Thread: How do you experience doubt? (Whether faithful or faithfree?) Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.


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Posted by the famous rachel (# 1258) on :
 
This question has been raised in my mind by some of the discussions on the "Faithfree Guidelines" thread about who should post what here and how. I'd like to explore what differences there are (if any) between those who step away from church and or faith and those who stay, especially around how both groups experience doubt.

For me, I always felt I was holding onto faith by my fingernails. In a period of about 20 years during which I would definitely have counted myself a Christian, I can think of only about three years during which I felt in any way confident in my faith, and even then I had moments of absolute searing doubt, when the questions I have about the logical glue holding Christianity together seemed absolutely insurmountable. I sometimes used to describe myself as being agnostic from an intellectual point of view, but with a heart that had been captured by God nonetheless.

Because I really did want to follow God and love him, I found these doubts very painful in many ways, particularly as some of them went to the core of who God is and whether he was worthy of my love. Faith was a struggle, a wrestling match with my own intellect, an attempt to pull the wool over my mind's eyes.

As a result, I have always struggled to understand people who appear very sure in their faith, as if they are stood on unshakable foundations and can let everything wash over them. Here, I would like to try and understand better - if people would be willing to have the conversation.

So...

If you are someone who has stepped away from church or faith, were you ever absolutely and burningly convinced about it, unshakeable and sure? How does it feel? Where did it go?

If you are someone who is still in your faith, but struggles with doubt, how do you keep it from overwhelming you?

If you are one of those people who from outside seems to stand on firm foundations of absolutely surety, you may not even know it because that may not be how you see yourself from inside of course. But.... if you think you may be seen from outside as unshakable and sure, is that how you feel inside? Obviously there are two answers to that question, so the next bit splits two ways...

(i) If you do feel unshakable and sure, what does that mean in practice? How did you get there? How do you deal with others' doubts?

(ii) If you feel very much not unshakable and sure, how and why are you projecting that impression of confidence? How are you actually feeling behind the facade? What do you do with your own doubts (and indeed other people's)?

Obviously, there is a continuum between the two above, but hopefully that's enough questions to get a discussion started.

I am aware I have been snarky elsewhere on this board. I will do my best to listen to everyone with respect on this topic, because I actually would like to know more about this!

Best wishes,

Rachel.
 
Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on :
 
Doubt - permanently. I waver around between various thoughts and never feel sure of any of them or finding any way of coalescing them into a whole.

Never having been a part of evangelical churches I don't really have an image of the toddler God to rebel against. But there's still the inequity of a loving God granting the trivial prayers of someone praying for a parking place but not the thousands killed in natural disasters or the child of a church family dying of leukaemia. God's plan seems pretty arbitrary, so believing in a supreme Deity, as in the God who knows our every thought and every sparrow that falls, is beyond me.

The description I have come across more often is that of a supremely loving God, a God who provides the love in the world and is with us in our travails. I have been to funeral addresses where Jesus has been described as being there in the suffering. I think you have to have been unconditionally loved to be able to experience that God. Otherwise that's a very difficult concept to grasp. And again is beyond me.

Then there's panentheism which sees God as within everything. In some ways that's easier to theologise as you can believe God is the source of life and all living things, and evil is a result of free will and man's inhumanity to man. That allows us a sense of the numinous, but it doesn't give us a deity to worship.

If God is a human construct, a need to believe in a higher being, and is really a personification of good, that could explain the God of the OT. For a society on the edge smiting their enemies would be what helped them survive. And that gives us a God that would vary depend on circumstances. If we see praying to God as good then praying together starts having a point. If a group all pray for what they can do to be the hands and feet of God on earth they can move mountains. That also goes with a theology of prayer being an alignment of our will with God's.

As a final thought, if we can only see through a glass darkly, can we not all be trying to worship the same God? An image I have for this is of God as a mountain with many routes to the top. Whoever is walking each path can only see their part of the mountain but all are trying to work towards the same pinnacle.
 
Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:

Then there's panentheism which sees God as within everything. In some ways that's easier to theologise as you can believe God is the source of life and all living things, and evil is a result of free will and man's inhumanity to man. That allows us a sense of the numinous, but it doesn't give us a deity to worship.
This is the place I have reached, and I'm happy with it.

The only place I now struggle is at Church, where I find myself muttering in my head, which isn't very good for me really. I just need to accept that I've come to different conclusions than others - and that's fine. If they are doing no harm (in fact, they are doing a lot of good in many ways) then I shouldn't need to silently mutter about their beliefs. I do wonder who else there feels the same but hasn't said - I bet there are some.
 
Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on :
 
Doubt - constantly. I doubt whether my decision to move away from church was right. I doubt whether my decisions to move churches were right. I doubt whether my long-term faith in the church as a broken institution through which God works was right.

I think doubt is a crucial part of faith. I don't know that what I believe is true or correct. It may well be wildly mistaken, or close to correct. But I am seeking for more truth - spiritual growth if you want, wider horizons. What I believed once, I no longer do, so what I believe now I probably won't in the future.

My faith is about knowing that what I believe is the best I can do in my situation, and acknowledging that it may all be wrong, or any part of it may be wrong. So I need to continue seeking.
 
Posted by Snags (# 15351) on :
 
Oh golly gosh.

quote:
the famous rachel:
As a result, I have always struggled to understand people who appear very sure in their faith, as if they are stood on unshakable foundations and can let everything wash over them.
Amen. I'd even go so far as to say that I struggle to fully trust people who seem so sure, as I suspect they may be either credulous, weak minded, or full of shit/somehow slightly dubious (in an evo context, at any rate).

So, doubt.

Yes, very much, constantly. My faith is an utter paradox, and I spend quite a bit of time trying to separate out "Do I really believe this, or is it just years of cultural conditioning?".

The older I get, the more I learn, the more I study (half-heartedly), the more I think ... the more I find myself at odds with things that I feel ought to be part of what I believe, when I observe others at church, but which fundamentally aren't. But I don't not believe. I may not believe that but somehow there's this residual thing about Jesus, God, Spirit that clicks and rings true even the midst of the "But surely that's just madness" stuff that swirls around.

So I tend to cleave to the "love your neighbour" bits, to try and focus on the love, the peacemaking, the caring. But then you get sucked into discussions on 'issues' and it's very, very hard to practice it, rather than just saying "Well, yes, but that's because you're a ****" and walking away.

Ironically one of the things that serves to keep me identifying as inside a faith community is the sheer paucity of the arguments from militant atheist friends. A lot of their 'killer lines' depend so much on a lack of understanding, or ignorance, or not what I actually believe anyway that I tend to think their position is an even bigger load of unsupportable bollocks than mine is. That and the total lack of grace, love, empathy, compassion or EQ they display in the process.

