I can’t prove it, but I do think a lot of Christians are on the fence on whether or not their god is real. I mean, yeah… those people often go to a relative or their pastor for support to keep in the faith. They call it a crisis of faith, especially when life isn’t going that person’s way. And then you’ve got teenagers bordering on shelving Christianity and wanting to explore other avenues to which the parents take measures to keep them into the religion. They call those kids rebels and I was one of them, mostly being a closet atheists.
People of faith have real and frequent doubts. The existence of books like CS Lewis’ The Problem of Pain or rabbi Harold Kushner‘s best seller When Bad Things Happen to Good People are proof, as is the fact that they experience personal tragedies and health crises and financial reverses and divorces at least as often as anyone else. There’s no reason to think that they live particularly charmed lives in actual reality, though some of them will claim that they do.
Fundamentalists are highly motivated to be the least honest and real in this regard, as they need to at least outwardly conform to the notion of “the victorious Christian life”. But in my experience and observation they have no fewer doubts, they are simply more repressed.
They routinely lose their young by the end of the freshman year in college, at least if they don’t go to a church-approved institution and sometimes even then as those still have to teach evil-lution specifically and science generally to be state accredited.
So dense was the “bubble” I grew up in that even the non-accredited Bible Institute I attended was a revelation for me. I met my first minorities there – a black Nigerian prince training for the ministry, and a guy from India who became one of my friends. I encountered my first theological dissent there, notably in the form of an inner-city pastor who was in the midst of a useless attempt to increase social awareness amongst the predominantly rural and suburban fundamentalists. So even that was diverse compared to the rural fundamentalist church I grew up in. Once you are shocked by what you’ve been insulated from, you inevitably begin to wonder what else they have neglected to tell you.
I recall reading fundamentalist screeds reassuring people that “God has big shoulders” and can take your honest questions and doubts – and answer them. It’s okay to (very privately) question god but not okay to not resolve those questions in god’s favor, basically.
Exactly. They struggle as much as any person in a religion struggles based on the country and financial status they’re sitting in. I think a lot of people turn to religion out of their own personal / mental struggles.
In my experience and I’m not stating this as a fact, it seems like a lot (not a ball park estimate) of people in their 20’s and 30’s growing up put religion on the shelf. Some come back and pick it up, others don’t. I’ve also noticed people getting up there in age become closer to religion due to their insecurities with death and the fear of hell. At least from the conversations I’ve had with them.
I’ve yet to speak to a god of any kind. I don’t know how these people conclude that their god personally told them to do this or that. 
Same. It’s very individual. Not every break is permanent like mine. But the fundamentalist mindset doesn’t have room for anything but total all-in belief. They may take back a prodigal son so to speak, but they would greatly prefer that such inconvenient narratives never happen.
Rolling back to the OP, I don’t believe humans can effectively wrap their heads around eternity, regardless of theist\atheist preference.
Theoretic research puts the maximum attainable lifespan of the human body pegging out around 150 years. This makes eternity a concept that falls into either cosmic or individual immortality.
Cosmic eternity relies on theories. Individual immortality relies on belief or faith.
While an interesting rabbit hole to wander down, it’s a concept neither side can present definitive evidence to support their claim, or make effective counter claims.
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The smartest person I ever knew continued to take religion seriously in their 20’s and 30’s. They didn’t make it to 40; as they took their own life when they decided their psoriasis was a curse from god. Remember that when someone suggests there is no harm in belief.
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I’d really like to ask you what you are smoking! That must be some great peyote!! Birds don’t fly through space. I hate to burst your imaginary bubble, but that fantasy ain’t worth entertaining…unless you are trying to write another sequel to Avatar. I’ll go see it when it becomes a movie!
I won’t forget it. I don’t encourage anyone to take up religion because of the harms it can cause.
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The physicist Hermann Bondi uttered statements such as the following:
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