Ques. for people who believed in God but then stopped?

Question

can you share your thoughts on this; for me it's like i just can't deal with all the injustice, and then there is the question of evil and where it came from. i perfectly understand the concept of free will, but God knew what would happen and I assume he also knows about earthquakes or babies being born blind or deaf etc, etc, etc. why does no one want to discuss God's free will or actions. thanx

Answer 1

Mom's father was a Baptist pastor, so what choice did I have from birth but to believe? I began reading at age 2, Mom says, so I was reading the Bible before I began school. It was not any of the things you mention that caused me to doubt. My maternal grandfather also taught school, and so did his wife. I thus had quite a library at my disposal, and I read science, literature, philosophy and history, as well as the Bible. 12 year olds could hardly comprehend the books I read at age 6. My teachers had me give reports to the school on paleontology and philosophy. The more I read the Bible, the more I saw it was naive about science. One of Grandfather's books had Bishop James Ussher's outline of history with creation in 4004BC, Noah's deluge in 2348BC, etc. The science books said Earth is 4,700,000,000 years old, and they presented much proof of it, while the Bible has no proof and is contrary to science and logic, as I could see at age 6 or 7.  

Answer 2

I think the reason that God created the injustice is that he wanted us to really solve our problems without his help, but with his support. We need to earn privlages from God, and all the wars and litter and crime aren't good. Maybe they deserve consequences. I think God is just trying to teach us to solve problems for ourselves, and then if the outcome is good, it will mean more to us if we worked hard for it, rather than just having all our wishes granted. Then, we would never apreciate how lucky we really are.

Answer 3

Well I just decided I didn;t know for sure. I can't put my heart into something I don't really believe in, but I can't just deny something that could be true, and for most religion thats the case, you never know if it's real or fake. So...

I personally think I deserve no reward for living a "good or noble" life but I also feel I deserve no punishment, after all it was him who put me here it's his fault.

Kind of like if I put two hamsters in a cage, it's not their fault if they fight, its the person watching them who doesn't stop them, or for putting them there in the first place. :)

Answer 4

Kelly:

The almost insurmountable problem is that MOST people take the concept of "God" from the fallible writings of fallible men....and have not a clue what a UNIVERSAL GOD OF CREATION, available to ALL men,  might be all about.

One cannot read the Old Testament WITHOUT concluding that THAT god was, indeed, a s****t.

And for Christians to claim it was his right to order the wholesale slaughter of innocent women and children for the unfortunate stigma of being born pagan, is what turns people away, not just from the Bible, but from Christianity and the Scriptural gods!

And to find, in the New Testament, that the 'saviour-god' of Christianity, is no less a s****t than his 'father' is really mind-boggling.  At least the tortures ordered by the 'father' were FINITE.....the tortures ordered by the son are ETERNAL!!!!!

The Christian notion of "free-will" is a dodge that just does not make sense.  No choice that is conditioned on making the ONLY RIGHT choice or being punished forever, is NEVER a free choice...especially when the 'god' offering that 'choice' knows what the outcome will be.    That is merely tricksterism on the part of the 'alleged' Deity.  As ridiculous as the god of the Old Testament making BETS with Satan, and allowing a human being (Job) to experience the most horrendous losses and depredations that not even a Hitler or Stalin could have devised.  That entire Myth is a scenario of evil...an exercise in egomania.  Why would a SANE god need to prove that anyone can be faithful to him?????

For Anna to suggest that we might DESERVE all the evil that happens to us, so that we might grow....WHAT can possibly be learned from a tsunami that kills 8,000 people...or a hydrogen bomb that kills 80,000???? One is the evil of man, the other the evil of nature (god?). Because EVE allegedly ATE a piece of forbidden fruit???   How can THAT possible make sense to anyone with a conscience????  How can the DEAD learn from what killed them????

What god allows a baby to be born with a brain tumor, when we have already had a billion brain tumors to study and for which we have not yet found a cure?????   Prayer hasn't helped.  And the only way I will ever believe in miracles is when a missing limb is suddenly grown back thru prayer!!!! That seems to have stumped both the gods of the OLD and the NEW Testaments.

Answer 5

Yes, that would make God a s****t, if fact, the bible describes God as a s****t who kills people because he thinks it's a good idea. And a lot of believers are also masochists, trying to rationalize God's wrath.

When someone tells that maybe we deserve all the bad things that happen or that all the suffering in the world is just a test, think about Africa or countries like Haiti, It seems to me that God keeps testing this poor people more than everybody else.

Justice and injustice are human concepts, humans decide what's just and what's not, and it has constantly changed throughout time.

And if there is a God that knows everybody that is going to happen then our life is just a book that was already written, and actually if that concept of God being an entity that knows the future contradicts prayer, because if you're future is written already why would you pray in the first place, it's not like God is going to change his divine plan or anything.

Answer 6

Although I know you actually asked for "former" believer's answers, I hope you'll accept this one from a current one. I wouldn't hesitate to say that probably 90% of the world's atheists/agnostics lost their faith over the question of suffering and evil in the world; it's a problematic question as old as man himself. Although I know better minds than mine have wrestled with it, here is the way I've come to see it...

First, if you want a biblical answer to the "suffering" part, the place to start is the book of Job in the Old Testament. Job was a man so good that God himself loved to brag on him. Satan, however, made a bet with God that Job would turn on him when things got bad. God, having faith in Job, accepted, and Satan caused Job's life to fall to pieces in a matter of seconds. He lost everything he owned, and his entire family died; when he still refused to curse God, Satan afflicted him with terrible sores. Job's friends arrived not long afterward, and they had a long conversation on the subject of why God made Job suffer--one said Job must have done something to deserve it, another said he has weak faith, and so on. Job defends himself from their accusations, and at the end God Himself comes down to answer them. His answer, in a nutshell, may not please our human pride, but it does make sense: "Compared to my wisdom, your minds are like those of infants; compared to my might, you're barely ants. Do not question me; instead have a little faith. I'll make it right in the end." He goes on to do exactly that, eventually making Job twice as prosperous as he was before and giving him many more children.

Although we don't like to hear it, the fact is that if you acknowledge the existence of an omnipotent, omniscient deity, it is ridiculous (to say nothing of presumptuous and arrogant) to think that our few years and limited learning make us able to comprehend the complexity of His judgment. A guy who literally knows everything, past, present, and future, may have long-term reasons for what He does that we couldn't possibly forsee. For example, a child who dies young might have later turned out to be a murderer or s*x offender, or the parents of a child who died might go on to adopt an orphan who otherwise would have never had someone to care for him or her.

As for the question of the origin of evil in the world, the Old and New Testaments speak to that as well. The ultimate originator of evil in the world is Satan, who took advantage of Adam and Eve's gullibility to corrupt their natures. From there, a never-ending cycle of sin began that has led mankind to perpetrate evil actions on one another ever since, ranging from small lies to world wars. Could God force people to act justly if He wanted to? Yes, but then we would have no free will; we would be mere mindless puppets. God has greater hopes for us than that; like with Job, He has greater FAITH in us than that. Therefore, He gives us the chance to choose either good or evil for ourselves.

Finally, it is worth mentioning that all injustice and suffering (at least for the innocent) ends at death. Again, if you accept the existence of an all-knowing God and an afterlife, you can bet that he will make sure everyone gets what's coming to them (for either good or evil) in Heaven or h**l.  

Anyway, I don't know if my answer has been helpful, but I hope it has. Good luck to you!

Answer 7

Did God create the carnivores or the herbivores first? Either way he knew that the carnivores would kill and eat the herbivores. This,by my definiton, makes him a s****t, or more likely, non-existent.

Answer 8

well first to answer your question, i need to know what god you are talking about. if it is the christian god then my answer is this. the christian god was a concept created by the christian the as a means of controlling the mass population of converted pagans. keep in mind that in the time that christianity gained a stronghold in different parts of the world, most people were peasants who could not read , the priest however could and since most peasants were subjects of a duke or earl or any landowner who might have had a strong influence on the priest, the only to placate these peasants who might object to their way of living was to tell them that their suffering is caused by God who is testing them in order to make sure their souls are pure enough to get to heaven or telling them that their reward for their suffering is in heaven so they should keep slaving away for the land owner whose money and power is influencing the priest who is reading from a bible that the peasants cannot read and therefore have no idea of checking to see if it true. In most religion predating christianity, gods were more like us and shared most of our short comings, so in the pagan sense of god, both evil and good come from within us and not from an outside source whom we have no control over. so while other religions would require us to act in order the stop the evil things going on around us, christianity would blame it on either god whom we are not allowed to question or the devil who we cannot conquer without the help of angels. so the concept of a sadistic  god who allows bad things to happen to us as a means of testing how faithful to him , seems to me like the doctrines of a totalitarian state than a religion which claims to built on the foundation of love and goodness. but at the end of the day, the choice is up to you, are you going to blame all bad things on God and sit doing nothing or you going to take action to stop the evil around because you recognize that evil is a manifestation of the turmoil in us and spills over as violence or hatred.

Answer 9

maybe he's just very eccentric

Answer 10

If free will is the reason God permits suffering, then He should at least intervene to prevent the violation of one's free will, such as in cases of torture, rape, or child abuse. Some theists argue that "it's all part of God's plan" or some other variation on Romans 8:28. I think the reason people don't want to discuss God's free will is fear of being accused of judging God (Rom 9:20-22).

They may be right, but the argument cuts both ways. If we feeble minded, lowly, mere humans lack the perspective to say when God is permitting unnecessary suffering, then how may we discern His grace and mercy? This, combined with the problem of divine hiddenness, is the reason I stopped believing in a personal God.