What would it take for you to lose your faith or belief in God? (Christians only)

chozometroid

EDIT: Updated questions:

• What has negatively or postively impacted your trust in God? (tragedy, blessing, unanswered prayers, answered prayers, loss of direction in life, inspiration, etc)
• What has negatively or postively impacted your belief in God? (difficult Bible passages, the beautiful truth of the Bible, lack of evidence, obvious evidence, miracles)

Original questions:

• What would it take for you to lose your faith in God?
• What would it take for you to lose your belief in God?

I wonder this myself sometimes. I would hope I'd be like Job and say (paraphrase), "even as He destroys me, I will continue trusting in Him."

I think there are a number of things that would impact my faith(trust) in God, but not necessarily cause me to lose it.

Losing my faith:

-My wife and child are infected by a deadly virus while doing missionary work. I pray for their healing, believing with all of my heart that they will get better, and that my wife and my son have a lot of good work still yet to do in their lives. They die.

-I lose everything I have: my family, all of my possessions, everything. I walk the streets, still hoping something good will come of this. I can minister to others and show how I have perservered. One day, while sleeping in an alley, someone pours gasoline on me and lights me on fire. I survive, but I'm too hideous and unable to speak properly to minister to others.

Losing my belief:

-There is a book discovered that predates the Bible, and outlines the process for creating a holy book that will span the ages, include some history, display truthfulness in it's lack of shame including difficult or embarrassing passages, and be a complex web of mystery and riddle, with the result of creating a religion that snowballs into a perpetual state of evolution and self-substanstiation, with people making sense of, and giving meaning to, things that never had any real truth or meaning.

-Aliens come to earth and force us to come to their planet and be slaves for their king (who resembles an octopus with feathers). While on their planet, I decide the Christian God probably isn't real.

-A being appears to me and tells me everything about myself and others, proving it's "supernatural" nature. It then gives me a vision of how the universe came into being via a parent super-universe that is home to millions of universe-creating "pure energy god-minds." It tells me that due to our atoms coming from one of these gods, we naturally have the tendency to think a god made our universe, but the Christian God is just mankind's way of humanizing this energy-being.

-The world lasts longer than I expected, with events that totally don't support what I believe regarding Bible prophecy.

Well, that's all for now.
Looking forward to your responses.

Fanny Cradock

I suggest you read Job!

Anyway, as for the loss of faith in God, I don't know what it would take. I've been blessed in my life with health, wonderful friends and fabulousy good looks . Maybe if I lost all these I would lose my love for God (in this context the the loss of love makes more sense to me than the loss of faith), but then again I don't think that being a Christian offers anyone a promise to an easy life. All you have to do is read the bible to see that doing God's work was not always good for your earthly life. If tragedy struck (and I'm intellectually aware that suffering is always potentially hiding around the next corner) it might just cause me to re-evaluate my idea of God. Again, like job, it might mean that I grow closer to him. Then again, it might not!

As for the latter, the loss of belief, I think that if the resurrection was proved to be false (not sure how one would go about that) then I would definitely have to renounce my belief in God, at least the Christian God. Even then I believe that I would always be agnostic towards the existence of God(s).

To reverse the question, I wonder what it would take to increase my love for God. The answer is probably something along the lines of not being so absorbed in fulfilling my own desires.

chozometroid

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

I suggest you read Job!

You didn't notice I referenced Job at the beginning of my post?

Fanny Cradock

chozometroid wrote: »

You didn't notice I referenced Job at the beginning of my post?

Nope!

PDN

chozometroid wrote: »

Losing my faith:

-My wife and child are infected by a deadly virus while doing missionary work. I pray for their healing, believing with all of my heart that they will get better, and that my wife and my son have a lot of good work still yet to do in their lives. They die.

I have a friend who experienced something similar.

He and his wife were on missionary service in Kenya when his daughter was born. There were complications during the birth and, solely due to the poor facilities in rural Kenya, his daughter is now profoundly mentally handicapped.

For the last 30 years he has continued to serve as a missionary in Kenya. He walks from village to village carrying his daughter with him on his back. His faith is still strong and vibrant. It seems like faith in God can survive almost any tragedy.

chozometroid

PDN wrote: »

I have a friend who experienced something similar.

