Just Plain Lost and Confused... (Jesus Christ, priest, ritual, moral)

[gnomon]

Welcome to RF

And just because people are confused about religion, you are not lost. That's a religious PR trick.

[Dream Angel]

welcome to the forums, I certainly hope you find what you are looking for!

[Victor]

Welcome to the forum. May you find what you seek.

[jamaesi]

Welcome to RF. May you find what you're looking for.

[PureX]

Originally Posted by DHatcherE

Hi all,

I am 43 years old and just plain lost, confused, depressed and anxious over religion. I grew up in a conservative Southern Baptist home, was "saved and baptized" at the age of 15 and then just milled about smartly doing my own thing until the age of 40. I spent a career in the US Navy and retired in 1998, had a great job as an engineer until 2001 and then lost all when the place I worked went out of business. My wife got depressed and started having panic attacks which immobilized her and confined her to our home for almost three years. Since she couldn't leave the house and could not be alone either, I was confined to the home for the same period of time.

We started our own business (insurance) from a home office so that we could eat and we struggled until about 6 months ago (at which time our situation became tolerable) just to have a place to live and eat cheap food. During this time (around 2003) I started to seek God in a "spiritual" way. I became disillusioned and mad at "Him" for letting me down. I assumed I was being punished for not living better, acting saved, etc. I got the idea that if I was "more pious" that my situation would improve and as such I got into the Bible and learned it (from a C.I. Scofield, KJV-only, fundamentalist, pre-tribulational point of view) cover to cover.

I also became hateful, homophobic, judgmental, arrogant, proud and basically made a complete jack*** of myself. I even got the idea that if I was an ordained minister and started an internet ministry that God would certainly let me off the hook and so I did just that. That issue (ordination) caused many problems between myself and my wife and I eventually resigned the ordination simply due to the fact that my attitude had become unbearable even to myself and I knew that I was not fit to call myself a minister.

I struggled (daily) with doctrines that no one could really answer (dispensationalism, calvinism, arminianism, etc.) and caused myself a lot of emotional turmoil. I found that most Christians were not willing to talk to me online to really help me sort it all out (recall that I am confined to home still). I eventually found my way to Islam and found MANY good, humble people willing to talk to me and help me sort out my emotional discord. I eventually came to disbelieve Christianity and embraced Islam. Of course this did NOT help matters with my wife at all. She was really mad now. The ordination fiasco was NOTHING compared to telling her I was a Muslim. She does not understand what Muslims believe and nor does she care to. She did not care that I told her that I did not believe in Christianity anymore because I did not believe that Jesus was God. Get this - she said that Christianity does not teach that Jesus was God, Jesus was God's son and that's all. So she does not even know what traditional Christianity teaches.

Anyway, Islam helped me to drop the attitude and become humble, quiet and peaceful. My wife, however; forbade me to be a Muslim. Said that if I believe that crap that I could "pack my stuff and get out". So I dropped it (openly anyway). I eventually came to the conclusion that I did not fully accept Islam either because I could really accept a teaching of "eternal damnation", nor could I accept that God cares if I eat pork, wash right hand before left, asked forgiveness for using the bathroom or owned a dog or the need to bathe completely before praying if I have had a sexual encounter (all of which are Muslim dogma).

I found Deism after reading "The Age of Reason" by Thomas Paine. I was (and still am) enthused with Deism but find it lacking the ability to give me a "moral code for life". I don't exist well (too much engineer in me still) without proof texts, and procedures (how to live), etc. I do NOT believe the Bible to be inerrant, infallible or perfect in any way. I do not believe that Jesus was God Himself come to earth. I really don't know WHAT I DO believe but I know what I don't believe anymore. I can actually (over the course of a literal 24 hour period swear that I am: Deist, Christian, Unitarian, Muslim, Taoist, Atheist. Yep, all of 'em in one day, I change my religion more often than my socks.

I need help sorting this all out and can hopefully gain some insight here, my issues include:

1. How to escape the emotional turmoil that I am in
2. Where to start to sort out my faith (what little there is left of it)
3. How to find a place in which I feel comfortable
4. How to reconcile my faith with the inconsistencies in the Bible, I just can't overlook the mistakes and contradictions, how do I tell what to believe in the face of this problem?
5. What do we do with Jesus? What was He to us? What beliefs are necessary or are NO beliefs necessary?

Any input would be greatly appreciated.

I have many times thought that perhaps John Calvin was right about predestination / unconditional election and I am just one of those poor souls that is destined to never know what to do or what path to follow, just plain "bound for hell", except I don't believe in Hell, so that puts me right back into quite a quandary.

But in the end it matters not if I believe it or not if John was right.

