Hi Newbie
NewbieSlo;n847583 said:
... I lost my faith when I was in my teens, and I thought that the struggles I'm going through will help me regain it, but no, no sign of "improvement" in that area.
indeed. I would say that I have had my faith tested to the point where I'm so close to an atheist that its not funny. I remain however open because I believe that even athiesm is a kind of religion pushed by zealots.
Where was "God" when I had my troubles? I guess if I wished to "prove" anything (and I do not for a micro second consider that the success of the OP's sugery is a testament to God but rather a testament to mankind and their stepping aside from all the religious BS which held back science for hundreds of years in human history.
My own "testament" is that the Almighty God gave me a heart valve which required surgeries, were it not for mankind and science I would be dead probably in my late teens. Then that wonderful God arranged to kill me with an aneurysm, but again mankind and science came to my rescue identifying it and rectifyng it. Then that loving God made sure that bacterium (invisible to the human eye) could be placed in the wound of my chest so as to later infect me and perhaps kill me too. So far that plot has failed but not without substantial damage.
To really show me how much he loved me he arrnaged for my father to get an agressive bone cancer, kill his partner (via heart failure, she was fine when we left) while he was getting his first radiation treatment, he then died painfully from the cancer (in a matter of a month). Then while I was praying for my father and working through the difficulties we had during life with my very understanding wife he has her killed while she was travelling to be with her grandmother. She was going across the world (Australia to Finland) to help her because she had a broken hip and her parents (farmers) were very busy with harvest and could not do enough to help her (grandma).
She never made it because God struck her down with a brain tumor that bled.
Loving God listened to my fairly constant prayers (she didn't die instantly you know) and kept her alive so that I would just miss her as I was rushing to Finland myself.
Then after her funeral, I returned to Australia to sort out my things and return to Finland. It was then that those planted bacteria came to the rise and after two painful surgeries and painful recoveries (aided by mankind again) I seemed to be free enough of them to eventually return to Finland.
Since then God has left me alone, thank God for that I say!
Of course another way to view the same thing is that there is no intervention by God, that God is impartial and does nothing to help, instead (as in the Parables) God wants us to develop our talents in his absence.
So that is to say, all of the stuff I went through had nothing to do with God. All of the stuff we all go through has nothing to do with God. Its just what happens.
Looking at it that way (rather than peackocking out the positives and ignoring the negatives) its clear that nothing that happens is PROOF of any kind. Its just what happens.
Instead we can use our minds to see that and teach ourselves something about ourselves and others.
Any suggestions on how to get it back (and the faith in life in general)?
I don't want "Faith in God" if it is some wishy washy goodie two shoes feel good human rubbish, to me after what I've been through that's plain insulting. Instead I have faith in the human spirit. I know through my wife that goodness is in mankind. I know that our love was a brilliant thing , something which to this day I am learning about at a conscious level.
What we had and how our love developed over the years has taught me to be able to see goodness in people and avoid those who are unkind and manipulative.
Much of the science we have today was developed by good people. People who wanted to make a positive difference in human lives. Rejoyce in that what ever was created it has also created goodness.
I beleive firmly that God makes no interactions with us (indeed IIRC it was the evil which effected Job in that little story).
Get your faith back in the positive, in that you are empowered to do things and that you can make a difference. That if you don't like the situation you are in, then you can change it. For the real power in this world is the human spirit.
I know only a little, but mostly what I know of the world is rooted in physics and chemistry. I feel that there is a spirit in humanity and I wonder about the cosmology question of "how was the universe created" and all that this implies.
I do feel that there was a "Creator" and in my tormented times I wrote this post:
http://cjeastwd.blogspot.com/2013/06/atheism-does-not-mean-there-is-no.html
I believe that humans are unable to grasp the concepts required to understand this question (hell, some can't even add up their shopping or understand their power bill), so when human minds say "this is how it is" I know they're wrong. I know that as hubris
When people say I don't understand but it seems like this, then probably they're on the right track (with some errors).
Lastly I abhor "Prayer" as "begging for an outcome" ... I feel that Prayer should if anything be seeking the power and the wisdom to do it myself
http://cjeastwd.blogspot.com/2013/12/the-power-of-prayer.html
as I finish that blog post off with this
I hope that this helps you in some way to get back strength and motivation and to not need to lean on God or require him to carry you (cos he won't)
