I'm atheist, but definitely not because I "don't trust a god" (psst, you can't "trust or not trust something that you don't believe in". So say for instance, I don't "not trust" the Easter Bunny.)
So, if you're asking me....if your feeling is "not trust"...then yes, you're Christian, and that's what you believe.
The "not trust" part, indicates to me that you've got Issues with what you believe, and as such...that you might want to talk to your religious leader(s).

If, on the other hand, you're interested in exploring atheism, pm me. I'll be glad to talk about it, and provide you with links/ videos that explain more about it.

I think you need to explore your religion more. Maybe there will be another religion that might interest you.

Good point. "not trust" does indicate belief. I have a Christian counselor and I plan on talking to her, it's just this has been bugging me for days and I don't see her til Thursday. :) So, looking for input.

So, given that I am Christian, what about the lack of trust issue? (question for any Christians or ppl who believe in the spiritual) One part trusts, another doesn't. I mean, I know it's no different than any other decision that parts disagree on, but if I want to act in belief but another part feels too scared to? Or, church! I haven't been going because some parts aren't comfortable and are triggered. But other parts want to. What do I do? How do I find balance?

Doesn't being a Christian mean you believe that Jesus was the only son of God and that the only path to God is through Jesus? Lots of other religions believe in the Divine by one name or another, so belief in God by itself doesn't make you a Christian. As for trusting God, I would look at what that means. What does your belief, or the belief of your parts, mean to you/them? I think a lot of times (not always) people's religions are about their relationship to authority.

I know Christianity in and out and from a variety of angles. What I need to do is iron out what I believe ... but the parts may have conflicting beliefs. But maybe not, they may just seem to at the surface but when I get down to it will see it's just the same thing from different angles.

Also, exploring another religion would be dangerous feeling to some of my parts.

Hi Beth... I am a "Christian" and I have been where you are, right now. I wondered where the Lord was, when my dad was raping and abusing me but as an adult, I know that when we are born, we are all given freedom of choice and my father chose to abuse me. I was also molested by my mother. I don't know where I would be if I had not had a relationship with the Lord. (probably dead). He was the only thing that I could hang on to and still do. I spent many years HATING my parents (sperm donor and incubator, as I refer to them) and all I did was hurt myself and make myself sick. I don't hate them any more but I sure as hell have no feeling for them. It is what it is and they are both dead and I really don't give a rats butt. Through all of the abuse that I went through, it has made me who I am today. I may be a bit messed up in some of my ways of thinking, but I don't think I am all that bad. I raised 6 wonderful boys and was married for 25 years, before their Dad passed away. My boys have all turned in to wonder husbands and fathers and I couldn't be more proud of them. Believe me, they are not perfect but neither am I. I made a lot of mistakes raising them but I knew that I would not repeat what happened to me and cut it off in their generation. Way to go, me.... You believe in what you believe in and you will figure it all out, in time. Hugs your way and have faith in Him and in yourself....

Being a hospital chaplain meant I was ordained in a faith, in my case Christian, as my union card for getting the job. But it also meant that I belonged to a department in the hospital with colleague hospital chaplains who were Jewish, Muslim, and from other faiths. What was more, it was my duty not to pick and choose patients to visit by their religion on the units assigned to me (cardiology and neurosurgery), but to visit every patient of whatever faith or atheist view within 24 hours of being admitted or I would be fired.

At first it was scary, but after a while the opportunity to have one on one conversations behind closed doors about suffering (they were in the hospital after all) and God or no God was really unique. The group (the church, the synagogue, the mosque) was elsewhere and it was just us talking in confidence one on one, so we could be real.

I was surprised that I found myself, of all things, really enjoying my talks with atheists a lot. When they described their idea of God, I could honestly say I also did not believe in the idea of God they had left behind. Because that interested me, I sat in on open Alcoholics Anonymous meetings to further understand how a person's idea of God can evolve to really help their suffering.

In visiting AA meetings I found that they talk about a Higher Power. They talked about how if a person is to be successful in the AA program it was necessary to "fire notions of God" that don't really help you and to really challenge yourself to grow to a notion of God that does work on your actual problems in real life.

It was very individual. In visiting those open AA group meetings I was allowed to sit in on I met people who believed in God as folks usually speak of the divine. But I also met atheists who, despite not believing in a traditional idea of God, had years of success in the program. They had created a notion of a Higher Power than themselves that worked for them. It didn't have to be a Person for them, it could be something they believed held wisdom that should be respected and learned from, like History. I'm not saying I can explain why something like that worked for them, but I can say I witnessed that it did. They, along with the more traditional God believers, were also leaders and sponsors with years of sobriety in their AA groups.

So from conversations with them and with patients I "fired the notions of God" from my Sunday School days and looked at my own Christian story anew. I'm just speaking for me, but as someone with PTSD whose God story involved having the main character be tortured to death on the cross, it seemed to me that I happened to have a faith story that dealt with trauma. Even in the after crucifixion story, whether a person believes in the resurrection or not, the main character Jesus shows his scars still remain to Thomas. So even resurrection meant to learn to live with the scars of trauma.

That helped me get past the shame of having PTSD. Mine is just my point of view speaking for myself, I admit it's not a point of view a person finds in Christian churches often, at least not in the sanctuaries upstairs. Ironically, it's a point of view found every week in the downstairs basement meeting rooms of Christian churches around the world since that's where most AA groups meet, as well as in other rooms elsewhere. But it is consistent with the original Christian story as written.

It made me think the same is possibly true of many world religions. Maybe they address suffering like ours here at DS PTSD from a point of view more like ours initially. Then maybe over time in group contexts (churches, synagogues, mosques, temples) the suffering part gets softened over time to make meetings more socially comfortable. Maybe then over time it gets to where suffering isn't front and center any more and people forget that addressing it was why the religion was there in the first place.

