Is It Possible to Build Faith in a Creator? – ?????

[Bible Speaks]

Is It Possible to Build Faith in a Creator?

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“WHEN I thought about the possibility of a Creator, it made me angry to think that someone might have the power to prevent human suffering but was not prepared to use it!” Thus said one former atheist who lost family members in the Holocaust. He was hardly alone in feeling as he did.

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When faced with atrocities, many find it difficult to believe in God, or they seek solace in the idea that God does not exist. What are the major factors that cause some not to believe? Would humankind be better off, as some think, without God or religion? Is it possible for an atheist to build faith in a loving Creator?

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ReligionÂ’s Failure

Ironically, a leading cause of atheism is religion. Historian Alister McGrath explains: “What propels people toward atheism is above all a sense of revulsion against the excesses and failures of organized religion.” Religion is often seen as a factor behind wars and violence. An atheist and philosopher named Michel Onfray muses on how it is possible that the same religious book could inspire two types of men, one “aspiring to saintliness,” the other “carrying out an act of inhuman cruelty”—terrorism.

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Better Off Without God?

Not surprisingly, then, many people view religion as an obstacle to human progress and peace. Some have even asked themselves if humankind would be better off without God and religion. However, would such a wholesale rejection of religious thinking bring its own problems?

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Further Causes of Disbelief

Many are taught that evolution is an established fact. Anila, for example, was educated in atheistic Albania. “In school, we were taught that to believe in God was naive and backward,” she relates. “I regularly learned wonderful things about plants and organic life, but I attributed everything to evolution, since this made us look as if we were in harmony with scientific thinking.” She admits today that the “proofs that were given had to be accepted blindly.”

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A sense of bitterness may pose an obstacle to some. Jehovah’s Witnesses often encounter this attitude when they go from door to door, offering hope from the Bible. Bertil, mentioned earlier, received such a visit from a young Witness. Bertil remembers saying to himself: ‘Poor fanatic. You have come to the wrong place!’ He says: “I let him in and began to vent my indignation concerning God, the Bible, and religion.”

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MankindÂ’s Creator and You

Religious hypocrisy, such atheistic teachings as evolution, and the prevalence of wickedness have caused many to doubt or even deny the existence of a Creator. 

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However, if you allow it to, the Bible can provide satisfying answers to your questions. It also reveals God’s thoughts, “thoughts of peace, and not of calamity, to give you a future and a hope.” (Jeremiah 29:11) For Bernadette, whose child was born disabled and who doubted the existence of a Creator, that hope became like a comforting dressing on the wounds of her personal suffering.

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The Bible’s explanation of God’s permission of suffering has touched the mind and heart of many former atheists. By taking the time to find the Bible’s answer to such vital questions, you too may come to be convinced that there is a God who is, in fact, “not far off from each one of us.”—Acts 17:27

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https://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/2009724?q=build+faith+in+a+creator&p=par