I don't know if I believe in God anymore

Pray for salvation nigga

I don't know how you can be on a literature board and not understand the principle of suffering as the opportunity for the protagonist to transform and develop true virtue. Have you never seen a movie or read a book? The suffering you're experiencing right now, because of your self-awareness is the greatest opportunity you will ever have for developing nobility of the soul. You should be grateful you have the right combination of self-awareness and hardship. Without the one you might have responded to your ruin with evil, without the other you might coasted along without ever developing real morality or wisdom. Look hard at your own situation and ask yourself what virtues are being asked of you. You are in the crucible now, but that is the only way you can make steel.

Suffering is great indeed, but eventually you must let it go

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Boy do empathize with this post.
Trying to talk about religious topics with atheists is brutal, they're not even willing to entertain something existing, I attribute it to them *needing* to believe in the absolute absence, and I say this with no small amount of hubris.
Likewise, ask a non-scholarly Christian about the difficult questions, and you will be lucky if you get more than a verse from Psalm.
The rough reality is that the Psalm or wise adage is actually the secret, just KNOW and you're set, but for those of us who are burdened with weaker minds that need answers to answers even after Christ all but staples the truth to our hearts, I sympathize immensely OP.

So the answers to answers are questions, maddeningly enough.
Are you suffering right now? What is causing you pain? Is it immaterial or can you reach out and touch it?
Why does pain in a fallen world negate the existence of God? If life was only ever good even simpletons would be driven mad, so what ails you OP?

I remember being 18 and having buried my grandparents, my father, my uncles, my aunts and almost burying my mom once. I had nothing except pain in my heart, and was convinced the suffering had a purpose, that there was something to make meaning of all of this.
Fast forward almost ten years, and after a period in my life where I felt God had completely abandoned me, where I could not feel the grace and confidence of the Lord that sustained me even through the loss of my dear father, and I was struck with a fervor to read the Bible and immerse myself in the depth of God's truths.
Through this immersion, I have become a new man. I am working out to honor the fleshly temple God has given me, I am seeking new outlets to lift myself above the reprobate I used to be, and I am meditating and praying for God's wisdom every day, that I may lift my brethren out of the muck and into the arms of my savior, Jesus Christ.

I can't tell you something that makes it all click, I can't type up a splendid piece of prose that gives you every answer and I can't stop the nagging doubts and fears and derisive chiding of atheists.
All I can tell you my brother in Christ, is that He will never abandon you and He is so very close even in your agony.
You will be in my prayers tonight OP, don't give up.

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Behold the redditor that OP spoke of This, OP. Suffering is not always a test. Sometimes it is the product of personal foolish decisions. So what is it that is ruining your life? Maybe what you need to wise counsel.

>redditor
cope

God loves you user whether you believe in Him or not. Happy easter

Man is like the piece of marble under a sculptor’s chisel. To him each blow may seem a destructive or senseless act but it serves a purpose in bringing about the finished work that is beyond his comprehension.

I'm not gonna blogpost on Yea Forums but basically the last 2 years have brought decimation to my life. I've lost everything I was held as precious. Catastrophic breakup, awful living situation, relationships destroyed, all-consuming alcoholism, career up in flames. My art is the only thing I have now and, as gay as it sounds, it's the only that's kept me sane. Btw I'm 28 so it's not like a depressed zoomer living with mommy who can't stop being angsty. I'm really out here in this bitch.

It's not that I need to believe in God to be happy. It's just that I spent my entire life believing. And I'm starting to see now that if I was wrong then I have wasted my entire life idling under a mindset that yields no return for me. I've always clung to God as my final resort; the concept that keeps me from becoming an hero. And now I just can't convince myself that any such being is there. And that thought terrifies me. That all my suffering has been for nothing.

Thanks for the rec. Admittedly I'm a brainlet who has never really read any philosophy.

I suppose you're right. I just don't feel like I'm strong enough to overcome these struggles. I feel like I've been cornered and there's no way out. As much as I've said prayers, "had faith," and all that.

I thank you for this, my brother. I've screencapped your post and will read the words over again.

You're missing the point. Bad things happen to everyone but godly people don't carry the weight of the world by themselves.

From what you're writing, it sounds like you first outsourced finding God to Christianity and now you're trying to outsource it to Yea Forums. And no, and there isn't a book that can make you believe per se either.

>Now I don't know if there's anything out there at all. And maybe I've wasted my life playing dumb.
You literally ignored this guys answer. Yes, you did waste your life playing dumb. But the alternative to whatever hollow skeleton of faith you had previously isn't just lack of faith. It is also finding God and it requires conscious effort. I mean it doesn't sound like you actually ever believed in God, you just never pondered it, probably because you're too scared that you might conclude otherwise as you admitted . I know that God is, if that comforts you, but I don't think that we cognised his exact nature, hence the lack of answers.

