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Source: (consider it) Thread: Doubting
Doublethink.
Ship's Foolwise Unperson
# 1984

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Further to discussion in The Styx - I thought I would start this thread.

I find my faith fluctuates, I find it like looking at a visual illusion , I look at things one way and its there, another and it vanishes.

I am troubled by the problem of evil, the fraudulent nature of any modern miracle actually investigated, the prejudice and violence perpetrated in the name of religion, and the apparent lack of faith to change how most people live.

Conversely, I wonder if we are becoming secularised because the values conveyed by faith have become unremarkable - perhaps that is success ?

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All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. George Orwell

Posts: 19219 | From: Erehwon | Registered: Aug 2005  |  IP: Logged
Karl: Liberal Backslider
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# 76

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All those things. And the fact that I do not find that Christians are, on average, any less obnoxious and unpleasant than any other people; indeed, there are those for whom the certainty of faith appears to give license to be a complete and utter arsehole. It's like the experiment to heal the human soul has failed.

[ 03. January 2014, 18:24: Message edited by: Karl: Liberal Backslider ]

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Might as well ask the bloody cat.

Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
Karl: Liberal Backslider
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# 76

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Over on A Year Without God , Anteater saith:

quote:
I am cautious about any claim that we know what it feels like to be with(out) God, or how it would feel to be "spending life with(out) God". I seem to detect some disappointment especially as your profile shows you as an Anglican, so it's hard to see you as a determined atheist.

I don't think that many people have such a full experience of God in this life, such that it would be inconceivable to view it as a life without God. Atheism is perfectly consistent and by no means implausible, IMHO, although I definitely do not believe it.

This is why I am still insistent that it makes no sense to try and design an experiment to prove anything about God, although I fully admit this contradicts passages from the scriptures like Elijah and the Priests of Baal.

I'd be surprised if it ever crossed your mind that God exists as a being in the same realm that we do, nor do I imagine you worrying overly about San Juan de la Cruz defining God as "nada" or others questioning the appropriateness of existence as applied to God. I wish it were easier to experience God, but it isn't, and I think we just have to "suck that up" if I may strive to be contemporary.

Yes. Disappointment. Good word. I thought, decades ago when I left atheism for Christianity, that by now I'd have sufficient experience of God - whatever form that might take - to have the sort of confidence in his existence that I see a lot of people having.

I didn't. And I don't.

All I really have is too much emotional capital sunk into the faith to easily give it up, and a nagging fear of doing so unless and until I'm absolutely sure it really is irrational bullshit. And a small quiet hope, born of desperation.

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Might as well ask the bloody cat.

Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
Nicodemia
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# 4756

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Well thank you, Doublethink - I don't think I would have dared!

My problem is reconciling what we are told about God, either from the Bible or from hearing long sermons, with what I read in (reputable) scientific journels. Why would a God who created such a vast, vast universe be interested in a lump of rock orbiting a very ordinary star in a smallish galaxy?

To add to this, to me, insoluble paradox, i now have no sense of God being with me. I find it almost impossible to pray, and feel hypocritical if I try. But try I do, as family situations are pretty dire and desperately need prayer. Or something.

I really need to find some sort of resoution, or peace about a situation which is probably quite beyond explanation.

I am wary of pouring out my problems on a public board. I tried to explain myself at my Home Group, but was asked, in all sincerity as to why I read those scientific journals if they made me have doubts! This seemed to me to be like shutting ones ears and singing la-la-la!

And yes I am in an Evangelical church. Not because I believe in all that they do and believe but because they are a friendly bunch with things going on in the week, and I get very lonely. I did go to a MOTR CofE church but rapidly lost God there though I stayed there probably too long

Posts: 4544 | From: not too far from Manchester, UK | Registered: Jul 2003  |  IP: Logged
Albertus
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# 13356

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None of the things that have been mentioned so far bothers me. What does, increasingly, from time to time is that I simply can't see the point of any of it- the whole creation malarkey. Frankly, it just doesn't seem to me to be worth the trouble of creating, or the trouble that we have to take to keep our bit of it going.
Once you grant the premise that there is somehwere a point to it all, other things make sense to me. But quite often I'm buggered if I can see why it had to be there in the first place.

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SvitlanaV2
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# 16967

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quote:
Originally posted by Nicodemia:
Why would a God who created such a vast, vast universe be interested in a lump of rock orbiting a very ordinary star in a smallish galaxy?

My sense of God is quite weak, but (not being a scientist) I don't consider the ordinariness of the earth or the smallness of the galaxy to be one of my issues. After all, the Bible itself stresses how God takes the small, ordinary things and imbues them with significance. I suppose I'm hoping that God also sees the small, ordinary me and finds me significant in some way. It's a case of finding out what I should be doing to serve him in order for this significance to be manifest....

