Voyager wrote:It's simply because religious tradition shames people for not going to church.
No, SOME religious traditions shame people for not going to church.
All religion is based on fear and guilt.
No, not all religion is based on fear and guilt. That isn't the way Jesus worked. He was compassionate towards people. He didn't try scaring people into religion.
There is no way to prove any of it.
There is if you are willing to allow yourself to see it. If you keep telling yourself these kinds of things, your mind will never be open to see it even if it's right in front of your eyes. That's why Jesus said "Having eyes to see, they see not" and "Having ears to hear, they hear not".
If there is a God, he's either abusive or incompetent. Otherwise he/she would not let earthquakes, hurricanes, starvation, rape, and other calamities happen to people.
I'll never claim to completely understand why bad things happen to good people. However, would you rather that God just cleaned up everything for us and made us into obedient little automatons? The Bible says that it rains on the just AND on the unjust. Good AND bad things happen to good and bad people.
That being said, I would highly recommend reading the novel "The Shack". It deals with why bad things happen and why there is suffering. It's as good a book as I've ever read on the subject, even though it's a novel.
Why base your beliefs on the religious traditions of men? Have you ever proved any of them to be true for yourself? How can people say, "Well, I just KNOW there is a god. I feel him all around me." That is no evidence at all that there is a god.
I don't base my beliefs on the religious traditions of men. For me, it all starts and ends with Jesus. Is Jesus who the Bible claims he is? The big question everyone should answer is Jesus really God as he claimed to be and did he literally physically rise from the dead? If he didn't, Christianity is a farce. If he's not, as I believe, then he is the savior of the world as he claimed.
Saying that you know the Bible is true doesn't mean anything either. What do you do about the verses in Deutoronomy where God commands his followers to kill gay people, non-virgin brides, and adulterers? Are you ready to obey those commands?
Those were Old Testament laws and I don't claim to be an expert on them. However, part of why Jesus came was to FULFILL the law. The Old Testament sacrifices foreshadowed Jesus' blood sacrifice on the cross, so we are no longer under the law but under grace.
You pointed out non-virgin brides. Have you heard the New Testament story about the woman caught in adultery? The men brought her before Jesus and said that she should be stoned to death for her sin. He said "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone". They all dropped their stones one by one and left. Jesus changed many things about the law and ended up fulfilling it by dying on the cross and rising from the dead.
Funny how I needed to see it to believe it, but my belief in The Holy Trinity, just was!!
