Faith gives my life meaning

Whenever I'm in a time of severe hardship in my life, I recite to myself my favorite bible passage. It truly fills me with hope and gives my life meaning. It confirms 100% that my God is eternal and all-powerful. I mean, with that kind of God protecting me, I have the power to accomplish anything I want!

"The Lord is He, other than Whom there is no other god;
who knows both what is hidden and what can be witnessed;
He is the Most Compassionate and Merciful.
Lord is He, other than Whom there is no other god;
the Sovereign, the Holy One, the Source of Peace,
the Guardian of Faith, the Preserver of Security, the Exalted,
the Compelling, the Supreme.
Glory be to God, beyond any associations.
He is Lord, the Creator, the Evolver, the Bestower of Form.
To Him belong the Most Beautiful Names:
whatever exists in heaven and earth declares His Praise and Glory.
And He is Exalted in Power, the Wise."

Whenever I begin to doubt my religion, its historicity and tangible validation, the existence of God, I try to look for real evidence to prove it all. Then I read this passage and realize I don't need any evidence. All the proof I need is in my heart, and in my faith, and in my hope of God.  It reminds me that whatever troubles I could possibly experience in this world, Jesus has already– wait, Jesus? Oh crap, just kidding. That passage isn't from the bible, it's from the Qu'ran. 59:22-24. I must have accidentally replaced the word "Allaah" with "Lord". Sorry about the mixup.

A little religious Shanghai surprise for ya. Now that I've guaranteed myself a lightening bolt from one God or another, here's where this is coming from: I was contemplating all the beautiful passages in the bible that make me genuinely want to believe in something so hopeful and wonderful. You can talk about God's beauty and wonder and power in a thousand different ways, and it makes you feel all warm and fuzzy, and it can suddenly be very motivating to take a leap of blind faith and give yourself to God. But I'm afraid I need something a little more substantial. If religion were a gorgeous, fresh-baked and aromatic cake, then I need to see all the ingredients – the flour, the fruit, the milk, the lard. I need to scrape the cake pan and taste the burnt underside and oily coating, and know that it's real, before I can appreciate and get eternally lost in the decadent icing and sugary sweet decorations. If you can do that for me, then I'm all for it.

After all, how will I not be led astray by false religions when they all endlessly spout such tantalizingly hopeful prose?

Prayer is an interesting animal

When people pray, it's said that they are asking God for something. Which I find kind of confusing. God allegedly already knows what's going to happen for the rest of eternity, so whatever you're asking for, he already knows whether you will get it or not. So if you are indeed going to receive what you're praying for, it will be at a specific time already known by God, and he just won't give it to you until then no matter how many times you ask. It's like a kid begging for his birthday present two months early, when his parents know 100% it ain't coming down from the top shelf of the closet for two more months. And, if God already knows that you will NEVER receive what you're praying for, then no amount of prayer by every human on earth will change that. So why bother asking God for things at all?

I've heard people say that prayer is a way of talking to God, and that he wants us to communicate with him. However it sucks for God because a lot of people's communication with him can be pretty one-sided, since they often only pray when they want something. They pray that God helps them get this new job, or keeps their mother safe during her flight home, or grants them the strength to discipline their kids properly, or heals their best friend's cancer. Which isn't to say that praying for what you want is a completely selfish motive – as often times these prayers are for the benefit of others. But if God has an infinite plan for the entire universe, who are we to ask him to alter it? Seems kinda selfish, even if it's for a seemingly good reason at the time.

However, what I've been discovering by learning more about the Christian faith, actually reading the bible, hearing quite a few people speak on the subject, and a shit-load of internal reflection, is this: the Christian faith offers countless instructions for people to NOT think about themselves, but to think about God and other people first. This is pretty counter-intuitive to human nature, since we only survived as a species by tending to our personal needs above all others. We've had 10,000,000 years of training on how to be selfish, but it would seemingly take an act of God for us to transcend from our animal selves into truly spiritual and selfless beings (pun kinda intended). For example, the typical, instinctive prayer of asking for what you want just doesn't make sense, both from a logical and selfish standpoint. If you were to do the exact opposite and instead use your prayer to thank God for the things that he has already given you, it might be a little more satisfying experience. Or, if you find that God has withheld your most burning desires even after much prayer, you could try to find the lesson to be learned from not getting what you wanted, and thank him for making you the wiser by not simply handing things out at your slightest whimper.

So all this being said, a perfect prayer might go something like this: "God I want to communicate with you, so I would like to please ask that you let this event play out according to your plan, which I already know it will. So I thank you if I get what I want, and if I don't get what I want, I also thank you for the lesson you taught me, and for the things you've already given me in the past."

Why not just say that one all the time? I think it could fit just about every circumstance.

A god that's not timeless

God is supposed to be a perfect, all-knowing and omnipotent being who exists in all times at once.  Hell, he's supposed to have created even the concept of time. What's interesting is that he shows evidence of changing over time, which may suggest something other than timelessness. In the Old Testament, he was the god of wrath. In the New Testament, he's the god of mercy. His personality and the way he interacts with humanity certainly seems to evolve quite a bit.

According the bible, there were a few times in humanity's history where god decided that things weren't quite working out the way they were supposed to, so he did something drastic to fix them. With the Noah's Ark story: he was displeased with the entire population of the human race, so he essentially picked up the Etch-A-Sketch and gave it a good shake. Hurray for the Great Flood. He wiped out humanity and started over.

Much later, the human race is being a collective bitch again and something needs to be done. Maybe the drowning of millions of his precious creation broke his heart the last time he had to do it, so he decided to try a more peaceful (and less mass-murderous) solution. So he became man in the form of Jesus and provided a new way of getting into heaven, saving the whole lot of us miserable bastards. These events and god's reaction to them seem to blatantly indicate that he was learning along the way, and changing the way he did things accordingly. He was presented with a problem, he reacted with a solution. He was later presented with a similar problem, and he reacted differently than before, with a new and better solution.

It's always said that god will come again and "judge the living and dead", or essentially judge every human who's ever lived. To judge someone is to assess them and decide if they've done things properly. If he already knew who would successfully pass this judgement before he even made everyone, then the "Day of Judgement" would really be the "Day of Sorting", when he'd just create two lines for everyone on his pre-determined list – heaven or hell. But the fact that he still has yet to judge each one of us – to evaluate by some criteria and decide a consequence – means simply that he hasn't decided yet. Which means that time in his life hasn't happened yet either.

Everything god has done, currently does, or will do, seems to follow the pattern of "action, reaction". Things happen, and then he reacts in some way. It also seems to indicate that god learns from his experiences and does things differently later. This seems to point to a being that could be going along a timeline similar to us.

If god was perfect and existed throughout all of time, then there would be no difference in him between the two testaments, Jesus would have always existed as a way of getting into heaven, and he could have foreseen the collective bunch of assholes the human race was becoming and possibly avoided the Great Flood.

Now it may not be such a big deal for god to be on a timeline like us. If he's got power that's still infinite in comparison, what difference does it make? It could cause us to redefine our definition of "perfect". Or it could open a can of worms about whether god has to be perfect and omnipotent in every way to do what he does. And if it can be said that god isn't perfect, then the entire religion risks unraveling into oblivion.

It could also be that we're the ones who change, so through our perspective it appears that god is changing with us. Much like reading the same book once every 10 years. It would be an entirely different experience and you would learn new things every time you read it. But it's you who has changed. The book, as the teacher, has remained the same.