How do others see me? I really don't know. It's possible that some see me as a Super Christian, but they shouldn't if they pay attention. I co-organise the music/worship team at church. I play in various groups. I lead services (usually reflective ones, with space for people to do their own thing/approach things in their own way), I've been a deacon, I'm the go-to-guy for lots of things I wish people would go-to-someone-else on, but mostly handle it with good grace (and some spectacular fails). So maybe some think I'm rock solid. But if they listen to what I say when I lead (lots and lots of doubt, questioning, and room for difference); if they converse with me on anything and realise I'm probably out of step with most of the church leadership on SSM and other hot-button stuff; if they meet me socially and thus encounter Vulgar Sweary Snags (primary difference between Church Snags is basically the level and frequency of the Sweary, to be fair, rather than total absence); if they open their eyes they should twig that I, like my faith, am a paradox - very much in the centre at church, yet also on the fringe ...

So loads of doubt, loads of questioning.

What keeps me there?

For the God doubts: Jesus. Whatever unsatisfactory theology bugs me, I can't yet say I'm ready to give up on the Jesus thing. So I muddle through the rest.

For the church doubts: partly pride, and needing to be needed; partly not wanting to pile an even bigger workload on people I care about by saying "I'm off, sod this"; partly because although church drives me away from faith it also anchors me in it (paradox!); partly because maybe my wooly muddle-head love emphasis accept everyone approach counters some folks' more conservative one; and partly because there's still this little niggle about not giving up meeting together, but instead encouraging one another. And maybe buried inside the generally cynical iconoclast there's still the idealist who relishes what church could be, and would love to see it happen in some measure.

All of which is probably a long way of saying fuctifino!
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
Intellectually I am always aware that everything I believe about God, faith, my wife's undying love for me, etc., could be wrong, and I deluded. While I've never been in actual doubt about Josephine, my faith in my faith (so to speak) comes and goes. I have been in a blissful state of lack of doubt for a couple of years now, which is good because I've been horrifically busy and really didn't have time or psychic energy for an existential crisis. But these good times don't last and no doubt (heh) I will at some point in future be assailed with doubt again. It seems to me that is the human condition, and with others on this thread, I have a hard time understanding people who claim to never have any doubt in their beliefs.

Perhaps this lack of faith in the eversure is a divine gift; perhaps it's fueled by memories of a numinous experience of the sort I've never had; perhaps it's brain chemistry; perhaps it's being too unsophisticated to be bothered by things that bother the more doubtful; perhaps it's self-delusion; perhaps it's lying. Perhaps it's some other thing I can't even imagine at the moment. It's certainly not for me to tell them what is going on inside them. I just wish that certain members of that tribe not castigate me for not sharing their lack of doubt.
 
Posted by the famous rachel (# 1258) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
I have been in a blissful state of lack of doubt for a couple of years now, which is good because I've been horrifically busy and really didn't have time or psychic energy for an existential crisis.
I'm on the flip side of that coin: I'm equally too busy to have an existential crisis, so I'm somewhat glad to have stepped away from things for now!

Thanks Mousethief and everyone else for some very honest posts!

If I'd had to guess MT, I'd have put you down as someone with very few doubts (but I wouldn't presume any ability to guess accurately in a text-based medium). It's interesting to hear where you are actually coming from.

Plenty to think about here, and I'd love to hear from others on both sides of the faith divide about their experience.

Best wishes,

RAchel.
 
Posted by JoannaP (# 4493) on :
 
I have lots of questions about the details but I very rarely doubt God's existence or benevolence. At times, I wonder what is wrong with me and my faith, and whether my lack of doubt is a sign of immaturity...
 
Posted by Doublethink. (# 1984) on :
 
To me, it is a bit like a gestalt illusion, look once - see God, look again see the void, look again and it changes once again.
 
Posted by moonlitdoor (# 11707) on :
 
I have a faith which I would describe as weak but orthodox. The main thing I doubt is whether I will live on in some way after death. Probably to do so is my greatest desire but I am usually not at all confident of it. When I say the main thing, I mean that's the thing I doubt actively in the sense of actually worrying about it. There are various other beliefs that I am not sure of my exact opinion on but I don't mind that.

However I wanted to say something in favour of people who are sure, though I am not one of them. It is that I find it difficult to understand people who are very sure about political issues, whereas I think it is mostly guesswork whether various policies will make things better or worse. But the ship of fools is full of people who are very sure about politics even if they are doubtful about religion and I think I am the odd one out.

So I just accept that certainty is more natural for some people than it is for me.
 
Posted by W Hyatt (# 14250) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by the famous rachel:
But.... if you think you may be seen from outside as unshakable and sure, is that how you feel inside? Obviously there are two answers to that question, so the next bit splits two ways...

(i) If you do feel unshakable and sure, what does that mean in practice? How did you get there? How do you deal with others' doubts?

(ii) If you feel very much not unshakable and sure, how and why are you projecting that impression of confidence? How are you actually feeling behind the facade? What do you do with your own doubts (and indeed other people's)?

Obviously, there is a continuum between the two above, but hopefully that's enough questions to get a discussion started.
I'd say I'm between those two on the continuum: I regularly have doubts that I have to deal with, but those doubts don't cause me anxiety and people who know me well would never see any signs of them. And I always come back to the fact that it's easier for me to believe that we are part of God's creation than it is for me to believe that inert atoms and molecules could ever arrange themselves into a brain that could generate my experience of self-awareness.

Also, I've benefitted from two things in particular about my faith. First, my faith asks me to believe something only to the extent that I understand it and see how it is consistent with a God who is perfect love and perfect wisdom. Second, my faith teaches me that while doubt is not in and of itself a good thing, doubt is (a) pretty much inevitable and (b) can be very useful in refining and strengthening my faith. As a result, I can embrace my own doubt and see it as an opportunity to struggle with important questions and to eventually come to understand my faith more deeply.

In the end, I don't think that the most important part of faith is so much about whether I believe God exists as it is about whether I believe that trying to live my life in accordance with the Divine qualities of love and wisdom is really so inherently good as to be worth my letting go of my naturally self-centered inclinations. Even when I am struggling with doubts that God actually exists, I can still have faith that it's worth it to try to live as if he does exist.
 
Posted by anteater (# 11435) on :
 
the famous rachel:
My trajectory follows that old saying about believing more and more is less and less. So some christians would think my faith is not worth having, but I find it a really valuable part of my life.
I did, at one time, have a much more dogmatic faith, and have at times ceased to self-identify as christian.
I have no doubt about the existence of God, but non-believers are likely to say that my God is not worth having, since I certainly don't expect Him to keep me from loss, suffering or whatever. I can't understand how people do believe that.
I believe that the story of the Gospels and all that leads up to it is God's view on life and how to live it. I am resigned to the fact that I will never be in a position to prove how much of it is literally true.
I would never claim certainty and certainly do not think people who do not accept the faith are worthy of condemnation. A lot of the arguments against christianity are pretty cogent, but so are those in favour.
But how many of life's commitments are based on certainty?
 
Posted by Jengie jon (# 273) on :
 
I am going to post something I want people to think about. I rarely have doubts but I do not think that my faith is unquestioning. Rather for me to have faith is to question. The struggle is always to speak as accurately as possible of God as I perceive him (sorry there is no correct pronoun for the Almighty). That requires that I speak honestly of what I do not like about God. The result means that for me questioning is an inherent part of faith. For me faith is closer to scientific acceptance (I work as if it is true but it is open for review) rather than absolute assent.

