[Town Heretic]

Originally Posted by PureX

The arrogance is in believing that "truth" to be absolute,

No, that's merely a belief in God and in His perfection. Nothing arrogant in that.

and that as such ALL other possible notions must automatically be false.

That's not rational, Pure. If God is then God isn't cannot be true. All manner of truths preclude opposing notions.

The arrogance is in representing belief as absolute reality.

As someone who believes in a God of personal experience, I can't agree, but I understand your other concern, voiced below.

But my argument is not based on my objection to the arrogance of it, per se. It's based on my objection to the absolutism of it, and on the danger this presents to humanity in general.

I can understand the concern. But there's nothing to fear in the pronouncements of Christ or in those who follow them and His nature.

It's not the content of your truth that is the pretense, it's your presumption of infallibility.

That's a bit misleading though, given what I'm certain of is the content of my truth, that God is, is knowable because He desires to be known in relation, etc. And, again, if I believe it pronouncing it pretense isn't accurate and it is arrogant. You can do better than that. We can differ without seeing who has the taller horse, can't we?

And since you have so far offered nothing at all to back up such a pretense, I will continue to use that term in reference to it.

Apparently not...buy a better dictionary, find a more mature attitude and get back to me.

There is nothing wrong with my dictionary or practicality.

Well, pretense doesn't appear to appear accurately in it.

You simply don't want to face your own arrogance head on.

Which would concern me if you could actually apply that, but what you appear to mean by arrogance is nothing more or less than the certainty of my relation to God, one that leaves me certain that no man is the superior of another in worth or the estimation of that God, who loves and desires us all.

I have no objection to anyone believing in whatever they believe in, or in their acting on faith (trusting in their beliefs). We all do this all day long, every day of our lives. My argument is with the presumption of infallibility that some people adopt and encourage toward their beliefs.

Presumption of infallibility being little more than unshakable faith in God, which is rather what we're called to as Christians. You don't mind faith so long as it looks like yours. When it doesn't you argue against it, demonstrating an equal faith in your presumption, to mirror you. But if someone advances their own notion they're arrogant because, well, because it defies your own comes right down to it.

This presumption is not a requirement of faith, nor of trust, nor of actions based on faith and trust. It is an unnecessary pretense that is harmful, dangerous, and unrealistic.

Declarations without teeth. I illustrated the incongruity of trust that acts as something else. Have you an illustration?

You can keep trying to lead me off the point with these silly semantic arguments and jibes,

You mostly appear to have insult and declaration down pat. Have you anything like a counter?

or you can address my point head on, and explain to me why it is necessary, beneficial, and reasonable for zoo22 or anyone else to presume their own beliefs about God and Christ to be the absolute and undoubtable truth.

Off on a road trip, but I'll happily take this last on when I return.

[bybee]

Originally Posted by PureX

You could have just said that you don't understand. There's no shame in it.

I am curious, however, why it's so difficult for you to entertain the idea that you might be wrong in what you believe.

I have no difficulty entertaining the idea that I might be wrong in what I believe. I keep an open mind and I learn.
I admit, I have no idea of what you are talking about.
What a relief!

[PureX]

Originally Posted by bybee

I have no difficulty entertaining the idea that I might be wrong in what I believe. I keep an open mind and I learn.
I admit, I have no idea of what you are talking about.
What a relief!

That's OK, I appreciate your honesty and open-mindedness just the same.

[Son of Jack]

I just need someone to explain to me how we can say that we love and trust someone, but we don't know whether they are really there.

"God, I love and trust you...if you're really there."

That doesn't make sense to me.

[PureX]

Originally Posted by Son of Jack

I just need someone to explain to me how we can say that we love and trust someone, but we don't know whether they are really there.

"God, I love and trust you...if you're really there."

That doesn't make sense to me.

Why not? You believe that men walked on the Moon, don't you? Yet you don't really know if they did or not. You believe all kinds of things that you don't really know is true. In fact, when you think about it, most of the things that you believe are true, you don't really know are true or not. Why should your belief in God be any different? Especially when "God" is such an abstract and subjective proposition.

