Hi all - first post here, so first off hey and nice to meet everyone.
I'm hoping I'm not wading into totally the wrong forum section here, but I've been scouting around for a place to talk over some serious doubts I'm having about Christianity and god in general and was hoping that this might be the kind of place that I could discuss these things (mods - if this isn't the right spot, please feel free to move this).
In a nutshell, I have found myself in a place of massive doubt in regards to god and any faith that I might once have had. I suppose I'd better fill in a bit of back story and try to explain the way in which I'm questioning things - but this is all a bit mess in my head so you're going to have to bear with me a bit if you're still reading at this point.
My wife of 2 years (and girlfriend before that for 2 more) is a pretty devout Christian, who's parents are pastors of a medium sized New Life church. I respect that she believes in god and that's fine, but we're in totally different places spiritually.
Although I attended a church school when I was a kid, I was never really into it and spent most of my youth years doing the usual teenage related naughtiness - smoking cigarettes, smoking weed, drinking and watching porn. I wasn't a bad kid, but I didn't mind having a laugh and the thought never crossed my mind that there was anything wrong with any of the things I've just listed.
Fast forward 8 years and I'd moved from England to New Zealand, cut down the amount of substance abuse (probably getting drunk or high five times a year rather than two or three times a week), gone to university, completed a degree, and worked a bunch of jobs. A girl that I totally fell for invited me along to her church and I went along just as an excuse to get to know her better. Fortunately she realised I was only going for her and not for the church so she helped me find a church closer to home and a group of friends to go with.
After the thing with that girl ended, I carried on going to that church where I started to get a bit involved, went to an alpha course, got baptised and felt generally contented in my slow exploration of all things god. I met my wife-to-be at the church and we happily dated.
After a while, I started to lose interest in the whole church thing as I felt it was all a bit fake and contrived. Everybody seemed to be striving to be these kind of spiritual, godly people...and while I sort of understand why, it also just seemed kinda of...I don't know, weird is the best word I've got. My wife suffered from serious depression not long after we were married and unfortunately no-one from the church bothered to check how she was doing, so she got quite jaded with it too. Post wedding day, we both pretty much walked away from the church - although the key difference was I walked away from religion and god entirely, and my wife just took a break while she got better.
My wife is now better and no longer suffering from depression, and is beginning to get involved in church again (I'm stoked for her, as it genuinely seems to make her happy). She often seems to be worried that I am no longer 'pursuing God' and doesn't want me to give up on him.
So, back story out of the way - I'm going to do my best to put how I'm feeling about this into words:
Basically, for years now I haven't been able to feel anything when it comes to god. I know it's not just about feelings, but this whole idea of a heavenly father who sent his son to die for us so that we could be close to him just doesn't seem to resonate with me. I don't mean to sound like I'm trying to attack anyone's beliefs here, but it just seems to me that with all the set backs, injustice, lack, poverty, anger, disease, suffering, illness and death that has plagued both me and so many others in the world, how could there possibly be some omnipotent entity that cares about us? And if there was one, why in his own name would he give us one (one!) book that seems contradictory, irrelevant to modern times, and written in a way that is so massively open to interpretation that people have literally killed each other over their varying view points.
There's a huge amount of uneducated Christians out there who tend to take bible scripture as fact and then tout what appear to be some extremely out there beliefs (the world is only 6,500 years old, women were created from a man's rib, Noah and his ark...etc) which certainly don't help how I feel, but for me it's mostly not about other people and what they think.
I'm not looking for platitudes or scriptural "there there's", but if there is some great god watching and taking an interest in me, I don't feel it..and I sure as heck don't feel loved by it.
I guess what I'm trying to say is, the only thing that keeps me from completely throwing this whole god thing out the window and just getting on with my life, is a simple fear of what will happen to me when I die. I don't want that to 'just be it', so I'm kind of clinging to this idea that there could be..should be....something. But the god of the bible..I don't know eh. He just doesn't seem to make any sense to me.
Anyway, if you made it this far, thank you for actually bothering to read through my airing of my proverbial laundry. I'm sorry if any of what I said rubbed against the grain of your personal beliefs, I'm just so tired of feeling mutely confused when it comes to god - I just want to make a decision one way or the other for good and let that be that. For what it's worth, actually finally putting something down on (virtual) paper feels like at least a step in the right direction.
