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Prepare yourself. This may be a bit incoherent. I’ve taken a bit of a break from the bloggernacle and forums and such lately. I’ve just been really volatile in my beliefs of late. After my initial crisis of faith 3+ years ago I eventually got to a middle ground where I nuanced belief and tried to find value in seeing things symbolically. I tried to focus on the positive aspects of the Church and the gospel. But the longer I stayed in this middle area the more I started to struggle to remain. Sometimes I would find myself unable to see good (like sitting in another boring sacrament meeting with 4 kids under 6 or feeling agitated during GD by the utter lack of any depth to the teachings). I felt more like out outsider, trying to pretend I was part of the “in crowd.” But I felt myself relating less and less to my fellow ward members. Neither did I feel like I related to “non-mormons” at work. So I just felt really…alone.
Meanwhile, I love reading and have read books like “the power of myth” and “the power of now” (and many others) to try to gain greater appreciation for spiritual things. I immersed myself in the bloggernacle and really tried to make things work. But it just seems like the more I know, the more I learn about spirituality, religion, science, psychology, sociology, etc, the harder it is to truly believe. I want to so bad but belief just seems hard to hold onto. And one thing I’ve never done is cease praying that God will help me understand and know truth, and know Him.
Recently I started reading “The Second Comforter, Conversing with the Lord Through the Veil.” I’ve always kind of looked at snuffer and other’s like him as no more than Mormon Fundamentalists or reformers, those able to explain away some of the negative aspects of the current church by clinging to the roots of Mormonism while crying apostasy. So starting this book was more a curiosity than anything. But I can’t even begin to describe the powerful emotions that have come over me as I started reading this book, which presents itself as a guide to meeting Christ, the second comforter. I feel so utterly conflicted. As the very first step he goes back to the basics and says that we need to progress on the spectrum of belief which goes from desire -> belief -> faith > knowledge. He explains how the Lord always follows a pattern of first manifesting as nothing more than feelings, than a voice (possibly just in the mind), than dreams, and finally cumulating in being brought into the presence of Christ.
Here in lies my dilemma. I was a faithful, active, fully believing member for my entire life. I’ve followed the steps he lays out many times. I have never felt anything other than feelings. Never. He says that to progress we must act in faith on previous manifestations. I would say I did. I didn’t always know whether my feelings were mine alone or not but I acted as though they were answers from God. So according to this pattern I should have moved onto something more substantial. But I didn’t.
I find the middle way to be hard, maybe even impossible for me to maintain. So I thirst for some confirmation that God is more than an idea created by man. I want to do the experiment again, hoping that this time, having faith (since I no longer believe I simply know) things will be different. But than there’s the underlying fear that my exposure to too much “learning” will make it impossible to move from desire into belief. How can I believe that results will somehow be different now? How can I believe when my intellect can’t even fathom a God who would make His children jump through such hoops to know Him? What happened to God speaking to us in our own language, in a way we can understand?
Then there’s this other fear. I seem to see a pattern. I’ve read lot of accounts of those who have seen Christ. It seem to be that it happens when they have been truly broken. thus the need for a comforter. Well, this is common of the newagey movement as well. The different teachers (like Eckhart) each have found themselves in the depths of despair, depressed, suicidal, or otherwise “broken.” My rational mind wonders if there isn’t some psychology at work here. Maybe, the brain is dividing in some way, or compartmentalizing in order to get over the pain. This gives the newagers the opportunity for peace as they’ve divided their self, and the mormons the experience they seek for comfort. Is the process of trusting feelings, then believing voices in your mind, then believing dreams to be real not just a process of blurring one’s understanding of reality until it gets to the point that reality and imagination has no barrier? Thus is the veil rent and one “sees” Christ (which could just be one’s own mind projecting outward?) I just can’t help but wonder if the path to spiritual enlightenment is one of mental illness. I say this without meaning to give offense, though I know it comes across as being offensive.
So what can I do when the desire of my heart and the reason of my mind are so at conflict? How can I “humble” myself sufficiently when my mind tells me that to do so is just turning off my brain?
Also, is anyone aware of any research or books related to achieving enlightenment?