Therefore the talk of doubt often puzzles me. I am coming to the conclusion that there is an unhealthy construct around faith and belief in the West. Sorry to the Orthodox but I think in this debate they are West as much as Protestantism and Roman Catholicism. The way Christendom has priveledged the assent to orthodox belief has skewed our understanding of what the nature of religiuos belief is. It has meant we have overlooked other aspects of belief such as:

I am sure others can add other parts to this list. This means that we are quick to call someone asking questions as non-Christian.I think some of it is the feeling that this gives clear boundaries and therefore it is easy to see we belong! The problems are multitude with this approach. It fragments the Church. It leads to judgementalism. It leads to believe ten impossible things before breakfast syndrome. It leads to an intellectual pernictiness about believing exactly the right formulation which either leads to despair or pride.

I value for this reason two ideas. Firstly faith is a gift of God in the sense of being able to hold easily onto stron doctrinal formulations but as a gift it is not a basis of judgement. Secondly saving faith is primary God's activity, and our response to it is more an act of fealty than a matter of doctrine.

I am reminded of the parable of the two sons. One reading (parables never have a single reading) would put the current definition of faith as favouring the second son.

Jengie
 
Posted by Baptist Trainfan (# 15128) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Jengie jon:
I am coming to the conclusion that there is an unhealthy construct around faith and belief in the West... The way Christendom has priveledged the assent to orthodox belief has skewed our understanding of what the nature of religiuos belief is. It has meant we have overlooked other aspects of belief such as:

I am sure others can add other parts to this list. This means that we are quick to call someone asking questions as non-Christian.
Hmmm ... don't you think that this is very much the province of fairly Evangelical, probably Reformed worship? I would have thought (as a Baptist!) that many of the things you have in your list are more important to - say - some Anglo-Catholics than is rigid adherence to a Creed.

But I may be wrong ....
 
Posted by Baptist Trainfan (# 15128) on :
 
Missed edit window: here's my complete screed!

quote:
Originally posted by Jengie jon:
I am coming to the conclusion that there is an unhealthy construct around faith and belief in the West... The way Christendom has priveledged the assent to orthodox belief has skewed our understanding of what the nature of religiuos belief is. It has meant we have overlooked other aspects of belief such as:

I am sure others can add other parts to this list. This means that we are quick to call someone asking questions as non-Christian.
1. Hmmm ... don't you think that this is very much the province of fairly Evangelical, probably Reformed worship? I would have thought (as a Baptist!) that many of the things you have in your list are more important to - say - some Anglo-Catholics than is rigid adherence to a Creed.

But I may be wrong ....

2. It also seems to fit with a Western modernist construct which sees faith (and many other things) as a very individualist affair. In many premodern societies faith is a shared community activity, and personal convictions of belief are perhaps less important.

3. Personally I feel that doubt is an integral part of faith which, by its very nature (and despite that verse in Hebrews 11) can never be certainty. Where there is proven certainty, faith cannot exist; it has to include a measure of "I'm not quite sure, but I have enough effort to make me pretty convinced that it's true".

4. I also think that a theology which is too strictly defined runs the risks of constraining God or constricting him to the limits of our finite intelligence. Although God is - up to a point - describable, he cannot be described completely, by any means.

Pretty random thoughts, I know ...
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Jengie jon:
I am coming to the conclusion that there is an unhealthy construct around faith and belief in the West. Sorry to the Orthodox but I think in this debate they are West as much as Protestantism and Roman Catholicism.
Whom does that leave? The Copts and the Armenians? Do they not have an unhealthy construct about faith and belief? Or are all Christians "the West" and you're comparing us to Buddhists or Hindus?

quote:
The way Christendom has priveledged the assent to orthodox belief has skewed our understanding of what the nature of religiuos belief is. It has meant we have overlooked other aspects of belief such as:
I'm confused. You can hardly say that the Orthodox have overlooked participation in ritual or connection with a spiritual tradition, or that American Evangelicals have overlooked the acceptance of a behavioural code, or that pentecostals have overlooked the experience of the numinous.

quote:
Originally posted by Baptist Trainfan:
It also seems to fit with a Western modernist construct which sees faith (and many other things) as a very individualist affair. In many premodern societies faith is a shared community activity, and personal convictions of belief are perhaps less important.
This is very much how the Orthodox experience the feast-and-fast cycle. Take for example Great Lent. We all commiserate and share lenten recipes and hear sermons about the benefits of self-denial, and then when Pascha comes we all gorge together on the erstwhile forbidden goodies (our parish has not one but two giant potlucks on Easter Day, one at about 3 am and one at about 2 pm). It's very communal.
 
Posted by Autenrieth Road (# 10509) on :
 
I have tried replacing occurrences of "belief" with "trust," after I found I struggled with believing in God. This was in line with what I've read, that the Greek "pistis" is translated "belief" in most bibles but should be translated "faith."

What I realized after trying this on and off for several years is that I don't trust God, not one whit.

So rather than keep trying to contort myself into that box of how I should be mentally and emotionally, I've discarded the box and am acknowledging what I really believe and what I really trust.

[ 26. December 2014, 17:25: Message edited by: Autenrieth Road ]
 
Posted by Jengie jon (# 273) on :
 
Who does it leave? Buddhists, Muslims, Hindus etc.

Jengie
 
Posted by JoannaP (# 4493) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Jengie jon:
Who does it leave? Buddhists, Muslims, Hindus etc.

Jengie
So when you said "in the West" did you really mean "within Christianity"? What about Buddhists and Muslims in the West? After all, the cradle of Islam is not that much further east than Israel...
 
Posted by Jengie jon (# 273) on :
 
I used Christendom and the West in this case almost interchangeable but I mean cultural West rather than religious West. African religion equally does not have this polysemic/polyvalency around the word belief.

Jengie
 
Posted by Yorick (# 12169) on :
 
There seems to me to be a feeling amongst theists that doubt is essentially a bad thing; that it amounts to a failing or shortfall of some sort. I think this is seeing it arse over tit. Doubt is the essential foundational aspect of our capacity for creativity and critical thinking, and is surely the foundation of our greatest achievements. If our ancestors had lacked their natural capacity to doubt, we’d still be cave-dwelling flat world shitkickers. Without doubting our understanding of the world around us, we would never seek to improve our knowledge of it. Science is all about doubt. Certainty is the terminal cancer of development and improvement- it is only by doubting that we come to question why things are the way they are, and to seek truthful answers to those questions.

Embrace your skepticism! If there is a god out there somewhere you will surely only find him through processing your doubts, not through blind and prideful faith.
 
Posted by Snags (# 15351) on :
 
Personally I think doubt is essential. That doesn't mean it's always comfortable or welcome, and that absolute certainty is not attractive at times.

Faith and Doubt by Ortberg is quite good on this, from memory. Annoyingly it doesn't resolve the doubts [Biased]
 
Posted by Baptist Trainfan (# 15128) on :
 
I think that there is a huge difference between Doubt (= good) and Cynicism (= bad). But they are often confused.
 
Posted by RuthW (# 13) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
There seems to me to be a feeling amongst theists that doubt is essentially a bad thing; that it amounts to a failing or shortfall of some sort...
Among some theists, yes. But not among all. Beware of the broad brush.
 
Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :
 
I experience doubt at times. The kind I get is what Lewis referred to as when "a mood rises up against" Christianity. No new evidence against it, just a mental weather shift that makes the whole thing seem improbable. But that isn't evidence, anymore than a mood in favor of it would be evidence.

Generally I just wait it out, until the weather shifts again.
 
Posted by Mark Wuntoo (# 5673) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
There seems to me to be a feeling amongst theists that doubt is essentially a bad thing; that it amounts to a failing or shortfall of some sort.
It's certainty that scares me.

When in ministry it was the worshipper who 'knew the truth' (about whatever) who was a challenge to me. I think I said somewhere on this Board 'I know what I believe today but don't know what I might believe tomorrow'. A good dictum for everybody, if I may be so bold. [Biased]
 
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
I experience doubt at times. The kind I get is what Lewis referred to as when "a mood rises up against" Christianity. No new evidence against it, just a mental weather shift that makes the whole thing seem improbable. But that isn't evidence, anymore than a mood in favor of it would be evidence.

Generally I just wait it out, until the weather shifts again.
The whole thing seems improbable all of the time. The thing is it's a bit like the lottery. Any individual result is improbable, but one of them will be what comes up. Each religion that exists now or in the past, or the future, deism, panentheism, atheism - any one of these could be true. The odds of any particular one of them seems low. But one of them is. We just don't know which, so we go with what we hope.
 
Posted by ThunderBunk (# 15579) on :
 
I find this a difficult question to answer, because to me it's an essential part of my experience of faith.

Being of a mystical bent, I experience the work "God" as indeed the ultimate deictic, i.e. a word holding a space for a meaning which is impossible to pin down across more than one usage. As such, doubt is inbuilt, because this meaning is always evolving, always provisional. Beyond such statements as "God is love", but then that's equating two things both of which resist unequivocal definition.

I am also deeply attracted to paradox, a state which it is difficult to contemplate and impossible to experience without doubt. Without doubt, everything has to be one thing or another; nothing can ever be caught between poles, as is essential to paradox.

For both of these reasons, I find the whole faithfree thing both fascinating and puzzling; I'm not sure how long it would take me to realise that I had actually reached a state of being faithfree because of this deep familiarity with doubt.
 
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by ThunderBunk:
I find this a difficult question to answer, because to me it's an essential part of my experience of faith.

Being of a mystical bent, I experience the work "God" as indeed the ultimate deictic, i.e. a word holding a space for a meaning which is impossible to pin down across more than one usage. As such, doubt is inbuilt, because this meaning is always evolving, always provisional. Beyond such statements as "God is love", but then that's equating two things both of which resist unequivocal definition.

I am also deeply attracted to paradox, a state which it is difficult to contemplate and impossible to experience without doubt. Without doubt, everything has to be one thing or another; nothing can ever be caught between poles, as is essential to paradox.

For both of these reasons, I find the whole faithfree thing both fascinating and puzzling; I'm not sure how long it would take me to realise that I had actually reached a state of being faithfree because of this deep familiarity with doubt.
A very nice post. I think 'the ultimate deictic' is a splendid phrase, which I shall shamelessly rip off. In return, I can offer you 'an empty signifier' and 'a free-floating signifier' in return.

As I got older, I gradually moved towards not having a clue about any of it, which finally, I began to find comfortable. I conclude that there is nowhere to get to, and no route either, to get there.

Well, I used to take religious symbols as just that, symbols, which more or less matched bits of my own experience. However, even that now seems foolhardy.

Emptiness, empty space, not knowing - these are the honourable tropies of old age!

I suppose an interesting corollary though is that non-dualism seems quite familiar; or if you like, I am That; or, the I am is here, there and everywhere. Where else would it be?
 
Posted by the famous rachel (# 1258) on :
 
Sorry all - I've not had much time to post in a while...

quote:
Originally posted by Snags:
Personally I think doubt is essential. That doesn't mean it's always comfortable or welcome, and that absolute certainty is not attractive at times.
This is what I find interesting about this thread. Several people see doubt as an important and essential aspect of their faith.

I think part of the reason I struggle with that is having spent a lot of time within an evangelical picture of God, which (even at the open evangelical end) tends to require that you believe a certain checklist of things in order to get into heaven, and/or stay out of hell. I suspect that subconsciously, I feel that I have to have checked every box to pass, and since I can't do that currently, I may as well throw the whole list away and give up!

I'm also simply not someone who is comfortable with paradox. I'm an academic scientist by profession, and thus tend to work on the basis that hypotheses can be falsified by conflicting experimental findings. I don't necessarily have a problem with science and faith being in conflict - to me they answer separate questions - but the paradoxes within Christianity drive my scientific brain up the wall.

Still... lots to think about here. I still find myself drawn to Christianity, and there are some ideas here that might not make my head hurt, like this from CK:

quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
If we see praying to God as good then praying together starts having a point. If a group all pray for what they can do to be the hands and feet of God on earth they can move mountains. That also goes with a theology of prayer being an alignment of our will with God's.
In the end, to find a way back in, I need a whole new non-evangelical theology, I suspect. Sadly, I've never found that the non-evangelical churches I have attended have been terribly keen on putting across their theology rigorously during church services, I am not sure I have the time or the energy to go digging for it elsewhere at the moment!

Best wishes,

Rachel.
 
Posted by Snags (# 15351) on :
 
I can relate to that struggle, as all of my 'home' churches have been evangelical (in the sense that they were in the EA, not in the sense that they were rampant ConEvo YEC judgemental nut-houses).

However, in that context the teaching has always been that the only thing you need to do is believe. Even baptism sits as a secondary issue, and I have mostly attended baptist churches.

Obviously there are then lots of behaviours/beliefs that are tacked on by default and assumption. Some of which I still have, some of which I think are bollocks. But the core has always been "believe in Jesus".

I guess I'm lucky in that I've also mostly been in a church where the pastor(s) have all operated a "Don't take my word for it; read, learn, question, argue" approach. And where there has at times been quite radically different views on some issues amongst the pastoral and diaconate teams (internally, not pastors vs deacons!). So nobody has asked me to park my brain in neutral, and lots of people are able to say from the front "You know, sometimes this all seems like utter foolishness" without getting drummed out of the brownies.

I think the doubt being essential (for me) comes from being more of a 'head' than a 'heart' person. I want to understand. I want to know. I can't just let a feeling carry me away (partly because as a musician/leader I know how easy it can be to engender feelings artificially). So the doubt is often a tension between what the head can comprehend, and what 'feels right in my soul' (touchy-feely BS, but hopefully the meaning is broadly clear).

"I believe, help me with my unbelief" has been a recurring theme since my teens; the balance just shifts around.
 
Posted by hatless (# 3365) on :
 
I think you can picture liberal theologies as less a body of teaching and more a style or set of practices: things like asking questions, being aware of different cultures, being happy with uncertainty.

Liberal churches aren't concerned to promote their own teachings so much as to encourage their members' growth in faith.

I see your point that this does make them hard to get to know, or at least very different from evangelical churches. And belonging to one is different: it isn't about being a good member, as in loyal and correct, it's about forming a set of relationships within which you find yourself.
 
Posted by the famous rachel (# 1258) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Snags:
But the core has always been "believe in Jesus".
That's not as simple as it sounds though is it...

Unpacking that, you probably already have...

1. Believe in God...

2. Believe that Jesus was the son of God...

3. Believe that Jesus was not only the son of God, but is also in some sense God himself...

4. Believe that he was crucified, died and rose again...

5. Believe that this all happened because the world (in some sense) needed saving from sin and this was how that salvation could happen...

6. Believe that this is all relevant to me personally...

Once I've unpacked it to that extent, I need to start asking questions which unpack it further. "Believe in Jesus" is not the same as "Believe in the computer keyboard on which I am typing" nor even the same as "Believe in Snags...".

Hatless - thanks for all your points. I think I understand the picture you are painting, but confess that even if I can work up the motivation to go looking for a different sort of church, I am not sure I know where to start or how to tell when I have found a good place to be!

Best wishes,

Rachel.
 
Posted by Snags (# 15351) on :
 
Don't believe in Snags, whatever you do. That would be a terrible mistake.

As to the rest, yes, I agree, understand, and share the spinning-headedness of it all. I'm just still at a point where there's an intangible something deep inside that generally crams all of that back into Pandora's box for a while. The lid rattles more and more frequently, though.

I'm actually happier with "meh, God, Jesus, hand-wavey magic paradox" than I am with the way the church (more or less any individual church) becomes a self-perpetuating organism that sucks so much time inwards just to keep the wheel turning, when it should be releasing energy and activity outwards (I think; although you could make a cogent argument the other way, I suppose, but it still wouldn't look like church has generally looked in my experience). It just doesn't match with my mental map of "If A, then B and C", which is where I think I have a lot of time for Schrodie's Cat's base position.
 
Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by the famous rachel:
I think part of the reason I struggle with that is having spent a lot of time within an evangelical picture of God, which (even at the open evangelical end) tends to require that you believe a certain checklist of things in order to get into heaven, and/or stay out of hell. I suspect that subconsciously, I feel that I have to have checked every box to pass, and since I can't do that currently, I may as well throw the whole list away and give up!
I think that is one problem I have with the evangelical "culture". Faith is not about a checklist of right beliefs. It is about an exploration of truth. The reason that I am staying within evangelicalism is that it gives me a core basis to start from - the primacy of the biblical text, the importance of a relationship with Jesus, etc.

So I would say that I agree with your assessment, but there is hope. You don't have to throw the whole lot out just because some peoples version of faith is about ticking boxes. It is a Health and Safety approach to faith, as long as you have ticked all the boxes, everything is fine.

quote:
Originally posted by the famous rachel:
I'm also simply not someone who is comfortable with paradox. I'm an academic scientist by profession, and thus tend to work on the basis that hypotheses can be falsified by conflicting experimental findings. I don't necessarily have a problem with science and faith being in conflict - to me they answer separate questions - but the paradoxes within Christianity drive my scientific brain up the wall.
But Quantum physics is about paradox. The wave/particle paradox is at the heart of physics. So actually, paradox is core to physics, and actually a whole lot of science. There is no real conflict, but there is a problem when people use "paradox" as an excuse for "I can't be arsed to understand it".

The importance of a true paradox is that both are true, both are valid and are appropriate at different times. The paradox is only relevant because there are two or more answers that are exclusive, not one that covers everything. It is possible to have a scientific brain and accept paradox.
 
Posted by the famous rachel (# 1258) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
But Quantum physics is about paradox. The wave/particle paradox is at the heart of physics. So actually, paradox is core to physics, and actually a whole lot of science. There is no real conflict, but there is a problem when people use "paradox" as an excuse for "I can't be arsed to understand it".

The importance of a true paradox is that both are true, both are valid and are appropriate at different times. The paradox is only relevant because there are two or more answers that are exclusive, not one that covers everything. It is possible to have a scientific brain and accept paradox.
I'm not sure "paradox" is the right term for duality.... and there's good experimental evidence for duality. Not so much for the Trinity. Although actually, whilst stuff like the Trinity and pre-destination bother me, it's more stuff along the lines of the good God / casting people into hell "paradox" that really screw me up...

Sorry - just off to bed and v. tired so this is not a nuanced response....

R.
 
Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by the famous rachel:

1. Believe in God...

2. Believe that Jesus was the son of God...
My faith starts with Jesus. I believe that Jesus is the son of God, therefore I believe that God exists. Without Jesus, I don't find a creator God particularly intellectually compelling, but I believe the testimony of Jesus.

My doubts aren't about the existence, or the deity, of Jesus Christ. My doubts are about how badly we've managed to bugger it up. Sometimes, my doubts are that I should believe IngoB, crawl on my knees to the doors of the nearest RC church and beg forgiveness. Sometimes, I doubt in the other direction - that we have hidden the risen Christ behind a mess of ritual, superstition and fond fiction.

But I keep muddling on in my via media.
 
Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by the famous rachel:
I'm not sure "paradox" is the right term for duality.... and there's good experimental evidence for duality. Not so much for the Trinity. Although actually, whilst stuff like the Trinity and pre-destination bother me, it's more stuff along the lines of the good God / casting people into hell "paradox" that really screw me up...
A paradox is two contradictory truths that are both the same. The duality is a paradox, but one that is well demonstrated.

The "paradox" of a good God who is a complete psycho bastard is not actually a paradox, I don't think. It is a misunderstanding of God, and a projection of ourselves onto the divine*.

So I can completely understand a rejection of faith based on this. I don't like the "paradox" problem because I (with a scientific mind) revel in paradoxes, because they provide a clear explanation, even if one that is hard to grasp.

*Along the lines of "If I were God, I would cast all those I hate into hell, and because I am made like God, surely he must do the same". But God is not, IMO, as vile as this.
 
Posted by blackbeard (# 10848) on :
 
As this is a thread on faith and doubt, I would like to offer a view of what "faith" means which might be a little different from the meaning which is generally assumed (in the preceding posts for instance). It might be helpful, or might not; anyway, bear with me and I will explain.

The view that "faith" is connected with the unquestioning belief, without any doubts or mental reservations, and possibly in the face of insufficient evidence, of a series of propositions (evangelical Christianity for instance) was regularly stuffed down my throat (and perhaps yours too). On this basis, Doubts were Wrong and deeply sinful. You had to believe what you were told.

Oddly enough, the "evangelists" doing the stuffing were very keen on the Word of God, but didn't seem to be very good at looking to see what the Bible actually said. Proof texts were about as far as they got, and it's easy to take things out of context or ignore texts which seemed inconsistent. An example is the definition of "faith", for which they generally quoted Hebrews 11 . 1, without apparently noticing that the passage in question is a whole chapter, not just the opening verse.

Have a look at the whole chapter. Men of faith:
Jacob (confidence trickster); Moses (murderer, although with some excuse); Gideon (who turned to the Baal); Samson (who played bondage games with an enemy agent, perhaps not a smart move); Jephthah (that would take me another post to explain, but ...!); David (we recently had another thread on David, not a nice man); and do you think that Samson or Jephthah could have passed a GCSE on religious studies? Why are these men given as examples of men of faith? Not so much due to what they believed, but there was something of the spirit of God in them which enabled them to perform great deeds. So faith is seen as something which allows great deeds to be performed; it isn't just a question of belief in a series of propositions.

