What's your reason for believing in God?

[Bob_Crowley]

I was raised Catholic, but now at age 20 I am in the process of abandoning my faith because I took a critical eye to it and found that it just doesn’t hold up. So I am wondering what keeps you believing in God? How do you “know” he is there? Especially any older people on here (old is relative, I know, but old compared to me )

In my case it’s experience.

There was a time when I was an atheist, then became Christian (Protestant) at age 28, and Catholic later. I suppose now I’ve been Catholic about the same length of time I was a Protestant.

But I’ve had a fair few spiritual experiences, and they’re not explained by normal natural processes.

For example, the night my own father died, he materialised near the door of my bedroom, started with an apology for his cruel and stupid behaviour (in his own words, “I can’t believe how cruel and stupid I’ve been!”), we argued and conversed, and at the end he gave this terrific scream and then disappeared. I’ve had other experiences to back that up.

There have been other things, notably three “double whammies”.

The first of them occurred when I was in a similar frame of mind to you. I’d only been a Christian for a bit over a year, had some personal problems, had just gone through a divorce, and had recently been chewed out by the boss at work.

I was at a 1983 Christmas “Scripture Union Beach Mission” (Protestant non-demoninational group) at a place called Forest Glen Caravan Park just south of Nambour in Queensland. I was supposed to be one of the leaders, but in reality I was a bit out of my depth.

And, like you, I was thinking, “How do I know this isn’t all just a psychological prop?”

Anyway we’d have a Bible Study every afternoon for about half an hour for the leaders alone, and it was led by the overall camp leader. Being around Christmas, which is fairly hot in Queensland, and being 3pm which is about the hottes part of the day, I was feeling a bit drowsy under the marquis (large tent) we used for our programs, and wasn’t paying a lot of attention.

He was reading from Samuel if I remember rightly, and referring to the future King David. As the camp leader read the exact words, “… man after my own heart…”, this “double whammy” hit me. It was like a breath going through me in waves from head to foot, very pronounced, and it certainly didn’t come from me. I’d been half dozing, and it was the very last thing I expected.

I got such a shock I nearly fell of the seat. I still remember looking around to see what everybody else thought, but they weren’t taking the least bit of notice, and we intent on listening to the camp leader.

From that time on, I’ve never been able to deny God exists, although there’s plenty of times when I think He’s been unfair, and I sometimes I don’t like Him much. But there’s no way I can deny His existence.

When I related the experience to my pastor, he said, “I think God wanted to encourage you. He knew you’d been through a tough time.” As it turned out, he himself was the speaker for the only other two remaining “double whammies” I’ve had.

I had two more of these double whammies as stated, both times unexpected, once when the pastor was referring to St. Paul, and the other referring to CS Lewis. As I’ve pointed out in other posts, we move, in astronomical terms, billions of miles in a few months. I don’t know how far apart these double whammies were, but they were all within a two year span at least, and probably less.

Yet despite the immense astronomical distances, God knew precisely where to find me, what was about to be said and how to highlight the passage each time for me, on three separate occasions, by using the same method each time. And all without letting a single other person know, unless I chose to tell them myself. So He remained hidden the whole time, and gave nothing away to any other person.

And they haven’t happened again since. Yet I can still remember the exact phrase on all three occasions. I’ve had heaps of other experiences eg. a voice on about three occasions which cut right across my own thoughts and went right to the heart of the issue I was thinking about. And other things.

God exists all right. And so does the devil. I’ve had experiences of his presence as well eg. gripping pressures at night, a definited demonic grin on my father’s face on a number of occasions, and other things.

So I think you need a bit more than the routine. Just be warned though - if God does give you a singular definite experience of His presence, it seems to give permission to the demonic realm to mimic the experience. And believe me, trying to discern the difference can be very tricky.

All the best. I think you need a definite experience. Maybe you should ask God Himself to give you some existential proof of His existence. Maybe get others to pray for this experience on your behalf. I know this much - if it does happen, it’ll come out of the blue, and you won’t be expecting it.

 

[couponfit]

I was raised Catholic, but now at age 20 I am in the process of abandoning my faith because I took a critical eye to it and found that it just doesn’t hold up. So I am wondering what keeps you believing in God? How do you “know” he is there? Especially any older people on here (old is relative, I know, but old compared to me )

I was born and raised into the catholic faith. My belief is based on experience, personal experience. It’s like asking a man or woman who fell in love, how he or she knows. A belief in God isn’t just a belief, it’s not really a science, it’s sort of like falling in love. It’s a feeling of his existence that is stronger than anything you can imagine.

 

[ThinkingSapien]

A belief in God isn’t just a belief, …]It’s a feeling …]

I see what you are getting at, but there is some entanglement between things “believed in” and feelings. While I could name a few references for this I think the easiest one to grab would be a thesaurus and look up “belief”.

 

[Gaber]

I see what you are getting at, but there is some entanglement between things “believed in” and feelings. While I could name a few references for this I think the easiest one to grab would be a thesaurus and look up “belief”.

A well, iin its maturiy, romantic love, if you work at it, morphs into unconditional love. A fulcrum is tipped on at some point and what was the lesser is seen to be included in the greaterl This parallels the maturation of faith into something beyond it, which institutionalized religion is hard pressed o deal with. Paul alluded to it in one of his epistles, using the analog of a child’s vision changing. Similar also, in a way, to CS Lewis’ statent: “I pray not to change God, but to change myself.” That, as we have seen in the case of some contemplatives, may have an effect well past what the ordinarly person experiences. It by no means iinvalidates ordinariness, but promises that there is much beyond it.