I have always been taught to believe in God and Christianity ever since I was in kindergarden. I have always gone to a Private, Catholic school where religion was a big part of my daily life. We prayed alot, went to church once a week, in fact religion was actually just another subject such as math or science which we got tested on regularly. If you had any questions about religion the teachers would say things like "You should'nt question religion." or " If you do you are not a true believer." So basically I was forced to believe in God or as you guys say, it was shoved down my throat. For awile I thought that Christianity was the only [/i] right religion to believe in. I knew there were other religions but I just thought those people were weird or crazy. Until I got to 6th grade. The afterlife and supernatural stuff I began to find quite interesting and I still do. Eventually I began to question if God was real or not. I had alot of questions and I still do.
[1]Such as why God gives us free will but then created a hell to torture us when we do the wrong thing. Whats the point of free will then?
[3]Another thing is that if God is so good and kind and loving then why does he let bad things happen? Also Catholics have a bible, jewish have a Torah, and virtually every religion has something they believe in. As Catholics they believe in Jesus and that he has come and did all this great stuff. In the Torah they are still waiting for Jesus to come.
[2]How do we know whatto believe. I do not believe in Heaven or Hell but instead we are reborn again on earth for another chance at life. I have now found my own religion that is not catholic or jewish or protestant, or buddhist or hindu that matches my belief. You guys the questions I listed above. I already have answers yo them but I would like to hear what you people have to think. No o
ffense to catholics.
Sadly, I'm not surprised they looked down on question asking but that really is quite ridiculous. The only "bad doubt" is one you have that you don't seek out the answer to. :]
I've had these same questions too and so I'd like to take a minute to explain them.
1. God gave us free will because he didn't want us to be like robots forced to love him. He wanted us to choose and gives us many chances to choose him. Secondly, he is a fair God and hell is a place for people who choose for whatever reason not to have a relationship with him. The absolute worst part in hell is the eternal seperation from God and how is that "not fair or just"? They choose to not have a relationship with him which is where hell steps in.
Romans 3:23 "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God"
See, we all are sinners and because of that sin we are condemed to hell.
That is what we deserve.
But the Bible goes on to say:
Romans 5:8 "But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us."
He loves us so much that he sent Jesus to come as the perfect sacrifice ["without the shedding of blood there can be no forgiveness"] for us.
We are not good enough to make it to heaven by ourselves. We are dirty, unclean and unholy and we deserve hell. But Christ was that last sacrificial lamb and gave us the
gift of that relationship with him. All we have to do is accept it. If we choose against it, then we go to where we chose to be. With or without God.
2. You search and try to discern what is and what is not truth. You study, research and face hard truth and not settle for something that is centered around not just what you believe to be idealistic based on your biases and random thought but hard cold evidence, which I have found in Jesus Christ.
3. Sin has its consequences and we live in a sinfilled world. Just turning on the TV or flipping on the radio makes that quite evident in this sex saturated society. Bad things happen because we all our siners and because we our sinners we affect others around us aswell. Again, none are blameless and all fall short and we pay consequences for that sin.