All right, I've been going through some very hard times lately, and it's got me to thinking.
I know that God is supposed to be good, and have a wonderful plan for everything. But I just cannot see any kind of usefulness in my hardships. I can't see how these times will improve my life in any substantial way. It feels like everything is going wrong, and nothing is going to ever become right again. And that has me wondering about the true omnibenevolence of God and His "great plan."
I know that these feelings will eventually pass. But what of God? Does God honestly not care enough? But the God of Christianity is one that is always loving and caring, even in hard times. Does God care for me? If not, then God as defined by Christianity cannot and does not exist. And it truly seems like God does not care about me right now. I don't know. If God does exist, then I wouldn't be the gifted man to know His mind. But I wish God would just grant me a feeling, a sign, some small thing or thought that would re-warm my faith--is that too much for me to ask?
In addition to these feelings of hardship, my own personal relationship with God has gotten cold and meaningless. I find myself praying with repeated and bland words to my wall, with no expectation of an answer or a feeling of warmth, but I do it anyway. Is this devotion, or am I just acting on what has become a habit? An empty relationship with a deity might as well be no relationship at all. If God exists, He wants my full devotion, and I should want Him to have it, because He would rightly deserve it. But why do I not have this feeling anymore? Maybe I've already made the decision in my mind and heart, and I'm not quite ready to consciously accept it. I just don't know. . .
I've been looking at more in-depth arguments for atheism lately, and I feel that they have more weight now than I used to. One that I particularly found moving is one centered on morality: Does God command something because it is moral, or is something moral because God commands it? If something is moral because God commands it, then morality is arbitrary and meaningless--if God commands something because it is moral, then morality is outside of God's control, which is contradictory to the God of Christianity, and so Christianity is false. Either way, it seems that Christianity cannot answer this question, at least as far as I can find.
I've also come across the terribly mind-numbing concept of infinite regress. Either the universe is eternal or God has a creator. Eternity is against logic, and so God, if He exists, needs a creator of His own. But then what? Not only am I faced with an infinite line of Creators, but the God I worship is limited and non-infinite. He may even be dead, with a new one that has replaced Him. It just seems easier to believe that the universe can somehow sustain itself, rather than there being an infinite line of gods that came before.
And then there's the concept of evidence. Why has God not revealed Himself to more people? If He does exist, then why is the minority of the creations He supposedly loves going to be with Him forever, rather than the majority? Just because they didn't see something that, for God, would be an easy feat.
My brain is hurting, my heart is breaking, my worldview is falling apart, and my Bible is sitting on a shelf gathering dust as I look desperately for an answer that may not even be there. But what can I do? I can't just sit tight as everything I believe is slowly destroyed. So I have come here, where I can hopefully get some answers from theists and atheists alike. But as I said before, I may have already made the decision in my heart.
I don't know. I don't know anything anymore, and I probably never knew anything in the first place.
Dracargen
i was rejected yesterday... and without Him, i would probably had committed suicide... so yeah...
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