I'm hoping I'm not wading into totally the wrong forum section here, but I've been scouting around for a place to talk over some serious doubts I'm having about Christianity and god in general and was hoping that this might be the kind of place that I could discuss these things (mods - if this isn't the right spot, please feel free to move this).
In a nutshell, I have found myself in a place of massive doubt in regards to god and any faith that I might once have had. I suppose I'd better fill in a bit of back story and try to explain the way in which I'm questioning things - but this is all a bit mess in my head so you're going to have to bear with me a bit if you're still reading at this point.
My wife of 2 years (and girlfriend before that for 2 more) is a pretty devout Christian, who's parents are pastors of a medium sized New Life church. I respect that she believes in god and that's fine, but we're in totally different places spiritually.
Although I attended a church school when I was a kid, I was never really into it and spent most of my youth years doing the usual teenage related naughtiness - smoking cigarettes, smoking weed, drinking and watching porn. I wasn't a bad kid, but I didn't mind having a laugh and the thought never crossed my mind that there was anything wrong with any of the things I've just listed.
Fast forward 8 years and I'd moved from England to New Zealand, cut down the amount of substance abuse (probably getting drunk or high five times a year rather than two or three times a week), gone to university, completed a degree, and worked a bunch of jobs. A girl that I totally fell for invited me along to her church and I went along just as an excuse to get to know her better. Fortunately she realised I was only going for her and not for the church so she helped me find a church closer to home and a group of friends to go with.
After the thing with that girl ended, I carried on going to that church where I started to get a bit involved, went to an alpha course, got baptised and felt generally contented in my slow exploration of all things god. I met my wife-to-be at the church and we happily dated.
After a while, I started to lose interest in the whole church thing as I felt it was all a bit fake and contrived. Everybody seemed to be striving to be these kind of spiritual, godly people...and while I sort of understand why, it also just seemed kinda of...I don't know, weird is the best word I've got. My wife suffered from serious depression not long after we were married and unfortunately no-one from the church bothered to check how she was doing, so she got quite jaded with it too. Post wedding day, we both pretty much walked away from the church - although the key difference was I walked away from religion and god entirely, and my wife just took a break while she got better.
My wife is now better and no longer suffering from depression, and is beginning to get involved in church again (I'm stoked for her, as it genuinely seems to make her happy). She often seems to be worried that I am no longer 'pursuing God' and doesn't want me to give up on him.
So, back story out of the way - I'm going to do my best to put how I'm feeling about this into words:
Basically, for years now I haven't been able to feel anything when it comes to god. I know it's not just about feelings, but this whole idea of a heavenly father who sent his son to die for us so that we could be close to him just doesn't seem to resonate with me. I don't mean to sound like I'm trying to attack anyone's beliefs here, but it just seems to me that with all the set backs, injustice, lack, poverty, anger, disease, suffering, illness and death that has plagued both me and so many others in the world, how could there possibly be some omnipotent entity that cares about us? And if there was one, why in his own name would he give us one (one!) book that seems contradictory, irrelevant to modern times, and written in a way that is so massively open to interpretation that people have literally killed each other over their varying view points.
There's a huge amount of uneducated Christians out there who tend to take bible scripture as fact and then tout what appear to be some extremely out there beliefs (the world is only 6,500 years old, women were created from a man's rib, Noah and his ark...etc) which certainly don't help how I feel, but for me it's mostly not about other people and what they think.
I'm not looking for platitudes or scriptural "there there's", but if there is some great god watching and taking an interest in me, I don't feel it..and I sure as heck don't feel loved by it.
I guess what I'm trying to say is, the only thing that keeps me from completely throwing this whole god thing out the window and just getting on with my life, is a simple fear of what will happen to me when I die. I don't want that to 'just be it', so I'm kind of clinging to this idea that there could be..should be....something. But the god of the bible..I don't know eh. He just doesn't seem to make any sense to me.
Anyway, if you made it this far, thank you for actually bothering to read through my airing of my proverbial laundry. I'm sorry if any of what I said rubbed against the grain of your personal beliefs, I'm just so tired of feeling mutely confused when it comes to god - I just want to make a decision one way or the other for good and let that be that. For what it's worth, actually finally putting something down on (virtual) paper feels like at least a step in the right direction.
Last edited: