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So, I just want to say that, for me, a faith crisis is not just something that happens once. It has happened several times throughout my life. I have gone back and forth a few times now. Each time I choose one route, I believe I will never walk the other again. When I went less active, I was pretty confident that I would never go to church again. It was a faith crisis. Basically I figured out that everything I was doing to make me happy, actually made me feel worse. So, I prayed. As a result of that prayer, I found myself back in the LDS church and I felt great. Then, some time would pass and I’d make an exit from the Church, because of a faith crisis. “Perhaps, everything is not what it seams.” And I would find myself back in the same position. So after repeating this cycle a few times, I’ve finally reached a point where I’m at church, and I think, “I may leave early.” Or, at a party thinking, “I need to talk to my bishop and go to church next week.” I don’t know. I’ve seen people ask, “Could you ever go back to being TBM?” Many have said, “You can’t.” But I disagree, I have been TBM like 5 times in my life.” So, just because I’m at church now, doesn’t mean I will be here next week, at least not spiritually and mentally.
It’s more than a faith crisis. It’s more than losing my religion. It’s an existential crisis. It’s not just calling evil good or good evil, it’s questioning, “Do good and evil even exist?”
I agree. It’s a journey. And an interesting one because you do seem to see things differently at different points of your life. For me, I can’t see I go back to seeing things as I saw them before. It would be like asking a teenager to go back to believing in Santa Claus, when that isn’t reality. So…perhaps people have different views of what TBM is and so some can and some can’t depending on what their “TBM” includes…but I can’t unlearn things I’ve learned that will forever change my views. I CAN go to church or not go to church for reasons of my own as I personalize my faith…but the actions are being driven by a different belief system underneath it all.
I also am very open to changing my mind as it fits into my progressing belief system.
It can cycle as it progresses forward.
I believe we should all accept we are allowed to cycle through things. When your mind is telling you “I should go back” or “I should talk to the bishop” …understanding why you think those things are part of the journey, whether you decide to act on them or not.
Good does exist.
Evil does exist.
To deny that would be to deny reality.
But I find it interesting how different people define those buckets, when some things are in gray areas…how you decide to judge things and what rationale is used is interesting to me, whether I agree or not.
Heber13 wrote:I agree. It’s a journey. And an interesting one because you do seem to see things differently at different points of your life.
Good does exist.
Evil does exist.
To deny that would be to deny reality.
But I find it interesting how different people define those buckets, when some things are in gray areas…how you decide to judge things and what rationale is used is interesting to me, whether I agree or not.
If good and evil exist, what are they? I think denying reality is a symptom on an existential crisis.
I see more accurately viewing reality is part of the faith transition, not denying reality. God is good.
Evil is the devil.
Both exist in my life daily. I use stories to frame my expression as I experience life.
The church is true. My ham sandwich is true. The church is as true as a ham sandwich.
Heber13 wrote:For me, I can’t see I go back to seeing things as I saw them before. It would be like asking a teenager to go back to believing in Santa Claus, when that isn’t reality. So…perhaps people have different views of what TBM is and so some can and some can’t depending on what their “TBM” includes…but I can’t unlearn things I’ve learned that will forever change my views. I CAN go to church or not go to church for reasons of my own as I personalize my faith…but the actions are being driven by a different belief system underneath it all.
I agree. I have been reading the book “Misquoting Jesus.” It basically talks about the changes and errors to the bible over 2000 years. This is no big deal to Mormons as we have always believed in a less than inerrant bible as the “Word of God.” But to many evangelicals, this book is a Weapon of Mass Faith Destruction. Amazon has 5 apologetic books that defend the bible and attack “Misquoting Jesus” and its author.
I found the comments of one evangelical commenter to be very wise:
Quote:Evangelicals, (such as myself) need to read and interact with these types of books and enter the field as participants in the debate rather than naysayers throwing verbal salvos from behind our walls of faith, security and (unfortunately at times) ignorance.