I'm between churches now, but I've been in MOTR churches for most of my life. I too should probably have left sooner. But I don't know what I'd have to offer a more evangelical church at this point. I don't want to commit myself to a particular church unless I feel I have a role to play there, but I don't know how an evangelical church would cope with the likes of me filling some sort of little niche. IME churches want your labour, but not so much your ideas or your concerns. I'd expect that to be true of the evangelical as well as the MOTR side of things.

I urgently need to find a new and impelling way of reading the Bible because it's a text that feeds faith. As for prayer, my preferred way is to pray while walking. In the dark, if possible.

Posts: 6668 | From: UK | Registered: Feb 2012  |  IP: Logged
mrs whibley
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# 4798

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quote:
Originally posted by Nicodemia:
Well thank you, Doublethink - I don't think I would have dared!

My problem is reconciling what we are told about God, either from the Bible or from hearing long sermons, with what I read in (reputable) scientific journels. Why would a God who created such a vast, vast universe be interested in a lump of rock orbiting a very ordinary star in a smallish galaxy?

To add to this, to me, insoluble paradox, i now have no sense of God being with me. I find it almost impossible to pray, and feel hypocritical if I try. But try I do, as family situations are pretty dire and desperately need prayer. Or something.

I really need to find some sort of resoution, or peace about a situation which is probably quite beyond explanation.

I hope you will find this encouraging, rather than glib:
I'm a scientist, and to me this is not really a problem. It seems clear to me that in order for the solar system, Earth, and all the necessary chemical elements, not to mention the various subatomic forces, to be present, we need to be set in the mega-ecosystem which is the universe as we know it. And I see no barrier to God creating multitudes of 'creations' within that universe - although it seems unlikely that He would let us meet them in this life! Now, there is no proof that God had a hand in this at all - but if He created the cosmos, I'm sure it would be this one He would create.

I do have trouble with time, rather than space though. Why did God rather randomly choose a point around 2000 years ago to save creation from itself? What about all the non-Jews before that point? I don't really go in for dispensations, so this tends to lead me to universalism, in which case all the palaver seems rather pointless. Plus all the stuff Doublethink said.

And then I go and read something, maybe some Rob Bell, or somebody shares an insight at Bible study, or I sing an old hymn, or I get angry at some injustice, and I glimpse - just out of the corner of my eye, or in a glass darkly, what all this may be about after all.

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I long for a faith that is gloriously treacherous - Mike Yaconelli

Posts: 942 | From: North Lincolnshire | Registered: Aug 2003  |  IP: Logged
Lamb Chopped
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My problem is not so much faith in God, as faith in the church. I have seen enough shit from the institutional church, and from church leadership, that it has become nearly impossible to say the bit in the Creed,"I believe... in the holy Christian church." If it exists, it is invisible indeed!

So right now I am deliberately looking to find a poor, tiny, decreasing congregation with nothing to recommend it but love. I think I may have found it, but we'll see. Right now I am two-timing our large "successful" host congregation by sneaking around with a "nothing" congregation behind their backs.

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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!

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Welease Woderwick

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Having been a spiky Anglo-Catholic with a great certainty of faith up until I was in my early thirties I then shifted, over a period of years, towards Quakerism of the UK sort. Years ago my Quaker friend Ann said to me that she found the God image helpful but not the Jesus image and I found this immensely helpful. I don't think I qualify as Christian really any more, despite my church attendance, etc., but I do find the God image makes sense to me but then I have decided that things don't really need to make sense. It's a bit like that old quote that "we are put on this Earth to help others, what the others are here for I have no idea!"

I suppose that in the end my faith is based on the current title of the British thread - Keep Calm and Carry On.

I hope that it will all become clear in time.

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Latchkey Kid
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I had doubts from 1980 to about 2005. I felt as though God had said "You are on your own now." I plodded on with the help of some internet forums like SOF until I came across RLP who said "I may not have faith, but I can be faithful". YMMV but that was good enough for me. I was found by a small house church which provides the fellowship I need, even if my theology is more narrative and theirs is propositional. I have been blessed this year through the leading of the Lord's Supper falling to me.
I don't always believe God exists, but I always believe God is love. It's a faith I have been given. I don't claim any credit for it, and I can't criticise people who haven't been given it, or who believe in another faith tradition, whether Christian or some other.

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'You must never give way for an answer. An answer is always the stretch of road that's behind you. Only a question can point the way forward.'
Mika; in Hello? Is Anybody There?, Jostein Gaardner

Posts: 2592 | From: The wizardest little town in Oz | Registered: Mar 2007  |  IP: Logged
Schroedinger's cat

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# 64

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My current position is that I have no problems believing in God - the numinous, the spiritual. I do have problems with the church, which I have left, and the way that the church wants to define this and control this.

I do not know what the nature of God is. I would call myself an evangelical, and so I believe that the bible does give us insight. But we simplify and codify it, and lose the wonder.

