as far as g-d goes i rlly want to believe in him. i feel like i should but with all this scientific stuff going around i dont rlly know. i used to pray to g-d every night but i dont feel it ever rlly got me anywhere.
do u guys pray to g-d?
do you ever rlly feel like theres any1 there listening?
ive tried to talk to g-d and feel close to him but.. idk i never rlly felt sure that there was anyhting there.

opinions? experiances? advice?
thnks

first off, the fact that you want to believe in Him is the most vital first step. once you have that concretely, the rest of what you have to do is figure out how to believe.
you said that modern scientific discoveries challenges your belief in G-d. here's how i and many others see it: THE TWO DON'T CONTRADICT EACH OTHER IN ANY WAY!!! science is HOW G-d creates His world. of COURSE there's going to be scientific ways to interpret the world- they are HOW G-d created it. in fact, all of my high school science teachers were orthodox, believing Jews, and not only that, but my physics and chemistry professor was a RABBI. he constantly taught us the beauty of his topics: they were how G-d specifically decided that the world should run. science doesnt only coincide with the existence of G-d, but it is directly related to Him; it is how He decided that the world should run.

about your praying- it is an amazing thing that you pray to G-d. you asked if He is listening, and my answer to you is yes. throughout the thousands-of-years-old Jewish prayers, we say that G-d listens to our prayers. but something very interesting is that we NEVER say that He always says yes. we never say "thank You, G-d, for giving us everything we ask for." we say "thank You, G-d, for listening and considering our prayers." G-d does listen to each and every single prayer that we make to Him, and sometimes He just decides to say no to them. we will never understand why He sometimes says no, but we accept that He does with good reason that is beyond our mental capacity.

the hebrew word used for prayer is l'hitpalel. but the structure of this word makes it refer to the internal. it literally means to introspect. while prayers are praising, asking, and thanking G-d for things, their main purpose is to improve character of the person praying, to set his/her priorities straight, to help him/her realize where s/he is headed in life, to realize that there is a higher authority above him/her, etc. whether one's prayers are answered or not is irrelevant to their impact on the person. even if they are sometimes not answered, they are still extremely beneficial for the person, for the above reasons, and a myriad of others.

is there someone listening? yes. the world could not exist without a G-d- science couldn't exist without a G-d; science is a creation of G-d; G-d existed before science did; science is only the boundaries that G-d set for how the world should typically run. even when G-d says no, He is listening to your prayers, because He loves you more than anyone else does. and hey- if you're not feeling it, you can even ask G-d to help you feel the power of praying to Him.

science and creation don't have to be at odds.
like cooldudeman said, God created the earth. He sparked the creation of this earth and is the reason for evolution and science. Everything on this Earth has been calculated by him to make sense.
Science and Religion can co-exist and even come together. =]

I pray, rarely. When I make a wish at 11:11, or when my grandfather had a stroke, I asked for his recovery every day, and he has recovered (not fully, he's shaky, physically. But he learned how to talk and walk again). I thank the doctors, of course, and the rehab.. but I believe that God played a part in it when he heard my wishes and prayers.

I am really only going to respond here with my personal feelings, I dont feel like providing specific responses to questions is really the point yet.

personally, I see G-d as an absolute, a wholeness that includes all things and from which I erroneosly percieve myself to be separate. Truly, G-d is the air I breath, the ground I walk on, even the body I inhabit and the I that inhabits it. I pray every day, but to me the answer is that the prayer was said. for me, the aim is to thirst deeply for G-d, to slowly step out of the way I percieve things to have an objective existence other than G-ds. i gues the issue is less "where is G-d?" but "where is G-d not?".... not really an issue of listening or not, because thats not the point.

also wanted to point out that many of the contradictions that appear to arise between science and religion are really more problems with fundamentalism and ideology rather than religion itself. many traditional jewish texts that are generally acceptable to even the most observant jews espouse views that make accomodation with modern science in an authentically jewish manner possible.

I completely agree what the previous posters have said. But, from a personal note, I was on the same boat, and am still slightly on it when it comes to faith and Gd.
I truly want to believe in him, but at the same time, it wasn't science saying impossible, it was my parents and friends. Well, now if you were to ask me if I fervently believe in Hashem, my knee-jerk reaction would be to say yes. But it is really more complicated than that. I pray to myself, and I speak with Gd. I have a baal teshuv brother who was always there for me to ask my questions and grind and grill, but something sparked in me while in Israel. The hardest part in believing in Gd, is how to believe in your own Gd. Some people feel he is the embodiment of a man, others think he's nature, many claim he is the unfathomable such as the wind or love. I know I believe in Gd, I just don't know which version of Hashem I believe in, so when I go to services, I pray to myself, I ask myself what I can change, and who I am, and things like that. But during the Amidah, I turn to Gd, however the idea of Gd can be grasped, and just talk to him like my closest friend and my authoritative parents and teachers.
I think its absolutely wonderful that you want to believe in Gd. But by the sounds of it, you already do! I could potentially be spewing jibberish because I have never articulated this before, but Gd isn't supposed to be an item on the top shelf; to be seen and not touched. He is supposed to be unseen, unfathomable, elusive, but ultimately however you, personally, what to see him as. Sorry, again, if it didn't make much sense.

Here is a link that talks about this subject that concerns you. More important than this article are articles linked to it. Check it out and you'll see what I mean.

http://www.simpletoremember.com/arti...reatorofworld/

So I was reading this book, called faith and trust by the Chazon ish, in the very first chapter the Rabbi is talking about science, and his comment was that G-d created everything, including us humans, he also created our brains. He knew that we were going to be curious and try to figure out the workings of this world, so he created such a complex world that even in 1000 generations we will still be searching and discovering.
The key is to remember that G-d created everything and that what we discover and advance is not by our own hand or creation, but by G-d giving us the ability to do so.

As far as the rest of the questions, we always wonder, G-d is not tangible, so we can't "feel" him, he doesn't speak in a way the we "hear," but if we take the time everyday to focus on your direction in life, to listen, but not with your ears. then you might "hear" something.

now this is obviously easier said than done, but it is doable.

no dont worry about it :] i rlly appreciated ur response. it was honest and its nice to know that im not the only one who doesnt have everything figured out

I always believed in God but always thought He never listened to me. Other people, maybe, but never me. I know this is a rather silly epiphany, but I was in a really bad mental state and desperately needed to check my email for an expected reply, and my Internet wasn't loading properly, I was home alone, and my computer guy wasn't picking up. I just kinda said, "Hashem, I can't do this - let it load," and boom, Internet went up. It freaked me out.

I also didn't have real belief in that God listens back then because I felt I couldn't relate, that God didn't care. That was back when I still called God He. I began calling God She instead, and I've been praying 3x a day even though girls are only obligated 2x a day. God does listen, I think.

I also find it easier to pray to the "souls" of people as middlemen in addition to God directly. Like, I ask my great-grandmother and cousin and grandmother etc. to go to God and ask Her for help on my behalf, in case She won't accept my prayers.