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[padre29]

Interesting question, when did you you lose a Faith, and who has disappointed you at a "Gestalt" level?

Has the fiber of anyone's being been shaken so badly that Faith seems foolish as the "good folks" do things that normally belong to the "bad folks?

And Why?

[velojym]

Nothing in and of itself ever really shook my "faith" that badly, though losing Edith back in '94 would be pretty close... if I didn't already have doubts.
In fact, after her death I started going to church again. But, it was an empty experience... every question was answered with "faith", and if you didn't have enough "faith", then bad things would happen to you and yours.
God was praised when someone came through fine, and if the opposite happened, it was just written off as "God's Will" and left at that.

Didn't work for me. I went my own way, and left them to theirs.

[padre29]

Nothing in and of itself ever really shook my "faith" that badly, though losing Edith back in '94 would be pretty close... if I didn't already have doubts.
In fact, after her death I started going to church again. But, it was an empty experience... every question was answered with "faith", and if you didn't have enough "faith", then bad things would happen to you and yours.
God was praised when someone came through fine, and if the opposite happened, it was just written off as "God's Will" and left at that.

Didn't work for me. I went my own way, and left them to theirs.

Puppies and Mom's have been dying for a long time now Velojym.

[slidemansailor]

You'll laugh...

In 1968 I thought THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA was privy to special knowledge that explained why I and my counterparts should lock ourselves in a battle to the death over some godforsaken jungle. On faith (and under compulsion of the weight of THE LAW), i contributed my human energy to that immoral battle - albeit as a tiny computer operator cog in the great wheel, but certainly not a courageous resistor.

Now I find few presidents in history to be moral, or privy to any information I would value. Small solace that there are many greater rubes than I was.

[velojym]

Nothing in and of itself ever really shook my "faith" that badly, though losing Edith back in '94 would be pretty close... if I didn't already have doubts.
In fact, after her death I started going to church again. But, it was an empty experience... every question was answered with "faith", and if you didn't have enough "faith", then bad things would happen to you and yours.
God was praised when someone came through fine, and if the opposite happened, it was just written off as "God's Will" and left at that.

Didn't work for me. I went my own way, and left them to theirs.

Puppies and Mom's have been dying for a long time now Velojym.

Uh.. yeah. Is that supposed to mean anything in particular? Or are you just saying that God has been a murderer for longer than I'm supposed to have suspected?

[Myrkul]

I think what he's saying is that Death is a natural part of Life. A necessary part, even.

When we try to impose Man's rules over Nature's Laws, that's when we lose out.

That's not to say, "Accept your death and walk placidly into it", Rather, "Accept that some day, you will die. Today is not that day."

I understand that my mother will not live forever. When she passes, I will be sad. If I believed in a Faith where everything was "God's Will", It might shake it. As it is, I see everything as a cycle, and as Summer follows Spring, Winter must follow Autumn. I will be saddened. I will miss my mother. But, as it says in the book I'm currently reading, "Memory is the master of Death".

[Midnight Blue]

Interesting question, when did you you lose a Faith, and who has disappointed you at a "Gestalt" level?

Has the fiber of anyone's being been shaken so badly that Faith seems foolish as the "good folks" do things that normally belong to the "bad folks?

And Why?

Never lost my faith or belief in GOD, just my faith in those who say they are Christian, and folks in general. I grew up believing people who were "Christian" were good people, so when my dad got with a catholic woman, who he unfortunately married, and she was an evil rotten person, I wanted nothing to do with church, "Christians", and anything related to it for many years.

Eventually down the road my life led me in directions that I started to read and study the bible for the first time on my own. I sill want nothing to do with church and for the most part, I get creepy feelings around people who proclaim they are "Christian," many of them using that title as a status symbol to hold over others and excuse their rotten behavior and treatment of others.

Christians are no better or worse than non- Christians. Same struggles as anyone else, just that as individuals, we all have a different path to walk. A good person is a good person, and I don't tend to care if one is Christian or not. I like variety, learning, and good conversation.

