Do you believe in God? I never really did...

[LuckyTheDog]

... not in the normal way, anyway. I mean, I always felt there was some kind of spiritual intelligence behind the universe. But that "God" guy -- the one with the long beard who judges us, sends us to Hell, answers our prayers and didn't make little green apples ... well, I always thought of him as a fictional character. And, honestly, I still feel that way. I pray, but it's more in the spirit of "putting it out to the universe" than "talking to God."

However, I had an experience in which I think some force might have been at work helping to meet my needs.

I am still recovering -- financially and emotionally -- from 11 months of unemployment followed by about 10 months working for far less money than I have been used to. I am deeply in debt 1and have very little room to maneuver, money-wise. And this past month has been hard.

We have been sending the kid to YMCA day camp while he is on summer vacation. It's not expensive, really. But it's money out of our budget that we don't have to spend during the school year. Add to that about $1,300 in car insurance and property tax bills due in August and, well, I was sweating. I was weighing how late I could pay the insurance without losing it. And I figured I'd just have to go delinquent on most of the taxes and pay it in full whenever I could. I didn't like the feeling.

Oddly, though, I got a strange feeling that everything was going to be OK. I recall praying for some good ideas or good luck to help me out of this situation. And at some point, I just felt like things were going to work out. Then, they did.

I found out last week that I was going to get a fiscal year-end bonus at work. Today I got the check and it was more than I expected. The after-tax amount? Just over $1,300. Wow. Just what I needed, just WHEN I needed it.

Sometimes the universe really does provide.

Nice.

[Arugula Latte]

1. I've never been able to believe in a deity.

I don't think supernatural beliefs hold much water.

Sometimes coincidences or good luck do occur. Many people are eager to give credit to a god. I don't get why they're so eager to praise this ghostly presence when it doesn't seem to get any of the blame for the terrible things that happen every day.

[Glassunion]

2. I do agree to a point.

I don't like it when people say something like God blessed me when something good happened, but say almost the opposite when something bad happens, like God works in mysterious ways. Now I do believe in God. But I look at it more linearly. Something good happens... I needed it. Something bad happens. I needed it.

I'm not a member of any particular religion. Religion is people, it is not God.

I don't have an answer for everything, like why was my father killed by cancer when I was a child? I have some maybes as to why, but it is just my speculation. One thought is that no matter how bad or cursed my father seemed, he was always positive and never, not for one moment questioned his faith. That made me be more faithful. Who knows, if I never witnessed his courage, I may have never believed. So, if you believe, and it is a part of the foundation of who you are, would you give your life to insure the same for your children?

[raccoon]

5. Ay, there's the rub.

That's what gets me, too.

"I don't get why they're so eager to praise this ghostly presence when it doesn't seem to get any of the blame for the terrible things that happen every day."

[qb]

3. I did - blindly... Until a college class tried to justify the existence of a supernatural being

in a scientific world. Then it all fell apart. Now I am happily atheist and living my one and only life to the fullest.

[Deep13]

4. I'm glad things are not as bad as they might have been for you.

Still, I don't see why god gets the credit for a small mitigation of your problems but does not get the blame for the problems themselves. The cause of your small change of luck is the company (as you stated). There is no reason to infer divine intervention.

And that begs the question. What about all the people who did lose their homes or died from a treatable illness or starved to death or were killed in war or suffer from oppression? Why hasn't god helped them?

BTW, no one believes in a man in the sky with a beard. I think that description is a distraction from the fact that what people do believe in isn't much more defensible.

[CBHagman]

6. I'm very happy for you.,,

..especially given the timing.

I'm particularly intrigued by your inner feeling -- i.e., that things would be all right. I know that feeling too, have had it a number of times when things were especially difficult, and since I tend to be a worrier, it really meant something to be flooded with peace.

However, I've found that as I grow older, a lot of that is knowing A) I don't know how things will turn out and B) I can't control them. For virtually all of my life I've prayed for guidance, even intevention, but I'm not certain it really works that way. I do know, though, that at times something beyond me seems to be at work. I've even felt that in the last few days.

I emphatically do not believe, though, that people necessarily get what they deserve, or that the universe is unfolding in some harmonious fashion, or that the bad that happens to us is punishment for some earlier misdeed (or, worse yet, a means to correct our characters), or that good is a reward. Good is a blessing -- and I use that word very deliberately, because there are people on DU who go into a frenzy if some harmless soul says, "Have a blessed day" -- but it is not a matter of just deserts.

A long-winded answer to say I think you're right to keep an open mind, and that of course it's great that you have earned that extra money.

[LuckyTheDog]

9. Yep

Re: "I emphatically do not believe, though, that people necessarily get what they deserve, or that the universe is unfolding in some harmonious fashion, or that the bad that happens to us is punishment for some earlier misdeed."

I totally agree. The vast majority of people on Earth are totally screwed -- due to no fault of their own. That's why I am a liberal and not a Christian Reconstructionist. :)

I also think that, if there is a deity, he/she/it is more complicated than we can comprehend.

[Kali]

7. no

I do enjoy playing around with the fantasy that my wishes or thoughts can influence things but I really know they don't.

In the normal human behavior that drives us to learn and understand or explain how our environment works, things like coincidences are a glitch the brain has trouble with. So we invent driving forces like gods or "luck" or whatever.

Enjoy your coincidence, and here's to me having a similar one!

[Schema Thing]

8. When I was in a religious cult,

we'd always pass around stories like yours to show that Jehovah provides or sometimes that type of "supernatural coincidence*" story would be the intro to a story about how someone was recruited into the cult (we were actually proud of the fact that we got people at their weak moments, as we thought we were giving them something good).