Wow, Eman, I do feel your pain. I know your loneliness and I know how it feels to be doing what you think is right and not seeing the expected result. What I don’t know is the answer to your question. At this point the middle way is working for me, but I understand it does not work for everyone. It sounds like you might want more than the basics of the gospel in your life, and that’s great. I am satisfied that I believe all that is expected of me is to love God and love my neighbor and perhaps the fact that I don’t seek more helps me to be OK in the middle. Yes, it is difficult. It is complicated. I have mentally followed a journey very similar to everything you describe. I have no problem viewing personal experiences, especially “supernatural” ones, of other people in something similar to a “mental health” lens. Just as one man’s trash is another’s treasure I can go along with the idea that one man’s vision is another’s hallucination. The key here, and this is vital, is to resist the urge to judge others according to our own understanding. We may not relate to each other, and that is fine, but as we learn to define our own world and experiences according to our unique understanding, we must remain charitable and liberal in our allowing others to have and define their own experiences. As I read you thoughts I couldn’t help but wonder if you may benefit from re-thinking your own understanding of “belief.” Isn’t true belief in alignment with truth? Do you feel a pull to define first (or accept a prior definition) and then try to cajole and wrangle truth to fit that definition? If you were to let truth lead what would that change?
For me I decided to let truth exist first, let God or the universe direct my ability to comprehend, and then build on that comprehension in a positive way as I look for symbolism in my tradition that I can align with my newly discovered truth. If God will speak to me according to my unique ability to understand then why don’t I let that process happen?
Best wishes.
Orson wrote:As I read you thoughts I couldn’t help but wonder if you may benefit from re-thinking your own understanding of “belief.” Isn’t true belief in alignment with truth? Do you feel a pull to define first (or accept a prior definition) and then try to cajole and wrangle truth to fit that definition? If you were to let truth lead what would that change?
I’m not sure I understand what you’re asking or suggesting here. I understand belief to be an acceptance of something as true. If I hold the belief that carrots make me sick then I see this as a truth, and that eating carrots will indeed make me sick. This belief will likely move me to avoid eating carrots. Believing that Christ is the literal Son of God and Saviour of the world would influence how one speaks of and relates to the world. I’m not sure what you mean by making truth fit belief. I would say that I wan’t to know truth. Specifically, I want to relate to the Mormons I associate with and so I want to believe and accept as true Mormon beliefs. If I, as you suggest, let truth lead, it seems that I would have to let go of beliefs which can’t be known until a time when they are made known, stop trying to force God to confirm these preconceived beliefs and just accept that I don’t know. In other words, become comfortable with the unknown, the middle way, lack of knowledge, etc. I get it, intellectually, i do. But it just seems that the longer remain in a state of unbelief, the harder it is to believe at all. When I first started deconstructing my faith, I replaced much of my literal belief with non-literal belief. I saw the creation, the tower of babel, the flood, all as myth, stories meant to explain things. But I wouldn’t even consider deconstructing Christ and the atonement as just a story. But now, I have a hard time seeing it as anything else. I consider myself an agnostic deist, because this is my experience with the world, and God’s interaction with it. But how much longer before even my tentative belief in God is gone and I am an atheist? If I just lead with truth and scientific explanations become the only ones that are verifiable, how long until spirituality holds no meaning?Orson wrote:For me I decided to let truth exist first, let God or the universe direct my ability to comprehend, and then build on that comprehension in a positive way as I look for symbolism in my tradition that I can align with my newly discovered truth. If God will speak to me according to my unique ability to understand then why don’t I let that process happen?
I guess I would answer this by saying fear. I am afraid that letting go will take me where I don’t want to go. As I said, it is hard to relate with family and friends now. Even now after all these years my wife and I still have a very rocky relationship, held together only by focusing on what common beliefs we do have. How would it be if I didn’t even believe in God?eman wrote:If I, as you suggest, let truth lead, it seems that I would have to let go of beliefs which can’t be known until a time when they are made known, stop trying to force God to confirm these preconceived beliefs and just accept that I don’t know. In other words, become comfortable with the unknown, the middle way, lack of knowledge, etc. I get it, intellectually, i do. But it just seems that the longer remain in a state of unbelief, the harder it is to believe at all.
Not trying to be difficult but as food for thought – what if “knowing” the unknowable is unbelief, and accepting ambiguity is belief? I think you do get some of that based on the following:
eman wrote:When I first started deconstructing my faith, I replaced much of my literal belief with non-literal belief. I saw the creation, the tower of babel, the flood, all as myth, stories meant to explain things. But I wouldn’t even consider deconstructing Christ and the atonement as just a story. But now, I have a hard time seeing it as anything else. I consider myself an agnostic deist, because this is my experience with the world, and God’s interaction with it. But how much longer before even my tentative belief in God is gone and I am an atheist?
