Could use some help soul searching!

I was given a pretty strict Southern Baptist upbringing; but like many of my peers, seeing a great deal of corruption underneath the church’s persona of righteousness, really soured the experiences that I should have had. For a long while I was bitter, but eventually came to the conclusion that PEOPLE will pretty much always let you down, and that one shouldn’t look toward PEOPLE to define their own personal relationship with God.

Also, even as a small child, I would pay attention to Bible lessons, or even read scriptures myself...pause after hearing or reading and think to myself...wait; that doesn’t seem like it would be the actions of a kind, just, loving, or compassionate God. I was embarrassed and ashamed to admit that many of the things that God did seemed...honestly, kind of sadistic, cruel, selfish, uncaring, or vain. But of course as a Christian, I was told that God had a purpose for everything He did, even if I didn’t understand the reason, and that God was incapable of doing evil. Even more than that; I was taught that to think negative of God was a sin, that I should always be grateful for the life I had, and to always give praise...no matter what hardships I faced.

Keeping these teachings in mind, when I left home I searched whole-heartedly to find God, to build a good relationship with Him...I explored a number of different denominations and suffered through TONS of pain and hardships; admittedly as a result of my own choices and actions.

Over time it seemed that the harder I searched for God, the more He alluded me; which was very much in contrast to my Christian teachings. The more I struggled to do the right things, the easier doing wrong things seemed to become. And like nearly every other person in my generation; there was a constant struggle to overcome the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual childhood abuse. Abuse from my father...who was a preacher in the church.

I...can’t pinpoint the exact time it began, but I found myself becoming angry towards Him, and losing faith. I NEVER STOPPED BELIEVING in God, or Jesus; but lost faith that all of His intentions were good, or that He even cared. Not only I, but SO many people around me were suffering every day; and it really seemed like our creator...just didn’t care.

As a Christian it was taught that every bad thing in this world is a result of the actions of men, or devils; that though God didn’t stop bad things from happening, neither did He cause them. But now being somewhat disconnected from my Christian teachings I am seeing things in a different light. It would make this post WAY too long to go into details at this moment. All I will write on that subject for now; is how it makes no since to me how limited beings such as humans and devils are given all blame for the condition that our world is in; while an all seeing, all knowing, all present, all powerful cosmic being and creater of EVERYTHING, has “hands” that are completely clean. That seems impossible.

I believe in God...but I have a really hard time believing He is “good”. It depresses me, gives me a negative outlook on our existence, makes me wonder what the afterlife REALLY holds. I understand that the Bible says one thing...but life and experience has shown me another view.

Thank you for reading. I look forward to your responses. And please note: I FULLY UNDERSTAND that my way of thinking is flawed; I would just really like to open up a line of communication with knowledgeable people who can help me to find “the way”.

Thank you all so much in advance.

Hi @DRTB2, there is no question that there is much that is bad in this world, horrible even, and few, if any of us, escape being touched by it regularly, to one degree or another

That said, you would also have to admit that there's much that is good and wonderful and beautiful in this world too , and that often, when things were their darkest and couldn't seem to get any worse, a light seems to break through and things suddenly get better! (the famous saying that, it's darkest right before the dawn, often seems to fit these lives of ours, doesn't it?)

There is also no question that God is fully aware of all of the suffering that we go through. Do you think that He is powerless to prevent it if He wanted to? Assuming that you do not, then why do you believe that He chooses to allow it?

Do you believe Him cruel who sent His Son here to die on our behalf, or was His choice to save us by doing so an act of love on His part?

Is it possible that everything He does and everything He allows us to go through is actually for our benefit, because He loves us, and because He sees/knows what we 'truly' need from His perfect perspective, far better than we could ever hope to from ours .. cf Jeremiah 29:11, 31:3; Romans 8:28, 32; Hebrews 12:7-11?

The hard/harsh things in this life, things that I know the Father has chosen to ordain/allow to happen, I always try to see from the foot of the Cross, because seeing things from that perspective helps me remember how much He loves me, that He has a loving purpose in allowing me to suffer the things I do, and that He will always fulfill His promise to me/us and bring good out of the bad things in this life .. Romans 8:28. These are perhaps the biggest reasons that I chose to entrust my life and my eternity to Him in the first place.

