Crisis of faith?

I just had a major one. Radical change of thinking and coming to terms is an amazing process and quite hard... My reason for the change is rather unexpected. I didn't see this one coming a mile away. I was a strong Christian all my life and all the sudden... it just clicked (my journal entry kinda stratched the surface of this new understanding) that my faith isn't just enough. Everything is just wrong now and that I have been living a life of a naive gulliable person. It wasn't because I was having a hard time believing whether if there's a God or not, I believe there's one... I just don't know if I should take Him seriously now when nothing seem to matter.

I do not want you guys to convince me to be a Christian again, my reasoning is just not shallow as YOU think it is. I just want to ask if anyone had ever gone through something like a crisis of faith before and what were their reason(s) if I may ask and how did they deal with it?

My wanting to commit suicide is so high now (I would had a long time ago if it wasn't for God... knowing that suicide is the greatest sin you could commit and obviously finding out possibly there's a HUGE reason for that is what making me feel its the opposite), it scares me of how powerful the spirit can do for your own mind. And if I don't have anything to believe in, my spirit is pretty much crushed. And that's what happened. Its just is crushed... and NOTHING in this world can bring my spirit back. I hate people. I hate everything around me. I wish it was not the case, considering I'm a nice person and reasonable and at least was sane. I don't want to get into all manicdepressed. But my terms to bringing my spirit back would be volunteering at an animal shelter someday. That I feel is the only way I could ever be comfortable in my own... skin... of a human being. I don't see how... but I'd at least try.

Sigh... never did I thought I could possibly do a 180 though, but I wouldn't abandon my determination to be a good person though. I'd just die knowing at least I tried.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Losing faith is a tough road. I can relate to almost everything you have said, and I assume it is a common experience for those who begin to question the entire picture. In the end though, you will come out stronger and more focused on who and what you are, and what you want to bring to the world. You have chosen enlightenment and it is well worth it. If you want someone to talk to, send me a private message.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Well, all I can really say is maybe you have to find something else in life that will help you continue to be a positive for this world. I don't believe in any type of religion although I used to be Roman Catholic. But it wasn't the end of the world when I stopped believing in that. I mean, there are more things to life that just religion and all that mumbo. Find something to live for. This world may be the only chance where we can make a difference. Don't ever let that go. Its about being more than you can be. Helping the people around you and being a part of community as a human being.

Good luck.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Philia:

Well, your thoughts come off a bit cliche at this point. Around 1st-year college student who just took a philosophy class or read some Marxist literature. Imagine Agent Smith's argument about "Mankind being a virus" from the first Matrix movie and that's about your mindset right there.

However, (and this is my personal opinion, feel free to disagree), I live by a more optimistic code. While you see destruction of environment, greed, etc... you fail to realize that it's a natural progression of life. While you think animals are "innocent," it's purely because they lack the intelligence and manual dexterity required to build tools/communicate/think/etc... Surely they would follow our same path if they had a similar IQ, no?

But that's just the negatives, think of the positives that have come out of human development. Artwork, poetry, film, music, philosophy, LOVE. I mean, come on, the ability to think, experience, and LIVE! Surely this is a worthy cause to save. To only focus on the "evil" is to block out what else makes us human.

I read that you feel a bit helpless at your job, as though you were not affecting anything. I'll quote something that (silly enough) I saw in a videogame, probably paraphrased from some great scholar:

"Even at his most powerless, man's existence is never without meaning." -Suikoden

I truly believe that. You may think that you are hurting the planet or your fellow man, but that's only true if you make it to be so. Find your own personal reason to exist, realize that you affect more people than you think. I assume you have a family or friends. Think of what losing you would do to them.

I may be rambling a bit by now, but I think you need to start seeking out the good in people instead of expecting the bad.

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Okay. Thank you Jazzflight for posting. I should mention I'm 28 years old female, and the last time I took a class was 3 years ago at a community college for graphic design technology. I'm no scholar. I have not read such said books either... and I'm hard of hearing, I couldn't understand a preacher from his podium if I tried.

I think I would rather be strict with people who're so set into their ways. Such as myself once. And I'm a kind person too. I must ask you JazzFlight, is the future of the world really worth all the pleasures we're seeing now? One day, there won't be a pleasure for anyone. They'll just see ruins of what used to be...

And yeah Suikoden is an awesome game. I really loved Suikoden II. Have you seen Evangelion?

I was speaking idiomatically.

Unfortunately, I don't quite understand what this "revelation" is supposed to be? Is this some environmental awakening? Are you upset we've mortgaged every one's future to set up a graceless web of pavement, surrounded by cheap vinyl box-houses and miscellaneous fry-pits? You don't think it was worth mortgaging the future so that we could all waddle our way to fat-free yogurt and $6 hair dryers at Walmart? Tired of knowing that just one plasma screen TV could pay a raped African child's way through a good life to adulthood?

True enough. History is tragic that way. What's it have to do with religion? Just pissed that God's napping?


For me, religion made no sense, and God sending innocent "pagans" to hell was just what completely did it in. Who wants to play cheerleader to that? But this is probably the best moment in history to get your hands on other people's philosophies and suggestions for life. You can literally build whatever kind of inner life you want, and you have almost all of history available to help you. Including the Matrix.

How ya doing, buddy?

There are so many ways to look at the issue that you brought up, and it's hard to know which one is best - because all have pretty decent insights and will allow you to reconcile your faith with what you see, but not every one will quite make sense to you. I'll just tell you how I see it, and I warn you that you probably won't agree with me.

First things first: our current world situation has been foretold. Read between the lines (or even read the lines) of the Bible and you can see a lot of prophecy concerning the time that we live in. Adjunct to that is the fact that we're nearing the end (that's a part you might not agree with). Though no one knows the time or the place of Christ's second coming, all signs point to it being soon. I'm not talking narrowing it down to decades or years or months or what have you, just soon.

I believe in a God who is omnipotent - all-powerful. That means that everything is within his power, not that he will exercise that power over everything all the time. That's because he's omniscient - all-knowing, and knows what is best for us individually and collectively. We are (slowly) learning from the mistakes we are making as a global society, and some of us are working to fix that. If he were to step in and take over or clean up our pollutants or save all our endangered polar bears, we wouldn't learn anything or gain our own experience.

Part of the issue boils down to questioning why we are here and where we are going. If we're here to live out our lives, find the correct Christian church and accept Jesus into our hearts, then the planet isn't much of a concern. If we're here to learn something, show that we've learned something through our actions, and be judged according to those actions after we're dead, then there's a little more accountability factored in. If we're here to party hard and cease existing at death, then I should be having a heckuvalot more fun right now.

I dunno. I could go on for hours on the topic, but I don't know that anyone would find it worth their while to read my rant, so I'll stop there. ^_^

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Thank you to all who posted. Thank you for your insights and encouragements.

I'm still oh how do I put it... I'm just still in the transition since this kinda started like a week ago and what a week that was... I think part of this was because of my having a wreck of a week and a bout of depression for a while.

Not I would avoid this thinking though, I'll try to think positive. Again, thank you.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?