Let's move on a bit, to James (round about 2. 14 to end of chapter 2). Again, faith is shown by deeds; faith without deeds is dead(NIV). The deeds are different; no longer thumping Israel's enemies, we are in the Greek/Roman world of pax romana, more peaceful but lacking any form of social security or compassion for the unfortunate, so faith here is seen chiefly in terms of helping those who desperately need help. The circumstances are different but the principle remains the same.

Nearly two thousand years on, and we are, in my view, victims of a gigantic confidence trick. Faith is seem chiefly in terms of belief, maybe it's expedient to use belief as the dividing line between those who are Christians and those who are not. And doubt has become important as it can put you the wrong side of the dividing line. Right belief has taken the place of helping those in need.

Why does this matter? I, for one, am quite incapable of subduing doubt. This used to bother me, it doesn't any more, indeed I would view with suspicion anyone who claimed to have never doubted. Doubt has value; it shows we are thinking and it's a tool to develop faith, real faith, faith that achieves something.

And if you are helping the needy, healing the sick, visiting the prisoners (or whatever your thing happens to be, just being there for other people might qualify) then you haven't lost your faith. Belief, maybe or maybe not; but faith is seen in your actions.

Anyway, those are my sentiments.
 
Posted by the famous rachel (# 1258) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
quote:
Originally posted by the famous rachel:
I'm not sure "paradox" is the right term for duality.... and there's good experimental evidence for duality. Not so much for the Trinity. Although actually, whilst stuff like the Trinity and pre-destination bother me, it's more stuff along the lines of the good God / casting people into hell "paradox" that really screw me up...
A paradox is two contradictory truths that are both the same. The duality is a paradox, but one that is well demonstrated.

The "paradox" of a good God who is a complete psycho bastard is not actually a paradox, I don't think. It is a misunderstanding of God, and a projection of ourselves onto the divine*.

So I can completely understand a rejection of faith based on this. I don't like the "paradox" problem because I (with a scientific mind) revel in paradoxes, because they provide a clear explanation, even if one that is hard to grasp.

*Along the lines of "If I were God, I would cast all those I hate into hell, and because I am made like God, surely he must do the same". But God is not, IMO, as vile as this.
Fair enough - having looked up the dictionary definition of paradox, you are right. Duality is a paradox and it is not paradoxes which bother me, but contradictions, lack of internal sense within the whole.

However, if the God who casts people into Hell is a misprojection of the divine, he is not my misprojection, and he is certainly a very common one. I reckon one can extract a picture of universal salvation from the biblical record... but some bits would need to be... erm... downplayed... (which brings us back to contradictions). You say you are staying within evangelicalism because it at least has a clear core basis. That's my instinct too, but I have found myself kicking against that core basis for all I am worth. And then I kick away the foundations of my faith....

Best wishes,

Rachel.
 
Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by the famous rachel:
However, if the God who casts people into Hell is a misprojection of the divine, he is not my misprojection, and he is certainly a very common one. I reckon one can extract a picture of universal salvation from the biblical record... but some bits would need to be... erm... downplayed... (which brings us back to contradictions). You say you are staas a clear core basis. That's my instinct too, but ying within evangelicalism because it at least hI have found myself kicking against that core basis for all I am worth. And then I kick away the foundations of my faith....

Best wishes,

Rachel.
That I can understand. Contradictions that are just ignored or glossed over are poor and wrong theology. And yes, it isn't your projection, it is other people telling you how God is.

I suppose I have worked to understand the core essentials over time, and found what works, what makes sense. I kicked those foundations away when I had something else, and rebuilt them.
 
Posted by Evangeline (# 7002) on :
 
quote:
the famous rachel:

In the end, to find a way back in, I need a whole new non-evangelical theology, I suspect. Sadly, I've never found that the non-evangelical churches I have attended have been terribly keen on putting across their theology rigorously during church services, I am not sure I have the time or the energy to go digging for it elsewhere at the moment!
IMNSHO you won't succeed in finding a non-evangelical theology by expecting every church to expound their theology in the reductionist way evangelicals do. My experience of non-evangelical churches is that they attempt to experience the divine through sacraments and they express their faithfulness through good works. It's not about a set of beliefs that you must tick off, it is about experiencing the sacred and as somebody else said, about forming relationships.

It sounds to me as though you expect church to package up and deliver you a set of beliefs to which you can apply logical processes and become doubt-free. That might happen in some evo churches, it certainly happens in cults but it's not my experience of Christianity and any of the Protestant or RC churches that I've been part of/visited/studied with. Doubt on many levels is part of the package.

As for not having the time and energy to go digging for theology-well yeah I'm not sure I could dig for theology either but to earnestly seek God, surely there is nothing more worthy to which to devote our time and energy. At least if you don't find Him you'll have more time and energy to do other stuff at the end of the search.

You mention being drawn to Christianity. Perhaps it would be worthwhile to spend some time finding a church in which you can experience or develop what it is that you find attractive. That might be as important as dealing with the troublesome bits?

I found it helpful when a liberal, Anglo-catholic Priest told me that the word "believe" means to give your heart to. I like this better than the notion of intellectual assent which is how we define belief now. Also a Methodist minister told me that there is no difference between the word "faith"and "faithfulness" in the OT. So again, faith is not something you have but it is something you do. By being faithful in our actions we become people of faith.
 
Posted by Heavenly Anarchist (# 13313) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by JoannaP:
I have lots of questions about the details but I very rarely doubt God's existence or benevolence. At times, I wonder what is wrong with me and my faith, and whether my lack of doubt is a sign of immaturity...
I also seldom experience doubt, and I relate this to my experience of depression. 2 weeks after my diagnosis of bipolar disorder I was told my father had terminal cancer; he died 6 months later. During this darkest period of my life I felt I had lost everything, the bipolar was destroying my successful career, I had to give up doing the things I enjoyed in an effort to control it, I did not know what my health would be like from one day to the next nor what the future held, I was in deep depression and now I was losing my beloved father. I felt that the only thing I had left was God and my faith grew and strengthened in my despair. I read a lot of psalms during this times and could relate to these.
This was 17 years ago and I still have that firm conviction of trusting God, who was there for me when everything else was lost.
 
Posted by Potoroo (# 13466) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Heavenly Anarchist:
This was 17 years ago and I still have that firm conviction of trusting God, who was there for me when everything else was lost.
He was there for you, but he wasn't there for me.

Therefore I 'doubt' that he is kind and good, and I don't trust him any more.

[ 04. January 2015, 19:16: Message edited by: Potoroo ]
 
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :
 
Personally I have tremendous doubt. The world would be easier to understand if there was no non-material aspect to it and make far more sense. My Christian belief doesn't help me to understand the world intellectually in the slightest.

I remember going through a terrible period of doubt when I felt I needed to be Christian for the sake of my family, but intellectually I felt it looked less and less likely that God was real.

