A Question For The Religious.

I do have a question though for you die hard religious people.
This is more of a vent for me too so I apologize.

Say everything in your life goes wrong, how can you still have such faith in religion? How do you feel when prayers go un-answered and things just get worse.

For example, having to deal with this huge list of things is overwhelming.


So I mean how can people stay so damned positive and religious? I'm sure people have gone through worse then what I have and are able to keep some kind of faith. Sorry about the QQ story but this is a serious question for me.

pray for false hope.

Most religions deal with this stuff by giving perspective to the situation.

Suffering in this life is temporary. Pleasure in this life is temporary. Faith, which ties into the eternal, trumps things which are bound to this life.

Saying that terminal cancer is a necessarily "bad" thing is a matter of perspective. A religious person might say, "Look at all the time you've been given so far," or "In passing, you will be going to a better place." Which actually frames these things in a positive way.

Suffering is an inevitability, and anyone who takes up a religion with the idea that that will change, either misunderstands or has been mislead.

I'm sorry for your losses and problems.
I wouldn't consider myself hardcore religious, but sometimes just accepting that life sucking is a normal thing for most people is the way to go.

I know I heard from somewhere and it may be slightly different...
"God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to a change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference"

Good luck.

Faith in God doesn't = pray and everything will be fixed. If it did there wouldn't be faith, there would be pray and thou shall have. (Think of Bruce Almighty and him answering yes to all prayers.) Things always happen for a reason, sometimes it is extremely difficult to see why. I do pray for help sometimes, but I more often pray for strength and inspiration. I look back at some of the crap I've gone through and see that often times the only thing that got me through it was having faith that things will one day get better and to keep on pushing. Most will tell you that during tough times where things go from worse to even worse your faith is tested, as it should. But without faith in something, and trying to remain positive, many people would crumble and die. Talk to anyone who's survived overwhelming odds, what is the common thread? Its that hey always tried to remain positive and tried their best to believe they would survive. (Many also talk of belief in God as helping them through the ordeal too.)

As example, think about this. You are stuck on a raft in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Would you be more likely to survive if every day you calculated the chances of you suriviving and saw how slim it was (while doing anything you could to get food/water/shade etc.). Or while doing the same things you prayed and had faith you will be given the mental strength to survive until you are found? I'd personally prefer the latter to keep myself from going crazy...

/Ninja Edit

Skarwind, its a very good question by the way. I'm sorry if that whole list up there pertains to you. If you are looking at faith in God as a way to help you cope, a priest, or someone of that level would be a fantastic person for you to talk to. As much as people bash religion, and the church as an organization, there are a lot of salt-of-the-earth people who hear God's calling and serve, and who have some interesting outlooks on life. Churchs/parishes/priests are a lot like school. Some suck completely, its just a matter of looking and finding if any of them are a fit for you.

What about those who have the will to survive without faith? getting yourself out of a shitty situation is one thing. But when it's other people and all you can do is watch it's another problem. For the raft problem out on the ocean it can just be down to pure will power and determination. Not everyone has these things though and my point is the people you watch whom are suffering might not have the same determination as you.

P.S. Selling your soul is a crock of ***lol.
Can't have mad guitar skills in exchange for it over night :(


Edit: I'm not sure if I want to get involved in anything biblical or whatever. My family is catholic honestly. But I really do like aspects taken from Taoism, Buddhism and Wicca. Not so much as a religion but maybe as a life style and philosophy. All 3 have some interesting points and can be attributed to philosophy just as much as religion. They do help with finding inner peace at times with meditations.

I like this answer.

Everyone has faith in something, even if its in themselves. And hey maybe catholicism is not for you. Great, go find something that inspires you! Anyone forcing you into a religion is not doing you, or their faith any service. (Note there is a difference between forcing you, and trying to expose you to their faith/explain to you why they believe what they believe.) But life's a journey man, go out and see what you can find. The journey alone may be enough to begin some healing and peace of mind.

yeah, those are the people who are considered by society as CRAZY, and not the good kind of crazy either.

I'm sorry for what I read, but I think religion is just another business way to me. Of course, people are free to believe it, I don't mind, even some in my family believe it (going in that evil church place...). As Harp said, everyone have faith in something. Gods, angels, devils, doesn't exist, never exist, and miracle is just a pure form of imagination that church want plant in your head (of course this is my opinion, I'm not here for argue/flame or something). That's for me what it mean religion. I agree with Harp tho. Life is a mystery, and as such, you will never know what will happen... at last wish you much better moments.

XD my english sucks...

That's when they say "it's all part of 'God's Plan'".

Which basically means: I have no good answer for that so I'm gonna shove it under the blanket of "God's Plan", which means that our puny human brains couldn't even begin to comprehend the reasoning behind it. Move along... nothing here to see.

too many religion threads for one day :(

Starr is gone, everyone who has wanted to have civilized religious conversations, is go~

I appreciate everyone's input by the way. And yeah I've known for years being catholic ain't for me lol. I like reading everyone's view points on the matter.

A big part of life is coping with hardships.
Some people are born with thicker skin and some people are born with thinner skin. Some people have brain chemistry better suited to handle stress and hardship than others. Some people are raised into a family and/or community that provide more support than others.

Following a religious code, believing in "salvation" and/or paradise after death, and/or joining into an extended "family" via church ... these are all means to find ways to cope with life's hardships.

And if that were all religion did, it really would be a boon for the world and its people.