I feel like such a loser....

Wow! What an amazing post!

My initial response would be: "welcome to the human condition". And I don't mean that in any sort of insulting or condescending way. It's just that it sounds to me like you've been insulated from the reality of the human condition by religion most of your life, and now have finally been brought by circumstances to a point where that insulation has been ripped away. And what you are experiencing is what has always been there, without your realizing it, before.

And what has always been there, that your religion has been denying and insulating your against, is your doubts, and your ignorance, and your fear. That's what we humans have to learn to live with. Because that's the nature of our existence: that we're able to ask questions that we're not able to answer, and as we survive and thrive by our ability to understand and figure things out, we become very anxious and afraid in the face of these kinds of unanswerable questions, especially when they're accompanied by difficult and uncontrollable real-life circumstances. And it looks as if the same is probably true for your wife.

My response to your plea would be that you're going to have to make peace with this unknowable and uncontrollable aspect of the human experience, and so is your wife. You could keep looking for another pretense-based ideology to give you the "answers" and take away your fears, but it sounds to me like you're already too intelligent and too honest for that to work, anymore, and even if you could make it work, is that really the way you want to live? I suspect not.

My suggestion would be to begin facing and accepting the reality of your own profound ignorance as a human being, because it's not going to go away by any means other than dishonest ones. And that never really works for long before it comes back to bite us in the butt (as you've already discovered). So why not try a whole new direction - the direction of acceptance, humility, and true faith (rather than the religious pretense of divine knowledge that so often masquerades as "faith"). Practice at this each day. Practice at this each time you find yourself feeling frightened and confused (remember that these are normal and natural feelings for an honest human being). Face them directly. Acknowledge them consciously. Move forward, anyway, because that's what you have to do to live as a human being. That's called courage, and true faith. And do what you can to help your wife do the same. Don't push her, or try to force her, but each time you walk through the anxiety and fear of an unknown future and an unknowable "God", reach your hand back and offer it to her, too.

None of us knows what's going to happen tomorrow. None of us knows if God exists or what might be the nature of God's will. None of knows why we're here or what we're supposed to be doing, here. As human beings that just isn't our place. We don't get to know these things.

Instead, we get to be inventive, and hopeful, and courageous. We get to imagine the future in the best possible way, and then live as if this is how it will be, even though we don't know that it'll really be that way. That's faith. We get to live by faith: faith is our best hopes being acted upon. This is the human adventure. This is the human condition. I'm sorry that religion has been keeping you blinded to it for all these years, but every day is a new day for each and every one of us.

Laurie Anderson said: "You were born, and so now you're free, so ... happy birthday!"

She also said: "Freedom is a scary thing, not many people really want it."

And that's why they run to and hide in religions that provide them with the pretense of knowing what it's all about. But such dishonesty and pretense is a prison. And I welcome you with pride and joy to the reality of the human condition. To the unknown. To freedom.

[DHatcherE]

Originally Posted by PureX

Wow! What an amazing post!

My initial response would be: "welcome to the human condition". And I don't mean that in any sort of insulting or condescending way. It's just that it sounds to me like you've been insulated from the reality of the human condition by religion most of your life, and now have finally been brought by circumstances to a point where that insulation has been ripped away. And what you are experiencing is what has always been there, without your realizing it, before.

And what has always been there, that your religion has been denying and insulating your against, is your doubts, and your ignorance, and your fear. That's what we humans have to learn to live with. Because that's the nature of our existence: that we're able to ask questions that we're not able to answer, and as we survive and thrive by our ability to understand and figure things out, we become very anxious and afraid in the face of these kinds of unanswerable questions, especially when they're accompanied by difficult and uncontrollable real-life circumstances. And it looks as if the same is probably true for your wife.

My response to your plea would be that you're going to have to make peace with this unknowable and uncontrollable aspect of the human experience, and so is your wife. You could keep looking for another pretense-based ideology to give you the "answers" and take away your fears, but it sounds to me like you're already too intelligent and too honest for that to work, anymore, and even if you could make it work, is that really the way you want to live? I suspect not.

My suggestion would be to begin facing and accepting the reality of your own profound ignorance as a human being, because it's not going to go away by any means other than dishonest ones. And that never really works for long before it comes back to bite us in the butt (as you've already discovered). So why not try a whole new direction - the direction of acceptance, humility, and true faith (rather than the religious pretense of divine knowledge that so often masquerades as "faith"). Practice at this each day. Practice at this each time you find yourself feeling frightened and confused (remember that these are normal and natural feelings for an honest human being). Face them directly. Acknowledge them consciously. Move forward, anyway, because that's what you have to do to live as a human being. That's called courage, and true faith. And do what you can to help your wife do the same. Don't push her, or try to force her, but each time you walk through the anxiety and fear of an unknown future and an unknowable "God", reach your hand back and offer it to her, too.