When you're wondering about whether God exists or not, half of you allows the possibility that it does. And if God exists then it is nothing but disdainful to think about whether it exists or not instead of striving to be a good man, like it is not worth your time and effort to check for yourself - a route naively taken by atheist who cannot conceive certainty arising from any source different than an logic. So I wouldn't think too much, my advice is to make an experiment instead, for starters:
1.Think of what makes and/or should make you feel guilty and don't do that.
2.Think of what God would like you to do and do that.
3.Turn schizophrenic: see signs of God on earth and in the sky.
4.Pray earnestly.
Sooner or later you'll know. Importantly, in your search allow the possibility that the portrayal of God in the regurgitated over hundreds of years scripture might not be perfectly correct.

It is also possible that God has abandoned because you're being a self-absorbed douchebag. That might sound odd to you but I see too many guys (including myself in the past) thinking they are just a poor, little, inept fella (which they usually are), unaware that in their laxity they are doing disservice to the people around them. By wallowing for example.

>This is true faith: to trust in God even though you don’t believe in him
You are contradicting yourself. Also faith is the base of everything, including trust wchih cannot exist without it.

Nobody actually reads books here

Nicely put

Agreed, Since each of us is far from perfect I find it radically more likely that any given person suffering misfortune does so because they committed a sin than because God is putting them through a test.

The anthropomorphic conception of God is a modern development lol

Read and study the book of Job

everyone always says this

well, have you considered doing this? How was the experience? What did you conclude?

It's a psychological function bro. R*ddit atheists are baby rebels against a regulatory function already installed in them. Believers can't relate because they too, have the belief installed.
Therapy, now.

>My art is the only thing I have now and, as gay as it sounds, it's the only that's kept me sane. Btw I'm 28 so it's not like a depressed zoomer living with mommy who can't stop being angsty. I'm really out here in this bitch.

post your work, OP. fellow artist here, i wanna see your art!

also you need some dostoevsky, he deals with this all the time. maybe reading The Road by cormac mccarthy will help.

Feeling abandoned is part of the road every Christian takes. It is an expression of authentic Christianity. You should be proud that you are at a point where it is this difficult. Maybe "proud" isn't the right word but it is a bit like being in the trenches of a war. You should humble yourself and...wait. Don't do anything except waiting and resting, pray and fast if you feel like, but don't if you feel exasperated and like you can't believe it. God is with you and rebuilding you. I know it seems totally insane and like you are now more than ever removed from God but this is a part that authentic Christians go through, or really even any good man who has belief in a higher principle and in goodness, which is equal to God anyways. You will come out of this, not necessarily in a magically different situation, but as a person that is changed and with a different perspective on life. It will take time to take all of this in and recalibrate yourself. And it won't be perfect. I'm not saying this to delude you, I am probably far worse than you (nearly died from DUI, got into fights, prostitution and alcoholism etc.) and I am certain God does not expect you to be perfect in this moment. Instead of fighting the situation, the feeling of abandonment, simply accept it and do nothing. You will come out of it with a different perspective. Will it "all make sense" and rainbow unicorns will emerge? No, but you will have some spiritual maturity and wisdom that you did not have before. The road good people take through life is a road like this, you keep falling, getting bruised but you keep moving on. I have nearly given up, since by all accounts I have nothing, no property, an insane wageslaving job with 60+ hours a week, no social status, nearly broken family with someone who does not give a shit, a significant amount of unpaid work and looming debts, no partner or even interested members of opposite sex, declining health etc. Still, despite getting myself in tons of trouble to the point that I have to thank God for being alive still, I feel like there is still upside for me. Reading hymns to God is fun and pleases me. Do I expect my situation ever to get concretely better? Not really, but I outwaited the feeling of abandonment. O have an experience that 90% of people don't, to be on a brink of giving up and then still re-affirming God. Most people today don't even think about the concept of God, so it is natural that all of this would be foreign to them. But I feel like now, even if I die tomorrow, I know something more about God, and that goes past my mistakes, sins, diseases and the accumulated baggage I have. I know one day God will take that burden away.

Just don't think about it. We don't know what happens past the edge of the universe, and we don't know what happens when the universe collapses again. It took billions of years for life in this world to develop to enough complexity for us to have this conversation. It's a vast mystery, it might never end, and your soul (or consciousness or w/e) might never end as well. You'll figure it out when your body breaks and your time here is over. For now, just try to enjoy the ride.
It's like a shroom trip. Sometimes it's scary, sometimes you worry why you took it in the first place, but it's always interesting and there's always something to be fascinated by. Just let go and do what feels natural, whatever that might be. If people take exception to that, maybe listen if they make a good point, maybe tell them to fuck off. It doesn't have to be hard.
Terry Davis once said, "Maybe the world would be fucked up without all the sin. Just relax and try to make yourself look good."

