Probably still beyond redemption. . .Follow

As some of you know, until about 10 years ago, I used to be a practicing God-botherer of the christian persuasion. I attended church most weekends, and prayed most days.

Then my faith buggered off. This coincided with a number of major incidents going on, but I genuinely can't say whether they were cause, trigger or coincidence. All I know is that all of a sudden the whole concept of a God, and that trinity stuff sounded ridiculous in the extreme.

Lately I've wondered about why my faith could go from being a core part of my day to day life to a distant memory. While I have contempt for most organised religion, I'm always happy to respect people's right to believe in what they want spiritually (even though I do sometimes take the **** - can't resist an open goal), and sometimes I envy them their conviction.

I am a believer in the importance of silent contemplation, whether it's called 'thinking time' or 'meditation', and as I often have to visit places of worship through work (churches, mosques, gurdhwaras etc) I do find them good places for this. I also find the same solace in ancient places (iron age barrows, ruined castles, dark, quiet forests), so I don't see it as 'religious'.

Anywho, today my ramblings took me to a local cathedral where I fancied a snoop around the history. I'm nerdy like that.

[Digression]
The place was founded by St Chad in the 600's AD, and the Lichfield Gospel is on display (illuminated manuscript on calf-skin dating from about 700AD). There are tombs of bishops dating back well over 1,000 years, and the building itself is alive with real history (the stonework is scarred where besieged soldiers in the 1640s used it to sharpen their swords). I've been there often, but mainly in 'tourist' mode (I did enjoy a memory today of when I gave DF's bum a squeeze by the Chancel).
[/Digression]

Today, I plonked my **** on a pew and let my mind wander. Memories returned of the calm I felt after taking Holy Communion. A few choristers were practicing a beautiful, melancholy plain-song, and the shadows were flickering by candle-light. Without realising it, I was lapsing into Christian mode - contemplating the injustices and stupidities I've committed lately (a loooong list), and considering how I might redress these. On auto-pilot by now, I realised that I was not sitting on the pew but kneeling on the hassock. WTF?

I became conscious of the power that faith had had on centuries of priests and worshippers. I was acutely aware that my surroundings were testament to generations of people who had committed time, money; their very lives to erecting and maintaining this magnificent building, and filling it with works of intense beauty. I even thought about praying. I could do with an uplift at the moment, and I know some special friends who would really appreciate being in my prayers.

Then I thought "FUck it. It's all a load of **************

So I'm wondering. I know some here have faith (of whichever persuasion). Any of you gone from really believing to not believing and back again?


{Insert obligatory tl;dr here}

Sounds like early-onset Alzheimer's. Hell, maybe not even all that early, when I think about it.

I kind of know what you mean, though. I grew up(until I was twelve or thirteen) going to services weekly and spending a good deal of time working at a mission where my grandmother was the highest ranking administrator. I remember getting a soothing, peaceful feeling from the altruistic deeds we performed. Ironically, it was seeing the inner-workings of the church close-up that led to my crisis of faith, and my eventual abandonment of the church.

I saw how the pastor drove a brand new Mercedes every year. I saw how my grandmother was totally forgotten once she came down with Alzheimer's in her fifties. I became disillusioned and my faith in religion decayed moreso than my faith in a benevolent super hero in the sky. Then I had one of those near-death experiences people talk about, where you see the light and the tunnel and stuff, and I recognized it as nothing more than a chemical reaction occurring behind my eyes. I couldn't keep believing at that point. I fell into a couple years of violence and criminality, although I'm not saying my loss of faith was directly responsible. It could have been the cocaine.

The last couple years, I've volunteered a bit more, through non-religious charities. I've been able to regain that peaceful feeling. I like that. I see folks with real religious conviction, though, and sometimes they appear to perpetually have that feeling. They seem so happy. They seem so fulfilled and righteous. I envy them.

Of course, that's probably not the best reason to return to the church; jealousy of their peace and happiness and fulfillment. But I've thought about it. I'll probably just keep giving turkeys to folks at Thanksgiving and buying toys at thrift stores to donate to charities at Christmas time. That was always my favorite byproduct of religion, anywho.

