Author Topic: Having doubts  (Read 227 times)

Igor_Gavi

  • Member
  • Posts: 2
    • View Profile
Having doubts
« on: April 05, 2020, 11:51:48 am »
Hey everyone, I'm new to the forum and would like to know your experience with doubts on the existence of God (and on Christianity) and how to overcome them.

I know the arguments and they seem plausible, but I keep thinking that I'm going in a wish fulfillment thought, and anxiety hits me really hard.




RomanJoe

  • Member
  • Posts: 31
    • View Profile
Re: Having doubts
« Reply #1 on: April 05, 2020, 10:48:07 pm »
What has helped me is contemplating the classical notion of God as the metaphysical bedrock of being and how denial of this comes at the cost of purging the world of intelligibility and implicitly affirming that reality bottoms out to a big fat brute fact or 'just thereness.'

jd3

  • Global Moderator
  • Posts: 13
    • View Profile
Re: Having doubts
« Reply #2 on: April 15, 2020, 02:03:24 pm »
What have you read so far? I'd recommend Feser's "Five Proofs of the Existence of God" and then move on to arguments specifically for the resurrection (NT Wright for example). I'm all curious which doubts in particular you are having, feel free to list a few. As far as wishful thinking goes, it's worth mentioning that atheists too engage in wishful thinking. Thomas Nagel http://admits https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/325845-in-speaking-of-the-fear-of-religion-i-don-t-meanthat he doesn't want God to exist and that the thought makes him uneasy. So people on all sides do this.

My view is that there must be some purely actually entity that exists (stage 1), this entity would have to have properties we commonly ascribe to God such as power, simplicity, and goodness (stage 2), monotheistic religions best fit this description (stage 3), the Catholic-Christian worldview is a better fit than other religions, since it A. best deals with the problem of suffering in that all humans can be brought into joyous relation with God and B. is based on the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, which can be established (or at least rendered very plausible) by historians (stage 4), and finally that living out a Christian life fills me with great joy and just feels right (stage 5).

Most Christians who don't study philosophy just jump right to stage 5--they know it in their heart to be true and that's that. But for a lot of us on these boards, we thirst for a greater defense than that and hence dive into the first four stages. Also, I should have mentioned that preceding all this (call it stage 0) is a defense of scholastic metaphysics, which is presupposed by arguments for God in stage 1.

ClassicalLiberal.Theist

  • Member
  • Posts: 31
    • View Profile
Re: Having doubts
« Reply #3 on: April 24, 2020, 09:11:40 pm »
If you are having doubts emotionally, but are nonetheless convinced intellectually, you should first understand that the relationship between thoughts and anxiety is that the thoughts only have as much power as you give them. The continued contemplation of the thoughts which gives you anxiety notifys your brain that those thoughts are something to be feared, furthering the affect they have on you. If thoughts are giving you anxiety, don't dismiss them, or engage them, or anything. Ignoring them is the key. This tells your brain that the thoughts that were once feared aren't actually anything it needs to be afraid of. I've read a little bit about insrusive thoughts like this (because I've experienced them in a way that significantly affected my mental health) and the ignoring of your thoughts is what helps you get rid of them. I applied this to my own situation and it helped greatly. You can read more about this if you just google instrusive thoughts. Theres more than enough available information about them.