A little venting, but a question about the need for faith.

[Anonymous]

So, I had a lightbulb go on today about faith. My whole life I have bee trying to develop a testimony, force even– a testimony of God, Christ, the restored gospel, the living prophet. It is the purpose of every LDS to find out for themselves if the church is true and then teach that belief to the next generation. What testimony I had was little by little and this faith crisis dashed away whatever I did have. I have spent the last few months trying to rebuild my faith, or at least parts of it. But today I asked myself why? Why do I even need to believe in any these things or in anything. I know who I am. I know the way I want to live my life. I am starting to wonder how helpful or important it is to try and develop faith again. Maybe its time to set all this aside and just live my life being as loving and kind to others as I can. i dont need faith to do that. Input for or against this thought process is welcome.

[Anonymous]

Sounds like an excellent plan to me. To often we told we need to exercise faith, but really why. there is no tangible benefit from it that i have experienced. Religion has this curious behavior of creating a problem so they can provide a cure. I gave up on gaining faith in the church some time ago and am doing much better than I ever did believing. Family becomes the issue however when they believe and you do not. It can cause some minor or major problems.

[Anonymous]

Faith is the substance of things hoped for (and the subsequent actions that manifest an attempt to realize those hopes) – and living without hope is a terrible thing. Therefore, faith is necessary – but the “in what” is the key.

Define your own hopes and “exercise faith” in them, whether that be related to a post-mortal life or whether it be focused on family, friends and this life – or both.

[Anonymous]

Martha wrote:

… Why do I even need to believe in any these things or in anything. I know who I am. I know the way I want to live my life. I am starting to wonder how helpful or important it is to try and develop faith again. Maybe its time to set all this aside and just live my life being as loving and kind to others as I can. i dont need faith to do that.

I’ll take up the “for” argument… I’ll borrow heavily from “The God Who Weeps” by Terryl Givens. I’d highly recommend giving it a read.

First quote:

Quote:

The call to faith is a summons to engage the heart, to attune it to resonate in sympathy with principles and values and ideals that we devoutly hope are true and which we have reasonable but not certain grounds for believing to be true

For me this is faith. I have absolutely no certainty that God exists. Yet I hope He does and to me, it is reasonable that He does. Sure we can explain away much of the creation of life, but yet there are some things for which science has no explanation.

Quote:

Whatever sense we make of this world, whatever value we place upon our lives and relationships, whatever meaning we ultimately give to our joys and agonies, must necessarily be a gesture of faith.

This remindes me of a video I saw where Elder Nelson relates the following: “I was in a small airplane and all of a sudden the engine on the wing caught fire. It exploded and burning oil was poured all over the right side of the airplane and we started to dive toward the earth. We were spinning down to our death. Oh, this woman across the aisle, I felt so sorry for her, she was just absolutely uncontrollably hysterical and I was calm. I was totally calm, even though I knew I was going down to my death, I was ready to meet my maker We didn’t crash, we didn’t die.” He goes on to explain that “if you’ve got enough faith you can handle difficulties knowing that with an eternal perspective that all will be well.” With this in mind, again, I choose to have faith in God and in life beyond this one because it is better than the alternative to me. I know there was a long thread about whether it would be so bad if there wasn’t life beyond, but still, I choose to believe that my life has greater purpose for no other reason then that I want to. It is a pleasant thought.

Quote:

Whether we consider the whole a product of impersonal cosmic forces, a malevolent deity, or a benevolent god, depends not on the evidence, but on what we choose, deliberately and consciously, to conclude from that evidence.

Early in my faith crisis I was convinced that everything about the church was fraud. I barely believed in God at all. I believed that the “evidence” compelled me to believe the church was false. Since then I’ve come to understand that the motive or truthfulness of something can’t be determined by simply weighing the evidence. All known evidence can (and sometimes does) point to a defendant on trial as being guilty and yet after being convicted some piece of evidence will come to light that completely invalidates all the evidence of the conviction (such as DNA has done recently). Thus in most cases it is left up to us, imperfect people with limited understanding to choose for ourselves to the best of our ability what we want to believe.

