Emotions and Conversion

[839311]

This is for everyone here who had a conversion experience at one point or another in their life to any kind of religion or spirituality. In other words, you were in a highly emotional state, experiencing something like fear, or ecstasy, or any other kind of emotion, and at some point during this emotional state you had your conversion experience.

The other option is if your conversion came while you were in a calm and controlled state.

My own conversion came during an extreme episode of fear and terror. I've since lost my faith. Im wondering, how much do the role of emotions play in our conversion experiences?

 

[mycorrhiza]

I guess I would have to answer "both". While I was in a quite blissful state, experiencing strong emotions, I was also very calm.

The other conversion I've done (before the one mentioned above) was a very long and slow process, so it doesn't really fit any of the two.

 

[arthra]

It was a long time ago but from what I remember everything seemed to come together quite logically in my life..

 

[ChristineES]

I don't like to call my "coming to faith" a conversion. I was an agnostic and my belief in God came gradually. But I wasn't going through any hard time and nothing special was happening in my life and I wasn't even a member of any Church.

 

[HerDotness]

To some extent, I felt that zeal that many religious converts to a faith feel when I joined the Unitarian Universalist church and learned more about its historic connections to Emerson and the Transcendentalists of whose philosophy I'm somewhat fond.

However, I researched UUism before becoming a member and felt reasonably assured that its values coincided sufficiently with my own. My primary reason for joining the UU's though was to have an answer that would get me out of invitations to someone's church when asked that customary mid-U.S. "getting to know you" question, "What church do you go to?" You set yourself up typically if your answer is, "I don't go to any church."

My couple of decades as a New Ager came about similarly; I studied and examined what constituted New Age beliefs and determined that I could go along with most of them. Some of what I discovered in the process are still part of my beliefs.

I felt the most emotion when I realized that the Roman Catholicism in which I'd been raised not only made no sense to me but required adherence to a number of dictates which I found repellent. Anger primarily which took me a number of years to resolve.

Thelema isn't really a religion, and I felt no particular emotion when I decided to get into it other than an intense curiosity if that qualifies as an emotion.

In more standard religious terms, the best label for me would be agnostic atheist. And that label I resisted for several years, mostly due to the alarms that blared in my head from that early Catholic indoctrination because I'd realized that I really didn't think any of the various deities conceived of by people over the millennia exist.

 

[Quintessence]

Definitely not due to an emotional state, particularly not an extreme one. My decision was a rational one, and not so much a conversion as "hey, so this is what I've been doing all these years!"

 

[Tarheeler]

Both my return to theism and my decision to convert to Judaism came from a gradual process that was very calm and methodical.

 

[839311]

I was expecting a better balance between the two options, but Im glad that a lot of people here have had a more calm and rational conversion experience than I have.

11 isn't much of a sample size, though, so hopefully some more people participate before this thread fizzles out.

 

[Rhizomatic]

All of my conversions have been calm, gradual, and intellectual. For a period from middle school until when I first went to college I explored various non-theistic religions. Several times I found teachings which resonated with my own beliefs and made a good deal of sense to me and so I identified with them until I found things in the religion that I couldn't logically reconcile with other beliefs that I held.

 

[HeatherAnn]

This is for everyone here who had a conversion experience at one point or another in their life to any kind of religion or spirituality. In other words, you were in a highly emotional state, experiencing something like fear, or ecstasy, or any other kind of emotion, and at some point during this emotional state you had your conversion experience.

The other option is if your conversion came while you were in a calm and controlled state.

My own conversion came during an extreme episode of fear and terror. I've since lost my faith. Im wondering, how much do the role of emotions play in our conversion experiences?

What do you mean by "conversion"?
Is "conversion" when someone believes 100% in a religion's belief package?
Is it when someone when someone does a 180 (completely changes)?
If so... changes what - habits, thoughts, feelings, appearance... what type of changes?
Is it when one changes one belief system for another?
Is "conversion" when one stops blindly following & starts exploring the experience of God within?

 

[sojourner]

I took this to mean a spiritually-transformational moment. I've had a couple of them. Always when I'm calm.

 

[839311]

Is "conversion" when someone believes 100% in a religion's belief package?

I don't think it has to. But, I suppose it has to be enough of a conversion that the person would identify with their new religion/spirituality.