"fuck you" answer

> There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job; and that man was perfect and upright and one that feared God, and eschewed evi.
Clearly Job is a righteous man with few to no flaws, he also believes in God deeply. The story is how in his faith he is resilient in face of catastrophic misfortune. Thing is, OP questions whether God even exists, so he atm he doesn't Job's option of going 360 stoic, only despair. And it's not like God just autistically puts everyone through fucking obstacle courses everyday for fun. Hes is not trying to be subtle or covert with you. Sin and punishment - it's that simple in common case. And that's not even relevant as having faith is a prerequisite to this whole discourse.

Read Guenon before you end up like pic related

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Surely there aren't countless appearances of God as a human in the OT...

One other thing. With no disrespect to other people, but I have co-workers, friends, male and female... And it is just clear that to the very vast majority of them, the thought of God has not seriously crossed their mind, maybe ever. Life is in some sense easier for them, because they are not fighting a metaphysical/spiritual battle, so they tend not to have the lows you have but neither will they have the highs of spiritual insight. That does not mean that they are either evil or good, but I think that you should look at your struggle as a lecture in spiritual insight. I think it will one day be your job to reveal what you know to these good people who have remained at a basic level of insight because they have gone through life without taking up on themselves this questioning, struggle, Cross or whatever you want to call it. It will one day be the case that God's Glory will be reflected from you down to the people who have not had this struggle or experience. It is quite likely that one day someone will ask you "well, what does this mean?" and you will have the answer that will contribute to their growth.

There aren't, it's angels and they are not human

>And it's not like God just autistically puts everyone through fucking obstacle courses everyday for fun.
user... I have some bad news

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God walking in the garden
>Genesis 3:8 And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God amongst the trees of the garden.

God appears as three men (or as one man and 2 angels)
>Genesis 18:1-2 1. And the LORD appeared unto him in the plains of Mamre: and he sat in the tent door in the heat of the day; 2. And he lift up his eyes and looked, and, lo, three men stood by him: and when he saw them, he ran to meet them from the tent door, and bowed himself toward the ground,

There's others also

God walking in the garden is a metaphor. The three men are angels. Nobody in antiquity had an anthropomorphic conception of God, neither Israelites or Christians. You are applying an anachronistic modern reading to literary devices of antiquity.

I perfectly believe in God in an abstract sense and I'm less worried about le suffering (Augustine, Irenaeus and Plantinga have spilled enough ink on the subject) and more just in this weird bent of constantly looking up historical Christianity and getting bent up on (if not necessarily "worried about") all the weird little details.

"muh suffering" is less important to me than the seeming unlikelihood of Herod slaughtering the Innocents, the unlikelihood of Pilate releasing a revolutionary like Barabbas, and the facts of the venerated and canonized saints that range from apocryphal/removed from the source (Longinus, the unverifiable life stories of the magi) to the obviously fictional (Li Ban the mermaid saint of Ireland).

>it's a metaphor only when it's convenient

>"muh suffering" is less important to me than the seeming unlikelihood of Herod slaughtering the Innocents, the unlikelihood of Pilate releasing a revolutionary like Barabbas, and the facts of the venerated and canonized saints that range from apocryphal/removed from the source (Longinus, the unverifiable life stories of the magi) to the obviously fictional (Li Ban the mermaid saint of Ireland).
It's all made up, the Bible at its core are stories that are supposed to have some kind of meaning and often the meaning is as obvious as those of fairy tales. This is why the theology built on top of it is unwieldy and nonsensical.

Boogieman ad hominem

>Valhalla
Isn't Valhalla more or less the result of Christian influence?

Bad things happen because you jerked off and it made God angry

Your idea of god is just something you were told was real. Now you're realizing it was made-up. Cut your loses and move on. This despair is unnecessary suffering. Wake up and live with vigor.

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t. mind damaged by Biblical lies

Deism actually makes sense if you believe that there will be a technological singularity. God is technology, and a superintelligent AI would be equivalent to God.

youtube.com/watch?v=jxYbA1pt8LA

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Why do you assume that God must be benevolent? Take the Gnosticpill. Suffering can be easily explained by the universe being controlled by a demiurge who either doesn't care about suffering or actively wants to create it.