[Son of Jack]

Originally Posted by PureX

Why not?

I asked you first.

No, really, I did.

You believe that men walked on the Moon, don't you? Yet you don't really know if they did or not.

Yeah, that's ultimately pretty inconsequential. Not so, a person's knowledge of God.

You believe all kinds of things that you don't really know is true. In fact, when you think about it, most of the things that you believe are true, you don't really know are true or not. Why should your belief in God be any different? Especially when "God" is such an abstract and subjective proposition.

Imagine, for just a second, walking up to a person you've known for a long time and telling them that you love them and that you trust them and then follow that up with "but I don't know if you are real." Imagine saying that to your wife or your mother or your best friend.

It's complete nonsense, Pure.

[PureX]

Originally Posted by Son of Jack

I asked you first.

No, really, I did.



Yeah, that's ultimately pretty inconsequential. Not so, a person's knowledge of God.



Imagine, for just a second, walking up to a person you've known for a long time and telling them that you love them and that you trust them and then follow that up with "but I don't know if you are real." Imagine saying that to your wife or your mother or your best friend.

It's complete nonsense, Pure.

Husbands and wives go for years and years not knowing that the other is homosexual, or is cheating on them, or is using drugs, or is doing who-knows-what. Just because you THINK you know something, or someone, doesn't mean you really do. And I am quite sure this is not a surprise to you, or that this idea is incomprehensible. You know it happens. So I'm equally sure that you can understand the concept that the God you believe in may not in fact be the God that actually exists, or that it could turn out that God doesn't exist at all.

C'mon, be honest. The possibility of your being wrong isn't really all that impossible to comprehend, now, is it? I mean, I know you don't BELIEVE you're wrong, but you can still see that it could be possible.

And there's nothing wrong with being honest with ourselves about this. We COULD be wrong. And if we are wrong, we SHOULD want to know it. Because it's unhealthy to live by a lie.

Wouldn't you agree?

I'm not saying you're wrong. And I'm not saying you should stop believing as you do. I'm just pointing out that it's both reasonable and honest to allow for that possibility. Allowing for it doesn't mean that you have to account for it, or doubt yourself, or act doubtful in any way. It just means that you accept that it could be so. That's all.

[Zeke]

Originally Posted by PureX

I agree. And it's important that we understand this. Just because we believe something is true, doesn't mean that it is or has to be true.
I agree. This is why I object to the common religious Christian practice of claiming that "faith" requires the elimination of doubt. Because the elimination of doubt is the doorway to fanaticism and insanity.
It's not just that. It's understanding that the truth that other people recognize, and that is different from or even opposed to our own, may very well still be valid.

Doubt is foundational to growing inlightenment, most christians claim to have no doubts but truth be known they have plenty like everyone else stuck in the left brain of good and evil.

[zippy2006]

Originally Posted by zoo22

Trying. I'm typing responses, and then not posting them.

I noticed

I'll try to click "submit reply" this time.

And I'll try not to drown you in questions.

Yes. If I'm understanding you correctly. But while it naturally fell in, I've always considered it was a decision. As to how I decided to know and understand, have a relationship what I was seeing. Which doesn't make the faith any less real.

And I keep making that "observation/decision" distinction, but I really don't think it's much different than it is for many others who find a faith.

Yeah I think I agree.

Though not everyone. The order and process can be very different. Say, some folks are brought up in a faith from day one. I think for those folks it's a completely different process altogether. I've always had some difficulty with that one, but it's kind of a different discussion (except in terms of being another of the various things I have always had a hard time getting my head around regarding religion).

I know exactly what you mean there. I think there are some denominations which try to encourage a "conversion" experience for everyone, but in Catholicism there is a rather strong distinction between converts and "cradle Catholics." It's one of those things I am working on wrapping my head around as well.

But while it's different for different folks, I think in many cases, we see something around us, much larger than us, and then find a way to understand it, interpret it. What that initial "seeing" is really all about, I don't know... I can understand that we simply need a way to make sense of things that are unfathomable, and that we may just have a limited way of doing that. But I'm settled right now in simply continuing to recognize it as a higher power. I'm not able or willing to move that far into "not knowing." It's still something I see, believe. Decision, observation, no matter.

