open your eyes to it.
  2. I say this is for you to discover on your own. If you see no benefit, perhaps there is none. Faith is a journey. Life is a journey. “Nobody get the answers in order”~Church Organ~fav song by Kacy Crowley, if I may quote her.
  3. I argue that nothing bad will happen. This is something you get to decide for yourself. Some people might lose a lot, some people might gain a lot. Follow your heart.
 
greylorn said:
Your need is only to discover your own purpose.

IMO you will not find that through any established belief system. One benefit to becoming a member of any belief system is that a number of others who have not investigated matters on their own will agree with you that you are right, so long as you agree that they are also right in such matters.

You cannot lose that which you do not yet have.
Click to expand...
After my investigations into matter, I found relief that reason inevitably led to my beliefs, which are also backed by scripture. An excellent example of this is C.S. Lewis’ “The Pilgrims’ Regress”, which is the allegory of his path from belief in childhood, then onto atheism, and ultimately back to Christianity.
 
Mumbles140 said:
After my investigations into matter, I found relief that reason inevitably led to my beliefs, which are also backed by scripture. An excellent example of this is C.S. Lewis’ “The Pilgrims’ Regress”, which is the allegory of his path from belief in childhood, then onto atheism, and ultimately back to Christianity.
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I am so happy for you. And your comment has to do with what, exactly?
 
greylorn said:
I am so happy for you. And your comment has to do with what, exactly?
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That there are those, using their God-given intellect and reason, who find purpose through organized religion and established beliefs, and I provided an example thereof for the OP, or anyone else for that matter.
 
greylorn said:
Your need is only to discover your own purpose.

IMO you will not find that through any established belief system. One benefit to becoming a member of any belief system is that a number of others who have not investigated matters on their own will agree with you that you are right, so long as you agree that they are also right in such matters.

You cannot lose that which you do not yet have.
Click to expand...
Heterodoxical theism could also be said to be an “established belief system.”
Basically “spiritual, but not religious.” Or just plain “New Age All-paths-lead-to Godism.”😛
At least, that is how I personally interpet it.
 
OrdinaryMelkite said:
Heterodoxical theism could also be said to be an “established belief system.”
Basically “spiritual, but not religious.” Or just plain “New Age All-paths-lead-to Godism.”😛
At least, that is how I personally interpet it.
Click to expand...
I suggest that you scrap those interpretations, because they are incorrect. All of them.
 
greylorn said:
I suggest that you scrap those interpretations, because they are incorrect. All of them.
Click to expand...
Well please discuss your definition/view of your beliefs. But, in a way of being able to define them, doesn’t that make your beliefs part of an ‘established system’, even if the religion itself isn’t organized? I mean, being agnostic puts you as part of an established system, even if there is no organization.
 
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