None of us knows what's going to happen tomorrow. None of us knows if God exists or what might be the nature of God's will. None of knows why we're here or what we're supposed to be doing, here. As human beings that just isn't our place. We don't get to know these things.

Instead, we get to be inventive, and hopeful, and courageous. We get to imagine the future in the best possible way, and then live as if this is how it will be, even though we don't know that it'll really be that way. That's faith. We get to live by faith: faith is our best hopes being acted upon. This is the human adventure. This is the human condition. I'm sorry that religion has been keeping you blinded to it for all these years, but every day is a new day for each and every one of us.

Laurie Anderson said: "You were born, and so now you're free, so ... happy birthday!"

She also said: "Freedom is a scary thing, not many people really want it."

And that's why they run to and hide in religions that provide them with the pretense of knowing what it's all about. But such dishonesty and pretense is a prison. And I welcome you with pride and joy to the reality of the human condition. To the unknown. To freedom.

Thank you so very much for that insightful reply. Honest, direct and yet compassionate, I appreciate it alot. This "faith" that you mention, sounds very liberating and refreshing, but to what/whom and by what method are we to direct this faith (this is an area in which I get lost still)?

I have two resources that have helped me alot recently. One is a website on Christian Deism and another is a book written by C. Randolph Ross called "Common Sense Christianity. I attempted to post the links because they are BOTH really good resources but I do not have enough posts yet to post URL's. I read parts the book online and then liked it so much I bought it. I have read it perhaps 4 times now and learn something new each time. Both of these resources basically point out that "faith" is what we DO, NOT what we believe. They further point out that Jesus called us to 1. Love God and 2. Love our neighbors - not much more at all. He NEVER said to believe or profess any certain doctrine, He simply told us to LOVE and then be prepared to pick up our cross and follow Him because it would be hard.

This is what I am trying to do. I am attempting to ignore doctrine and superstition and simply DO as Jesus told me to DO. When I am confronted with a bit of unknowable doctrine or mystery I "try" to find the religious significance therein, if I cannot find anything about a particular issue that bears any significance for me from a religious standpoint I write if off as "insignificant" and move on. This seems to help a lot.

Thanks to all for their loving replies, hopefully we can all learn from one another as we share our trials, tribulations and triumphs.

[PureX]

Originally Posted by DHatcherE

This "faith" that you mention, sounds very liberating and refreshing, but to what/whom and by what method are we to direct this faith (this is an area in which I get lost still)?

My concept of faith is that it's basically hope in action (as you mentioned in your post). So I have to ask myself what do I hope for, deep in my heart? And my deepest hope is that we humans could and will someday learn how to live with each other and with the whole planet in love and peace instead of in self-centered fear, and the greed and violence that comes from that self-centered fear.

I consider myself a Christan because I believe that the definition of "Christ" is the phenomenon of God's love acting within and through us to heal us and save us from ourselves and from each other. And I have experienced this love and it's healing effect in my own life, and seen it acting in the the lives of others, so with this experience, and this hope, I try to live accordingly.

I fail often of course, and so does everyone around me, but I can forgive myself, and forgive them, and so we all get a new chance, and get to keep trying again. We never fail so far that we can't try again.

Originally Posted by DHatcherE

I have two resources that have helped me alot recently. One is a website on Christian Deism and another is a book written by C. Randolph Ross called "Common Sense Christianity. I attempted to post the links because they are BOTH really good resources but I do not have enough posts yet to post URL's. I read parts the book online and then liked it so much I bought it. I have read it perhaps 4 times now and learn something new each time. Both of these resources basically point out that "faith" is what we DO, NOT what we believe. They further point out that Jesus called us to 1. Love God and 2. Love our neighbors - not much more at all. He NEVER said to believe or profess any certain doctrine, He simply told us to LOVE and then be prepared to pick up our cross and follow Him because it would be hard.

Christian Deism website: http://www.onr.com/user/bejo/

"Common Sense Christianity by C. Randolph Ross": http://www.religion-online.org/showbook.asp?title=3145

I don't know if this is of any help to you, but I find that taoism (the philosophical rather than religious paradigm) is very helpful for me, in that it directly embraces the practice of BEING rather than KNOWING. Where we align ourselves with the mystery of existence instead of trying to unravel, understand, and therefor control it.

Tao Te Ching: http://acc6.its.brooklyn.cuny.edu/~p.../taote-v3.html

[MysticSang'ha]

Tashe delek and welcome to RF!




Peace,
Mystic