Quote:

Faith often asks us to turn a blind eye to the incongruities and inconsistencies of belief in the divine. But reason comes up short as well in accounting for those moments of deepest love and yearning, of unspeakable calm in the midnight of anguish, of the shards of light visible to the inner eye alone.

In the depth of my faith crisis I completly ignored all those things that can’t be explained by science and reason (confirmation bias towards no divine intervention). Now however, I recognize that there do seem to be “miracles,” things that happen that just defy reason. I don’t know why it seems to happen to some but not others and seems so random. Nevertheless, I believe somehow miracles can happen.

Quote:

The greatest act of self-revelation occurs when we choose what we will believe, in that space of freedom that exists between knowing that a thing is, and knowing that a thing is not.

I feel that since my faith crisis I understand a little better what we teach about the need to come to earth, outside the presence of God, in order to have choice. When I was…more orthodox in the LDS faith, I believed I had choice. Yet believing that I knew sort of compelled me to act in accordance with the teachings of the church. If not, I would suffer guilt until I repented and complied. I feared that poor choices would lead me to Hell. Now that I don’t KNOW everything is the way the church teaches, truly have been able to choose for myself the path I would walk. I could leave the church tomorrow and never go back. I would not suffer guilt or fear of Hell and damnation. I’d miss my friends…probably….well, some of them :wtf: But I could still do it. So now I know alittle more about my self. I know that I live the way I do because I want to, not because of some reward or fear of punishment. I want to be clear that I am NOT implying that should someone choose NOT to believe in God or the church that they are any less free or worse off. Nor do I believe that God will condemn them for it. I believe God will judge us based on the reasons why we do what we do according to the beliefs of our heart.

Faith is a choice. For me choosing to believe in more than this life brings me hope and joy. As Ray said, determine what would bring you the most joy and hope, justify it with reason, and choose to have faith in it.

:thumbup:

[Anonymous]

Great post Eman. Your journey is an inspiration

[Anonymous]

Martha wrote:

So, I had a lightbulb go on today about faith. My whole life I have bee trying to develop a testimony, force even– a testimony of God, Christ, the restored gospel, the living prophet. It is the purpose of every LDS to find out for themselves if the church is true and then teach that belief to the next generation. What testimony I had was little by little and this faith crisis dashed away whatever I did have. I have spent the last few months trying to rebuild my faith, or at least parts of it. But today I asked myself why? Why do I even need to believe in any these things or in anything. I know who I am. I know the way I want to live my life. I am starting to wonder how helpful or important it is to try and develop faith again. Maybe its time to set all this aside and just live my life being as loving and kind to others as I can. i dont need faith to do that. Input for or against this thought process is welcome.

The way I see it, real faith is mostly for people that already believe or want to believe something so they will go ahead and act as if it is already true and approach it with a general attitude of, “why not?” rather than, “why should I believe that?” So if you don’t want to believe something then you don’t have to and no one can really force you to believe it; at best they might be able to pressure you into saying you believe it when you really don’t. In my case I believe in God and an afterlife because it makes me feel better than the alternatives would and I see enough reasons to believe in these things that they make sense to me. On top of that I don’t see any real downside to believing in these things even if it turns out that I am wrong. On the other hand, I don’t have nearly as much faith in LDS prophets and apostles or the literal interpretation of scriptures because it looks to me like they have already been wrong so many times that I don’t see why I should put too much stock in what they say in many cases.

As far as the pressure that we should supposedly have a testimony of the restoration of the gospel, the atonement, etc. I think that is mostly coming from fears that if you don’t have a testimony of all this then you won’t make it to the Celestial Kingdom. The general idea is that the Church supposedly plays a major part in what life is all about so if you are not on board with everything it teaches then you have supposedly wasted your life and failed the test. Also the Church has come to rely heavily on a sense of obligation to get members to pay tithing, accept callings, go on full time missions, get married in the temple, etc. and a testimony of the restoration, atonement, etc. provides a reason why many members feel obligated to go along with all this. They can insist I should have a testimony of various points all they want but as far as I’m concerned I don’t need or want a traditional LDS testimony anymore and I don’t think it is even possible for me to regain what they mean by a testimony of these things even if I tried.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the feedback. I knew I could count on a variety of viewpoints. You guys are great.

Cadence wrote:

Sounds like an excellent plan to me. To often we told we need to exercise faith, but really why. there is no tangible benefit from it that i have experienced. Religion has this curious behavior of creating a problem so they can provide a cure. I gave up on gaining faith in the church some time ago and am doing much better than I ever did believing. Family becomes the issue however when they believe and you do not. It can cause some minor or major problems.

Thanks Cadence. I am starting to feel better myself. It’s hard to overcome a lifetime of single-minded thinking. I am enjoying looking at things a new way and giving myself permission to examine what I really believe.

Old-Timer wrote:

Faith is the substance of things hoped for (and the subsequent actions that manifest an attempt to realize those hopes) – and living without hope is a terrible thing. Therefore, faith is necessary – but the “in what” is the key.

Define your own hopes and “exercise faith” in them, whether that be related to a post-mortal life or whether it be focused on family, friends and this life – or both.

Ray, I agree that life without hope is pretty sad. I do have hope in many things including heaven and God and Christ. But I think that maybe my focus in regards to faith may be better directed at family and charity and not worrying so much about pushing my hoped for things into the category of testimony.

eman wrote:

This remindes me of a video I saw where Elder Nelson relates the following: “I was in a small airplane and all of a sudden the engine on the wing caught fire. It exploded and burning oil was poured all over the right side of the airplane and we started to dive toward the earth. We were spinning down to our death. Oh, this woman across the aisle, I felt so sorry for her, she was just absolutely uncontrollably hysterical and I was calm. I was totally calm, even though I knew I was going down to my death, I was ready to meet my maker We didn’t crash, we didn’t die.” He goes on to explain that “if you’ve got enough faith you can handle difficulties knowing that with an eternal perspective that all will be well.” With this in mind, again, I choose to have faith in God and in life beyond this one because it is better than the alternative to me.

Faith is a choice. For me choosing to believe in more than this life brings me hope and joy. As Ray said, determine what would bring you the most joy and hope, justify it with reason, and choose to have faith in it.

:thumbup:

Eman, I am in the middle of “The God Who Weeps” It’s great.

I used to think that I needed to believe in a hereafter to have that sort of peace that Elder Nelson had on that plane, but now I think that it’s also possible to have peace simply in knowing that I have lived an honorable life and have left a legacy of love. Then if there is no more, I am okay with that and if what I have hoped for is indeed true, then YEAH!!! I just feel I am putting so much time and effort into figure out what I believe that I am not living my life (probably not a an uncommon feeling during a faith crisis).

DevilsAdvocate wrote:

As far as the pressure that we should supposedly have a testimony of the restoration of the gospel, the atonement, etc. I think that is mostly coming from fears that if you don’t have a testimony of all this then you won’t make it to the Celestial Kingdom. The general idea is that the Church supposedly plays a major part in what life is all about so if you are not on board with everything it teaches then you have supposedly wasted your life and failed the test.

DA, I went to a meeting tonight where the SP reviewed a talk Elder Uchdorf gave about staying on course and not varying even a degree. It was a good talk and had a lot of good ideas, but I am tired of being taught that I have one very defined path and that if I vary even one degree, my life will end up completely off course. I don’t believe that and being taught that in church is exhausting. It’s a relief to let that pressure go.

He also talked about women in Utah “squawking” about wearing pants, talking in conference, and getting the priesthood and that this direction is a sign that satan is alive and well. It’s been a hard Sunday.

[Anonymous]

I honestly don’t know if I can say that I have faith in God right now. Maybe part of me does. However, I have faith in myself and that is pretty awesome.

[Anonymous]

Quote:

I have faith in myself and that is pretty awesome.

Yes, it is – and, since, “Ye are gods and children of the most high God,” you do have faith in God in the purest sense of what Mormonism teaches. 🙂

[Author]

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