Ship of Fools: What can you still hold when you lose faith?

Thread: What can you still hold when you lose faith? Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.

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Posted by Carex (# 9643) on :

I'm intrigued by the accounts of how people have lost faith and the changes that has made in their lives, but I'm also noticing some differences in the extent of the "loss". We have threads about the effect on friendships and various roles in the church, but what about your beliefs? To what extent have you tossed the baby out with the bathwater, so to speak, vs. questioning only some of the beliefs you have previously held?

For myself, even though I consider myself an atheist, I have no problems believing in a historical Jesus who had important concepts to teach. I may have a different interpretation of some of the details of those teachings and how to apply them than most Christians do, of course, but the existence (or not) of a historical Jesus is perfectly compatible with my beliefs.

Are there basic beliefs that you find you still hold, even when other portions of your faith have crumbled? If a particular aspect of faith caused you to leave, such as God not answering prayers, are there other aspects that are still important for you? Or that seem worth believing if you don't have to take the whole religious package as a monolithic chunk, but have the liberty to pick and choose which pieces feel right to you, and which ones don't?

Posted by TallPoppy (# 16294) on :

An excellent thread.

Just packing up for the day, but this lingers happily despite my state of non-belief:

King James Bible
And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.

TallPoppy

Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on :

The odd think is, my beliefs have slowly been changing throughout my life. In some ways, I never changed my beliefs when I left the church, because I had already written out church as a necessity from my belief system. It was useful, but then it became not-useful, so I dropped it.

I suppose this is how I usually progress - I change my beliefs, they grow and develop over time, and yet the practicality of this sometimes takes time after that to work out. In some ways, I lost my faith in the church when I was rejected for ordination. But it took over 20 years before I finally actually left - because while it was not necessary, it continued to be a positive.

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