I finally resolved this by deciding I was going to inwardly be an atheist but go through the motions to keep others happy. Eventually my failing belief would show through the facade and provided it happened slowly my family would cope. We have plenty of atheist friends and they have good family lives.

Bizarrely having done that I suddenly found that really I did believe something non-material and was happy taking a leap in the dark on it. It was a bit like gripping to the cliff face strenuously, finally deciding there was nothing for it but to fall, and on letting go finding that something else was holding me up all along.

I still have tremendous doubt and find the idea of God intellectually deeply implausible, but I accept it as part of my Christian life and carry on with my leap in the dark.
 
Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on :
 
I think it's relatively easy to believe in a Creative Entity, rather than the counter-intuitive alternative that the whole universe is a "free lunch". Which is not a knock at those who do believe that "free lunch" is more plausible.

What is hard to hold on to, in the face of multiple cruelties and destructive random events, is the belief that God is benevolent. I think for me that the benevolence of God is an axiom and human suffering is a mystery about which we speculate, both in relation to present and historical causes. How I arrived at that axiom, I'm not sure, but it seems to be very deep within me.

I do occasionally accuse myself of wishful thinking, but find I bounce up against an unpalatable alternative. That life is a tale told by an idiot, all full of sound and fury signifying nothing. Well, I find that very hard to believe.

So Hope keeps me going, even when shit happens.
 
Posted by Heavenly Anarchist (# 13313) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Potoroo:
quote:
Originally posted by Heavenly Anarchist:
This was 17 years ago and I still have that firm conviction of trusting God, who was there for me when everything else was lost.
He was there for you, but he wasn't there for me.

Therefore I 'doubt' that he is kind and good, and I don't trust him any more.
I understand that, we had different experiences and I do not know why. It must have been painful and isolating for you, in your time of great need.

Perhaps my nursing background also helps me to retain my faith in God's presence in times of trouble. I spent the early part of my career dealing with death and loss on a daily basis and my job at the time of diagnosis included telling people that they were going to be blind forever and counselling them to cope with the future ahead of them. I am very much an empathetic relational person, not an intellectual - I weep with people in their grief all the time, I still do now I am no longer a nurse. Perhaps somehow my experiences of grief also help in my relationship with God and my own grief and depression?
 
Posted by Mark Wuntoo (# 5673) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
I think it's relatively easy to believe in a Creative Entity, ...
Far easier to believe in evolution, I find. And far less confusing, overall, for me. (And that is knocking the creationists and believers in intelligent design.) [Razz]
 
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Heavenly Anarchist:
quote:
Originally posted by Potoroo:
quote:
Originally posted by Heavenly Anarchist:
This was 17 years ago and I still have that firm conviction of trusting God, who was there for me when everything else was lost.
He was there for you, but he wasn't there for me.

Therefore I 'doubt' that he is kind and good, and I don't trust him any more.
I understand that, we had different experiences and I do not know why. It must have been painful and isolating for you, in your time of great need.

Perhaps my nursing background also helps me to retain my faith in God's presence in times of trouble. I spent the early part of my career dealing with death and loss on a daily basis and my job at the time of diagnosis included telling people that they were going to be blind forever and counselling them to cope with the future ahead of them. I am very much an empathetic relational person, not an intellectual - I weep with people in their grief all the time, I still do now I am no longer a nurse. Perhaps somehow my experiences of grief also help in my relationship with God and my own grief and depression?
Handy. A God that can only relate to particular types of people.
 
Posted by Heavenly Anarchist (# 13313) on :
 
I didn't say that - I said it might affect my relationship with God not how God relates to me.
 
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Heavenly Anarchist:
I didn't say that - I said it might affect my relationship with God not how God relates to me.
All right then - a God that only some times of people can relate to. Same problem.
 
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
quote:
Originally posted by Heavenly Anarchist:
I didn't say that - I said it might affect my relationship with God not how God relates to me.
All right then - a God that only some times of people can relate to. Same problem.
This is something that has stuck in my craw for decades. As a kid, I just instinctively gravitated towards religious symbols and stories, but the rest of my family were atheists.

So I could not accept any idea that they were somehow deficient, or had become closed off to God, or that it was their 'fault'.

I have never really resolved it, but if there is God, I reckon he is OK with people who don't accept him or want him.
 
Posted by Heavenly Anarchist (# 13313) on :
 
I think my personality and experience affects how I relate to God. This is normal, it affects how I relate to people too. We are all different. That doesn't mean only certain types of people can relate to God just that we can do it differently, sometimes at different times.
Having a psychosis means I can have very little trust in my own thought processes on a day to day basis - I cannot trust my own mind to tell the truth and no-one else can know my thoughts. Perhaps my faith in God is strong because the alternative for me would be devastating. I believe this is God's work in me, others might call it survival. I trust God because I really cannot trust anything else.
This is my experience as someone with my personality and experiences and my mental health issues. It certainly won't be everyone's and I don't expect it to be.

[ 05. January 2015, 12:55: Message edited by: Heavenly Anarchist ]
 
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :
 
I suspect that certain types of people do relate to the idea of God better than others, or if you like, certain types of personality. For example, I could see why my dad was an atheist, and I could see why I wasn't. But this made me think that God (if such exists) would not punish my dad.
 
Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I suspect that certain types of people do relate to the idea of God better than others, or if you like, certain types of personality. For example, I could see why my dad was an atheist, and I could see why I wasn't. But this made me think that God (if such exists) would not punish my dad.
Is the problem a God who punishes those who don't believe in him? If you take that out of the equation, then surely this is different people finding different routes in their search for truth? And a search for truth is something that I (and, I think, most of the faithfree community) would support, even when it doesn't lead to a recognisable or definable faith structure.
 
Posted by Doublethink. (# 1984) on :
 
You are assuming there is a truth to be found, and if there is that it is unchanging - those are very big assumptions to make.
 
Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink.:
You are assuming there is a truth to be found, and if there is that it is unchanging - those are very big assumptions to make.
Was that to me? Because I most definitely don't.

More particularly, I do believe there is truth to be found, but that it is not easily defined.
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink.:
You are assuming there is a truth to be found, and if there is that it is unchanging - those are very big assumptions to make.
Aren't these truths the bedrock of scientific investigation? There is a real world to describe, and its laws, since less than a millisecond after the Big Bang, are not in flux.
 
Posted by Doublethink. (# 1984) on :
 
Firstly, in the context of this discussion, I don't think most people are refering to a scientific inquiry into the physical structure of the world - when talking about the search for truth. The existence of God is not a scientific proposition, but a metaphysical one. Therefore belief and doubt about the issue are also metaphysical perspectives.

Secondly, whilst I wouldn't subscribe to the strong version of social constuctionism - I do think that in the search for personal meaning and the experience of intangible states (such as emotion, logic and other aspects of mind) can be viewed as socially constructed. Constructed in the interaction between people, and the culture arising from the aggregate of those interactions. Such constructions are mutable and dynamic.
 
