Some Thoughts on the Goodness of God

[The Valkyrie]

Please hear me when I say that God loves you so much.

I don't believe you. Not much of a god if it can't tell me that to my face.

Jesus literally died for us.

Sucks to be him. Not my problem - I reject the concept of anyone at all dying for me, and I reject "salvation" unconditionally.

But...



...Jesus gave up his long weekend for you!

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Jesus literally died for us.

He was "dead" for less than 48 hours. Sundown Friday to dawn Sunday. Then, according to you lot, he was second in command of the UNIVERSE.

[zebo-the-fat]

Not so much a sacrifice as a minor inconvenience.

[h4ym4n]

Jesus literally died for us.

He was "dead" for less than 48 hours. Sundown Friday to dawn Sunday. Then, according to you lot, he was second in command of the UNIVERSE.

I love religious math. 48 hours = 3 days

Close enough

[Gwaithmir]

"The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully." (Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion) 

[no one]

If the truth is to be told, any thought at all, and one realizes godiboi is a figment of the imagination.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

He was "dead" for less than 48 hours. Sundown Friday to dawn Sunday. Then, according to you lot, he was second in command of the UNIVERSE.

I love religious math. 48 hours = 3 days

Close enough

All day Friday. All day Saturday. All day Sunday. Simples. Any part of a day counts as a whole day. Elevates His "sacrifice" from "inconvenience" to "My god, he's dead! Wait, he's better now."

[Simon Moon]

Hi everyone,

I hope this note finds you well.  I just wanted to take a moment to share my thoughts with you. You can take them, or ignore them, but I truly hope you will consider them and know that they don’t come from a place of judgment, but love. They are things that I wish someone would have brought to my attention before I was a believer. Here are some things I learned in my walk with God.  Maybe they will speak to you.


God Vs Religious People
Before I was a believer, I was confused between the difference between God, and religious people/ churches.  Here’s the thing, people are imperfect.  We make mistakes whether we go to church or not.  We cannot base God solely off of people.  He is perfect, loving, and well spoken always, whereas people can be clumsy with words and actions. Do I hope that you have a positive experience with followers of God? Of course I do, I pray that you find love, comfort and encouragement from the Lord’s followers, however, I just don’t want you to cut off God from your life because of an imperfect human (like I had). Don’t even base it fully on me.  While I hope that this brings you closer to God, or even just opens your mind, I want you to get to know him for yourself, and see the love he has in store for you. 


Stress and Anxiety
For as long as I can remember, I had struggled with stress, anxiety, and even sometimes depression.  Something that God teaches us is to not worry- he’s got tomorrow (easier said than done right?).  Here’s the thing, we have grown-up in a time where we are expected to carry all our burdens, and solidify our future ourselves, which is an incredible amount of pressure for one person. Let God take some of that burden.  Give it to him to deal with, and shape. That doesn’t mean that bad things aren’t going to happen, or that you are going to get everything you wanted/ thought you wanted, but it does mean that God has a plan, sometimes one that you can’t see, or one that disappoints you or makes you sad at first to lead you to something better.  Please note though, I am not telling you that if you are struggling to not go and see a doctor or take medication.  I just know that this is something that brought me a lot of comfort and relief… God’s got me.


Loneliness 
Something I think every one of us experiences at one point or another is loneliness. People are complex, and those around us don’t always understand, or can’t comprehend exactly how we are feeling- but God can.  He knows your heart better than anyone, he knows your struggles, he feels your hurt, and while you can’t see him, he is there with you.  Imagine a friendship where someone knows you completely, without edits, the good parts of you, and the parts that are a work in progress, and still loves you fully without hesitation.


Bad Things Happening to Good People and Difficult Roads Leading to Beautiful Avenues
Something I struggled with before becoming a believer was the thought of why do bad things happen to good people?  After becoming a believer, it became clear to me that sometimes bad things happen so that we can grow as people, or so that our course in life changes to where we are supposed to be. Now please don’t take this as me downplaying or ignoring your struggle/pain.  Some of you have been through horrors that I can only imagine.  What I am saying though is two things 1) If the bad things that happened to you are from people, that is because people have evil inside them, not God, and 2) sometimes pain leads us to better destinations or callings.  When I was a kid, my brother had cancer.  Through growing up around sick children, I really lost faith. Now on the other side of it though, I know that it grew me in compassion and understanding, and that it put me down a course to help others, as I have seen it do for many others.  Some people I know became nurses because of this, and are helping people every day, others have brought awareness, or started charities which are making an impact in the lives of others.  Right now, maybe you are thinking about your own path, and maybe it was a challenge that made you who you are.