*not.




I'm sure you're not in danger of being recruited into a cult, but that's one part of the human mind that religions pray* upon.


*;)

[MorningGlow]

10. Congrats!

I believe that when we relax and get out of our own way, those "coincidences" occur. (FYI I don't believe in coincidences. ;) ) And yes, it's great to get that feeling that everything's going to be all right.

Doesn't really matter what you call it--God, angels, universe, the Great Is--does it? It's a great feeling all the same.

Glad your money issues have worked out. I know how you feel--we're doing the same thing--our "cushion" is tapped out and I'm always trying to figure out how late I can put a bill payment in the mail so it'll get to its destination AFTER Mr. MG's paycheck is direct deposited...I hate that kind of juggling. x(

[hamsterjill]

11. I am a believer.

I was raised to believe in God and I do believe that He exists. I allow in MY universe, however, the flexibility that anyone can believe as they feel. I don't go around telling non-believers, etc. that something bad is going to happen to them simply because they don't share my belief. I fully acknowledge that none of us "knows" nor will ever "know" prior to our deaths. In my mind, "God" does not care what moniker is assigned to him, just that *I* acknowledge that a higher power exists. (Again, a personal decision).

There have been times in my life when I have experienced something similar to what you describe about your feelings that things would turn out all right. There have also been at least two distinct times in my life when I felt something saved me from a certain death.

Now, did God actually save me? Or did circumstances just occur that allowed me to live? Again - no one knows for sure, but I choose to believe in something greater than myself.

I do not like the way that God and religion have been hijacked by the right-wingers. In my mind, God isn't about wars and rewarding monetarily those that do his bidding. And I see that on a daily basis in the right-wing world. God is about calm and caring and compassion for fellow man. God is about empathy - being able to put myself in someone else's shoes and feel their pain, etc.

I have a problem when someone tells me that "God really blessed me" because what does that make those others who may not have been particularly blessed at that time? If God cures one person of an illness, thereby "blessing" that person, what is another to think who remains ill? Is the ill person not deserving of a blessing of a cure as well? So I'm careful how I think and act on that subject.

[BurtWorm]

12. Your experience is sort of like the religious impulse in humans writ small.

We want the universe, luck, fate, whatever, to be kind to us, so we plead with it the way we plead with an unruly child or animal tobehave. If it is good to us, we think our pleading worked, so we plead some more. But if it's bad to us, we think we must have done something to displease it and try to find some way to get back on its good side.

[LuckyTheDog]

13. Well, kind of

But if it is bad to ME, I just get pissed.

[old mark]

14. I went to catholic school through High School, stopped believing around

age 12.
I think there are a lot of things we do not comprehend, but I don't believe in Abraham's old guy in the sky, or anything even close to that.

Sometimes I am amazed at the arrogance of humans to believe we are so special above all else...

mark

[bikebloke]

15. Never

As a kid I said so because I was told to. But even as a five year old it didn't make sense.

[Odin2005]

16. I'm a spiritual Atheist.

NOT an oxymoron. :)

[Mojambo]

17. I think it was your user name.

Gonna change mine to LuckyMojambo next chance I get.

[RagAss]

18. Forget God.....I can't even prove that I exist.

[rurallib]

24. when the rapture comes and you are no longer here,

then you were here

[PassingFair]

19. I was raised to ask questions.

And to never blindly follow authority.

So....NO, I do not believe in gods.

[david13]

20. I'm not superstitious. Well not about a big man in the sky anyway.

Maybe about other things, but not about an imaginary friend in the sky. I think it's based on fear of the dark. I know that for a billion years before I was born, I was nowhere, nothing. Now I'm alive. But how can I be so pretentious to think that it won't be the same when I die? It will be. Eternal nothingness, non existence.
That doesn't scare me. But it does scare many people, so they invent things.
dc

[jobycom]

21. I don't, but I could start if some divine dude started chunking money at me.

:rofl: Glad you got the money you needed, whatever the reason for it. :thumbsup:

[applegrove]

22. When I was a little child I believed in god. As a tween our presbyterian church organized a field

trip to a synagog. I was very impressed with the whole idea of one church being open with another kind of religeous institution. I still believe in that kind of brotherly love and find that the best part of spiritualism. Now I'm agnostic.

[Xipe Totec]

23. God 2.0 is lame. You need an update to the latest, God 3.4

The judgmental routine has been removed, and the AI was totally upgraded.

[Glassunion]

25. What kind of apps can I get with that?

Bump, epicurious, twi, sushipedia? Has anyone jailbreaked it yet?

[Steely_Dan]

26. Agnostic

[ismnotwasm]

27. Nope

I apparently don't have the mental equipment for it. I used to try, but the whole thing never made much sense to me. Good things happen, bad things happen. I think serendipity and synchronicity are a part of everyones world, maybe some more than others. Makes life interesting.

[grace0418]

28. That's great news! I had a similar thing happen. About 15 years ago, I lived in a great

apartment with a roommate. After a year, she decided to move out. I decided to live by myself for the first time ever in my life (I come from a HUGE family). I loved it but I was always broke and scraping to pay the bills. One night I was really stressing because I didn't know how I was going to pay the already overdue rent and my utilities, I was about $550 short. I also had no food in the fridge. I scraped together enough cash for some groceries and walked over to the store. A few things ended up being on sale so my groceries were 5 bucks cheaper than I thought they'd be, so on a whim I bought a scratch off lottery ticket. Won $600, the max of what I could get in cash on the spot.

I went home, marched upstairs and paid my landlord the rent before I even put the groceries away. That was a good day.