Sounds interesting.
As mentioned numerous times I fall into the boat where I do think it’s most likely not true. I see absolutely no evidence to support anything supernatural from any god, magical powers regardless if it’s through prayer or spells, or crystals, or ancestors and no angels or demons. I see no evidence for any of the supernatural claims in the bible. No evidence that Jesus rose from the dead, turned water into wine, or walked across water, or Peter’s shadow healing people or Moses.
All evidence I see points towards billions of years of evolution that happened on this planet, and potentially on millions of others so far away we can’t ever reach them, and seemingly we don’t see any proof that any of these animals including those that survived as a group millions of years longer than ours having been helped supernaturally. For a fact, almost all of them are extinct. I see no evidence of any gods helping the dozens of other human species that existed and have went extinct. With our current species, I don’t see God helping all the immigrants being persecuted, all the people dying in war, all the kids with incurable cancers and so on. And no this is not a question about evil, but that there is seemingly no supernatural intervention. Almost all humans die from trauma or diseases and not peacefully in their sleep. Everyone of us here will most likely die from something horrific happening to us or slowly as a disease eats away from us. The same for Muslims, Buddhists, atheists. Same for Japanese, Chinese, German, Iranian, and so on. What god helped all the indigenous people.
We literally have a billionaire pedophile group that has been operating for decades and seemingly facing absolutely no consequences in almost every nation.
Additionally, I see no God helping the billions of pigs, chickens, cows, tuna and so on. They are all dying horror of deaths under as children compared to their natural lifespans just because animal abusers like the taste of their bodies.
You know the greatest blessing I’ve seen God give us recently was Covid. So many of our species died but more importantly wildlife thrived. Nature did better than ever in recent human history than when we were the ones being “caged” up. Though domestic abuse rose. 7 million humans roughly died from covid. The average human eats 7,500 animals across the course of their life. Most Covid deaths were older so even if we use only 25% that’s roughly 13,125,000,000 livestock animals saved. Not to mention the rebounding of wildlife. Not to mention all the animals those people kill with glue traps, rolled up newspapers and so on.
So i just see no evidence anywhere for anything supernatural. But what i do have is a few personal experiences that seemed to come from God. Almost everyone I talk to from all around the world seems to have little stories of things that seem to be magical. Not just Christians. I have talked with tons of atheists and after being extremely open with them like I try to be in these posts they have often shared moments in their life where something miraculous seems to have happened. Things that seem magical and that they basically just placed in a box because outlier events that probably have a naturalistic explanation does not change the facts they see when looking elsewhere.
A vet who’s an atheist that honestly kind of hates religion recently told me that out of their whole life there is only one incident that seemed magical to them. Though it’s not a happy story so much. Maybe. He had a dog that he loved. Had the dog for 9 years. Five years ago while driving through Texas coming back to Alabama he was involved in a hit and run where a truck slammed into his car. Turned out the truck was reported missing weeks before. It totaled his car and knocked him out. He woke up in the hospital. Almost lost his leg. Luckily not his hands or arms and so he can still be a veterinarian. Anyways one of the the first things he asked was about his dog. There was no dog when he was there. As soon as he was able to leave he did and was driven back to the spot of the wreck by a friend. Never found the dog. 2 years ago he was going back on the same trip. His dad lives in Texas. He was back along the same stretch of road and thought he saw his dog run across the road down a trail. He pulled over. He went down the trail and heard barking. This was the same road but like 40 miles further down. He said about 29 minutes into walking and calling he heard the barking again and realized it was coming from a house and was going to turn back but say a blue collar with a stainless steel star off about 5 feet into the bushes. Same as what his dog had and it was his dog’s collar. So he went to the house and knocked on the door. A elderly couple opened it and he asked them if they found a dog that was a black German shepherd and they said yeah. He was invited in and saw his dog. It was his dog. His dog was still alive but sick. He showed them pictures, showed them the collar, and talked with them. He got his dog and went to the nearest vet and it was chipped and was indeed his dog. He brought his dog back home and had him for a few days before the dog passed away. His dog was in not great shape and older and no way was that his dog running and the couple even said they had the dog inside for hours. So even thought he is an atheist, and does not believe in the supernatural he can’t help but feel that the event was weird. It actually made him he said far less hateful towards religion. Though he still thinks the world would be better without it and he cried while we were talking. He could be lying. He could be telling the truth. He could have just seen a similar looking dog. He has no idea and neither do I and so he just kind of keeps it mostly to himself.
So for me, those are the reasons why I still believe. Even if it’s a delusion, it makes the strangeness of life seem better categorized.
So I have faith, even though I am not holding my breath that it’s true.
For me the strongest power of religion is hope in a more beautiful world that seems unattainable but we cling to that hope and see sparks of it, enough that we believe it can engulf the world. So I cling to it. Instead of thinking violence is the way to liberate the world. Violence towards those who hunt animals, eat animals, do experiments on animals like many of my brothers and sisters in veganism do. There are many animal rights and eco terrorists. I don’t hate them for what they do. I understand why they do it. I understand that if hope fails, if love fails, that may be the answer one day. But for now I choose to instead believe that hope and love is the way. That reaching out to the next generation is the way. To show how tasty plants can be. To show how strong and healthy you can be on them. To highlight native plants and wildlife and protest circuses, breeders and so on. This is the way to go. Same as I don’t support the majority of the humans living in poverty and suffering as billionaires live lavishly should not attack them and pull them apart. Instead we should vote. I see how faith shaped the lives of so many. So many people like King, Ghandi and dozens of others. Hundreds of others. So I think faith is good. I think that the reason why king believed in everyone being united was not the evidence he saw around him but the faith and the hope in the story of God. Same for Ghandi.
. It gives me hope that my faith can make it out alive.)