Non-believers make some pretty interesting assumptions about believers in God, one of them being that only gullible people would put their faith in some unseen entity and give it a title like "God". It's as though a non-believer making such an assumption thinks that some Bible-thumping preacher did some 'ooga booga' sort of brain-washing speech that caused people to believe in and follow God like blind, mindless robots. They assume the believer left their brain at the door and are now under the control not of an infinite Creator, but rather a figment of their imagination that allows those preaching the message of this God to exploit believers for the sake of mind control and financial gain. (Lest non-believers think that they are not under such exploitation themselves from non-spiritual interests, I'll tactfully discuss the blindness of non-believers later on.)
What I also find interesting is how non-believers will never sincerely ask just how such people came to believe in God for fear that the message they hear might cause them to get "sucked in" themselves. To avoid this possibility, they instead stand at arm's length and make assumptions about this God and those who are his followers. Unfortunately, their assumptions are made with an air - even an arrogance - of authority, as though they could possibly know more about God than those who actually follow and claim to have an intimate personal relationship with him. This is no more outlandish than someone assuming that a complete stranger to you and your friend knows more about your friend than you do. And what's worse is how the masses of non-believers will buy into these assumptions rather than, as mentioned above, objectively asking the believer about what brought them to faith.
In other words, non-believers accuse believers of gullibility, but aren't they ultimately the more gullible? They are basing their beliefs about God upon false information borne out of a lack of experience and relationship with him. They haven't walked both sides of the "spiritual fence", so to speak, like a believer has, yet they talk as though they know what being a believer is all about, as though they've 'been there and done that', spiritually speaking.
I have also noticed how nearly everything a non-believer mentions about a believer is negative. Countless believers throughout history have given testimony of the power of God to heal broken lives, bodies, and relationships - in many cases baffling the intellectual powers of their day (read the book of Romans, chapter 1, in particular verse 22) - and yet the non-believers have constantly tried to find human or tangible explanations for these miracles. The idea of an unseen entity, mysterious and more powerful than them, is scary because they cannot explain or control it, so they do their best to try to discredit it. Because God can't fit into their "box" of understanding, in their minds he therefore must and should not be for real. They want control because they think being under the control of the one who created them is somehow a bad thing.
They also only see man's religious attempts to please God, the "he loves me, he loves me not" sort who think they're believers, and blind themselves (or are blinded?) to those who enjoy the non-religious relationship of grace through Jesus Christ that God originally intended for everyone, the one which only becomes real to those who want and accept this relationship (these are the true, "saved" believers who have put their faith in Jesus Christ). Therefore, in the eyes of non-believers, nothing good can come out of believing in God despite testimonies of true believers that indicate otherwise because all they see (rather, want to see) is the pious, holier-than-thou, religious attempts at living up to a system of man-made do's-and-don'ts and the hypocrisy of failure when they don't live up to it.
(If you're a non-believer and anything I've written so far is offensive or questionable to you because you've assumed I've just pulled these thoughts out of mid-air, don't take it personally. I haven't invented these notions of how non-believers view believers in God; I've simply tried to state the mindset I had while I was a non-believer for the first 22 years of my life. Your mindset may differ from my old one on a few specific points, but overall your view of God and his followers is probably not much different, but I digress ...)
If I've seemed surprised at how non-believers make assumptions and accusations about believers and seem to be blinded to the truth of who God really is, I'm actually not. It doesn't surprise me in the least because I was once a blinded assumer and accuser myself. I was deceived into thinking that I was under nobody's control - man's or otherwise - when in reality I was under the total and absolute control of the enemy of God who wants nothing more than for all humans to believe that he and God do not exist.
This enemy, who goes by the name of Satan or the title of "Devil", does everything possible to keep full control over us without us even knowing it. Why would he want such control? Because he wants to drag us along with him into the eternal punishment and torment that he knows he has earned through his rebellion toward God. Why does he not want non-believers to know that he exists and controls them? Because he wants them to live under the illusion that they are in control. Then they won't resist when he leads them around like puppets on a string, distracting them and leading them ever further from the message of Jesus. For if they hear this message and put their faith in Jesus, they will have found the one and only means by which they can forever escape Satan's control and find eternal life rather than endure eternal punishment and torment. (Read about Satan's ultimate demise in the book of Revelation, chapter 20.)
Even though Satan tries to keep people from knowing about and believing in Jesus, people unfamiliar with the Bible might be surprised to realize that even Satan and his demonic agents know about and believe in the existence, power, and true identity of Jesus. Here is one such account:
"In the synagogue there was a man with an unclean demonic spirit who cried out with a loud voice, "Leave us alone! What do You have to do with us, Jesus - Nazarene? Have You come to destroy us? I know who You are - the Holy One of God!"" (Luke 4:34)Jesus also had a lot to say about Satan's control over unbelievers while he was here on earth. Here is just one passage:
"Why don't you understand what I [Jesus] say? Because you cannot listen to my word. You are of your father the Devil, and you want to carry out your father's desires. He ... has not stood in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he tells a lie, he speaks from his own nature, because he is a liar and the father of liars. Yet because I [Jesus] tell the truth, you do not believe me ... If I tell the truth, why don't you believe me? [Because] The one who is from God listens to God's words. This is why you [non-believers] don't listen, because you are not from God." (John 8:43-47)In other words, the Father of the believer in Jesus Christ is none other than God himself, whereas the father of all non-believers - and non-Christians - is none other than the Devil himself. So again, non-believers don't understand believers nor do they really want to understand because they are under the controlling lies of Satan - according to this and other Bible passages - who wants them to remain blind to the truth of God, a truth that if accepted means forgiveness and eternal life from God that Satan once had but no longer has. Satan is like Adolf Hitler at the end of the Second World War, who wanted to drag everyone else down with him instead of signing a peace treaty because he knew his end was near. He wants as many gullible non-believers as possible to share in the eternal suffering that he knows is awaiting him.
If a non-believer ever gets the nerve to question me about my level of intelligence and/or degree of integrity, and/or accuses me of gullibility because I believe in God - in particular Jesus - I hope I will have the ability to calmly and rationally ask them if they've ever been fully a non-believer AND a believer like I have. I have the right and the authority to state what I claim to know about God/Jesus because unlike the vast majority of humanity, I've lived fully immersed for several years on both sides of the "spiritual fence". Any non-believer simply does NOT have any such authority because they cannot speak objectively about what it means to be a believer - they simply haven't walked a mile in my shoes or those of any other believer, so their arguments frankly lack any and all credibility.
Non-believers can make all the assumptions they want about me, but they can never change or take away the account of how I lived when I hated and rejected the notion of God, how this God chose to make himself known to me and begin to change my heart, how I eventually accepted this loving God and his free, no-strings-attached offer of forgiveness and eternal life, and how my life has been all the better ever since. In other words, non-believers are unfortunately the gullible ones - not believers - and I say unfortunately because their non-belief has them headed straight to a horrific eternity unless they choose, only while still on this side of eternity, to accept the free gift of salvation and the resulting eternal life offered only through faith in Jesus Christ.