As Karl said, Christians are not any better than other people, and a faith that does not change the person is no faith at all. I left church because a) church was no longer helping my spiritual growth, rather it was damaging it; and b) the church has nothing to do with Christianity, despite the claims.

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fletcher christian

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Posted by Nic:
quote:

Why would a God who created such a vast, vast universe be interested in a lump of rock orbiting a very ordinary star in a smallish galaxy?

I have this doubt regularly, and I think there is only one answer to it: love. It's not an answer that leaves me comfortable either. In a strange sort of way it's a bit frightening, a little too much to bear. It is very difficult to explain to people in a rational sort of way that they can get a handle on, especially those Christians who think this is a wonderful thing, yet in reality is a choice between a gulf of nothingness and a surrender to something too vast to even contemplate.

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'God is love insaturable, love impossible to describe'
Staretz Silouan

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Huia
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# 3473

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quote:
Originally posted by Latchkey Kid:
I don't always believe God exists, but I always believe God is love.

Thank-you, this encapsulates my belief exactly. I've never been able to sum it up as neatly as this.

Huia

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Charity gives food from the table, Justice gives a place at the table.

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quetzalcoatl
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Doublethink

An excellent idea for a thread! I like your idea of a visual illusion, as for most of my life I have found this alternation between seeing God very clearly, and not seeing God at all. I have got used to it now, and it is just a kind of rhythm in my life. I don't really see it as doubting, it is just another kind of Weltanschauung (world-view). So I have a kind of stereo vision, I suppose, although the two images don't really cohere.

As others have said, it is religion that bugs me rather than God, in the sense, that a lot of religious stuff is quite off-putting. Well, humans are messy! Sometimes religion strikes me as a barrier to God - there, I've said it.

Sometimes I am half-way to rejecting Christianity (whatever that means), and then something in it catches my attention, or moves me deeply, and I don't quit after all.

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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.

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Nicodemia
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quote:
I don't always believe God exists, but I always believe God is love.
quote:
in reality is a choice between a gulf of nothingness and a surrender to something too vast to even contemplate.
Thank you Latchkeykid and Fletcher christian. I think that these are the closest to what I believe, and it is enormously encouraging to find others believe these rather vague notions too!

If I can hang on to these beliefs, then I think I can survive the Evangelical church! I know I am not alone! [Smile]

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Alicïa
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I have no problems with believing in God and Jesus, and I do, I have had problems in finding a church that I can believe in or feel I belong to. I think I probably would fit into to UK Quakerism / or perhaps Universalism there is no such meeting place locally (elsewhere in the city yes but travel times put me off from frequent attendance)

Also I don't believe in the inerrancy of the bible. While I believe there are truths in it I cannot possibly accept that it is all true and infallable.

I don't claim to understand God or the nature of God, but I tend to follow what the gospels say about the person of Jesus which leads me to believe that God is love.

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"The tendency to turn human judgments into divine commands makes religion one of the most dangerous forces in the world." Georgia Elma Harkness

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Boogie

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I am the opposite Alicïa - I love my Church and the work it does and the sense of community/working together it gives me.

My hold on God, however, gets more difficult as time passes. The longer away my Dad's death and Mum's onset of dementia become. I didn't realise just how much the two of them grounded my faith.

I still lead worship there, but I'm beginning to feel a fraud.

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SvitlanaV2
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# 16967

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quote:
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
I left church because a) church was no longer helping my spiritual growth, rather it was damaging it; and b) the church has nothing to do with Christianity, despite the claims.

I have many issues with the way we do church, and I'm now without a church to call my own, but I'm worried about falling out of the habit of going to church entirely; Paul did say that Christians shouldn't stop meeting together. I've resolved this problem for now by church hopping, something I once frowned upon.

More spiritual cultures than ours are able to maintain faith and religious teaching in the public square and in the home without individuals needing to be 'in church' every week or month. I've come across this myself. But in British culture, not being involved in an intentional Christian community just seems to have a corrosive effect on our faith over time. I don't want create more spiritual problems for myself by letting this happen.

quote:
I would call myself an evangelical, and so I believe that the bible does give us insight. But we simplify and codify it, and lose the wonder.

All engaged Christians claim to find insight in the Bible, not just evangelicals, but wonder and doubt both seem to be more manageable in highly sacramental Christianity than in evangelicalism. Perhaps it's because a sacramental approach relies on formal rituals and liturgies rather than on individual feelings and thoughts.

It could be that doubting evangelicals need to move further up the candle for a while. It's easier for me at the moment to cope with Evensong than with the more demanding forms of worship elsewhere.

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Karl: Liberal Backslider
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# 76

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It's participation that's difficult. Participation in the Charevo worship that's common these days down the candle is particularly hard; you can hardly clap and dance and all the rest of it if it's just words you don't really believe, or which intellectually you assent to in part but have no emotional reaction to.