That's just me speaking for me from my experience after seminary in those one on one talks behind closed doors in hospitals on the job and in listening in on those visits to open AA meetings. I feel like it helped me grow as a person in my own faith and no faith questions and as a person able to question faith in a healthy way so all of it would apply to suffering for healing's sake. I still like talking to atheists so we can speak openly about things. I have a couple of elderly atheist friends who email me every week. We've known each other well for five years or so now, so it's not to argue. We question or validate each other in these sincere talks about what's up with suffering and ultimate questions.

It got to where I gave these talks a name. They were so personal that they were "intimate," behind closed doors, safe. But they talked about ultimate questions like why we suffer, what happens when we die. So I blended the words "intimacy" and "ultimate" and called them conversations about "ultimacy."

Ultimacy conversations require a lot of trust and safety, no shaming, but kindness, no superiority on anyone's part, and a willingness to being open to changing old ideas. I didn't invent them, I just noticed that they can happen and that I need for them to so to remember them I gave them that name. They help me, because I need them to do so. I haven't got it all figured out by any means. As you say with your question "who am I?" they allow me to safely ask that question with people who care. Just speaking for me, being ordained as a minister to be a hospital chaplain to me meant a commitment to that journey as a went door to door in my hospital, and not a statement that I had it all figured out once and for all.

Thanks for bringing up good memories of those hospital room talks and how they're still going on with my atheist friends and believer friends alike by email now. Those talks are parallel to talks here at DS PTSD about support with PTSD, and your creating this thread gave the two parallels a chance to intersect for a while today. Sorry this is so long, but it's because I really enjoy "ultimacy" talks a lot, they help me. Thank you.

My mother was raised as catholic and went to catholic school taught by nuns. Since I was very young I questioned it and never believed it was true. I do not believe in god. I needed facts to support this feeling and I sought them out. Spirituality and god have nothing to do with each other in my world. IMO, trust comes from inside of us and its still not a guarantee. I do not believe it is god or faith you should be questioning, but dig deeper into why you are having trust issues in any situation, or having and not having the ability of letting things be. I believe and have proven to myself that spirituality can come from a god or a rock, it is all energy but I have trust in my belief because I have found the answers 'I' needed for that situation. Trusting spirituality is not a problem for me because I am content with my own findings. Can you live with blind faith or do you need proof? The same applies for any trust situation. I have a lot of friends who are Christian who refuse to attend church.

I was raised strict and old school Roman Catholic CHristian. I took great solace and continue to take great solace in my *faith*.... but not Organized Religion. Why? Too much People, not enough God. Too much using God to do mean things that are counter to ... Well, common decency sometimes. As I say, "The Bible Belt" really means "Use the bible to find excuses to use the belt". Religion becomes a means of control, and it's devastating. Places of comfort and words of hope are associated with abuse. It's hard for me to separate, and religion never entered into it for me. (My abusive dad was an atheist. Mom says I am like her, born with faith in God, and taught not-faith in humans.)
So I'd say for me, God isn't a trigger. It's the humans who chant and sing and pray and rejoice and manipulate and scam and hurt and harm, sometimes all in the same room, without realizing that calling it "religion" or 'faith' doesn't excuse the bad actions. If you tell someone it's God's will they be abused, then you're presuming to 1. know God's will (good luck with that) and 2. negating their suffering by implying they should accept it or be "against God".
Apologies, I ramble too much, but it's just... Ugh... So hard for me. Faith is core to me. I know the Bible well. Yet I cannot attend a church. Inevitably, I see that human nature pervades it, and that scares me to pieces. If you don't donate enough money, then your requests for aid are ignored. Or if you don't volunteer "enough", then you are subtly rejected by the pastor and the Power People of the congregation. Or or or... It's inevitable that not playing by some sort of "rules" set by *humans* means I'm somehow not "okay with God" (to them, since I've no idea of GOd's opinion). Religion-fear-anger seem to get all tangled into one thing, tainting the faith.

For me.

I think I was blessed that my mom gave me a concept of God that was based on concepts not found in human nature----infinite compassion, infinite connection. THus, I knew as a kid through my mom and her family when a human's free will caused an action, versus Nature, etc. Like a drunk driver... I don't ask why God didn't stop that. I ask why the human didn't. A tornado hits, people die. That's Nature, which was made by God, and not with malice, or as a tool of punishment or reward, but as part of the big cosmic balance. We get in the way, same as trees, bugs, galaxies. Just part of the Big Ineffable Immanence, and we're not meant to be the only priority, but part of the whole of it. So I don't blame God or worry about trusting God or whether my faith is intact. It's humans that get to me. Humans who've hurt me. Humans who've told me I'm not good enough and am so bad that I'm why their lives suck and why I'm poor or not poor or whatever.

I never can explain this well but... Trust yourself to find your way, okay? God never plans for people to act like shi*s, but that's the price of free will, I was taught.... Some people will be shi**y to others. And don't forget, while you are pondering trust? YOu're not alone or the first. If I recall correctly, Jesus was unsure of how to go forward a time or two.

Hugs and healing to you

That is really great stuff Leo. I really like how your mom went about teaching you. Really, really great. Thanks for sharing that.

Leo, you explained it, so much better than I did. Thank you....

Moving past any specific concept of religion....do you want to share your trust issues? (If you don't...that's fine.) But perhaps we can help you sort through them?

im in same bout my faith has been tested and tested , but my boy says god is everywhere he is the tree , the mountain , and the dessert i always seem find myself praying hugs min