Reasons I believe in God

I'd like to do a proper post about this, or blog or something, I dunno, but I dont feel like I'm in the mental space for it. But basically I'm going to just briefly explain why I believe in God. One of the reasons for doing this I think is to help my own faith because it's weird. Sometimes I have quite strong faith and then it can change and I'll not lose faith but have a lot less of it, I'm not sure exactly why this happens, well I have my ideas, but what I'm trying to say is that I think (hope) by writing some things down seeing my own thoughts in black and white might strengthen my faith.

1) NDEs

I'll start with this one because its a big one. I think without NDE reports I'd struggle a lot more. People dying and literally meeting God and angels etc and coming back here to tell the story. Things within these NDEs other than just God and angels are quite convincing too, such as the many simularities between the experiences; the tunnel, life review, God, light beings, things pointing to reincarnation, other prophets, Jesus of course, having to come back to earth with a message and finally and most convincingly many times there is a conversation about having to come back. This is one of the big ones for me, I'm not sure how a hallucination could possibly time it in such a way that they have a conversation about coming back and then pop they lend up back in their human form. It all seems to perfect. NDEs pretty much convince me really, its just my scientific mind that wants to disect and understand everything perfectly that tries to kill this part of my faith off.

2) IFS

Earlier a couple years ago I bought a self therapy book called IFS (internal family systems) which I read and looked into and what the philosophy behind it all is is that at the core of us all is love and we are born as this love but the world attacks us and we then build up defence systems etc which kind of get in the way of this love and very gradually we get further and further from it. IFS calls this love 'The Self' and everything else; rage, anger, addiction, pride etc are just things that are in the way of 'The Self' - I believed things were like this before I learnt about IFS but IFS reaffirmed it for me. We are all love and anything else that is devoid of love is just stuff that's in the way, and with the right spiritual work we can return to this love. Also, most interestingly, the guy who invented the IFS method was a therapist who worked with all sorts of people and he found that after some time, it seemed like literally everyone had this love at their core, absolutely everyone, regardless of who they were, what they'd done, where they were from, what their upbringing was. I believe this love is Gods love - its the unconditional love that Jesus spoke about and its the unconditional love people experience in NDE's - its all that really matters and it is inside of us all. It's just a case of knowing its there and wanting to tap into it, once we do that, we can start to find our way home. I have wondered if this love within us is what Christianity refers to as the 'holy spirit' ? Not sure, either way I'm certainly inclined to believe it comes from God.

3) Jesus

I know a lot of people are anti religion and anti christianity and a long time ago I was too but, devout atheist in my early 20s but after 20 years of contemplating God and going through some (a lot) of stuff, I've come to believe the story of Jesus may be more than simply a man turned myth. This deserves its own post from me really but I'll try to keep it brief to avoid this post turning into a book..

I dont know who Jesus definitely was/ is but the most important thing about him is the love. Most of us will agree that Jesus is love. Or at least that he was a great example of a man. Compassion, kindness, and love but also with a backbone, willing to stand up for what was right in the midst of adversity. He lived his life helping people and teaching people and talking about love and goodness but was then killed for it - but he was also willing to be killed for it - which in my opinion is the most beautiful act of love that any man has ever shown.

I'll be completely honest here, I'm not entirely sure about the gospels. I will not stand here and say that I believe everything that Jesus is meant to have done he has definitely done or that everything that jesus is meant to have said he has definitely said. I dont know about the miracles, whether any of that actually happened, and bad people going to a physical hell in the afterlife for eternity, I'm not sure about him saying that either, it doesn't align with the love or compassion or kindness. And whether he was the son of God? There's a few reasons I doubt that as well. I'd be more inclined to say he gained that status rather than came to earth with it.

But what I do know is that I believe I know Jesus. My heart knows who Jesus is. He's love. He's the example of love and goodness that many of us want to be and by knowing who he is, it gives us the ability to try to become that love and goodness. I think its important to know who he is and if God wanted to give the world a man so that we could love that man and follow that man and try to become that man, I cant imagine a story that would be more perfect than the story of Jesus.

I hope I've explained that clearly, I'm not in the best of frames of mind but I think the best way to explain what I'm trying to say is that believing I know who Jesus is in my heart seems to help give me the ability to have faith in God. Yeah, thats the best way to explain it.

4) OBE's, astral projection, remote viewing, UFOs, plant medicines and other psychedelics etc

This is one that again needs its own post but the five things listed here (OBE's, astral projection, remote viewing, plant medicines and other psychedelics, UFOs) all give us reason to believe that reality is much deeper than just the black and white that academic science seems convinced to have us believe. OBE's, astral projection and remote viewing are more reasons to believe that the soul (and/or mind) is not limited to just this physcial body, plant medicines and other psychedelics like DMT and LSD are more reasons to believe that we can travel to places and interact with entities beyond this physical plane, and UFOs are more reasons to believe that our understanding of physics is, well, simply wrong. With all of the above in mind, plus the fact we can only perceive 0.05% of the light spectrum and things like Masuro Emotos rice tests etc, the more I stay open minded while learning about these things, the more closer I get to building a solid faith thats unshakeable, even in the midst of serious adversity.

5) The beauty of the universe (fine tuning)

Even Charles Dawkins himself admits that if he were to believe in a creator then the fine tuning argument would be the one to do it. We seem to take it for granted, this universe that we're living in, I believe we dont truly admire it for its beauty, simply because we're born here. We've just gotten so used to it that we just take it for granted, like its nothing really. But when you look up at the stars and think about how incredible this all really is, sometimes you can just, I dunno, feel God.

I'll leave it there for now because I've said a lot but one thing I'll say before I end this is, well, I haven't really spoken about love enough I dont think.

It's love that convinces me the most. I've mentioned it here and there in this post but I dont feel like I'm emphasised it enough.

When we're born we come here as pure love, then the world puts stuff in the way, but what keeps us going? Love.... what's the answer to everything? Love... what's the most powerful energy in the world? Love... What's the one thing that all major religion has in common? Love... how do you feel when you feel love? With friends or family or a stranger? You feel incredible, like, you know love is what life is all about, even if just for a second. Then you live your life and you pass away and where do we go? Back to love. The unconditional love, the perfect love of God, as described in the majority of NDE's.

They killed Jesus, they killed the hippy love revolution, they killed the 'peace, love and unity' rave scene, they killed John Lenon, they killed JFK, Martin Luther King JR.... if you talk about love and want to spread love.... they kill you. And now they're trying to kill God. Why? Because God is love.

1 John 4:7-8

⁷ Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. ⁸ Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.

Love you all man, peace