He and his wife were on missionary service in Kenya when his daughter was born. There were complications during the birth and, solely due to the poor facilities in rural Kenya, his daughter is now profoundly mentally handicapped.

For the last 30 years he has continued to serve as a missionary in Kenya. He walks from village to village carrying his daughter with him on his back. His faith is still strong and vibrant. It seems like faith in God can survive almost any tragedy.

That is awesome. I would hope to do the same if that happened.

Stephentlig

Faith involves both a belief and a trust. so if you lose faith you lose both.

although I pray for faith every day, I couldnt say that any tragedy would be the cause of me turning my back on God.

In Christ
Stephen

postcynical

chozometroid wrote: »

• What would it take for you to lose your faith in God?
• What would it take for you to lose your belief in God?

Love this question:)

1st: I see faith as a gift from God, I think I could lose faith over something completely trivial - like apathy or over something awful like Job. All I can do is enjoy my faith while the light of God is in me and pray that He stays visible to me.

2nd: Pretty sure I can't lose my belief in God - His existence transcends human knowledge. No sciences can dent belief in Him as much as they cannot reinforce it, much to the annoyance of our instinct for the comfort that definite answers brings.

However, what's the point in believing in God if you don't trust Him? What kind of state is it if you know He exists and how good He is and yet you live a life as if He weren't there?? I see all these doubts and stages of partial faith as stepping stones on our journey to a fuller knowledge of Christ, and the fuller knowledge of Him brings a deeper love and trust.

If the ego that occupies this particular body loses its faith, it would be a different person to me who is writing this now.

Soul Winner

Faith is acting on the promises of God. Verbally claiming them as your own whilst in reality they are not. Take the promise "As thy day so shall thy strength be." You can verbally claim that promise every morning. If you wake up feeling like you can take on the world then you are going to have a tough day because your day will be as your strength. Be careful on those days. But you might wake up and feel like you want the earth to just swallow you up because you feel like you can't make it through. You won't run into too many problems in days like that. Why? Because as thy day so shall thy strength be. However, in order to be a candidate for this promise you must be acting on it, and the best way to act on these promise is to speak them forth from a heart of belief that the One who made the promise will be faithful in carrying it out. That is what faith is, stepping out in trust on a promise not yet reality because you trust in the Giver of the promise. This is what we as Christians are supposed to be doing, claiming God's promises for ourselves and acting on them until they become reality and if necessary dying hanging onto them. Once we stop acting this way then we have already lost faith. I will admit that there are days when I forget this truth and don't act on a promise of God, but by His grace He always manages to make me see sense and to stop p*ss*ng about with His calling on my life.

Belief on the other hand can be influenced by many things. The ever shifting sands of scientific evidence, eloquent speech making and BS artistry. When you come to believe in the truth of the Gospel message and for some reason have departed from it then at some point you have been deceived. Either by the Gospel message in the first place or whatever has convinced you that it is false. Tis one or the other. Same goes for when you stop believing in God Himself. Something has convinced you that He does not exists which if true means that what got you believing it in the first place was false. Again it is one or the other. Faith is acting on what you believe, be that God or whatever else. So by definition we cannot exist without faith because everyone acts on what they believe everyday. God's Word guarantees that this kind of action on His promises will result in salvation for those acting thereby.

chozometroid

Umm, this thread thread didn't go over well at all. Only 2 actual responses to the questions posed.

Someone can delete this thread if they like.

dvpower

chozometroid wrote: »

Umm, this thread thread didn't go over well at all. Only 2 actual responses to the questions posed.

Someone can delete this thread if they like.

It's only been a couple of days - don't lose faith.


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postcynical

dvpower wrote: »

It's only been a couple of days - don't lose faith.

chozometroid

dvpower wrote: »

It's only been a couple of days - don't lose faith.


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Well, the view/reply ratio shows that it is a failed thread.

I'm wondering if people are not interested in the topic, they have not thought about these questions to the point of coming up with an answer, or they don't want to tell.