All I can offer here is my own opinion/perspective. What makes you an atheist? I’m not talking about how most people define the word, I’m asking at what point do you choose to accept THEIR definition of belief and conception of God and project yourself into that external scale of religious views? If I had in depth discussions with some people they may desire to label me as agnostic/atheist but I reject that label. God to me is at a minimum goodness, love, truth, connectedness, a creative force (or the power of God is the power of these). I simply don’t worry about what I don’t know. Society may tell me I need to have some answers, but from the center of my being I don’t get it. I don’t personally have the need that they tell me I should have. In my words I let God lead and I follow. I don’t worry about what anyone else may think. God is in true science, but I also see God in the great unknown. The power to wonder and not to know is profoundly spiritual to me, it somehow helps me strive to be the very best person that I can imagine. Not at all for some future reward, but because the act of striving, in the here and now, helps me “connect” to the greatest potential in humanity and that is how I feel close (or ‘one’) with God.
Quote:If I just lead with truth and scientific explanations become the only ones that are verifiable, how long until spirituality holds no meaning?
It can only happen if you let it, don’t let go of meaning – hold to both YOUR truth and YOUR meaning. Build into that meaning a compatibility with LDS symbolism. If you worry about others’ ideas more than your own you may lose your center.Just another couple cents here. Belief, knowledge, and faith are three distinct things. I think you might be trying to make them one thing. Wish I had more time. There is slot to be said about personalities of all types from stark black and white to total ambiguity. Quote:And here’s what’s interesting about this. If your brain chemistry is low in Serotonin and Norepinephrine, you’re much less likely to agree with this article because it’s too ambiguous and doesn’t offer a person enough control. Those with a high need for control (who believe the world is hostile) have a low tolerance for ambiguity, and those with a low need for control (who believe the world is basically friendly) have a high tolerance for ambiguity. And the need for control is predicated upon our brain chemistry.
This all may sound far fetched but we already know brain chemistry affects the way we view the world. We are not objective computers built from the same batteries and wires. We are guided by a blob of tissue and chemicals that can be changed and altered, and with those changes come changes in perspective and personality. And even changes in the way we perceive truth.
To wit, you must be comfortable with knowing what you know, learning what you learn, past, present and future and incorporating with self. Though truth and knowledge will always come to learn more and may find ourselves shocked at what we thought we used to know. Learning to be comfortable with that is a skill and personality trait. Some people can’t, others need practice. Either way, be honest with yourself about who you are integrated with what you know and may yet learn. Keeping yourself centered. I know quite a few people that “feel” life is pointless without a great plan or superior purpose to life. Yet I know others that are comfortable to declare it to themselves as “speciesism”. And “feel” very uncomfortable with the idea that the whole universe revolves around us or them to the detriment of other life.
Both acknowledge who they are and what gives them meaning. They are being honest with themselves about who they are while taking into account what they know and experience.
But be honest with yourself is no small feat. Most people spend a lifetime running away from anything that’ contradicts what they know and care about– refusing to face self.
What matters to you? What is important? This is not something that can come from the outside.
People are not depositories to be taught. We are a species of self meaning and individualization. Adding what each value and taking it and adding it there own meaning to what we learn.
The greatest obstacle to teaching someone who they are and what they are is that it is superficial to.
We are the some of our experiences and feelings and no one can interpret that and give it real meaning except for self.
There are many doors which might give meaning. A person can only be shown many doors, which one someone picks and crosses to walk down will depend on what gives them meaning. There being no real wrong answer to something so subjective.
Anyways, just food for thought. Take care.
Snuffer is like every other black-and-white thinker. They believe in formulas – that what works for them will work for everyone. They are wrong, but it’s all they know. Also, we are told that to some is given to believe – NOT to know, so he is contradicting the scriptures on which he says he reaches his conclusion.
I usually am not this dismissive, but basing spiritual progression on Snuffer sets up failure for most people. Period. I’ve seen it over and over and over with people I know. He does FAR more harm than good.
Thanks for all the replies. I’m not confusing belief, faith and knowledge, so much as how to turn one into the other. From the responses so far, it seems the problem may be the false premise that I have any control over doing so.
As for Snuffer, he’s a straw man. What I said about turning desire into belief and belief into faith is found in the scriptures (as being given to believe). But, since you want to dismiss him, I’d just point out that to do so you don’t help the case for belief. It seems everyone online I can find that testifies of having seen Christ, has some connection to Snuffer. So if he’s to be dismissed along with his “formula” then are we also dismiss all those who claim to have had the same experience? Or is his formula nothing more than, as I said, a way to open your mind to delusion? Interestingly it is the same crowd that claims to experience the spiritual gifts that seem to be missing from the modern church…
Moreover if we can’t follow “formulas” to find truth, what is the point of having faith? If I can’t verify in someway that something is true, than doesn’t all truth become relative (Since no spiritual truth is verifiable?). And I would say that I act with charity towards others and give them the benefit of doubt that their experience true for them. I don’t dismiss others their spiritual experiences even if I desperately desire some of my own. There’s always those stories where someone is told to do something that the do which ends up saving life or property… But you have to admit there are sacrifices we are required to make as members of the church. Why should we make them if they bring no tangible benefit and nothing indicates that doing so is a requirement from God? I just really have a hard time doing something for no reason other than someone says I should or shouldn’t do it.