Did you not do so for similar reasons?

Thanks!

~Deut

.

"Today, in our society and our daily lives, the characteristics of the spiritual and physical world are very far apart. We live our lives based on physical world, negative characteristics, not the positive spiritual world characteristics."

~Divine Inspiration With An Earthly Story~ ( Parables )
"Christ taught in parables to invite us to reexamine some of our most cherished convictions about matters of 'Eternal Importance'. For this reason, Jesus’s parables often unsettle rather than reassure."
(Know this and know it well. A parable, or an allegory story
designed to illustrate or teach a moral lesson...to convey a
meaning indirectly by use of comparison.)
"Ponder these words carefully."........The Divine words tell
us precisely...what you see is not what is meant...'They look
and look, but do not see.'
( "The parable is, has been and always will be,
the language of the wise for speaking to the simple,
and the langage of the simple for speaking to the wise…" )
'Praise God'

i have come face to face with the devil and i know all evil is from him, God is good and all good comes from him, i know this because i have heard the voice of his son. we suffer to make us strong, we a refined like silver, smelted like gold, God does not allow evil in the world but is always dealing with it, if some things in the bible he does seems harsh its because the situation called for it. he gives us medications and treatments to ease our ailments, and what we have now is nothing compared to the world to come, we christians do not live for this world whose king is satan but the world to come whose king is Jesus

Wow It's cool that you where able to make that mental move to separate humans from God and see that ones relationship with God should never be connected to ones relationships with other human beings.. Thousands of people fall out of belief in God because of bad experiences they have with other humans..

I see the suffering of the world as a symptom of the faultiness of mankind and thus it confirms something is very wrong with us and that confirms the story of Genesis, that satan sabotaged us when he motivated us to adopt the knowledge of good and evil.. If we lived in a world without troubles and suffering then how would we know something is wrong? We actually need to experience the problem in our day to day lives so that we can seek the solution.. The eternal solution that the Holy Bible revealed through the LORD Jesus Christ..

Another point is that life in this sabotaged existence is limited in duration.. We only need to spend on life time here in this mess.. And then comes eternity which for us whom believe and trust in Jesus will be a perfect eternity without any suffering or trouble.. The very fact that Jesus suffered death to Redeem me and win access for me to His eternal perfect existence confirms for me that God is loving and willing to go to extreme lengths to save me from the penalty that was due upon me a sinner..

Anyway i hope you come to know the love of God as you think about all these things..

Deuteronomy,

Of course I believe that God has the power to stop suffering if He so chose to; I feel that there are three possible reasons why he doesn’t though.

One, He uses pain to teach us lessons or to push us towards action; as we (most normal people) are motivated by the avoidance of pain and the pursuit of pleasure.

Secondly, those of us who have survived a particular type of suffering can use that wisdom to help prevent, or give aid and advice to those whom are unfortunate enough to go through the same thing.

But the third reason feels as real to me as the first two; and that is that on some level God enjoys watching us suffer. I make this statement because there are times that the suffering experienced neither teaches a lesson nor can be used in a positive way. I’ll give you a couple examples of true events: A father who rapes his two month old daughter. A child being born horribly disfigured.


Yes; it was cruel. Sending His son may HAVE been an act of love; but look at what God constitutes as love...the tortured and horrible death of someone. Please think about that. Of all the possible ways God could have “saved” mankind...He chose to use violence, pain, and killing someone as a means to do it and call it love.

And by the way, mankind would not HAVE to be saved in the first place had not circumstances for us to fall been set up. It’s not hard to read Genesis and see that. Please think of that...why did knowledge HAVE to be bad? Just from the title of the tree “The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil”...goes to show that there was ALREADY evil before Adam ate of the fruit. Mankind did not create evil. Mankind released something into the world that was already there, by eating fruit from a tree that did not HAVE to be in the Garden of Eden at all.