I led one of the carols at our carol service before Christmas. I was able to do this because I believe in singing carols, quite independently or whether or not I believe the words, because I have an emotional attachment to them - they're part of my Christmas from when I was a wee lad and take me back to tinsel and lights and excitement that Christmas used to be about before alas adulthood and the associated reality took hold. They're not, for me, very much about God.

/tangent

It's much harder if I'm asked to do a reading; harder still were I asked to lead intercessions; I'd probably have to refuse; I'd feel such a fraud leading people to petition the ceiling, which is how it largely feels to me.

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Might as well ask the bloody cat.

Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
Karl: Liberal Backslider
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# 76

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Did I mention that the Bible is one of my biggest problems with Christianity? Far from finding insight in it, I more often find myself angered by its contents, especially where it talks of the homicidal petulant cruel God of death, hell and genocide. But also when it talks of the God who provides all our needs. No he doesn't. Millions of people starve to death and die of treatable disease. Where was he meeting their needs, eh?

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Might as well ask the bloody cat.

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balaam

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# 4543

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quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
indeed, there are those for whom the certainty of faith appears to give license to be a complete and utter arsehole.

I can be a complete and utter arsehole without being certain. From my experience certainty and faith seem to be mutually exclusive.

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Posts: 9049 | From: Hen Ogledd | Registered: May 2003  |  IP: Logged
balaam

Making an ass of myself
# 4543

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quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Did I mention that the Bible is one of my biggest problems with Christianity? Far from finding insight in it, I more often find myself angered by its contents, especially where it talks of the homicidal petulant cruel God of death, hell and genocide. But also when it talks of the God who provides all our needs. No he doesn't. Millions of people starve to death and die of treatable disease. Where was he meeting their needs, eh?

Archbishop Cranmer's blog addresses this very issue.

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Posts: 9049 | From: Hen Ogledd | Registered: May 2003  |  IP: Logged
rolyn
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# 16840

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quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
All I really have is too much emotional capital sunk into the faith to easily give it up, and a nagging fear of doing so unless and until I'm absolutely sure it really is irrational bullshit. And a small quiet hope, born of desperation.

That goes for me aswell .

But of course all the while we have that "small quiet hope" then technically we have a faith .
Because if we are just inhabiting a rock, in the middle of an eternal nowhere, for absolutely no reason whatsoever , then that starts to sound like the very epitome of desperation to me .

Maybe the actual practicing of faith is a different matter to the having of faith . I have 'eased up' on church attendance in recent years and don't feel any the worse for it .

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Change is the only certainty of existence

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SvitlanaV2
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# 16967

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quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
It's participation that's difficult. Participation in the Charevo worship that's common these days down the candle is particularly hard; you can hardly clap and dance and all the rest of it if it's just words you don't really believe, or which intellectually you assent to in part but have no emotional reaction to.

Do you ever attend high church CofE worship? Do you find that helpful to you?

I'm always surprised at how many of the British non-evangelicals on the Ship find themselves participating in evangelical worship. It's my theory that I could probably work out where all of you live if I took the trouble to analyse the parts of the country where charismatic evangelicalism predominates!! (Not that I would, of course.) Where are all those calm, reflective CofE churches that are designed to welcome the doubters?? Isn't that partly what the CofE is meant to offer?

quote:

I led one of the carols at our carol service before Christmas. I was able to do this because I believe in singing carols, quite independently or whether or not I believe the words, because I have an emotional attachment to them [...] They're not, for me, very much about God.


This is one reason why I'm growing increasingly ambivalent about the Christmas season. The churches think, mistakenly, that it's a wonderfully evangelistic time of year, but it's mostly about religion in the service of nostalgia. Still, maybe that's the future of mainstream British Christianity.

Regarding God, Islam appears to be a more consistent religion. Muslims don't seem to worry about reconciling the 'God of love' and the God who does horrible things or allows them to happen.

Posts: 6668 | From: UK | Registered: Feb 2012  |  IP: Logged
Karl: Liberal Backslider
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# 76

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Svit - I went to a liberal AC place for many years. Helpful, I don't know - less difficult, definitely. However, it doesn't suit the kids. I'm at a FE place now which I know that many denizens of Ecclesiantics would hate, to the point of saying it shouldn't be allowed.

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Might as well ask the bloody cat.

Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
Boogie

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To be honest I wouldn't worry about the kids. They will rebel when there time comes, whatever you do. The only sure way to get them to go to Church would be to ban it!

[Smile]

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Garden. Room. Walk

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Scarlet

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I can never go to another church, I have decided. No matter how much they minimise the appearance of tenets of faith one has to cling to, eventually I have to stop being a visitor who happens to partake of communion and become a regular or a member of the book group and Sunday school and whatever. And I do feel like a fraud even taking communion.