Okay (You get more specific in a bit here..)

In part, I keep making the decision/observation distinction because going back to my melodramatic "morning view" story, it felt very much like an observation, rather than a decision. As vague as it may be, it's the best way that I've found to describe it.

Makes sense to me. Lewis' conversion to Christianity proper has a similar ring. He and his brother were going to the zoo, his brother driving the motorcycle and he in the sidecar, "When we set out I did not believe that Jesus is the Son of God, and when we reached the zoo I did." Granted, there is that important difference, and it's good that he figured it out before he reached you.

I understand that a number of people are considering that all of a sudden, Christ, the grounding, wasn't there with me, and because of that, I necessarily felt completely ungrounded, that everything I knew was gone and I was in a crisis. But it just wasn't like that.

Also, I've realized that some people are separating what they consider I'm describing as the "experience" (didn't see Christ) from my "reaction" (calm). But the calm wasn't separated, or at least it wasn't a distinct separation. The calm was intrinsic to the experience.

Yep, I can see these things in your OP too.

No. Well, kind of. How I know it (or rather don't know it) has absolutely changed. The initial observation remains there and fairly similar.

Okay. I'm somewhat curious as to how the initial observation has changed (you said "fairly similar"), but if it's not possible to pinpoint that right now then don't worry about it.

I could walk through most of the entire thing descriptively, emotionally; it's not all that different from the "morning view" I described... Another melodramatic, very environment-specific story. And almost equally as calm. I think everyone would fall asleep, or head off to post about Grosnick or meshak or whatever...

So, basically: I observed a higher power, God, moving through things. A different environment, but still very environmental. I think I'm just very influenced environmentally but also specifically visually. It wasn't really something I hadn't observed before, except that I observed it as God.

A quick interjection here: this initial "God" you encountered was apparently pre-personal, since you explain that later, with Christ came the personal aspect. Can you try to describe this more basic experience of God that was maybe not personal? What the heck did you run into that day?

Then, I made a decision to have a relationship with, understand and accept what I saw as God, through Christ. After that, when I observed God moving through things, which was always, I observed Christ. He personified God. He was God I could walk with. There wasn't any separation between what I saw as God around me and Christ.

Now, that personification isn't there. Without it, among other things, my understanding and knowledge of God has changed. But it hasn't been replaced by a new or different understanding and knowledge, and what remains is not knowing. But my observation of a higher power moving through things is still there.

But I have always been very aware of not knowing or understanding plenty of things about God, and always been pretty comfortable with that. Less comfortable with not understanding ways religions, dogmas, completely different interpretations fit with God.

Allow me to guess a bit:

1. You made a conscious decision to see God personally through Christ
2. You moved into an actual experience of Christ and this personal-ness of God in your everyday Christian life
3. For whatever reason, you no longer have that personal experience of 2).

How far off am I there?

I'm curious as to how you made that leap. You saw Christ everywhere around you, you understood his personal nature but also his transcendent nature and the fact that there is a ton of stuff you simply did not and could not understand about him. And yet you've concluded that this experience of absence or non-personality (if that's the right way to put it?) constitutes a reason to leave faith and the idea of a personal God. That might be a very hard question to answer.

I've often thought about it myself when TH tells the apostate "You didn't trust fully." Or when Mother Teresa talks about the astonishing latter 40 years of her life where she could not feel the presence of God at all (John of the Cross, Terese of Avila, and Therese of Lisieux speak of the same sort of thing). I always wonder to myself if there exists something that would cause me to leave it all behind, and if there ought to be. I don't know. But you've apparently hit just such a thing, and I'm curious about the nature of it.

Maybe I'm discovering that my problem is with religion, and faith is suffering for that. Possibly. If so, hopefully I'll figure it out more clearly. Right now, they're very intertwined.

I can't deny the authenticity of your questions about dogma and religion, and yet I've found that they belong together with faith. At the very least general religion belongs, if not dogma. I don't think you can separate it. Dogma is another conversation, and maybe the more relevant one for you?

