In everyone's life, they're going to have 'good and bad' things happen to them. I might get mugged today, I might get given money, I might feel happy or I might feel sad- I have some control over these things. If I didn't want to get mugged I could chose to leave the house as little as possible, for example, but this doesn't mean that I would never get mugged. This is seemingly the way things 'have' to be, because we have to have to have an engagement with the world or the universe. It doesn't have a particular slant, it's just that pain and pleasure or success and failure, are parts of life. Some people choose to call it 'God' and other people choose to call it 'life, etc. Whether there's a big plan, a god, or nothing of the sort; I think we might be able to safely say that 'good and bad' things happen to people throughout life.

We live in a world where people are born and die, and we understand that for us that have yet to die, life carries on. I suppose naturally, we assume that things will continue as they are after our death. We can't prove that, but perhaps people feel like there's enough evidence to support the idea that the universe will carry on after I die. Scientifically, energy cannot be created and cannot be destroyed, only transferred. So I'll die and could become food for maggots or something. I think we safely assume that our own death is not the end of the universe, and so there is reason to believe in an afterlife, because we would readily assume that there is life after our life.

It's normal for us to grow up in our own specific context, and hence we do bring our ideas and learnings to the table that is our current life. You can't be wrong for how your particular life has taken you, but from what you're saying, I think that maybe you don't have enough to fill the void that has been left since your questioning of religion. I would imagine that having grown up around a lot of religion, the lack of it must certainly appear as a lack; whereas there are people who have almost no interest in anything 'spiritual/religious' and have no desire to.

Whatever feelings and beliefs you have are fine, you don't need to fit into a box. You could, for example, just believe in God when it suited you. Some people might have problems with that, but that is their problem. Do whatever you need to, and think whatever you want without worrying about if it's wrong.

For example, is the feeling of dishonesty when listening to a podcast helpful for you? I doubt it.

Apparently, people have a tendency towards belief.
http://www.apa.org/monitor/2010/12/believe.aspx

Maybe you felt God at one time and now you can't shake it. If you want to believe something badly enough, you can through conditioning I suppose. I, personally, prefer to stay open minded and believe what makes the most sense to me, remaining an individual.

Btw, God does not make bad things happen. I've heard it explained like this: God is the boss. He is in charge. He is not in control. He chooses to relinquish his control at times. This is when the devil/sin steps in. If you don't believe in the existence of the devil, I challenge you to explain how good and bad exist.

I believe that humans have a natural tendency towards spirituality. We have evolved alongside religion and spirituality for a damn long time, and I bet that some of it has become embedded into our code.

There's nothing wrong with having this feeling. We humans have illogical feelings all the time. No human is 100% rational. Perhaps you can even use these feelings to make you a better person.

>>462

Yes, but everything that is rational is interpretable in theory by humans. Who's to say that everything is by nature comprehensible? The positivists gave up last century as far as I know, widen your scope.

If you had a proof for God, it would not be God. The divine is unapproachable through the mundanely human. Also, I'm not talking about the pop culture jesus-around-the-neck god that many reasonable people are rightly disgusted by.

>>455
This is the kind of pointless apologist rationalization that tells us absolutely nothing. None of us could even begin to explain how a theoretical divine being would think or operate. I'll participate though, the problem of evil is a non-issue because good and evil are arbitrary human constructs. Besides, we can't see the big picture; Allowing the death of millions could prevent the death of billions.