A Love Like No Other
One of the last things I want to leave you with is love.  Please hear me when I say that God loves you so much.  People come and go, they leave, betray you, pass away, but God is always there (even when you feel like he isn’t), and he wants so badly for you to trust him and put your faith in him.  Jesus literally died for us. He was tormented, humiliated, beaten, and outcasted, all because he loved us so.  Imagine the kind of love that takes.  Moreso, imagine sending your only child to endure that, so that you could bring  your lost and broken children home? Jesus spent his time on earth serving the ones he loved so much-us.  He advocated for those who were struggling financially, for the sick, for the broken.  You might be enduring your own struggles right now, and the only thing I can suggest is to truly reach out to God.  He knows your pain, and he cares.


So through this all, you might wonder what gives me so much faith in God, and so I want to share my story with you. 


My Testimony/ God’s Timing

It took me 5 years of struggle to conceive my kiddo, including 9 months of a high-risk pregnancy, 87 injections not including nightly gestational diabetes insulin injections, numerous rounds of bloodwork, finger pricks, and days spent wondering why I was going through all this. Then last year, my little one made it into the world- fearfully and wonderfully made, and everything made sense.  It was around that point that I had to apologize to God for the time I spent being frustrated by the wait- for he knew what I couldn’t yet see- my beautiful, joyful, spirited, energetic girl, and all the other extra things that fell into place, like time.  Extra time to spend with my daughter that I waited so long for.  Had she been born any later or any earlier, I wouldn’t have been granted an extra 2 months on top of my maternity leave to spend with her.  Now, my journey doesn’t quite end there.  3 days after she was born I was hospitalized from an organ  issue- something that has only ever happened to a handful of people worldwide, and then 2 weeks later I got a call telling me that my newborn had tested positive for cystic fibrosis. It was easily the hardest time of my life.  Now after a child tests positive with cystic fibrosis through bloodwork, they go for what is called a sweat test to double check the results, at that point though, I was honestly feeling completely hopeless.  But then there on the wall of the sweat test waiting room was a plaque with Jesus, and I remember just fixating on it and calling out to him in my head asking him to make sure that my daughter would be okay, begging him to keep her safe, and that if it was between keeping her healthy and safe, or me, that he would choose her.  Well here we are, months later and so far, all of her sweat tests have come back negative for cystic fibrosis, and after scan after scan, my organ has healed. Now I don’t know what the future holds- my kiddo will have more sweat tests and appointments, and the future plan I had to carry more children myself might look different now, but I do know that God has a plan, his timing is perfect, and for the times that he has chosen me, loved me (loved all of us), I want to spend the rest of my lives choosing him. Don’t lose hope.


Final Thoughts
These thoughts that I have shared with you are in no way intended to judge, or undermine your experiences.  It is just some things that I wish I had discovered earlier in my walk with God that I wanted to share with you.  If you are feeling incomplete, lost, or broken, try God.  I believe with all my heart that he loves us, and that he wants to help us through difficult times. The words in the bible are real, and every day God’s miracles are still saving and changing lives (even if it’s not always obvious).  There is so much goodness in the world from God, amoungst all the evil from humankind, and I wish I had known how incomplete my life was before letting him in.  Much love to you wherever you are in the world, and in whatever you are going through. 

I get the idea that you are a "hit and run" poster, and won't be back to respond to our comments in your own thread, but call me gullible, I will respond anyway.

First of all, I get the feeling you don't actually understand what an atheist is. Because if you did, you would understand that your entire post is meaningless to those of us that disbelieve any god exists.

For example, when you say things like: "Let God take some of that burden", or "If you are feeling incomplete, lost, or broken, try God", you seem to think we can go from or current state of not being convinced a god or gods exist, to believing a god exists, and it is your version of one particular god out of 1000's of gods believed in by humanity, without the necessary steps of providing us with demonstrable, falsifiable evidence that a god exists, you haven't even started doing the "heavy lifting".

You have all your work ahead of you.

Once you convince us that a god exists, and it is your god, then we can begin to go over all your little feelings about the attributes you think your god has.

Until then, as the saying goes, "we are just arguing about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin".

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

If God is so good, explain harlequin ichthyosis.

Boru

[Silver]

If God is so good, explain harlequin ichthyosis.

Boru

Clearly, god has a sense of humor.