I wonder if a more interesting topic would be:
What has negatively or postively impacted your trust in God? (tragedy, blessing, unanswered prayers, answered prayers, loss of direction in life, inspiration, etc)
What has negatively or postively impacted your belief in God? (difficult Bible passages, the beautiful truth of the Bible, lack of evidence, obvious evidence, miracles)

Fanny Cradock

chozometroid wrote: »

Well, the view/reply ratio shows that it is a failed thread.

I'm wondering if people are not interested in the topic, they have not thought about these questions to the point of coming up with an answer, or they don't want to tell.

I wonder if a more interesting topic would be:
What has negatively or postively impacted your trust in God? (tragedy, blessing, unanswered prayers, answered prayers, loss of direction in life, inspiration, etc)
What has negatively or postively impacted your belief in God? (difficult Bible passages, the beautiful truth of the Bible, lack of evidence, obvious evidence, miracles)

Honest enquiry has positively impacted my belief and faith in God. I've taken a look at the things I was taught and half-believed when I was growing up and either rejected these "beliefs" outright or gained a deeper and more textured understanding of them. I would also say that being pro-active in the pursuit of attaining a meaningful relationship with God (worship, sermons, bible, prayer etc.) has had a tremendously positive impact.

chozometroid

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

Honest enquiry has positively impacted my belief and faith in God. I've taken a look at the things I was taught and half-believed when I was growing up and either rejected these "beliefs" outright or gained a deeper and more textured understanding of them. I would also say that being pro-active in the pursuit of attaining a meaningful relationship with God (worship, sermons, bible, prayer etc.) has had a tremendously positive impact.

Same with me. Looking back, it's really something to see how one grows in their understanding of the Bible and God. At one point, you think you understand an idea or passage, but then months/years later, you find that you have a much deeper understanding of it, and this understanding impacts other ideas and passages, helping to tie everything together. It's like every time I reread a passage, it hits me in a different way (a good way). The Holy Spirit seems to shed different light on things as we mature in Christ.

Attaining a meaningful relationship with God is the best thing we can hope to do, IMO. It takes work and time to make it grow and flourish, like any relationship. For me, I've grown in my faith by acknowledging God's workings in my life and trying to have a better understanding of Who He is and the beauty of His plan for mankind.

monosharp

PDN wrote: »

I have a friend who experienced something similar.

He and his wife were on missionary service in Kenya when his daughter was born. There were complications during the birth and, solely due to the poor facilities in rural Kenya, his daughter is now profoundly mentally handicapped.

For the last 30 years he has continued to serve as a missionary in Kenya. He walks from village to village carrying his daughter with him on his back. His faith is still strong and vibrant. It seems like faith in God can survive almost any tragedy.

I don't mean any offense PDN, honestly, but am I the only one who thinks that your friend should be ashamed of himself for bringing his pregnant wife there knowing that the facilities were of a poor standard ?

If I brought my wife to a nightclub and she got kicked in the stomach what would your opinion of me be ?

He placed his pregnant wife in a situation which turned out to be detrimental to his childs life and all you can say is 'his faith is strong'

This is exactly why I am not religious. This is everything I see wrong with religious belief. To be so self deluded that you think you can put yourself and others in harms way to prove your own personal beliefs because you 'believe' you will be protected.

Its like that pilot who started praying instead of trying to fly the plane when it was crashing.

It was not a good thing, it was plain utter stupidity.

Even from a religious point of view, the Bible never said put yourself in harms way and Jesus will protect you. Thats what fundamentalist lunatics do, not religious people.

PDN

monosharp wrote: »

I don't mean any offense PDN, honestly, but am I the only one who thinks that your friend should be ashamed of himself for bringing his pregnant wife there knowing that the facilities were of a poor standard ?

You might be the only one, you might not. I don't know how many other people are that judgemental of others.

My friend and his wife were living and working among the Kenyan people when she got pregnant. He didn't bring his pregnant wife anywhere.

If I brought my wife to a nightclub and she got kicked in the stomach what would your opinion of me be ?

My opinion of your wife would be that she was lacking in judgement. It wouldn't alter my opinion of you because I see women as being free moral agents with as much responsibility for their actions as men.