Sadly, religion in the modern centuries has been unable to keep to those important roles listed above. Instead, people have taken it upon themselves to believe that "spreading" religion is their calling. And because of that, religion has unfortunately spilled over into politics and government.

Sorry for the deviation from the intent of the OP. I don't know if there is a god or not. I do know that if there is a god, that he (or she) existed long before the year 0 BC. I don't know if there's a life after death. I do know that if there is a life after death, it doesn't exist in the clouds with winged angels, or under the Earth's crust in brimstone and flames. I don't know why some people need religion to cope with life's hardships. I do know that some people can cope without needing religion to do it.

Praise god!!!

(sinister smile)

There is much religion doesn't explain


Nut-case alert incoming.
If you planted a tree and over time watched it grow would you care about each and every little leaf? But this would certainly explain why god wouldn't care about each and every one of us as an individual.

In saying this we are just a speck of sand on a beach, probably even smaller. But the pain and emotional stress we can go through can feel like a whole world of hurt.

All I can really do is just sit down, close my eyes and try to relax into a trance or meditative state. Just personal peace is what gets me through it all. the idea of clearing your mind, but the stress cans till get to you through out the day.


Also hey nothing to apologize about Elana?

Some people do

Read about Job in the Bible. He literally had everything taken from him but his own life. In the midst of all of the pain and torment he endured, he still carried his faith that God was 1) watching over him and 2) loving him

Whether the story is completely accurate or not (I won't start that debate because I'll know it will spiral but I assume these things have happened to a man at some point in history), it helps me to reflect on the fact that no matter how bad I have it, there is always someone out there who has it worse. It is with that outlook that someone can endure endless 'unanswered' prayers yet keep good faith and a positive attitude. A great deal of the Christian faith is taking the negative in life, yet focusing on the blessings that you have. In other words, focus on what is good (you are still breathing, you woke up this morning etc.) no matter how small they may seem in comparison to the 'bad' things happening to you.

For me, if it weren't for my faith, I probably would have killed someone or myself in my low times because of my overbearing 1)anger and 2) drive for perfection (of which I know I can never achieve)

to be frank religion is a crutch most people can't handle life without. It's sad really because they never learn to stand on their own feet to handle life (even if their god is real...

as for the lolstoryofJob that comes up later, this is my response to that:

Yah, it is essentially the notion of the 'afterlife' and 'salvation' status that are the main selling points of many religions, and how the (universal) suffering of the moment we all must go through (whether rich or poor) is transitory and ephemeral in nature and has has no bearing on the 'ultimate reward' for those of devoted faith that diligently observe orthodox ceremony/behaviours.

As Wombat stated, it is this accepted mindset of faith in this intangible belief that is the cornerstone of world religions. Unfortunately, most religious dogma is hard-pressed when faced with real life daily challenges, and even the most dutiful observers of a religion can become jaded over time.

But the intrinsic belief that everything will be judged fairly by some cosmic presence in the end neatly side-steps the question of how any particular subjective evil or undeserving ruinous event visited on the life of a faithful person could be allowed to happen by a caring deity (or cosmic tribunal or animistic all-powerful spirit.)

But traditionally, this promise of an afterlife (or progressive-reincarnation-leading-towards-afterlife) and particularly judgment-before-afterlife appealed most to disadvantaged classes in society. Karl Marx famously referred to it as the "opiate of the masses" but the notion that all will be right in the end and hope for something better is appealing to everyone, particularly those suffering most.

Well, I understand what you meant, I was just trying to write it in the least biased tone I could LOL. I, myself, am "Cafeteria Catholic" (and pick-and-choose my plate of religious dogma and belief systems I have before me LOL) but what I was trying to say is that whether viewed as "tough love" or a "free-will-based written disclaimer" it (as an argument) avoids the whole discussion of why an omnipotent, all-powerful being who professes to care for someone would allow it to happen in the first place. :p

In one of the myriad other religious threads is that famous Epicurus .jpg quote on the nature of evil and how it could be tolerated by an all-powerful diety, and what that says of the divinity that either creates or allows such evil to exist. I am just saying the notion of "all will be right in the end" actually avoids that line of reasoning entirely, placing the judgment of the deity (in this case Jehovah/Yahweh) as a determination of the viewer (Epicurus) and not on the overall system of belief.

At least for those who have faith in the first place. :p For those without, the whole premise for dismissing Epicurus' reasoning is faulty as a result. :p

I'm a practicing Christian. By "practicing" I mean I pray and I believe. I don't attend church, and I don't shove my views down people's throats (though I will talk to them if they're interested) but I still have full belief. That being established, I kinda skimmed over a lot of the answers, but here's my take on it.

Now, suffering is unfortunately a natural part of life. I know I've prayed to God and asked Him why these bad things happen. I've asked Him why people deserve to suffer as they do. Honestly I haven't been given a divine answer saying "this is why" but I think I've found my own internal peace instead. The answer I came up with is that suffering is inevitable; God gave us a free will to live our own lives and follow our own paths. If He stepped in and guided every second of our lives, then that free will would merely be a sham. He lets us live as we will, for good or bad.

Thinking about this, I have long since started praying for strength, praying for perseverance, praying for hope. I don't ask why, I don't ask for what cause; instead I found myself realizing that while the suffering is inevitable, faith--whether it's in God, Buddha, or whatever diety you believe in--is meant to strengthen you and support you through these times. In a Christian sense, I think this is the mark of a loving God; he gives us free will to make our mistakes or suffer at the mistakes of others, but he is there to comfort us in the wake of our suffering.