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I strongly want to be christian, but no matter how hard I try, I just can't convince myself to believe in it.
If this is a genuine post, why not try this:
*Ask God to help you believe.
*Ask a Christian you know about how they experience their spirituality.
Also, can I recommend the speaker Nadia Bolz Weber? She is like this tattooed punk pastor who found God in rehab and she's one of the most 'real' high-profile Christians I know.
You have to push harder. Like when your poop is so hard you pop a blood vessel in your eye.
I also tried but I realize my beliefs are closer to paganism or spirituality. I picked a branch in paganism and learning about it therefore, it's way better than traditional religions anyway because it's more free and not full of a bunch of judgmental highly strung jerks (although those exist in all forms of beliefs). If you want to believe in something but christianity is not for you there's plenty other religions to choose from that you can convert to, or just be generally spiritual and do your own thing. You can believe there is a higher power without calling it "God", personally I just call it the universe and to me it's basically just the source of all positive high vibrational energy which we can tap into through for example meditation.
I’ve heard the church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is looking for new members.
TLDR: Congratulations on having a brain and being able to use it.
There have been times when I wished I was able to Believe. It would make life so much simpler if I could accept that some mysterious, invisible, omniscient, eternal being had a great game plan, I had a role to play in that, and all I had to do was follow a clear set of rules.
Unfortunately, I realised that was all BS a long time ago. I'm not sure when exactly I came to that conclusion, but I know it was at some point during my Junior High years when I attended a Seventh Day Adventist school, and was dragged to church every Saturday by my parents. During those years, the totally metaphorical, non-mystical light gradually dawned, and I came to realise that all the hard and fast rules and simple explanations of life and the world taught by the church were crap, the religious leaders were all in it for themselves in some way, and the true-believers were just looking for simple explanations they were capable of understanding, as well as a crutch to help get them through their miserable, decidedly un-blessed lives.
I did wonder if it was just the SDA church that was the problem, so I went through a phase of investigating other religions. But I came to the conclusion that all religions just sell slightly different brands of ancient BS, and religious leaders only differ in their degree of hypocrisy, self-delusion, their need to control other people and their general wickedness.
The vast majority of religious people are either wilfully ignorant or they're so dim that they're incapable of even beginning to understand how absurd and illogical their beliefs are. But there's truth in the old adage that ignorance is bliss, so many of them are very happy.
Wew, looks like you have been through some things.
By the very possibility of consciousness preceding material it is naive to conclude that religion is illogical.
Ironically calling religious people hypocritical and absurd without considering metaphysics and being unwilling to read about religions/mysticism makes your statements quite hypocritical and absurd.
Furthermore, the error in your thinking, I would like to point out, is that you haven't considered the function of religion, mainly in that it serves as a tool to guide people towards mysticism.
I don't mean to convert you into any sort of tradition but rather to stress the validity of religious tradition and exploration.
Peace out, and make up your mind
Don't. Be bound by a specific tradition but figure it out by yourself
Why do you want to be Christian? Is it a need to belong to something bigger? A sense of self-importance that refuses to believe you could be snuffed out the same as a mayfly? Do you like doing rubbings of saint's faces in old churches? In each case, there is another answer. You could join a cult, go mad, or have an orgy. If it's all three, then - understandably - Christianity is the best way to combine those pursuits under one umbrella.
If you also need umbrellas to be involved, become a meteorologist or a Rihanna fan.
Don't force yourself to believe something just because you think you should. Religion is a good thing for some people but not at all necessary to have a good life. Try to explore the beliefs that feel right to you. Research some other types of religion and spirituality if you want.
I consider myself a Christian, but that aside, I think the first step is you have to be genuinely seeking, and keep an open mind about concepts that might be out of your normal realm of thinking and reality. If accepting things you can’t tangibly touch, see or experience is a bridge too far, then I don’t know what to tell you. Just pray for greater faith, I suppose.
Just try to be a good person. When I pray its like "God I know you're out there somewhere. Theres 100s of religions and I have no way of knowing which pick is the right one. Whoever you are thank you. I love you, please look after my family. Im trying to be a good person. Give me guidance. "
I tried to be Christian once. I told myself, and everyone around me, that I was Christian for years.
I wasn’t.
I didn’t believe it. I still don’t believe it, even though I tried. I now identify as an atheist.
If you believe in the Christian religion, you also believe that even non-believers who follow the word of god (basically be a good person) will be “saved in the end”. I wouldn’t be too worried about it. It might happen. It might not. It probably won’t, and that’s ok. Religion isn’t for everyone.
It doesn't matter whether you believe in God or not.Just do good, think good. That's what all gods wanted.