Man nothing frustrates me more than hearing people say they've been pushed away from God and Jesus because of bad experiences with organized religion.

As a Christian, it really bothers me when we present a bad testimony in God's name and end up pushing people away. Like I think about how many black people have disdain for Christianity because it's the "slavemasters religion" and I completely understand where they're coming from and there's not much I can do but pray for them and just try to be a nonjudgmental, friendly testimony to them.

I say all this cuz I've had such good experiences being a Christian and experiencing God's love and having that open line of communication through Christ to the point where, as crazy it sounds, you can tell when God is speaking to you and revealing Himself to you (not physically but when you know you just know). I just wish everyone could have my same experience.

Church/organized religion is important and very helpful when done right but all I can say to anyone is that at the end of the day Christianity is about a relationship, not a religion. A relationship with a loving God through Jesus Christ.

I've had experiences with other Christians, specifically Pastors, that at times made me doubt but we gotta remember Christians are still flawed humans and won't always represent Christ correctly. We shouldn't base our opinion of God/Christ on Christians. Plus part of God's love is loving people who aren't always easy to love.

I believe there was a creator God.

Call me crazy.

Organized religion I'm not as hot on. It's been abused quite a bit.

No, the internet that I paid for is the reason, dumbass.

Your beliefs about God are mostly social and cultural conditioning.

Those are not your thoughts.

Your mom and grandmother gave you those thoughts about God.

Everyone itt should read this. Perfect response. And people need to realize organized religion has things that doesn’t correlate with the Word of God so you can’t base God off what man has went and flawed. Alotta paganized beliefs and whitewashing and one world religion views being pushed within it. Every Christian or person seeking Jesus should read the Bible in its context and gain a relationship with Jesus personally.

God and religion can go hand and hand or be separate. You dont have to follow religion to believe in a god.

For me, I don't believe a god(s) exists. Having no explanation for why the universe exists is not reason for me to believe in one. That would require me to actively assert one exists when I don't know that. The universe could exist for a myriad of reasons, or no reason at all, I can't tell you why or just pick one reason that sounds good to me and assert that.

Organized religion was created by people with power, and is used for the same purpose we have laws. To keep people in check, but it also gives people hope and direction. There's a lot I don't agree with. I'd rather stick to laws since those are designed to be changed with reason and circumstance.

I don't fw either though.

Keep thinking like that

Exactly

And when it comes to reading the Bible I even understand the whole "nah it was written by man" point of view but it's all a part of having faith. If I can believe in a God who has the power to create humans and this vast universe, i don't understand why its hard to believe that he can use imperfect men to communicate His word.

And also there's a lot of debates and discrepancy because there's soooo many different versions of the Bible and some have really corrupted the Word. But I'm of the believe that if you have a desire in your heart to know Christ and follow God, He'll use whatever Bible is available to you (even one that's been heavily changed) cuz He sees in your heart what your true intentions are.

And in due time He'll reveal to you and lead you to the true version of His word.

separate what you think is godly and what man inserted
keep the godliness and thats all you should take away from religion

Right on. The whole “but man wrote the Bible” the more I’ve studied and followed the faith you realize those people who was writing their perspectives in the scriptures was being led by the Holy Spirit and being used by God anyway. And I’m the exact same way once you follow the faith and start to study more you will see how man and people have tried to corrupt the word and twist certain things but those things won’t matter or deceive you once you’re truly seeking Jesus and being led by the spirit. You will be awoken to how these things was to come anyway (Revelations) and many more examples within the book too.

My line of thinking has always been why does it matter if there is a god, gods, or none at all honestly. Like I don’t see how the existence of god changes what I got going on in my life

It matters if the very specific claims of the (mainly abrahamic) religions are true because it concerns your eternal wellbeing. However yes I agree with you, the possibility of a God/creator/etc existing is in reality about as relevant as the existence of aliens. Yes it’s probable, but the probability of it is not so important as to constantly dictate how I live my life and how I think if there’s no undeniable proof (and more than likely never will be) that it’s a reality in the way any religion has claimed.