I realize that my comments might seem confrontational; but please believe me when I state that they are not meant to be. There may be some difficult questions asked, some statements made which are not agreed upon because of different points of view; but difficult questions can’t be answered if not asked.

Thank you so much for your responses.

Hey noblenut! There is great wisdom in your response; but this comment is debatable. God is ALL-POWERFUL, and there is nothing that happens in our world which He does not allow...or else He would not be all-powerful. Evil is in our world, because He allows it to be. If He did not want it to be a part of our world...it wouldn’t be.

He is God.

You are looking at it wrong. It’s more like a doctor (God) healing a patient with cancer (world). The good cells and bad cells are so intertwined some bad can’t be destroyed without killing the good. The medicine has been administered (Christ) now it’s just going to take time. Eventually in the end all of creation will be restored healthy. We are created as part of a bigger whole. The whole is what’s important, even though we rarely see past our own circumstances.

We are in the evil times. People don't surprise me anymore because by nature we are all selfish. Even family and close friends are capable of betraying you. Even David who was very close to God still made a mistake. May God give you more compassion and strength to continue living for God's purpose in this fallen world.

Thank you for your comments Adstar.

God MADE man faulty...that is easy to see as you read Genesis.

Satan did not lie to Eve. He told Eve the truth. He did not twist her arm but because of her flawed nature she ate of the fruit, and Adam ate of it for the same reason.

The “knowledge of good and evil” is confirmation that evil existed BEFORE Adam and Eve ate the fruit...from a completely pointless tree that did not have to be there in the first place...or did it?

HUNGRY!!!

WOW!!!! Such an amazing and true analogy!

I have one too:

Let’s say that for some reason I became envious of your success in life, so much to the point to where I wanted to cause you bodily harm. I go to your house and set it on fire, and as the flames rise I hear not only you, but your family members crying out in panic.

Realizing the horrible mistake I’ve made, and having a change of heart, I kick in the front door, and one by one pull all of you out of the burning house to safety. Neighbors standing around who did not see me start the fire, but saw me save your family applaud me, and I am labeled as a hero.

Sure. I saved you and your family. But you would have not have HAD to be saved; if I had not started the fire in the first place.

When God finished the creation He delared it was Good.. God created Adam and Eve and they where good.. But they had the ability to take on corruption.. With the enticement of satan they where decieved and sabotarged.. But still in the end humans believed satan and not God.. Thus we suffer the outcome of that decision..

satan did indeed lie to Eve .. He told her she would be as God.. She never became an all knowing all wise all powerful God.. satan also lied when he told Eve that she surley would not die.. Eve and Adam suffered death and death has been with us since those times..

The tree of the knowledge of good and evil demonstrated that God had indeed created free willed beings that had the option to follow Gods will or embrace satans deception.. So yeah it had to be there to give the option to choose between God or rebellion..

Adstar!

This is great! I love this communication!

Would you agree that God knows us completely before we are born? That He knows everything about us, our strengths and weaknesses, and every move we will make before we even make it? If you do believe this, then it’s not difficult to believe that God KNEW that Adam and Eve would fail Him...even before He created them. God could have very well made them tolerable to negative influence; but He didn’t. He could have very well not put that tree in the garden, knowing what it was capable of; but He did.

So, Satan told Eve...”You will not surely die, for God knows that the day you eat of this tree you will be like Him; knowing good and evil.” That was true, Adam and Eve did become like God in their knowledge of good and evil. Satan did not say that they would become all wise, all knowing, or all powerful...only that they would know good and evil. He didn’t lie.

Also, in Genesis, there was ANOTHER tree that God had created; the Tree of Life...which He later put under the protection of an Angel with a flaming sword so that Adam would not also eat if IT and live forever.

SO...since man never got to eat from the Tree of Life and live forever...one can only conclude that man was ALREADY designed by God to die eventually.

God had made it seem to Adam and Eve that if they ate of the tree that they would die right away as if poisoned. When they ate of the tree they were then subject to SPIRITUAL death, as they were already subject to PHYSICAL death eventually. But how were Adam and Eve to know that God was being cryptic? They were like children...NOT really even the true nature of death since neither of them had seen it before. So, again; Satan did not lie, as neither Adam or Eve dropped dead in physical death after eating the fruit.