I can never make any more vows of faith or promises that I don't believe in even as I say them. I don't believe any of the creeds or the "articles of faith" in the back of the prayer books. There are times I miss book groups and coffee hour and having the bread and wine...I used to go to Wednesday morning prayer because we went to a coffee house afterwards for fellowship. But the priest had me do the reading and I felt so fake, because even the psalms seem like lies to me now. Sort of like reading Shakespearean sonnets...

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They took from their surroundings what was needed... and made of it something more.
—dialogue from Primer

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quetzalcoatl
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I believe the creeds in my own idiosyncratic way. Is this wrong? Dunno.

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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.

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Schroedinger's cat

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quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I believe the creeds in my own idiosyncratic way. Is this wrong? Dunno.

In truth, pretty much everyone does.

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Blog
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take out this broken heart and renew my mind.

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Ethne Alba
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(Lovin' Lamb Chopped's approach)
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Charlie-in-the-box
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Hi all,

I have doubts all of the time. I was watching a show on the sun and how in 2 billion years it will swallow up the solar system and burn up everything before it does. Then there will be nothing but darkness and there will be no earth, no nothing. I think about these things (this is what keeps me out of the good colleges) and wonder where will I be? The idea of shutting off my life like shutting off a light switch freaks me out. We are totally powerless over that. We can extend our existence a little while but, eventually, we are gone.

I just have no idea what basket to put my eggs in or if it even matters at all. I'm 51, you would think that I would have accepted mortality by now but the idea of ceasing to exist, having nothing out there waiting for me, that thought is horrible.

But am I looking for a faith to ease my fear? Will it matter in the end?

Then to nuke my terror I retreated to humor. I thought about how the sun should do a dress rehearsal. Just click itself off for a day and let people freak out. Then come back on and remind everyone that someday we will not be here. Make what matters in your life count.

My son died at 16. He had no idea that morning would be the last time he would do his morning rituals of taking a shower and eating breakfast. I had no idea either.

I just don't know what to embrace, if anything. People seem so sure but they are all so different. Can they all be right? I hear a Catholic priest saying this is the ONLY TRUE Church of Jesus. Then another, who says all Catholics are going to hell, tells me that their way is the only one. Some will say God will turn you away if you don't recite a certain prayer and others say that they are POSITIVE of heaven. Did I miss something? Why can't I feel certain, of anything? Some say we return in another life, which is no help at all because you won't remember anything anyway.

It's all dark doubt to me. I did read a neat (sort of) joke once that echoes my thoughts about those "we are the only ones who are right" types.

St Michael the archangel was called to meet with St Peter at the gate to heaven. He told the angel that someone had reported to him that the people he rejected for entry into heaven were later seen walking around in heaven. He told Michael that he must take care of this problem immediately. Michael goes off to see what's wrong and returns to Peter a few hours Peter. Peter asked Michael what he learned and Michael told him what he found. He said, "It's true that some of the people not allowed in heaven are getting in, you see, Jesus is pulling them in over the wall." THAT is who I want to know. I need something to ease my eternal anxiety.

Thanks for reading his horribly morbid post. I just wish I could be "certain" even if it all didn't matter in the end. At least I'd have some comfort. [Confused]

[ 05. January 2014, 19:41: Message edited by: Charlie-in-the-box ]

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Charlie-in-the-box
http://rosarygirl1962.blogspot.com/

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SvitlanaV2
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quote:
Originally posted by Scarlet:
I can never go to another church, I have decided. No matter how much they minimise the appearance of tenets of faith one has to cling to, eventually I have to stop being a visitor who happens to partake of communion and become a regular or a member of the book group and Sunday school and whatever. And I do feel like a fraud even taking communion.

I can never make any more vows of faith or promises that I don't believe in even as I say them. I don't believe any of the creeds or the "articles of faith" in the back of the prayer books. There are times I miss book groups and coffee hour and having the bread and wine...I used to go to Wednesday morning prayer because we went to a coffee house afterwards for fellowship. But the priest had me do the reading and I felt so fake, because even the psalms seem like lies to me now. Sort of like reading Shakespearean sonnets...

This doesn't sound like doubt to me, so much as a belief that Christianity is wrong in so many ways as to make any kind of formal adherence or participation inauthentic.

I suppose (British) Quakerism and/or Unitarianism would be the answer, if you were looking for some sort of communal attempt at spirituality, since they don't claim to offer a coherent system of belief that members have to buy into.

[ 05. January 2014, 20:09: Message edited by: SvitlanaV2 ]

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Twilight

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# 2832

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My best girlfriend from school days called me the other day. We attended the Methodist church together back in the 50's, but we grew up, turned into liberal hippies, and she never went back to church, while I never went completely away, even if it was just to slip into the back of a strange church in the city from time to time.

She knows I go and thinks it's weird. What she called to tell me was that, while she was visiting family over Christmas, she attended the old church with them and, her words were, "I didn't feel a thing."

