(Continued)

Outside of accepting God to be real, a second element is also the believing in the bible and the teachings in the bible. Like you said, if the world followed the 10 commandments more then the world would likely be a much better place. This set of belief in God to follow after His teachings and His lessons is another layer to believing in God. Looking at any of the teachings in the bible and trying to learn from them and apply it I think will reap a good foundation in any person.

As Runner pointed out. Being Christian comes down to accepting Jesus as the Son of God, our redeemer for our sins, and someday our king and judge of the world. It's not as scary as it sounds though with how much Jesus taught to love one another, and to do good in the face of evil. That's the kind of Judge and King I would like. One that wants everyone to succeed and to even seem to forgive those that killed Him.

A third element to believing in God (or in Jesus) is trusting them. This overlaps in part to trying to follow Jesus, but it also can go in the area of trusting them to have your back kind of thing. Even when things go bad, trusting that God has a plan for this and that this isn't over.

For the most part I think belief and faith can be one or more of these three elements. Usually it's probably at least two of them. Regardless I hope you can find God. He's worth it.

To Yuyutsu.

The promises of God are greater then an indivual Journey to finally become part of Him.

On an indivual aspect it's the promise of what's to come with heaven, as well as the hope (and sometimes the experience) that God is in our lives. Helping us, changing us, or even just looking out for us on occassion and even answering prayers. On an indivual aspect the hopes from being a Christian are that you can be close to God in heaven, as well as the hope of finding Him in our lives today. And in that indivual aspect it might be simular to how you understand God to be. However there is one other aspect too.

The promise to redeem the world. The promis to one day fix the world is something I hope for greatly. And that God can be testified in people's lives helps justify that hope in God's promise.

Yuyutsu,

"I wish there was no life after the death of our current bodies, that we need not suffer again and again, but the reality is that until and unless you reach God, this vicious cycle will ruthlessly continue"

That might be your reality but it sure ain't mine!

Dear Not_now.Soon,

«the hopes from being a Christian are that you can be close to God in heaven»

In heaven you would not be closer to God because you would be too busy enjoying yourself. If God called you there, you would respond: "Wait, I am enjoying myself so much, come back later". Nor in hell, there you would be too busy suffering, just seeking a bit of relief from your pains.

It is only in between, such as on earth, where pleasure and pain are more or less balanced and one can make choices, that one can effectively seek God.

I can understand your noble desire to redeem the world: there are indeed times when the world is a relatively better place and those times will indeed eventually return and then God will indeed be testified more in people's lives, but had the world been absolutely fixed and perfect and/or been too good for too long, then it could not serve its purpose, instead becoming yet another heaven where people just want to stay and enjoy, rather than to progress spiritually.

Two analogies would be if kindergartens were "improved" by being turned into universities, so small children would be lost and unable to learn at their level; or if prisons were "improved" by being turned into 5-star luxurious hotels, so criminals would want to do more crime as they looked forward to serve time so pleasantly.

---

Dear Is Mise,

«That might be your reality but it sure ain't mine!»

This is rarely anyone's reality: we mostly consider the world to be fun and even ignore the mishaps, believing they will somehow go away and only the fun will remain. Those who realise the noble truth that the world is predominantly suffering (http://www.buddhanet.net/4noble4.htm), make effort to leave this world as soon as possible and never return, while the others remain, suffer, but consider their suffering to be accidental and transient and setting that false belief to be the norm.

By all means have your doubts about God vs no God but don't let that prevent you from being a far better human being than you are now.
You can't do any damage by being better.

"You can't do any damage by being better"

But one can do enormous damage by thinking that one is being better,
e.g. always telling the truth!!