And...

While it IS very true that man has the option to choose between doing good and bad; that does not change the fact that BAD is there TO CHOOSE from in the first place.

And if God already knows what you’re going to do before you do it...is it really a choice?

***
I was raised Christian; so I know and understand why you feel what you feel. You are STRONG, steadfast in your belief. I applaud you for that!

I would argue this analogy would be more accurate if you were the builder of the house and used bad wiring that caused the fire. Then rescued the family. One scenario is malicious, the other is reactive. This however isn’t the end of the story. The builder says that if we keep him as our contractor he will build us a new and better house, in a nicer neighbourhood.

"If your god is so good
Tell me, why so much pain?
I'm not sure, not so sure
That God is to blame..."
- Chris Rice


If God is so good, why is there so much bad in the world that God made? Well... this isn't really the way God made the world. I mean yes, this is the world God made, but the world we have today isn't like it was when God made it. There were no tornadoes, no hurricanes, no diseases, no animals eating other animals, no insects with stingers, there were no attackers to ward off and no defenses needed.

Then we broke the world.

It still runs of course, and there is still a lot to enjoy in this world, but it doesn't run like it used to. But you can't blame God for it, and you can't logically use the bad in the world to question whether God is good. We humans are the ones who broke the world with sin. A lot of things changed when we let sin into the world.

Here's an analogy: Supposed I bought a brand new car and blithely ignored the manual that said to change the oil every X miles, put this kind of oil in it, keep this and that maintained... I'd rather put kool-aid in the oil pan because it's cheaper. It's my car, right? I can do what I want with it. But when it breaks down, can I blame the car company for selling me a crummy car?

It just doesn't make sense to think God might not be good just because there is bad in the world. We're the ones who introduced the bad, not God.

Lynx,

Great analogy, and I get it; if we don’t take care of something the way that we are supposed to, and it breaks down, then we are to blame. I get that!

How?

Did YOU create sin? Did I? Did we mix a bunch of chemicals in a lab, call it sin, then release it to infect the world like a virus? No. WE...didn’t do that.

Did Adam and Eve...who by the way probably didn’t fully understand consequences of disobedience or true nature of death (because they had never really seen them before) create sin because they ate a piece of fruit from a tree? What child does EVERYTHING their parents tell them to do? None. Is the entire world doomed because they do one thing that they are told not to...no.

Let’s say that you WERE the one who created sin, put it in a glass jar and told me “hey D2...NEVER touch that jar”, but me being hard-headed, I picked it up to look at it, it slipped out of my hands and BLAM!!! Zombie apocalypse!

So who would be responsible? Me because I dropped the jar that released the virus, or you...who created the virus. Sure I could catch some heat, but the facts remains that I could have knocked over an entire shelf of jars, and sin would not have escaped had you not created it.


Now. Did Satan create sin? Did he create the emotions within himself which eventually turned him against God? While it’s true the He COULD have CHOSEN to CONTROL those emotions, he was not the author of them.

People like to preach about how God has all power, and about how He created everything...until...bad things come of those creations. Then, it’s everyone ELSES fault.

Now I do realize that in the larger sceme of things, who is and who is not to blame is irreverent, because God will win in the end no matter what.

What I think and how I feel doesn’t matter, because in the end, God is the boss, and I am a insignificant insect who’s opinion has no sway over Him whatsoever.

It may not seem like it by my words, but I LOVE the Lord, I love His son Jesus Christ! I acknowledge and respect His power, and will not put limitations on that power by fooling myself into thinking He is incapable of dark things. All you have to do is read the Old Testament to see that He very much is. Us lowly humans have the capability do beautiful and horrible things simultaneously...but who created us doesn’t!?





Thank you for your patients with me. I greatly appreciate it.





I’m not trying to vilify our creator, I just think that people are terrified to admit that the Almighty is creator of all. The darkness just as much as the light.





I am however, willing to change that mindset.

Darkness is absence of light. Darkness is not a thing. It is lack of something.