I realized then that I "don't feel a thing" the majority of the time. All conditions have to be just right; no distractions, either in my own life or from the people around me, no difficult music or annoying sermon. Even then, it's as if any awareness of God is very faint and very far away, but, once in a great while, I do feel it and that's enough to convince me it's there even when I can't tap into it. Without that I would despair.

Why do we feel the terror of the abyss if there is no God to be separated from? Our Bibles may be full of miss-translations and primitive legends. Our traditions may be just so much man made pomp, but it's our longing for God that is at the root of these things and I don't think that longing would be there, or be so strong, if there was nothing on the other end.

[Cross posted with Charlie. Welcome. So sorry about your son.}

[ 05. January 2014, 20:22: Message edited by: Twilight ]

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Og: Thread Killer
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Death seems to have scared the BeJesus out of me there for awhile.

He's slowly creeping back in.

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I wish I was seeking justice loving mercy and walking humbly but... "Cease to lament for that thou canst not help, And study help for that which thou lament'st."

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SvitlanaV2
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quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
To be honest I wouldn't worry about the kids. They will rebel when there time comes, whatever you do. The only sure way to get them to go to Church would be to ban it!

[Smile]

A British study I've heard of suggests that two practising Christian parents are 50% likely to transmit their faith to their children. Non-religious parents are much more successful at transmitting their absence of religion.

Conservative forms of religious belief tend to be transmitted to children more successfully than those that are less so. The flip side to this must be that parental doubt is transmitted more effectively than parental faith.... But it's also a case of demographics; conservatives have more children, so their religious communities remain healthier because even if some children are 'lost' to the faith there will be a critical number who remain.

There's talk now of the spiritual influence of grandparents. That's probably really important. The spiritual heritage of my grandparents and other relatives had an impact on me across 1000s of miles, even though my own parents were somewhat shaky in their religious commitment.

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quetzalcoatl
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I like this thread, because people can just say that they feel lost or empty. I don't want people telling me to be joyful with Jesus, and telling me how to be saved.

As I've got older, the dominant feeling for me has become not knowing, and again, I really don't want someone telling me that that's wrong or a cop-out.

Maybe I had too much intellectual knowledge, in a certain way, and then a lot of it fell away, so I am approaching a kind of nothing. But in a strange way, that relaxes me.

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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.

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Boogie

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quote:
Originally posted by Twilight:

Why do we feel the terror of the abyss if there is no God to be separated from? Our Bibles may be full of miss-translations and primitive legends. Our traditions may be just so much man made pomp, but it's our longing for God that is at the root of these things and I don't think that longing would be there, or be so strong, if there was nothing on the other end.

This is my hope.

When I try to completely let go of God I can't let go of the thought/hope/feeling that there can't be nothing holding all this together.

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Garden. Room. Walk

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Nicodemia
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I wouldn't mind if there was nothing out there when I die. I wouldn't know anything about it anyway. What gets me is I might find something there, and that I had got it all wrong!

But then, what is right? And we are back on the circular arguments/theories/propositions again.

<sigh>

And welcome Charlie, so sorry about your son.

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quetzalcoatl
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quote:
Originally posted by Nicodemia:
I wouldn't mind if there was nothing out there when I die. I wouldn't know anything about it anyway. What gets me is I might find something there, and that I had got it all wrong!

But then, what is right? And we are back on the circular arguments/theories/propositions again.

<sigh>

And welcome Charlie, so sorry about your son.

A friend of mine says that oblivion sounds just too good to be true, which always makes me laugh, and sort of not care anyway. Well, there can't be oblivion.

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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.

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Welease Woderwick

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# 10424

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Yes, I don't give a toss about the afterlife though my approach to it is a universalist one. To me the "message" of Jesus is summed up in Galloping Granny's signature line from the end of the the Gospel of Thomas that the Kingdom of Heaven [whatever that means] is all around us but we just fail to see it!

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I give thanks for unknown blessings already on their way.
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The Great Gumby

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I was just reading through out of curiosity - I'm intending to leave it alone, because it seems that in threads like this, the one thing less popular than absolute religious conviction is the slightest hint that there really might not be anything out there. But I wanted to pick up on this:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
It's participation that's difficult. Participation in the Charevo worship that's common these days down the candle is particularly hard; you can hardly clap and dance and all the rest of it if it's just words you don't really believe, or which intellectually you assent to in part but have no emotional reaction to.

I led one of the carols at our carol service before Christmas. I was able to do this because I believe in singing carols, quite independently or whether or not I believe the words, because I have an emotional attachment to them - they're part of my Christmas from when I was a wee lad and take me back to tinsel and lights and excitement that Christmas used to be about before alas adulthood and the associated reality took hold. They're not, for me, very much about God.