You think my friend should have bossed his wife about and overruled her own choices? What kind of neanderthal attitude is that? Ever hear of gender equality or feminism?

He placed his pregnant wife in a situation which turned out to be detrimental to his childs life and all you can say is 'his faith is strong'

Again, he didn't place her in any situation. She chose a course of action. She had spent the previous two years befriending local Kenyan women who had suffered horrible things in a political conflict of the time and felt that she would be sending them all the wrong signals if she opted to desert them to fly back to the US to give birth.

You may criticise her judgement, but I applaud her intentions in trying to help others. Millions of women have to give birth in similar conditions where jetting out to the US is not an option.

This is exactly why I am not religious. This is everything I see wrong with religious belief. To be so self deluded that you think you can put yourself and others in harms way to prove your own personal beliefs because you 'believe' you will be protected.

She went out into the world and tried to make a difference, whereas others prefer to stand on the sidelines, do nothing, and point accusing fingers at those who do try to help others.

Its like that pilot who started praying instead of trying to fly the plane when it was crashing.

It was not a good thing, it was plain utter stupidity.

It was nothing like the pilot. And to pretend that it is the same is plain utter stupidity.

Even from a religious point of view, the Bible never said put yourself in harms way and Jesus will protect you. Thats what fundamentalist lunatics do, not religious people.

She never claimed that Jesus would protect her from any or every possible danger. She left the comforts and security of home to try to help others who were in need. That's exactly what the Bible encourages us to do. And such actions involve risks.

Many of the early Christians were executed for obeying Jesus. thousands of missionaries over the ears have died of disease, been maimed or murdered, or have suffered the kind of tragedy my friend did. That doesn't mean they are lunatics, and they never claim that Jesus will necessarily protect them.

If that makes them fundamentalist lunatics then the world needs more such lunatics and less petty finger-pointers.

Zombrex

monosharp wrote: »

Even from a religious point of view, the Bible never said put yourself in harms way and Jesus will protect you.

I think that was actually PDN's point.

This man isn't bitter towards God because his child was born handicap, God never promised he wouldn't have a handicapped child, nor said that you should do good works and I will protect you. He and his wife put themselves in "harms way" to help others, and are not angry at God that some harm came to them because they were never promised protection, nor did they set out to do the good works under the delusion that God would protect them. It wouldn't be harms way if it was

If they had gone to Kenya believing they would be protected from harm that would have been very foolish, but that doesn't seem to be the case

Stockholm

I always wonder about religious people who lose their faith/belief in God after something tragic happens to them like a young child or husband / wife dying. Surely they have always seen tradgedies happening to other people and not just the immense unjust in the world like child abuse, starvation and genocide but we all know people who have lost loved ones before their time etc. So why is it only when it happens to them, they lose faith / belief? Is it okay to believe in God as long as only "others" are suffering?
I'm not having a go, just genuinely interested as I don't believe in Religion / God myself?

Turtwig

Stockholm wrote: »

I always wonder about religious people who lose their faith/belief in God after something tragic happens to them like a young child or husband / wife dying. Surely they have always seen tradgedies happening to other people and not just the immense unjust in the world like child abuse, starvation and genocide but we all know people who have lost loved ones before their time etc. So why is it only when it happens to them, they lose faith / belief? Is it okay to believe in God as long as only "others" are suffering?
I'm not having a go, just genuinely interested as I don't believe in Religion / God myself?

Note : Non religious too!

I actually think it is rare for someone to lose their faith because of a mishap or something.
In my view, the person that loses their faith because of a things not going right for them is vulnerable to both generating faith in something easily and losing it again, but not actually having strong faith in anything...if you get me?

PDN

What would it take for me to lose my faith?

Watching this video made me come pretty close! :eek:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYqM9-Fj0Pg

Can I get rid of the title 'Christian' and get some other title that I don't have to share with this pair of idiots?

Ironically the logo on the bass drum reads 'Darwin'. If Darwin was right then surely neither of this pair would ever have seen the light of day?

lugha

PDN wrote: »

What would it take for me to lose my faith?

