My faith is gone

Faith is way overrated. Religious people talk like it is so important to have faith in the church or god or whatever. I say it is all hype. Faith accomplishes little. So if you have lost your faith you have lost little. Imagine if tomorrow everyone lost their faith and no one believed anymore. No one prayed. No one went to church. What would change? Would god cause more earthquakes? Would more children die of starvation? Would there be more wars? No life would go on. The only difference would be maybe that we channel our efforts to more productive things.

So I would not lament the loss of faith. It is never was that valuable.

HSAB, you are not alone. This very day, I have determined for myself that the church just isn’t true. I truly believe now that its origins are based on lies. I don’t know where to go from here either as every religious thought and idea I have ever had is based on Mormonism. I also have never liked the temple, other than its aesthetic beauty. I wish I had trusted my gut instincts years ago. In my heart, I knew something was very wrong. I am learning to trust myself again. I do believe there is a God who knows me. My faith crisis started the day I prayed to know truth. I believe he helped me find it, or at least the first steps. I know there is some truth and beauty in Mormonism, but there is ugliness as well.

I love my husband and need to find a way to make this work. I would like to start from scratch, but that is not a viable option right now.

It is difficult, I do feel for you, I have passed through the valley. This example is one of the potential downfalls when teachings and traditions become overly literalistic, when the shadows move and impressions take a different shape many people will become disillusioned about what they previously thought they saw.

In my opinion (now in hindsight) the problem is not with the shifting image, the problem is with the expectation that the image was supposed to be static and not only material but cast in stone.

My suggestion if the desire is to move forward from here “in faith” is to learn to accept a new point of view. It is difficult and it takes time to transition because to be most effective you have do digest more than “from this point forward.” To be truly effective you end up going back in time and re-interpreting most everything you thought you “knew.”

It is possible. There are perspectives that exist in the church that are compatible with both “reality” and “faith.” It is a more mature faith, one that is able to continually adapt to new “revelations” and insights – one that is full of both charity and a thirst for knowledge.

The biggest requirement for it is a strong hunger to obtain it.

Best wishes on your quest.

I truly believe now that its origins are based on lies.

In my opinion that is a very high bar to maintain. “Lie” requires intent, if people are honestly mistaken they can lead people terribly astray yet not meet the “lie” requirement. I have a hard time seeing that level of intent in almost all cases of church history.

Thanks everyone. I really appreciate the insights. Martha that sounds like a really hard place to be. My husband probably wants to be mormon someday but he doesn’t really ever feel like going to church or doing anything church related. ( Although we pray together everyday and i love that.) In general that is perfect for where I’m alright now except that I want to make decisions and figure out what I do believe. So I may struggle more with that down he road. It is such a weird place to be. All my good friends are very open minded, inactive or no longer mormon. I get used to having open discussions and then I go to church and say something about feminism and every one freaks out.

I’m realizing that maybe I don’t believe in most of what the church teaches. It’s crazy to me because I was so so strong before. I feel like I believed in it without knowing the full story…When I Roy think about what I believe it’s mostly just the basic Christian doctrines. That and eternal families and eternal progression. But I don’t believe in much more than that. I did visiting teaching today and I taught the lesson…the girls thought it was wonderful-but then proceeded to talk about things that I don’t believe. I just realized that what they were talking about was basic and that I didn’t believe it at all. I don’t feel sad, just surprised…I built my faith on my pre-temple singles ward church and it’s like I’m in this new world now. It isn’t what I like but most importantly it is not what I believe…I don’t know where I go from here.

Maybe it’s already good enough and really the best you can hope for to simply believe whatever makes the most sense to you now and it doesn’t need to be a terrible thing if it turns out that the LDS Church is just another man-made church. It is the Church itself that sets the expectations that it supposedly needs to be so much more than that and you should believe a long list of very specific doctrines but that doesn’t mean there is much validity to these ideas to begin with.

Man, we could start a whole new thread about that typo!

Wow HSAB you described more perfectly these past couple of months. I haven’t posted on here for a while as I just can’t seem to figure out which way to go. Like you I have lost my faith. I have no clue which direction I am going, so for now I am just lurking in the shadows at church as I have ‘quit’ my calling as I just couldn’t teach the things u was being asked too. Good luck, I will keep lurking here and am interested in following your story.

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