/tangent

It's much harder if I'm asked to do a reading; harder still were I asked to lead intercessions; I'd probably have to refuse; I'd feel such a fraud leading people to petition the ceiling, which is how it largely feels to me.

This is pretty much how I felt about it for years. Hymns - fine. Carols - brilliant. Soppy handwavy love songs to Jesus - no thanks. Reading was OK, though, even if I didn't like the text, because at the very least, people ought to know what it actually says, instead of what they think it says.

I found myself wondering whether the distinction between these different songs is introversion, content, novelty or whatever. I don't really have an answer, but I think it's probably a bit of each.

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The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool. - Richard Feynman

A letter to my son about death

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the famous rachel
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Hi All,

I'm really glad to see this thread - and wish I had more time to participate in it. I'll try and chip in now and then, since I recognise many of the doubts being raised here and am struggling with them.

quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
I thought, decades ago when I left atheism for Christianity, that by now I'd have sufficient experience of God - whatever form that might take - to have the sort of confidence in his existence that I see a lot of people having.

I didn't. And I don't.


I find Karl's disappointment interesting. It makes sense, but as someone who has been through a very experiential version of Christianity (charismatic evangelicalism) and once believed she had experienced quite a lot of God, I now actually find claims of experiences (including my own) more troubling than lack of experience. I always end up asking myself these days, what sort of God would answer prayers for "more joy, Lord, more power" (or whatever the buzzwords are just now) by making people laugh and sing and fall down in church services, but wouldn't answer the prayer of a mother with a desperately sick child in hospital? But then, what sort of God would answer one mother's prayer for one child in one hospital, but ignore the plight of thousands of children in a famine or a war? And so it goes on...

I've heard lots of answers to the "why does God allow suffering" question and might be able to find peace with some of them, but I couldn't find peace with a God who expends effort giving comfortable western Christians the warm fuzzies, whilst failing to lift a finger for a suffering African child.

The other reason I lost my ability to believe in the evangelical version of God is connected to this in a way: however it is explained, I can't find a way of accepting that a loving, powerful God would create people and then send them off for eternal punishment. God increasingly struck me as someone I didn't want to believe in, and certainly not someone I wanted to worship. I've been looking for a way forward outside the evangelical picture for a while, but am not really finding one - perhaps I don't care enough anymore, having rejected the experiential stuff, which was at least kind of fun?

I'd still like to believe, I still cling to that vestige of hope, but life is busy and challenging, and it all seems increasingly irrelevant.

Best wishes,

Rachel.

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A shrivelled appendix to the body of Christ.

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Raptor Eye
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I hope it's OK for me to join in with my strong faith and yet lack of certainties.

Before I came to faith I used to feel shivers down my spine when I went into churches as they reminded me of death, especially when they were full of memorial plaques and I thought I was walking over graves. I did not want to spend any time in church services, let alone go every week and become involved. The Bible left me cold too.

I wonder whether pre-conceived ideas whether about God or about church or about Christians need to be stripped away before we can be still and know God at all. Istm that everyone has a tailor-made suit made by hand to pick up rather than being able to buy our faith 'off the peg'.

It took years of open-minded searching before I came to the convinced place of baptism. During that time I learned how to listen, and how to sift out my own imagination and desires from the still small 'voice' of God. At the same time I did my best to follow the teaching of Jesus. I've made steps of progress since, so that previous experience sustains me in 'dry' periods and through times of doubt.

Now I go to a specific church as it's how God wants me to worship and where God wants me to serve, but I don't suppose that this won't change. I continue to listen and follow. The Church, the Bible and fellow Christians are challenging, but at the same time affirming.

But what I'm describing is my own hand-made suit.

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Be still, and know that I am God! Psalm 46.10

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Nicodemia
WYSIWYG
# 4756

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quote:
But what I'm describing is my own hand-made suit.
Indeed you are, Raptor Eye. I'm glad you've found it. I thought I had, but then it just sort of wore out and I find myself without anything. Nothing. Zilch. For several years.

I'm with Rachel - why do wealthy (in comparison) Western Christians find more, when struggling people, who are presumably made in the image of God, get absolutely nothing.

What with that, and the aforesaid problem(in my first post) of a God of the Cosmos/Universe being interested in me, you and our paltry prayers, its any wonder I can say I believe.

Except, I think I have sometimes just got the merest glimpse of something or somebody that might just possibly, I hardly dare think about it, be out there.

Though whether you can describe this as Love, I don't know. Although nothing else fits.

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Raptor Eye
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quote:
Originally posted by Nicodemia:
quote:
But what I'm describing is my own hand-made suit.
Indeed you are, Raptor Eye. I'm glad you've found it. I thought I had, but then it just sort of wore out and I find myself without anything. Nothing. Zilch. For several years.

I'm with Rachel - why do wealthy (in comparison) Western Christians find more, when struggling people, who are presumably made in the image of God, get absolutely nothing.