Watching this video made me come pretty close! :eek:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYqM9-Fj0Pg

Can I get rid of the title 'Christian' and get some other title that I don't have to share with this pair of idiots?

Ironically the logo on the bass drum reads 'Darwin'. If Darwin was right then surely neither of this pair would ever have seen the light of day?

Might I ask what specifically is it about the pair that riles you so much? Do you find it sacrilegious or in some sense an inappropriate way to express your Christian faith? Or it is it merely that standard of musicianship? Its pretty cringe worthy stuff, but I would guess that the pair are genuine Christians.

JimiTime

lugha wrote: »

but I would guess that the pair are genuine Christians.

No true Christian would inflict such things on the world! (Joking btw, as I think PDN was)


No More roast beef
No more chi-ips
No more Ketch-up

My word, its bad!

PDN

lugha wrote: »

Might I ask what specifically is it about the pair that riles you so much? Do you find it sacrilegious or in some sense an inappropriate way to express your Christian faith? Or it is it merely that standard of musicianship? Its pretty cringe worthy stuff, but I would guess that the pair are genuine Christians.

Nothing to do with sacrilege or being inappropriate. It's just plain stupid. It is devoid of intelligence, musical ability, communication skills, or anything else. If I wanted to write a sketch that said, "Christians are morons" then I couldn't come up with anything more effective than that song.

RAMADAN

chozometroid wrote: »

EDIT:
Original questions:

• What would it take for you to lose your faith in God?
• What would it take for you to lose your belief in God?

It would require a proof from God that God does not exist.

lugha

JimiTime wrote: »

No true Christian would inflict such things on the world! (Joking btw, as I think PDN was)

Yes, I didn't suspect his faith would be unable to withstand a bad duet. I suppose my curiosity has to do with the fact that Christianity should be available to and appeal to all, and in particular in this context, to all intellectual levels. I guess this is a challenge which is possibly unique to religion. The opposite ends of what you might call the intelligence scales would rarely engage in the same things, e.g. books, arts etc. but they must embrace the one God. (Perhaps sport is an exception?)
I have a vague recollection of someone high up in the RC church (possibly the Pope?) addressing this point but from the other end, basically saying that the church should perhaps be more for the average folk and a little less, well high brow, for want of a better phrase.

JimiTime

PDN wrote: »

Nothing to do with sacrilege or being inappropriate. It's just plain stupid. It is devoid of intelligence, musical ability, communication skills, or anything else. If I wanted to write a sketch that said, "Christians are morons" then I couldn't come up with anything more effective than that song.

Bit harsh tbh. Yeah its pure sillyness and a bit of humourous finger pointing is pprobably worthy, but I don't think worthy of such venom tbf. Anyone who thinks 'Christians' are morons, doesn't deserve their idiotic generalisation to be pandered to. Give me these singing 'Morons', over those generalising 'Morons' any day.

Mark Hamill

RAMADAN wrote: »

It would require a proof from God that God does not exist.

Does this mean you have proof from god that he does exist?

Fanny Cradock

Mark Hamill wrote: »

Does this mean you have proof from god that he does exist?

He's not speaking as a Christian, so I wouldn't worry about it too much.

Mark Hamill

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

He's not speaking as a Christian, so I wouldn't worry about it too much.

Why not? What is he speaking as?

PDN

Mark Hamill wrote: »

Why not? What is he speaking as?

A cross between a deist and an agnostic. So if you want to discuss it further then the A&A forum is the best place.

RAMADAN

PDN wrote: »

A cross between a deist and an agnostic. So if you want to discuss it further then the A&A forum is the best place.

I'd prefer to say I am a Christian who lapses into deism or agnosticism when under pressure. I still stand in need of perfection!

Turtwig

RAMADAN wrote: »

I'd prefer to say I am a Christian who lapses into deism or agnosticism when under pressure. I still stand in need of perfection!

Ehhh that pretty much means that you are an agnostic.
Agnostic is merely a qualifier of claiming that you do not know.
One can be an agnostic theist - I believe in God but I don't know God exists..
Agnostic Atheist - I don't believe in God but I don't know that God doesn't exist.

So in your case you're an agnostic Christian because you don't know for certain that God exists, but you believe in Him.