I havent yet, and I dont think I will. But for me, there is a difference between organized religion, and spirituality. Organized religion is what I personally can't get into, but that doesn't mean I feel there is no such thing as God. My views are very different of what God may be ( I can not get into the whole guy in the sky watching our every single move deal) but I still believe in something. And I enjoy quietly reflecting, letting go of the mundane issues of every day life, and just being when I get the chance. It's almost like realigning yourself with the universe, and reunderstanding that it's not the annoyances that make life, it's how you choose to view and react to them. And to remember that even the smallest things can bring you great joy. Does that make sense?

:D Amen.

I grew up in a small town were very few practiced or were vocal about it. Neither my parents, grandparents or any extended family had ever been baptized. I attended a Roman Catholic school but really I managed to pass by it all without giving it too much thought. I remember attending mass and thinking about it, but it was like Sikhism for me. I knew about the Gurus, the five k's, etc but I never bought into it or looked at as anything more than a cultural thing. Same with gospels and everything Christian.

I've since moved off, lived in a couple different places, met lots of people. Seen those who use religion as a crutch, those who get their **** in a knot about people having faith, missionaries who were some of the coolest grounded people I know, atheist, new age types, scary evangelicals, old school greek orthodox and beyond.

I've broke bread in a gudwhara, talked Allah in a mosque, and even just sat down and chatted faith with a guy I have known for 20 years over a rye and coke. Personally I have never had the zen to attribute the unknown to God, never got my **** worked up over those who do. Like everything human it can be beautiful or hateful or both at once.

/shrug

Yes, but I was talking about faith, as opposed to religion, or a general sense that there must be something 'higher'.

That's about all I could contribute.

My contemplative moments come when I'm reminded of how big this world is and how insignificant any one of us are.

I been through the whole range of be and dis belief over the years. I don't belief in a God, but I recognize the fact that people seem to be wired for spiritual. Recent studies of the human brain have even found a site that seem to when activated will create the feeling of being able to talk to God in some epileptics.

So why I don't care if there is a Goddess or not, I feel more at peace when I meditate and reground myself with the world around me. Just reading this thread of help me recover from the stress of the last week some. I just didn't realized how stress I was over even the littlest detail of preparing the house for when Jonwin got home.

Thankfully he is home and able to get around with a little assistance from me. I have a great family to help me out, when I need it. It did feel good to tell his brother to can it, when he complain that my daughter and boyfriend hadn't gotten Jonwin home before he got there to help him into the house. I had just talk to them and they were waiting for Jonwin to be brought down from his room.

Spoke too soon. Jonwin just knock the new tea pot onto the rug his brother brought over to cover a few cords. Well paper towels and a dusk buster are a caretakers best friend. Chipped the edge of the pot and the lid and now it will be easier to use. I need to go back and try to meditate.

I thought everyone in England was practically an atheist, going to church for Christmas because tradition mandated it but otherwise never really thinking about the Man in the Clouds much. Guess I figured religious types were the kooky fringe over in Right-Pondian-Land. Perhaps we Americans aren't the only ones still dwelling in the stone age after all....

Of course BLiar has lead the charge back to spirituality with his conversion to Catholicism....

Hells bells! That makes me qualified for membership in the Church of England! I'm saved!!!!

Faith is a funny thing. It is not something I like to talk about, myself, but that has very little to do with non-believers and the ridicule one is often subject to when speaking with them. Most of my reticence to discussions of faith come directly from "Christians" themselves.

My pedigree was fairly solid as an evangelical Christian. I have served time in seminaries, done time as a minister in relation to my studies, conducted in-depth studies of comparative religion in pursuit of a more convincing apologetic and read widely contemporary and classical theologians in my quest for more accurate exegeses.

I have not set foot in a church in 10 years. I do not intend to do so for at least another 10. God and I are having a little argument over my responsibilities to "Christians" given their complete misinterpretation and misappropriation of scripture. He's probably going to win as eventually I'm going to die, but I'm still going to see how it plays out.

I left the church after a long history of growing frustration with the density of the church-going public and a short series of events which culminated in the completely unjustified public destruction of a good man. I watched powerless as a self-righteous, sanctimonious church hierarchy not simply turned it's back on, but publicly castigated someone in a blatant self-serving act in punishment for perceived slights and personal grudges. I left in the shadow of a Church living in outward piety and private debauchery, of a Church that failed so thoroughly to be christian that they destroyed lives. I left because I found no different anywhere else I looked.

