Hello all,

I am not religious, nor would I consider myself an atheist. Agnostic for lack of a better word.


I was prompted to pray when I took a genuine interest in religion a few years back by a Jehovah witness. We spent some time talking and I made an honest to goodness attempt at a prayer, and a fully open mind and heart for a response but nothing came.

I've always just been busy and occupied and never gave religion a second thought, was curious if anyone else had difficulty becoming religious or had trouble accepting religion, or spirituality for that matter. If I try a prayer again what could I do better or different to have real results?

Do I need to be in need of something? I've recently sought help and support in my life and things are going well ( Personal trainer, therapist, nutritionist, New friends etc etc )


I am missing the faith element. I need to know God is real. I need to KNOW the holy ghost spoke to me or touched me. I need to KNOW that was a real sign from God and not a coincidence that my brain is desperate to make sense of the situation. I do not want to trick myself into thinking I know by believing. I want to know.


IS it possible to know? Is the only way to make the connection with faith? How can I become more open to being faithful Seems like a fundamental error in my survival instinct that I can't bring myself to betray my instinct of needing to know. What kind of challenge is this?


Please let me know any serious answers. Will report Troll or spam posts.

Ive been told "you have to just pretend until you actually hear it"

They're lying about getting responses for the most part.

You clearly had preconceived expectations when you were praying, in an attempt to push the current agenda of your ego.

Hello,

While I will never be able to help with the assurance that a higher power is 100% real (neither can evolutionists assure their theory is 100% real either), I usually default to this very simple question which makes logical sense.

Our earth is just the right distance from the sun to harbor how many different life forms? A fraction closer, and we'd be KFC. A fraction further away, and we'd be ice cream bars. That doesn't even begin to take into account all of the extremely intricate mechanisms that go into sustaining the earth itself, providing a constant stream of necessary "air" (for multiple lifeforms -- not everything breathes oxygen and flora actually make use of our exhales to create more oxygen), the internal workings of bodies and the astounding number of biological complexities that go into the creation of new life. The right mixture of gases to ensure we can retain the sun's heat but not become Venus 2.0. There are thousands of other intricacies perfectly planned to "keep earth spinning" that aren't mentioned here as well, as it would be an entire novel.

When I think of that, I ask myself -- does it take more faith to believe all of this occurred out of the random explosion from a single dot in space for some reason at some point, or that perhaps, just maybe, a higher power had some sort of involvement in this?

Logic kind of answers that for me.

This post was edited by CyrusTheGreat on Dec 27 2021 06:05pm

I like how you threw out a bunch of fallacies and then say "logic kind of answers that for me".

Well, you're most certainly free to explain what is exactly false about what I said. I welcome it, honestly, as the exchange of ideas is something seemingly lost in modern day.

However, simply calling things fallacies doesn't make them false.

Perhaps a few starter questions will get us moving:


- scientists have spent decades trying to disprove the higher power theory by finding life on other planets -- I have not read of any success stories -- have you? Theories such as possible, unconfirmed life on Europa unfortunately wouldn't qualify.

- which other planet has the correct mixture of atmospheric gases to support the vast life forms we have on earth, without any special technology needed (mars may hit 65-70 during the day sometimes, but there is no air to breathe and at night with no atmosphere, it drops into the negative-one-hundreds.

- what facts have evolution theorists provided that negate the existence of a higher power without question?


I eagerly await your response - I am genuinely interested in hearing your side, so please feel free to share in more detail

This post was edited by CyrusTheGreat on Dec 27 2021 06:19pm

Best prayer is prayer of thanks because it's a confirmation of what has already happened.
But it must be done in earnestly and purity of heart otherwise you are trying to trick yourself

Is that was the case I was unaware of it. At that time, I believe I genuinely wanted to prayer and be spoken to.

Could you offer some advice on how to deal with this unconscious bias?

I'm unaware of what Agenda you think I may have, could you rephrase please?

I have to say I really appreciate both of your posts, the response to myself and this. Happy to have you engaging in my thread. I appreciate your input.