‘God loves us’ so says the bus

YT and the others here, may I offer this for your consideration? 

It comes down to were we created or did everything appear "by chance"?

If we (and everything else are created that implies the existence of a creator or God (the terms are kinda interchangeable) 

So now we have our god, BUT his mind is so vast and complicated compared to ours, that communication for us is virtually impossible, akin to me trying to explain radio propagaton to an spider that is climbing up my radio aerial making his web... 

Of course we are much cleverer than my imagnary spider, (the aerial really exists, but spiders dont; seem to build webs on active antenna systems for some reason) but the magnitude of the problem of directly understanding God, remains.

The bible has been challenged an awful lot over the years but apparently the secualr facts and events it described generally are true and not argued over, so we could give suck to the greater idea carried in the bible that our creator IS interested in us and has a plan for our betterment which transcends our own individual life and death. For those of us who live horrible lives and die alone maybe of murder or a horrible disease, God's love is very hard to see indeed, unless there really is more to life than we currently can see, like the area of my iceberg that lies under the water.

Now unlike most of you, I'm heading rapidly towards having spent a full 60 years, asking (pleading, demanding) God to GIVE ME WHAT I NEED in terms of being able to believe. (The message "ask and you shall receive" pervades the bit of the bible I've read)

Rather like my favourite apostle Thomas, I have little in the way of "faith", I needed to see and KNOW for MYSELF. It hurts me inside to just bumble on doing what I'm told without understanding why.

So that's what I prayed for. Enough information to function better.

Now I've received that, I tend to pray for the strength of character to function better in this world and whatever follows it...  

I do know that God loves us, but I'm a bit short on understanding as much about love as I would like to be.

And I know I'm pretty poor at practiciing it. I could do without that bit of knowledge some days...

Good point Isperg. It does sound like god answered your prayers. The idea of a world with no loving god just sounds all the more heartless I feel. You make a lot of good points maybe that weed you smoke does you some good after all. It’s a shame I cannot handle the stuff. But hey ho! That’s just life. I’m not bitter about it to be honest. I would be more bitter if I could never drink again for some reason. 

People really do have minds that work differently. I noticed this clearly with weed (or rather hashish in the 1980's) where I seemed to like the more unpopular (and hence often cheaper) hash. OEvr many years and observations I've noticed that this is very true and that different strains affect different pople in different ways.

I have anecdotal evidence that Prozac also affects peoeple in very different ways too.

Sadly, I can't enjoy the effects of alcohol very succesffully at all, and I really am not safe when subject to it's effects. Just horses for courses. 

Thanks for appreciating the good points, of my screed. IN all honesty, I tend to fall into the same trap that many people do who have really studied a subject, that of believing I now know more than other people, which although logically should be true, after all I've put in the hours, (got an R.E. 'O'Level even!) but in practice I still often don't have the knowledge a situation needs. 

But these days God seems largely "discreditted" and certainly ignored by most people, who have seen through the charade that is organised religion, and like things made real easy to understand. God has never called (as far as I recollect) for organised "worship" simple recognition and as far as I can see making an effort to understand and get with the plan seems to be the requirement with copious indicators and markers placed everywhere about what works and what does not, for those who care to look for them.

My life has been made better, because of my early life exposure to Christian ideals, which when I have followed them have generally been of great utillity to me, and when I have discarded them in pursuit of my own objectives that has not seemed ever to be a winning strategy past the shortest of terms. 

People really do have minds that work differently. I noticed this clearly with weed (or rather hashish in the 1980's) where I seemed to like the more unpopular (and hence often cheaper) hash. OEvr many years and observations I've noticed that this is very true and that different strains affect different pople in different ways.

I have anecdotal evidence that Prozac also affects peoeple in very different ways too.

Sadly, I can't enjoy the effects of alcohol very succesffully at all, and I really am not safe when subject to it's effects. Just horses for courses. 

Thanks for appreciating the good points, of my screed. IN all honesty, I tend to fall into the same trap that many people do who have really studied a subject, that of believing I now know more than other people, which although logically should be true, after all I've put in the hours, (got an R.E. 'O'Level even!) but in practice I still often don't have the knowledge a situation needs. 

But these days God seems largely "discreditted" and certainly ignored by most people, who have seen through the charade that is organised religion, and like things made real easy to understand. God has never called (as far as I recollect) for organised "worship" simple recognition and as far as I can see making an effort to understand and get with the plan seems to be the requirement with copious indicators and markers placed everywhere about what works and what does not, for those who care to look for them.

My life has been made better, because of my early life exposure to Christian ideals, which when I have followed them have generally been of great utillity to me, and when I have discarded them in pursuit of my own objectives that has not seemed ever to be a winning strategy past the shortest of terms.