Are you saying God created sin? What is sin? Sin is doing what God said not to do.

All the things labeled "sin" are things that are harmful. That's why God said to not do them. God didn't create sin. Satan created that, and got Eve and Adam to import it.

So yes, we broke the world. Humans chose to do what God said not to do and we broke the world, just like I could choose to put maple syrup in my car's oil pan and it would be I who broke my car if I did.

God gave them the ability to believe God or believe satan.. They where responsible for their own free willed decision to embrace the deception of satan.. Just because God foreknew what they would decide does not make God responsible for their decisions. Especially when God gave them the ability to chose either Way..

Again if God gave free will to humanity... And He did.. Humans had to have the option of rebelling against the will of God... Which they did.. They had the ability to chose to follow the will of God or follow the will of satan.. Thus they where guilty of rebelling against the will of God and embracing the will of satan.. The guilt is with them.. Not God..


Both Adam and Eve died.. So satan lied.. Also i do not know what translation of the Bible you are using? I use the King James Version in it it does not use the term Like God but as Gods..

Genesis 3: KJV
5 "For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil."

The temptation was that Eve would become a God equal to God.. And this is the same desire of satan.. satans initial rebellion against God was his aim to establish himself as the equal of God.. satan just used the same lure to entice Eve to seek to follow the same doomed objective..


True and because Adam and Eve no longer had access to the tree they... Died..


The Bible never said that Adam and Eve did not have access to the tree of Life.. You assume that eating of the tree of life just once would give them eternal life.. Why did you not consider that they had access and needed to eat of the fruit of the tree of life regularly to maintain their life? In the Bible it reveals a future situation where humans will once again have eternal life but they will have to eat from the tree to maintain it.. So from the Last chapter of the Bible in the book of Revelation we read::

Revelation 22: KJV
1 "And he shewed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. {2} In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. {3} And there shall be no more curse: but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it; and his servants shall serve him:"

So the tree of life produces 12 types of fruits every month and people will need to eat of the tree to be healed.. So in eternity access to the tree of Life will be needed continually..


No God never said they would die immediately.. He said on that day they would die and the Bible declares that a day to the LORD is as 1000 years and a 1000 years as a day..

2 Peter 3: KJV
8 But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day."

So how old was Adam when He died? 930 years old.. less then 1000 years..

Genesis 5: KJV
5 "And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years: and he died."


Nope,, They where not subject to physical death untill they lost access to the tree of life.. If they had chosen to reject satans temptation they would still be living today..


It does not matter if they understood death 100%.. They still had the choice of following the lead of God or following the lead of satan.. They chose satan.. They where responsible for their choice, just as we are responsible for our decision to either believe Gods will or reject Gods will..


Well.. I disagree.. Once we became a sabotaged by the knowledge of good and evil we all become sinners no human being can choose to only do good and to never do bad.. That's the reason why all people need the Atonement of the LORD Jesus Christ, so that they can have their transgressions against the will of God Atoned for.. In the current human situation we do have the ability to Believe in Trust in what is good and to hate what is bad.. But the ability to DO what is good without failure is beyond us at this stage of our human existence..


Yes indeed it is really a choice, Just because God can look forward and see who will accept and who will reject His will does not mean that He created one to accept His will and another He created to reject His will.. That is the serious error of the doctrine of the calvinists which you seem to have adopted knowingly or unknowingly..


Yes indeed.. But i don't need to be strong to believe as i do because i understand what i believe.. many people of far stronger faith then i believe the same as i do without understanding it as well as i do.. They need to Trust God about these things.. Faith = Trusting in God..

Now as a former Christian you did not trust in God enough.. So you fell away from belief.. But let me tell you this.. NO ONE understands God completely so all people who believe God need to have a certain amount of trust in some areas.. If a person cannot bring themselves to trust God they cannot please God..

I absolutely get that.

If a piece of artwork is so horrible that no one will buy it...do you blame the artwork itself for being bad...or the one who painted it?

Your analogy does not work in relation to the Biblical account.. God did not make humans bad.. They where innocent not knowing evil or good and because of that God declared them Good.. They became faulty but where not produced faulty..