But I still hear the calling. I still have a heart that demands my service. I still long to spread a message I know to be good and share a faith I know to be true. Over the last 2 years I have begun to read my Bible again. I have begun to pray again, albeit infrequently, and I have begun to have conversations again with men who's opinions I believe to be considered.

Have I slipped back in to a learned behavior? A Conditioned response? I don't believe so. Yes, I was raised in a church-going household. My parents are still ardent believers and spend a great deal of time and energy in the Church. But my parents always allowed us to make our own decisions when it came to faith, to make our own determinations on matters of belief. They were always very open with the fact that when we were young we were taken to church because that's where mom and dad were, and we weren't going to be left home alone, and not told it was because it was the right thing to do. But as we got older, we were encouraged to figure out what we thought was true.

I've rambled. The bottom line is yes. I have had faith, ignored faith and am in the process of rediscovering my faith. Is it all a load of bullocks? Yes. Is it all divine spiritual guidance? Yes. What I have discovered in my life is that no man comes to grace through another man. No man comes to true faith through another man. Faith only happens when one is open to it. One of these days maybe I'll be open to it again.

Moreso than eternal life, I long for purpose. I want there to be meaning, and order, and a guiding principle.

I think we have to find these things for ourselves. I think we have to assign meaning, and I think we do so reflexively at times. How many times have you heard or read about a recently bereaved person declaring that their loved one's death must not be in vain?

If I were religious, I would choose to convert to Judaism or be a Quaker, I think. Both groups tend to focus more on the pragmatic "what needs to be done here and now" rather than on the reward/punishment assumption that (to my mind) deprecates the benefit of so many other churches.

As I am not religious, I tend to spend my (for lack of a better word) spiritual coin in meditation and in charity. My definition of "charity" may not always match anyone else's, however. Speaking a hard truth in kindness is charitable, for example.

Faith is a funny thing (Moebius & I agrea on something!). While I'm a lapsed Catholic myself, I no longer practice; I don't feel I ever really stopped believing.

Cue Journey Music Video.

My Grandparents on both sides were Catholics, my Parents on both sides are Catholic and they raised myself and their children Catholic. I did everything from Baptism through Confirmation, CCD classes every Sunday, & our Priest, Father Joe, was and continues to be a close personal friend of my Family's even after he has retired.

It was shortly before my Confirmation that Father Joe came to my Sociology class and spoke. While the small town I grew up in had a fairly healthy Catholic population, that vast majority of my classmates were Christians of the "Born Again" variety.

Their Pastor had been invited multiple times, but never found the time to make it.

Father Joe sat in Front of the Class, gave a brief introduction, and then took questions. One of the Christians asked him if he believed in Evolution and he answered, "Well, I don't see why you can't believe in both. If you follow the science of History from Evolution all the way back to the Big Bang, God very well could have caused it."

He was asked about the Church's stance on Homosexuals and answered, "They are as welcome in the Catholic Church as anyone else. The problem the Church has is the same they have with all people who have sexual relationships outside of Marriage, that act is a sin."

It seemed like I saw a flicker of light in a couple of the Christians' eyes, while a couple more had their heads explode, and a couple actually attempted to argue with him.

I didn't realize that the views he expressed were radical until I went to College and started learning about other religions and more about the History of my own. I made a conscious decision to stop going to Church shortly after my Confirmation in part, because of Fred Phelps. After Mathew Shepard was murdered I was ashamed to be considered "Christian", even if technically there's a difference between Catholics and Christians (But really, that difference has always been more about how the two faiths practice what is essentially the same faith).

However, just because I don't practice it doesn't mean I've lost my Faith. When people in my family have been sick, my friends and or family have died, and even when I feel overwhelmed I find myself reverting to prayer. And while I may be a lapsed Catholic, I fully intend on receiving the sacrament of Marriage in a Church and raising my children Catholic. I didn't get anything bad out of it & I think it'll be good for my children.

I'll just have to get to know the Priest well enough first. While I was fortunate enough to be "spared the rod", I hear other little boys have had problems with it.

Will I truly believe again like when I was a child? I don't really know. However Faith is often associated with hope. And, as you approach your last days most people are hoping that there's something else waiting for them as opposed to well.... nothing at all. Whether you truly believe it to be true or not, telling someone who's grieving that a person "Is in a better place" gives them hope that it is true. And there's certainly nothing wrong with that.



Edited, Jan 7th 2008 9:09pm by Omegavegeta