Faith is to give hope. Nothing more, nothing less. Now what does one hope for is a different question entirely subjective depending on what gives that person hope. Faith and truth don’t intersect. 2 very different things. What one hopes for May or May not come to pass. That’s why faith exist. To push forward with hope on the face of uncertainty of the cause it belief that gives one hope. That’s why no matter what truth exist it is for naught to the individual person if it doesn’t give them hope. Which is why so many different faiths and beliefs exist. It’s like heaven, everyone has a different version based on what gives them hope to move forward with. The only way to know if the hope is truth is in hind site of positive fruit or by experimentation results. Everything else is based on feelings and the like (ie..intuition, desires, hunches etc). Presently I am like you in that I don’t do things just because X said so. It doesn’t drive me and never will. I can’t sustain anything with because X said so. If I must keep doing something it has to yield positive fruit and not theological positive fruit. But right here on earth where it really matters to those living and yet to come.
If it isn’t doing anything or is yielding negative fruit, I don’t care who said what. For me no authority or person or position can dictate negative fruit. For me, no one in the universe has that right.
It seems like you already answered yourself though. You just stated what you believe but turn are trying to change who you are into something else for your own reasons. What ever your decision, be honest with yourself about what you really believe and who you are, don’t change that for anyone or anything. No one has that right to ask it of you.
See people do things for arbitrary reasons. They don’t question, others do.
If it gives you meaning and positive go for it, if it isn’t doing anything for you then why force yourself? It’s am excessive in negativity to force oneself into something they are not. Sometimes shirt term gain can be had, but only at the fairly destructive future when a person changes the core of themselves for others.
Since thoughts can never be without bias is why we have designed test and instruments to measure without the bias. The strength of computers is also their limit. They can’t compartmentalizes or rationalize as with other accurate instruments.
So we get info without bias, how we translate that info will be effected by the desire and lens within that person.
It’s the best we can do to remove bias. Visionaries move forward on life with near a knowledge of things. Just with a belief and sense of purpose that for them is right. They don’t need knowledge. Others do.
The works has needs for realist and dreamers and a combination. It’s what drives is forward while keeping us grounded as much as possible. It’s not a shame to be one or the other.
eman wrote:Why should we make [sacrifices] if they bring no tangible benefit and nothing indicates that doing so is a requirement from God? I just really have a hard time doing something for no reason other than someone says I should or shouldn’t do it.
I don’t believe in doing things because someone else says I should. Not at all. I may do something to retain the respect of someone that strongly believes a specific way, but that is my decision and I’m doing it for my benefit. Sure I could get frustrated and complain that “I shouldn’t have to do things that I wouldn’t just to win favor” but that is not the real world, all actions have natural consequences. Relationships can get complicated, they’re never easy. It is my responsibility to maintain things in the best way that I can. Does that mean I take full responsibility for someone else’s agency? Of course not.
For myself, as I listen to myself and the fruits of my own experiences, I am coming to believe that there is literal truth and that genuine truth is not relative. However, the experience of truth is different for each individual, because we each have completely unique perspectives. In addition, I view the process of belief, hope, and faith as a process of working toward truth in the long-run, but it is also a process that doesn’t provide any certain truth right now. Right now, in this life, I believe this process doesn’t serve the purpose of giving us all the facts, but is a process that is about refining ourselves through experience. Everyone takes a unique path in this process, but all paths should lead to truth. Yet, the beauty of our unique personalities is that none of us will ever see the exact same thing when we look at truth, just as 5 different people gazing at the same mountain scene will see 5 different things, even though there is technically only 1 mountain. I don’t remember the quote or which of his writings it came from, but C.S. Lewis described something to the effect that every being created by God becomes a unique expression of God’s glory and personality, because everyone experiences God from their own perspective. Each of us, through our perspectives, personality and choices, can express our experience of God in a unique way. The person who loves astronomy and studies the facts of astronomy through very scientific means is glorifying that aspect of God: that God is a magnificent, ultra intelligent scientist who can organize extremely vast and complex structures based on scientific laws. The person who loves art is expressing the artistic part of God. The mystic is expressing the mysterious aspects of God. And no two artists or scientists or mystics will express or experience these aspects of God in the same way. Thus, God is glorified by every new creation or being, not because more things are worshipping him, but because they become yet one more unique reflection of everything that is God.