What with that, and the aforesaid problem(in my first post) of a God of the Cosmos/Universe being interested in me, you and our paltry prayers, its any wonder I can say I believe.

Except, I think I have sometimes just got the merest glimpse of something or somebody that might just possibly, I hardly dare think about it, be out there.

Though whether you can describe this as Love, I don't know. Although nothing else fits.

Istm that whatever we project onto God puts God into the straitjacket of our minds. Why would God create us and then be disinterested in us?

Reports I have heard tell of faith experience in Africa so great that they are sending missionaries to Britain. Perhaps people living in poverty are better able to draw near to God.

Yes, suffering leaves us wondering why. We want paradise now but are only promised it in the future. Are we all ready for it? That's probably a question for Purgatory.

God is love, and God is more than love. God is our purpose. Of that I am convinced. I can do nothing to convince others. I can only tell my own tale.

--------------------
Be still, and know that I am God! Psalm 46.10

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SvitlanaV2
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quote:
Originally posted by the famous rachel:
I've heard lots of answers to the "why does God allow suffering" question and might be able to find peace with some of them, but I couldn't find peace with a God who expends effort giving comfortable western Christians the warm fuzzies, whilst failing to lift a finger for a suffering African child.


And yet, the weeping mothers of dead African babies don't themselves seem to lean towards agnosticism and atheism to the same extent as those of us in the West who watch their suffering from afar. I've often wondered about this. Do those people on our TV screens realise that watching their pain often moves western viewers further away from God? I wonder what they'd say if they knew. There's surely a book in that somewhere.

Many of my ancestors suffered terribly in quite specific ways, mostly at the hands of self-proclaimed Christians. For some people, this is reason enough to drive them away from Christianity. But one thing that keeps me holding on is the knowledge that my ancestors drew great strength and courage from their faith. And those who had weak faith appreciated the greater faith of the others. Bearing in mind that there's no proof either way, it would seem like a betrayal of them to abandon God for something that's not much better. And I can't really see how atheism is better; it's just one more choice in a sea of choices, and it doesn't bring dead babies back to life.

So, if there's a God, then someone somewhere ought to pay him some attention. Since so many people in our culture have given up, that's more reason for me, with my God-shaped yearnings, to make a bit of an effort. But if there's no God then at least I've been true to my nature. No one can hold that against me.

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Nenya
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I am deeply grateful for this thread and for the honesty of those posting here. Over the past five years I've questioned things I thought were non-negotiables and found myself entertaining ideas I would once have considered heresy. I haven't read the Bible for a very long time. For a long time this was all very frightening. I think I'm getting to the point where it might possibly be exciting.

There are very few people in real life that I could talk to about this, although I have found a few who seem to speak my language.

Charlie - I'm so very sorry about your son.

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They told me I was delusional. I nearly fell off my unicorn.

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Charlie-in-the-box
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Thanks so much for the comments about my son. It really shook my faith to the ground. I also noticed my trend to move from one faith to another. Has anyone else done this? I have been; Lutheran, Baptist, United Methodist, Wiccan/Pagan, Agnostic, Atheist, Reformed Judaism, Catholic, and now ....destination unknown. I keep looking for something and just can't have the experience with God I'm looking for I guess. I appreciate everyone's honesty and sharing.

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Charlie-in-the-box
http://rosarygirl1962.blogspot.com/

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quetzalcoatl
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I feel as if I have been in dreamland for decades, sort of hearing Christian talk, and not really thinking hard about it, and then for some reason, a couple of years ago, I started to think about some of it (but not all), what utter rubbish. Anyway, this has carried on, so it is a kind of stocktaking, and removals, all in one. I don't know what will be left at the end of it at all. I just can't see the dualism anymore between self and God, life and God, other and God; all is God. So I conclude that I am no longer a Christian, hélas.

But I like this quote from Racine, 'Présente je vous fuis; absente, je vous trouve', and as I am obliged contractually, I will render it as, 'when I am present, I flee from you; when I am absent, I find you again'.

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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.

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Charlie-in-the-box
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quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I feel as if I have been in dreamland for decades, sort of hearing Christian talk, and not really thinking hard about it, and then for some reason, a couple of years ago, I started to think about some of it (but not all), what utter rubbish. Anyway, this has carried on, so it is a kind of stocktaking, and removals, all in one. I don't know what will be left at the end of it at all. I just can't see the dualism anymore between self and God, life and God, other and God; all is God. So I conclude that I am no longer a Christian, hélas.

But I like this quote from Racine, 'Présente je vous fuis; absente, je vous trouve', and as I am obliged contractually, I will render it as, 'when I am present, I flee from you; when I am absent, I find you again'.

Wow I like that quote. Is it possible that I try too hard? Like chasing something instead of waiting for it to come to you? I sure wish I knew.

--------------------
Charlie-in-the-box
http://rosarygirl1962.blogspot.com/

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