In one sense, I think I could have dug harder to find things I really believed dogma-wise. I've always had confusion surrounding that, never made much sense to me. But looking at that, in many regards, I'm also glad I didn't.

Out of curiosity, could you give an example or two of dogma you could have dug for? Your denominational affiliation remains somewhat vague. Did dogma in your own church bother you?

Yes. But also, the past days, I've kind of reconsidered the whole "it wasn't real in the first place" thing, and I don't really care the same way I did initially. I'd kind of braced myself for that, when I'd posted the thread, and was overly ready to be defensive about it... But it just doesn't matter much to me right now. In a similar way that it never really bothered me if someone at TOL referred to me as "other" or lumped me in with atheists or "God haters" or whatever. I was comfortable in my faith enough that someone questioning it just didn't phase me much at all. I didn't think I had something to prove. But when I announced this change, it really did matter to me. That's changed. Currently, it doesn't. Not very clear on that, though.

That's interesting, although I'm not real sure what to make of it. I've been really impressed with your transparency in this thread.

Sorry for the rambling. I'm going to click "submit reply" now.

Rambling? Maybe before TSF came onto the scene.

[heli]

Originally Posted by zippy2006

1. You made a conscious decision to see God personally through Christ
2. You moved into an actual experience of Christ and this personal-ness of God in your everyday Christian life
3. For whatever reason, you no longer have that personal experience of 2).

How far off am I there?

By reference to my former experience, pretty close. One morning I woke up as if from a dream, all had changed and I was at a loss as to why. Dazed and clueless for months in fact.

Originally Posted by zippy2006

I'm curious as to how you made that leap. You saw Christ everywhere around you, you understood his personal nature but also his transcendent nature and the fact that there is a ton of stuff you simply did not and could not understand about him. And yet you've concluded that this experience of absence or non-personality (if that's the right way to put it?) constitutes a reason to leave faith and the idea of a personal God. That might be a very hard question to answer.

But I did not make any leap. Something inside me had changed, but it was not an act of the will. I still don't understand it, except something, it, happened.

Originally Posted by zippy2006

I've often thought about it myself when TH tells the apostate "You didn't trust fully." Or when Mother Teresa talks about the astonishing latter 40 years of her life where she could not feel the presence of God at all (John of the Cross, Terese of Avila, and Therese of Lisieux speak of the same sort of thing). I always wonder to myself if there exists something that would cause me to leave it all behind, and if there ought to be. I don't know. But you've apparently hit just such a thing, and I'm curious about the nature of it.

I think TH retreated somewhat from that position. That was after I had explained him that questions and doubts resurged in force only later, years later, once I had realised I hadn’t signed up to acquiesce to notions of slaughter and human evil=divine good.


Doubting Thomas supposedly doubted a matter of fact. My matter of fact related to a perceived endorsement and blessing of a very violent and bloody baby murder. The gratuitousness told a tale of the non-divine. We civilised people do not officially exult over the deaths of our enemies or of their innocent babies, savagery looms in big red letters. Unlike TH's wholehearted acceptance of divine words of command and approval, I took the epistemic position that there must be some mistake, some explanation, no way that could be true. AIUI TH is saying it's not as it appears if God says so, and (he) should/will/would go against my very ordinary human understanding of what I see before me. How big does a contradiction of values have to be in your mind before you begin to question if you are sane? A fairly key point in deciding time to go back to first principles.

Imagine a concentration camp soldier being ordered to murder continually, and only creepingly come to realise that his values differed irreconcilably with the official policy. All mind-wracking angst. Amazingly some decisions take an age to sink in, although if said soldier gets caught by the UN he may find his slowness is not acceptable. If we have free will, it wears shoes of lead sometimes.

[zippy2006]

Originally Posted by heli

...Imagine a concentration camp soldier being ordered to murder continually, and only creepingly come to realise that his values differed irreconcilably with the official policy. All mind-wracking angst. Amazingly some decisions take an age to sink in, although if said soldier gets caught by the UN he may find his slowness is not acceptable. If we have free will, it wears shoes of lead sometimes.