[padre29]

Nothing in and of itself ever really shook my "faith" that badly, though losing Edith back in '94 would be pretty close... if I didn't already have doubts.
In fact, after her death I started going to church again. But, it was an empty experience... every question was answered with "faith", and if you didn't have enough "faith", then bad things would happen to you and yours.
God was praised when someone came through fine, and if the opposite happened, it was just written off as "God's Will" and left at that.

Didn't work for me. I went my own way, and left them to theirs.

Puppies and Mom's have been dying for a long time now Velojym.

Uh.. yeah. Is that supposed to mean anything in particular? Or are you just saying that God has been a murderer for longer than I'm supposed to have suspected?

Myrkul is correct velojym, that came out wrong.

God or no God, everything dies.

[velojym]

I was just kinda wondering where anyone would get the idea that somehow I didn't realize that people and puppies die.

 

I've known a few of both...

[ZooT_aLLures]

Somebody once said that religon is the commercalization of faith.....and I'm inclined to agree..........

[velojym]

Somebody once said that religon is the commercalization of faith.....and I'm inclined to agree..........

Or, a move toward the authoritization of faith. I mean, it's a pretty popular route for folks who want to dictate to others.

[Midnight Blue]

Somebody once said that religon is the commercalization of faith.....and I'm inclined to agree..........

Religion and faith are two different things in my view. One depends on masses of people gathering, doing rituals and works based on what a "leader" tells them...the other is a very personal belief in your heart.... again this is my view.

[Tahn]

Religion and faith are two different things in my view. One depends on masses of people gathering, doing rituals and works based on what a "leader" tells them...the other is a very personal belief in your heart.... again this is my view.

I concur Midnight Blue.

"Faith" I equate with spirituality, which has been discussed in another thread. Something internal.

 "Religion" is an external manifestation of "someones" internal faith or spirituality, usually trying to include others.

[Lazarus Long]

Based on my own experience, I suspect that most individuals who start with a strong faith in a personal God, and who also live life on the edge in thought and in action, will eventually encounter a crisis of faith, because there come dire times when one expects to encounter God, when one sees divine revelation or assistance as inevitable, and instead is met with stone. cold. silence.

How you deal with this will redefine your faith. It makes some, and breaks others. It is my belief that God is loving. Why he aparently allows so many to have their paradigms and beliefs dashed on the rocks of circumstances - among all the other unlovely things he allows - I do not know.

I do believe that it is just as intellectually sound to be an agnostic about the details and outworkings of a divinely permeated universe as it is to be agnostic about the very existence of God. In other words, if (to you) it's a given that God not only exists, but is infinitely benevolent, the paradigm of a perfect father and mother, then it's not much of a stretch to believe that the Lord works in mysterious ways and that with our narrow, time-and-space-restricted perception, we rarely see the hundred-year or hundred-mile view, let alone the weave of connections that make up the big picture, aka the eternal perspective.

My faith is strong, but rather brutal experience has left me dazed and wondering exactly how the rubber is supposed to meet the road. I'm hoping that some of the more perplexing experiences I've had will come to make sense in a few tens or hundreds or thousands of years. Or at some point in eternity.

If you know full well that you're blind dude #4, stuck hugging the elephant's knobbly leg, you can safely assume that it would be premature to start making grand pronouncements about tree trunks.

Edit for cognitive typo.

[Lisa Aenne]

I don't  think anyone has stolen my faith, per say.  When I was formally disfellowshipped from my church family, one I left voluntarily because I knew they would not, nor in some ways could not, stand with me as I took the direction I felt my life needed to go ----well, that shook my relationship with organized religion to the core.   

When it first happened, I felt pretty small and unclean.  But, I came to realize that people did that, not God.  I'd love to be a part of a community of believers again who have a relationship with Jesus, but haven't found the right one yet.  Truth be told, I haven't been actively looking for a few years.  I'm still afraid in some ways.  I have faith that I'll find another group to connect with someday.