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I suspect that certain types of people do relate to the idea of God better than others, or if you like, certain types of personality. For example, I could see why my dad was an atheist, and I could see why I wasn't. But this made me think that God (if such exists) would not punish my dad.
Is the problem a God who punishes those who don't believe in him? If you take that out of the equation, then surely this is different people finding different routes in their search for truth? And a search for truth is something that I (and, I think, most of the faithfree community) would support, even when it doesn't lead to a recognisable or definable faith structure.
Sorry, a bit late; I don't think God does or will punish my dad for being an atheist. It's some Christians who think that! But I have learned to steer clear of them.
 
Posted by Carex (# 9643) on :
 
There is, it seems to me, an important distinction between doubting what one professes to believe and believing that you can't fully know the answer.

My beliefs are based on my experiences, but are still rather vague and flexible. I can choose actions based on them, but not necessarily describe them to someone else in any sort of detail (and I certainly wouldn't expect anyone else to share those beliefs unless they have had similar experiences.) That vagueness and flexibility mean that they can accommodate a wide range of experiences without necessarily experiencing a contradiction: some days one thing happens, some times it will be something else.

So "doubt" isn't a word I would use. "Lack of certainty" sounds similar on the surface, but opens up a richer layer of nuance in meaning and experience. It isn't that I doubt the "truth" of my beliefs, because "truth" isn't a characteristic that I apply to them. Instead my process is more like improving the fit between a set of data points and a mathematical function that describes them: there isn't necessarily a right or best answer. What is important is to develop a good enough approximation to get through life while knowing it will never be perfect.
 
Posted by Horseman Bree (# 5290) on :
 
no prophet etc.:
quote:
Better to see a God who withdraws from the world and watches, not violating the free will of all the good and evil people and all of the natural processes.
Preach it, brother! I can't see any example of "This was prayed for, and look! It happened" without realising that there are thousands of cases where the prayers didn't lead to anything. Just like reading the horoscope and believing because, once, it was vaguely close.

God is the answer to the question about "what set off the Big Bang?" He doesn't particularly care about your car keys.

It is mildly disconcerting to be a church warden and lay reader while realising that the whole religious thing doesn't add up. The only good reason to continue is that our congregation is actually helping to do some good in the neighbourhood, which would not happen if we were not a (loosely) organised group to begin with.

But I can no longer stomach Bible study - too many negative thoughts.
 
Posted by Nicodemia (# 4756) on :
 
But aren't we all looking for the truth that we want?

I can think, cogitate, read or just plain worry. Does God exist? Yes or no? No one can give the definitive answer to that. We may think we know, we feel certain, but that is not necessarily the truth as it finally exists.

I don't want to believe in a God who punishes us for not believing in him. I don't really want to believe in an afterlife anyway. It all seems just so unlikely.

But suppose I am wrong, and those fundies are right?? You could be wrong and the fundies right. We could all be wrong and its something entirely different.

But we don't know and that is where my nightmares come in.

Its a question of trust, I suppose. But who do I trust?
 
Posted by Horseman Bree (# 5290) on :
 
Having written my previous post, I must say that I found a great deal which resonated for me in "On going to an episcopal church"

We had an excellent community potluck (2/3 of those eating were not churched, let alone Anglican) yesterday, and the service which followed may not have been perfect in detail, but did emphasise that our doing this together mattered, and that looking outward towards God made more sense than trying to define and be dogmatic about it. (And, yes, one of the visitors was a lapsed Pentecostal, who said something very similar to the article after the service))

So, yes, I "do" church, but, no, I'm not much for religion as a forced belief structure. Go with what works.
 
Posted by Chorister (# 473) on :
 
I don't so much experience doubt, as know that I am free to experience doubt. And that is tremendously liberating.
 
Posted by the famous rachel (# 1258) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Evangeline:
IMNSHO you won't succeed in finding a non-evangelical theology by expecting every church to expound their theology in the reductionist way evangelicals do. My experience of non-evangelical churches is that they attempt to experience the divine through sacraments and they express their faithfulness through good works. It's not about a set of beliefs that you must tick off, it is about experiencing the sacred and as somebody else said, about forming relationships.

It sounds to me as though you expect church to package up and deliver you a set of beliefs to which you can apply logical processes and become doubt-free. That might happen in some evo churches, it certainly happens in cults but it's not my experience of Christianity and any of the Protestant or RC churches that I've been part of/visited/studied with. Doubt on many levels is part of the package.

As for not having the time and energy to go digging for theology-well yeah I'm not sure I could dig for theology either but to earnestly seek God, surely there is nothing more worthy to which to devote our time and energy. At least if you don't find Him you'll have more time and energy to do other stuff at the end of the search.

You mention being drawn to Christianity. Perhaps it would be worthwhile to spend some time finding a church in which you can experience or develop what it is that you find attractive. That might be as important as dealing with the troublesome bits?

I found it helpful when a liberal, Anglo-catholic Priest told me that the word "believe" means to give your heart to. I like this better than the notion of intellectual assent which is how we define belief now. Also a Methodist minister told me that there is no difference between the word "faith"and "faithfulness" in the OT. So again, faith is not something you have but it is something you do. By being faithful in our actions we become people of faith.
Thanks for this. It's quite challenging. (I am sorry I was slow to respond!) To be honest, I found looking for a church when I was sure I wanted to be in one a pretty soul-destroying process. Looking for a church when I am not sure I want to be there at all sounds pretty thankless, and the process would have implications for the time I spend with my family on a Sunday, which I don't consider fair on them. I'm aware it's not terribly impressive that I basically can't be bothered to go searching, but that's where I am at right now. Holding onto faith was like clinging on to a cliff by my fingernails for a long time and it was bloody hard work. When I fell off, noone caught me, and I am not ready to try climbing a shear rockface just now.

Best wishes,
Rachel.
 
Posted by ThunderBunk (# 15579) on :
 
Rachel, the only point I point I would ever make would be to look around you carefully having fallen, and take careful note of everything you find.

That, to my mind, is an essential element of the experience of doubt: to investigate.
 
Posted by pimple (# 10635) on :
 
I think I caught my faith off others, and my doubts likewise. I enjoyed the comfort of prayers fashioned by people centuries ago, and the wonder of music down the ages. I even, from a relatively young age, enjoyed the marvellous sermons I was privileged to hear from my seat in the choir. And I caught the feeling of thankfulness and love which permeated a number of place I worshipped in.

I probably became an egregious emotional, spiritual and intellectual snob.

But then I started to listen to people within and outside the church who seemed to be finding more interesting things to say than before - doubt was not the opposite of faith, the bible is sometimes wrong, we are allowed to think...

Meanwhile, I began to see more clearly the cruelty
inflicted by some believers on other believers, the denigration, the cold-shoulders, the intransigent bigotry of the few sometimes tolerated by the apathetic majority. And it became apparent that people were not so much at pains to worship God and love their neighbours as to hold fast to their treasured prejudices and customs and privileges. And they were prepared to treat with the utmost contempt anyone who transgressed or questioned their precious norms.

That sounds far worse than it really was. What I came to realise, little by little, was that this
was not the body of Christ - or the body of anything wonderfully spiritual or everlasting. This was all part of the grubby mess we call humanity, needing help and understanding, but not the sort of useless prop I and many other fake god-botherers like myself had become.
 


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