Does God exist? I'd like to be clear in my mind

Hetty Maud, the reason religions exist is so people will follow the same moral code. Religions include stories that explain human moral problems and what to do about them.

Like everybody else you will need to decide for yourself whether or not you believe the stories literally happened as if they are actual history. There are churches you can go to where you are not expected to believe these stories about God are actual history, but are true like [poetry is true.

Atheists often, unfortunately for themselves, reject all the God stories . This is because it does not occur to some atheists that there are more important meanings than the literal meanings.

Faith helps. Depending on how strong your faith is.
I believe. Always have. Couldn’t explain to anyone why. It’s just there. My faith is not strong enough. Having faith does not mean you don’t suffer. People who believe are not immune to the hurt in this world. I have been having some serious talks with God recently. I could really do with some help at the moment. It may come, it may not. I don’t know everything, why this or that happens.
Some people think that if you have faith you sail through life leaving everything to God without a worry in the world. I think that is possible but only for those with the greatest and upmost faith. The rest of us suffer just as much as everyone else - we just have a tiny glimmer of hope that somewhere in this life or the next we will find peace.
If you have never experienced peace you cannot imaging what a wonderful feeling it is. Better than anything in the world. I felt that once in Salisbury Cathedral for a few minutes whilst reading the words written on the font. It didn’t last long but oh what joy.

If god exists, he must be all-powerful.

I read once, 'To find the truth, seek out all evidence to the contrary.'

I would like to believe in a kind, loving god, but using the above formula it's obvious that if there is a god, he's neither kind nor loving.

Think of all the grief and suffering in the world - today, and in the past. God could have stopped that, yet he didn't.

This very minute, there will be people dying in great pain, babies being born dead, children starving, lovers heartbroken ...

The evidence just doesn't weigh-up for the existence of an omnipotent, good and loving, 'god'!

I wish it did. I would so like to believe!

lindiloo if you really would “so like to believe” then why not do some research instead of rolling out the old “if God was a loving God he would not let this happen”.
What do you think believing is. A nice cosy blanket that shields you from suffering. I do so wish it was. Believing in God is really hard on occasions. I struggle every day

Its a belief system, so asking whether he exists or not isn't a question that can be answered; you can only believe, or not. I don't believe, and am more of a humanist. We should be looking to ourselves to solve the world's problems: praying is no use.

Hetty If you believe that God exists, then for you He does.

Lindiloo wrote:

"I would so like to believe!" I guess everyone would like to believe this world is ordered by a loving supreme being.

Existence precedes essence. That means : to the extent that people live the goodness of god to that extent god lives.

What I struggle to understand is how folk believe the Jesus story. Can someone please tell me why God waited hundreds of thousands of years before sending a saviour who was unknown to most folk on earth at the time. Didn’t all the humans before biblical times matter one jot and if not, why not? Did he think Africans and other folk in far flung corners of the earth weren’t important?

I think the story goes that Jesus was a Jewish messiah, and would maybe have been forgotten, except as a possible candidate for Isaiah's prophecies, but for St Paul who altered the story of the local Jewish Jesus to be suited to the Romans.

I doubt if the early church was bothered about people in darkest Africa, or hunter gatherers and stuff. The early church was a great means of social control and the Romans really liked it.

I think modern believers have different ways of 'believing'. No doubt some of them believe exactly what the minister tells them to believe.