Could use some help soul searching!

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..

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.

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..

Adstar,

In the few times we have exchanged communication, I have greatly admired how knowledgeable you are.

I know that as human, we can never fully understand even a fraction of the things that God does; His ways are greater than ours. All that we can really go off of is the things we’ve learned and experienced.

In one of your previous comments you mentioned how I had fallen away from my beliefs...definitely can’t argue with you on that.

fter reading it i was totally changed.. I became a Christian.. All those years being an altar boy and saying the Hail Mary and attending mass each and every week i had no idea what the actual Way of salvation was.. I became a Christian in my early 20's i have been a Christian for 30 years now..

I will say that sometimes when people have a false view of God they need to fall away from that view so they can search anew to have an opportunity to find the true Message of God..

I was born into a devout catholic family and i ended up becoming a lax catholic like so many others.. I even dabbled in the New Age belief system.. But a work mate gave me a Bible and i read it for the first time in my life.. ( Bible reading is not encouraged in the catholic religion) After reading it i was totally changed.. I became a Christian.. All those years being an altar boy and saying the hail mary and attending mass each and every week i had no idea what the actual Way of salvation was.. I became a Christian in my early 20's i have been a Christian for 30 years now..

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.

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.

Adstar,

I was raised Southern Baptist, but all I saw around me was corruption; and for my extremely desperate search to find God, I had a Catholic co-worker who introduced each to that religion. I really wanted wanted to be apart of the “one true religion” (eye-roll) so immersed myself in it pretty deeply. The church was extremely traditional and despised every other denomination...the even declared that EVEN OTHER Catholic Churches that did not speak the Latin Mass we FALSE...accused of the SIN of modernism.

I’m not knocking Catholics, but for me, I feel that being apart of that church during the time I was contributed to my current state of mind. It eventually got to the point to where I really hated life because EVERYTHING was gloom and doom, damnation for for the most simple of things. It cemented my belief that God is cruel and vain, and that God MIGHT AS WELL had made us robots; because to question the church...or think for yourself...was a sin.

I eventually fell away from that church as well, and continued searching...
I tried MANY denominations, even non-denominational, for a while I stopped going to church and just studied myself. The one thing that they all seemed to have in common is that they all seemed to completely ignore the cruelty of God. I FULLY understand why...I mean...who in their right mind would willfully follow a cruel God? And so they proclaim that even the most horrific acts He commits MUST have some sort of good, righteous, or hidden meaning behind it. I get that...really I do.

I feel that I...and I have been told that I wrong for feeling this way...that God is a perfect balance of everything; good and evil alike. I have tried, and continue to try, to bring myself to believe that our Lord is completely good; as all Christians are taught to believe. The things that I have seen, experienced, studied, have been proof of the contrary.

Thank you SO much Adstar! I hope you have a great day!