Thank you for the response, I better understand your comments now.

At some point I was a strong believer and I even carried a picture of virgin Mary in my pocket everywhere I went as stress relief and just to help me cope better in situations. Even if this was placebo, it worked. I just felt better.

Yes. This is something that materialists simply cannot understand. The connection with the numinous is one of the most powerful stress relievers that we have.

There are a ton of things to learn, but I don’t want to fall into the paralysis by analysis trap. Indecision is punishable by God, Universe or whatever you want to call it.

You sound like you’re in the same position that I was about 5 years ago. The key thing here is to take your time and REALLY understand what you’re getting into. You’ve evidently accepted that God can exist – there are powerful logical, philosophical, and scientific arguments showing the truth of His existence.

The final step, though, is incredibly hard – to believe not merely in a pantheistic conception of god, or just some benign but quite distant and impersonal deity, but in God the Father of Jesus Christ, requires a leap of faith that is genuinely terrifying.

You are trying to seek out the truth and find your way back. This will take time. You are going about it the right way by trying to dissect arguments and ideas, and that’s great. The reason why you turned away from your faith originally is likely because you had no particularly strong arguments to back it. That is why it is vital to process and understand the apologetic arguments that show why God exists, and – if you have the tolerance for them – why Jesus Christ is Lord.

Ease back into it, and you’ll be fine. In the meantime, pray and ask for guidance. Exactly how you do it is less important than simply DOING it.

If it’s not too much trouble for you, can you share a post with your opinions on prayer and dealing with the stresses of life, especially events that you can’t control?

Absolutely. It’ll take me some time to put together due to my busy schedule. But I’ll do it for sure.

At some point I started looking into religious debates, read many articles, a few books and became a hardcore atheist for a few years. I don’t think in that extreme now and I’m thinking of coming back to religion with more informed opinion. There are a ton of things to learn, but I don’t want to fall into the paralysis by analysis trap. Indecision is punishable by God, Universe or whatever you want to call it.

Even in the years where I was in disbelief, I still raised my hands into the sky, or clasped my hands together and whispered ‘please let it work’ every time I was under severe stress.

If it’s not too much trouble for you, can you share a post with your opinions on prayer and dealing with the stresses of life, especially events that you can’t control?

You’ve remarked multiple times about the “questionable theology” in Mere Christianity. Can you expand on that point with examples?

Yes. Here are two. They account for much of the criticism levelled at Mere Christianity – by other Christians.

That is not to say that it is a bad book. It is in fact an extremely dense, yet very readable, work of faith and apologetics. At its best, it is truly superb, which is why highly rigourous thinkers like Dr. Norman Geisler and Dr. Frank Turek use and reference it in their work. I certainly recommend it to any “baby Christian” or sympathetic non-believer.

p.s. Dr. Turek is awesome, in addition to his book, his CrossPoint app is a great tool with the apologetic arguments built in and on-hand. His youtube is great too.

Indeed. I’ve taken to featuring him in the Great Mondaydact Browser Crushers for that exact reason.

p.s. Dr. Turek is awesome, in addition to his book, his CrossPoint app is a great tool with the apologetic arguments built in and on-hand. His youtube is great too.