I am mostly comfortable now without ever having the option of knowing anything in this life with certainty. But I do have faith that there is truth to be had. The mountain does truly exist, it is not a figment of my imagination. But this life is not the time to know if that mountain really does exist. I choose to believe it is real, but I also choose to trust my perception of it. I trust that my experience of it is unique and ok. I trust that I am allowed to take my own path to the top of it, and that the paths I choose to take are a reflection of my personality. The truth of the mountain exists, but my experience of it is yet perfectly unique. The mountain is not relative truth and my experience of it is shared by no one.
In essence, I am saying that both relative truth and real, unchanging truth both exist simultaneously, and that we often confuse the two. C.S. Lewis also said that questions were made for answers, and that if there are no answers, questions are pointless. I have faith that there will be answers, but I also have faith that the questions, in and of themselves, are important for growth and personal expression.
So my thoughts for you are that you don’t have to lose hope that there are real things to believe in, without having to constrain at all your own personal, ambiguous experiences and growth. It is also okay to not know what the ‘real’ things are with certainty, without losing hope in them.
This all, of course, is just my own experience of reality, and I accept that my experience will continue to grow and change, and that you will never experience the exact same thing as me.
I hope that all made sense.
Orson wrote:eman wrote:Why should we make [sacrifices] if they bring no tangible benefit and nothing indicates that doing so is a requirement from God? I just really have a hard time doing something for no reason other than someone says I should or shouldn’t do it.
I don’t believe in doing things because someone else says I should. Not at all. I may do something to retain the respect of someone that strongly believes a specific way, but that is my decision and I’m doing it for my benefit. Sure I could get frustrated and complain that “I shouldn’t have to do things that I wouldn’t just to win favor” but that is not the real world, all actions have natural consequences. Relationships can get complicated, they’re never easy. It is my responsibility to maintain things in the best way that I can. Does that mean I take full responsibility for someone else’s agency? Of course not.
I make some sacrifices in order to be part of the cummunity. Membership in the community has benefits that are not always easy to quantify. I strive to keep my sacrifices sustainable – to be neither a free loader nor to be taken advantage of.
The actual mix of sacrifices to communal benefits that is ideal may differ from person to person.
I really feel what you’re going through. You’ve asked some questions here that I’ve asked, almost word for word, in some of my first posts on this forum. I think I can best characterize myself right now as agnostic, leaning towards atheist, while trying to maintain an open mind and nurture a slender hope that I’m wrong. I have found a measure of peace at the moment with the idea that God—the one I want to believe in and that matches what I see in the world—does not, in fact, expect everyone to reach the same conclusions or level of understanding. I don’t even think God expects us to understand truth. Our position here on earth is not oriented towards truth but towards morality. Here’s how I see it. Mormons are what, 0.01% of all humanity? And of those Mormons, how many do you think are truly self-aware believers; how many have followed the hope-belief-faith-knowledge formula; and how many are merely cultural followers who have never bothered to really examine their belief? If you assume a loving God who has a plan for us, do you really think he would be so inefficient as to grant such a tiny percentage of humanity the Truth (with a capital T)? If you assume an omniscient and omnipotent God who really does want us to return to him, then how is it possible that there are so many of us for whom that formula doesn’t seem to work? God could have provided a much more reliable way for us to arrive at truth or to believe in him.
But he didn’t. You and I are living, walking proof of that. Here’s what he did give us: brains; families, friends, and communities; and challenges. I seem to lack the knowledge or conviction that others seem to have, but I’m using the tools I have (my brain, my experience), and I’m trying to be kind and loving to those around me (my family, friends, and community), and I’m trying my best to work with the circumstances I was given (my challenges). If I die never having arrived at the same conviction that others seem to think I need to arrive at, but I have been intellectually honest and true to myself while treating my fellow man with kindness, I can’t believe a loving God will hold my lack of specific beliefs against me. He’ll judge me according to my circumstances and knowledge, regardless of what that is.
I think a loving, powerful God is looking more at what moral choices we make in the face of opposition, uncertainty, or contradiction than at whether we arrive at some specific understanding of, well, anything. That’s my hope, at least.
And for the record, I think a lot of people have faith and belief mixed up. I think belief is something you are convinced of, regardless of whether it’s true or not. Faith is something you hope for (and choose to operate on the assumption it’s true) even when you’re fully aware you don’t absolutely know one way or the other. That’s probably not a standard church answer, but it’s what I believe.
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