Is it when someone when someone does a 180 (completely changes)?

I think that would qualify.

If so... changes what - habits, thoughts, feelings, appearance... what type of changes?

More a change in belief, although those things could certainly accompany that change.

Is it when one changes one belief system for another?

That sounds about right.

Is "conversion" when one stops blindly following & starts exploring the experience of God within?

Not only, but that maybe could qualify as conversion of a kind.

 

[HeatherAnn]

I don't think it has to. But, I suppose it has to be enough of a conversion that the person would identify with their new religion/spirituality.

I think that would qualify.

More a change in belief, although those things could certainly accompany that change.

That sounds about right.

Not only, but that maybe could qualify as conversion of a kind.

Thanks for answering my many questions.
I was raised with a limited idea of conversion, regarding the spirit.
Mormonims teaches that only after you're baptized Mormon and have received "the gift of the Holy Ghost" from Mormon priesthood - only then, can you have the spirit with you as a constant companion.

I also was taught to believe that if you feel the spirit, whatever you feel the spirit about, is true.
It took me a while, to realize these teachings are not true. I'm married, but my ex-boyfriend looked me up on facebook & I felt the spirit about him... that's when I realized that spiritual feelings are not necessarily truth, but more an indication of what we resonate with.

Buddha (not that I'm Buddhist) taught that we tend to resonate most with whatever religious beliefs we grew up with. Shakespear taught similarly - "What's in a name - a rose, by any other name smells as sweet."

 

[te_lanus]

My "Conversions" was a few years long, but always never based on emotion

 

[Dena]

I would advise anyone considering conversion not to make a decision if they are not feeling mentally stable and at peace. A time of emotional upheaval is not the right time to make those sort of decisions. Now, I do understand within groups of Christianity they would say it's perfectly fine. I would disagree though for many of those groups conversion involves little more than a 5 second prayer. It's easy to walk away if you realize you didn't really mean it.

I went through an emotional period during my conversion in which I took a step back. Not because I changed my mind but I needed to focus on something else. Looking back I probably should have given myself a little more time but I wanted to move on with my life and I had actually already started the process.

 

[Muffled]

This is for everyone here who had a conversion experience at one point or another in their life to any kind of religion or spirituality. In other words, you were in a highly emotional state, experiencing something like fear, or ecstasy, or any other kind of emotion, and at some point during this emotional state you had your conversion experience.

The other option is if your conversion came while you were in a calm and controlled state.

My own conversion came during an extreme episode of fear and terror. I've since lost my faith. Im wondering, how much do the role of emotions play in our conversion experiences?

I was in a state of quiet contemplation.

There is the Saul syndrome: King Saul was touched by the Holy Spirit and prophesied but afterwards went back to his evil ways.

It is possible for someone to have an experience with God without actually making a firm committment to Him. An experience with God can produce emotions, but I doubt that a person can simply become emotional and have that turn into an experience with God.

 

[*Paul*]

I think that when responding emotionally we are unlikely to weigh up what our decision will cost us and what the consequences will be - we jump in blindly. After this we can be found to be out of our depth or in a situation we wish we had never put ourselves in and seek a way out.

Making a calm, rational decision based on a heart that has become convinced of the truthfulness of what it is about to commit to is surely the best way to accept the Lordship of Jesus over our lives. This does not mean that emotion is not involved, it becomes very much involved after the rational decision is made.

I think the Lord addressed this with this parable:

Luke 14:27-30 And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple.
For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it?
Lest haply, after he hath laid the foundation, and is not able to finish it, all that behold it begin to mock him, Saying, This man began to build, and was not able to finish.

 

[Erebus]

Honestly I'd have to answer "both". I don't believe we should be rigid in our views and I'm always looking for inspiration and new ideas while discarding whatever stops being useful. Needless to say I don't view religion as a matter of finding the "right" path, instead I see it as both a means to navigate through life and to challenge/improve yourself.
For this reason my beliefs evolve over time and new ideas may be arrived at through a high emotional state or through calm reflection. I've been Christian, Atheist, LaVeyan Satanist, vaguely Discordian and now Demonolater/Pagan. The rejection of Christianity was done in anger, I flirted with LaVeyan Satanism after realizing I shared many common core beliefs and then dropped it as I gradually moved away from atheism/anti-theism and into a sort of eclectic Paganism.