That is interesting, but I don't think it is what happened to zoo. We are Christians after all, not Jews. Without Christ, the OT remains very mysterious. Even with him it may be confusing, as you note. Either way, I think SH started a thread on the precise topic you wish to discuss.

[rexlunae]

Originally Posted by zippy2006

I know exactly what you mean there. I think there are some denominations which try to encourage a "conversion" experience for everyone, but in Catholicism there is a rather strong distinction between converts and "cradle Catholics." It's one of those things I am working on wrapping my head around as well.

There are a lot of people who are nominally part of one religion or another but are functional atheists or similar. For some people, and Catholics are often this way, their religion is more a part of their identity than it is determinative of what they believe.

Originally Posted by zippy2006

I'm curious as to how you made that leap. You saw Christ everywhere around you, you understood his personal nature but also his transcendent nature and the fact that there is a ton of stuff you simply did not and could not understand about him. And yet you've concluded that this experience of absence or non-personality (if that's the right way to put it?) constitutes a reason to leave faith and the idea of a personal God. That might be a very hard question to answer.

I've often thought about it myself when TH tells the apostate "You didn't trust fully." Or when Mother Teresa talks about the astonishing latter 40 years of her life where she could not feel the presence of God at all (John of the Cross, Terese of Avila, and Therese of Lisieux speak of the same sort of thing). I always wonder to myself if there exists something that would cause me to leave it all behind, and if there ought to be. I don't know. But you've apparently hit just such a thing, and I'm curious about the nature of it.

Of course, I can only speak to my own experience with apostasy, but I would say that the first thing you doubt is yourself. You doubt the experiences that you've had that lead you to belief in the first place. Things that seemed very real in the moment seem delusional looking back, and you realize that it makes the most sense to explain them as inventions of your own mind. You start to recognize how easy it is to project an interpretation of events derived from what you've been trained to believe instead of seeing them for what they are, and eventually, you start looking trying to recognize the self-deception.

[heli]

Originally Posted by rexlunae

Of course, I can only speak to my own experience with apostasy, but I would say that the first thing you doubt is yourself. You doubt the experiences that you've had that lead you to belief in the first place. Things that seemed very real in the moment seem delusional looking back, and you realize that it makes the most sense to explain them as inventions of your own mind. You start to recognize how easy it is to project an interpretation of events derived from what you've been trained to believe instead of seeing them for what they are, and eventually, you start looking trying to recognize the self-deception.

exactly. The perennial question is how do you know what you believe is true, and if you answer "by faith", are you not merely pretending to know? Or less severely, coaxing yourself?

[heli]

@PureX
Contra TH's stance, we appear to be on the same page as regards the nature of human knowledge about stuff.

TH does not agree it's morally allowable that doubt can be dealt with by honest re-evaluation. IMO his position contradicts scripture, but because I disbelieve the general thrust of the bible you would be entitled to take that with a pinch of salt - not everyone quoting the book is an angel.

IMO this debate is often turning on not what people believe, but what it means to believe, and how we understand belief, faith, knowledge, doubt.

I propose that in retrospect my experience and zoo’s was involuntary. I wait to see what zoo, perhaps many years from now, has to say about that. I definitely did not understand what was going on at the time, and even today I cannot say exactly what was going on. Life can be strange.

[Town Heretic]

Originally Posted by heli

...TH does not agree it's morally allowable that doubt can be dealt with by honest re-evaluation.

Rather, it's been my stated position that when you doubt God, instead of your own grasp, you illustrate a want of trust that goes to a reservation at the heart of your faith.

IMO his position contradicts scripture,

Coming from you...or, cite to it. Beans.

but because I disbelieve the general thrust of the bible you would be entitled to take that with a pinch of salt - not everyone quoting the book is an angel.

That would be my approach contradicting your desire, which isn't scripture, though it would explain your confusion.

I propose that in retrospect my experience and zoo’s was involuntary.

I propose that's irrational unless you believe you aren't responsible for what you do or say...in which case you're irrational.

Life can be strange.

It can indeed.