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God is nature and she is naked, brutal, and simple. Her demands are crystal clear and leave much to be desired. Male driven earnest attempts to rebel against nature's brutish authority and perceived lack of transcendental qualities metastasize into what we call religion over long periods of time. Governments and other more formal power structures over even longer periods of time, although the line got really blurry with fascism. If you plumb the depths of religion you will only find cope and delusions in those systems. The best intentioned copes create a prisoner's dilemma where the "righteous" are primed for exploitation by the "immoral".

You can either try to build yet another monument of life denying hubris, join an existing pyramid of lies, make peace with the lack of transcendence, or go full immaterialist escapism schizo. There's no right path to take, just different paths with different requirements and outcomes. All paths other than acceptance require the burden of faith. You are potentially equipped to meme yourself into resonating with any of them.

I personally don't have the constitution to stomach a purely material reality so it's schizo escapism for me. I too cope with art. The purpose of my art is to send out messages in bottles into the ocean of the collective consciousness. I'm seeking a broader community of like minded material spurning schizos for no greater purpose than community. If I manage to infect some normies with my memes into embodying my delusions all the better. It's an ephemeral desire enterprise. I'm not trying to build belief systems that satisfy the human desire for transcendence indefinitely. I'm making plays. Cheap little experiences with marked beginnings and ends to fill a chapter and then it's curtains. Playing roles just for fun and then moving on to the next one just to pass the time and spite nature's authority like a naughty child or a fool. There's no weight to it and it will never satisfy, but it's enjoyable. It's the joy of a toothless rebellion that keeps me going.

>puts blame on christianity for the horrible life you have
>hesitates to blame christianity for all bad decisions

user, from what I understand about christianity is that it teaches you to be self improve yourself, pursue your passion, fix your struggles, and self-ownership. it is said to have faith in god and humanity to improve its struggles not to do make the same again not sperg about him for your own happiness. No offense to atheist, but they won't tell you to self-improve yourself nor help you meanwhile they have a belief everything in this world is an empty void with no hope.

Hope is cope. The will to power is Her law, but it is repulsive. Join the merry band of mischief makers and shape shifters. The power obsessed rule the rigid realm of daylight, but the night offers frivolous freedom. With a little effort you can dream forever.

>hope is cope
>her law
>join muh gnostic religion

eugh I'm not interested in some manifested nonsense that would force me to take drugs to believe I have to believe a dualistic or pluralistic religion that would say all creation is "evil" or a believe for intelligence when knowledge is already existence. Even then gnosticism is a religion that simps to whoremongering women for muh intelligence or muh aliens.

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Your suffering comes from being overly attached to the circumstances of the temporary material realm. You are tossed about in the stormy seas of earthly life screaming and afraid. You need to walk on the waters calm and faithful.

God helps those who helps themselves.

Take 5 meo dmt

Read some Augustinian Confessions

>Deism actually makes sense if you believe that there will be a technological singularity. God is technology, and a superintelligent AI would be equivalent to God.
This is sad to read.

Good posts.

>maybe reading The Road by cormac mccarthy will help.
This was actually one of the things that got me in this deep state of depression. Knowing that once society goes everything is totally fucked.

I know it's hard user, but you must realize that life is going to be extremely hard some times, and no amount of prayers will make it non difficult. Prayers are not magical pain killers.
Life has to be difficult, you have to be alone and helpless at some point to develop virtue, hardships are the soul's sculptors.

Also, always remember that suffering isn't a simple phenomenon, it's the manifestation of something wrong ; if you break your arm you'll be in a lot of physical pain, not because God wants you to suffer, but because your arm is broken and your body is indicating you that something is deeply wrong and you should pay attention to it. (And maybe not to do again the stupid thing that caused your arm to get broken in the first place).
Seize this as an opportunity to reflect on your existence, why is it so dreadful, did you make mistakes that got you into this situation, how can you fix them, or just start over without making them again? God gave you free will, you used it to get into this mess, now use it to get out of it.

>Because 2 weeks ago I went for a midnight drive with my pistol and the only thing that kept me from pulling the trigger was the fear of what's beyond.
This hits to close to home. I don’t have advice but I’m praying for us both.

This is a work of fiction user, no one knows how humans would behave in such a situation.
Ask you this : If everything is fucked without society, how did society ever arose? If people are bad and uncooperative, how come we were able to form societies? If societies force people to be decent and somewhat good, and people made societies, what does that say about people?
The answer is that while some people can be extremely bad, the average person is probably better than you think. Even in times of war, people try to help eachother, you can witness extreme cases of selflessness and kindness in the most awful times.
I think you unintentionally look at everything through a negative prism. Nothing is ever perfect, if you look only for imperfection, you will find it, and it will seem to you that only imperfection exists, which negates the existence of what is good and fine.
I know this sounds cliché, but tries to focus on what's going right and what's good.

Try*