Read it and be introduced into an important field of knowledge.
So to go back to the OP, I do not believe that I will ever see things the same way again. That is not to say that I cannot “believe in” and support Mormonism … just that I do so from a different perspective.
Quote:When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.
This issue is important to me principally because I do not want my wife to believe that I could return to an earlier stage of faith if I just read my scriptures and prayed hard enough. I did have doubts through high-school. I did have a peer group that was not into church. Then I went to college, attended institute, and prepared myself to serve a mission. While I could be described as having a sort of faith crisis in my late teens it would be hard to compare it to the faith crisis I went through more recently.
Heber13 wrote:It would be like asking a teenager to go back to believing in Santa Claus.
I have heard this analogy before, but Heber stating it again it clicks at a different level than it ever has before. The only way I can see me having a significant change is for a very strong spiritual experience (of which the lack of spiritual experiences is a big part of my faith transition). But I really can’t see how I would ever see it the same. I might be at a place where I see the warts and ugly parts of the church and of the members, but I have a strong spiritual feeling that God wants me to be there. But never back to the way I was thinking – although I can’t say that I never had some doubts as I always have had those lurking in the back of my mind.Heber13 wrote:
The church is true. My ham sandwich is true. The church is as true as a ham sandwich.What does this mean?
LH: even if you had a spiritual experience, don’t you think you process spiritual experiences differently now? Unknown: Have you ever thought of a Ham Sandwich as true? Is it?
Heber13 wrote:Unknown: Have you ever thought of a Ham Sandwich as true? Is it?
No, I haven’t. I don’t even understand the question. Do you mean to ask if the Ham Sandwich actually exists at all?
Unknown wrote:Heber13 wrote:Unknown: Have you ever thought of a Ham Sandwich as true? Is it?
No, I haven’t. I don’t even understand the question. Do you mean to ask if the Ham Sandwich actually exists at all?
I like to think of it like art or literature. Are some expressions of art or some works of literature more “true” than others? How does one make that determination?
Heber – I think I used to try and make emotions and thoughts fit into the prescribed model, but I always felt “I am not sure this isn’t just me”. Now I don’t try and I feel like I MIGHT be getting some gentle nudges, but I am not trying to fit them into a model and I don’t think God will be mad at me if I don’t “get it” as long as I am following my mind and heart. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I have gone in some cycles as well, but I can’t say I’ve really gone TBM to crisis/inactive and back to TBM. I like the Santa Claus analogy, it works for me. I will say that I do view this as a journey or perhaps a series of events. From my own point of view I have come to believe my crisis journey is also my faith journey. I embrace my doubts, they are part of my faith. Roy wrote:I found the comments of one evangelical commenter to be very wise:
Quote:Evangelicals, (such as myself) need to read and interact with these types of books and enter the field as participants in the debate rather than naysayers throwing verbal salvos from behind our walls of faith, security and (unfortunately at times) ignorance.
Read it and be introduced into an important field of knowledge.
I like this quote, Roy.LookingHard wrote:Heber – I think I used to try and make emotions and thoughts fit into the prescribed model, but I always felt “I am not sure this isn’t just me”. Now I don’t try and I feel like I MIGHT be getting some gentle nudges, but I am not trying to fit them into a model and I don’t think God will be mad at me if I don’t “get it” as long as I am following my mind and heart.
I agree, LH…I think god wants us learning how to get our minds and hearts…and align them to good things, uplifted and enlightened things. I like how you still are open to that “nudging” that seems to still be at play.
Roy wrote:Unknown wrote:Heber13 wrote:
Unknown: Have you ever thought of a Ham Sandwich as true? Is it?No, I haven’t. I don’t even understand the question. Do you mean to ask if the Ham Sandwich actually exists at all?
I like to think of it like art or literature. Are some expressions of art or some works of literature more “true” than others? How does one make that determination?
As Roy was pointing towards, we use some words without thinking much about what they mean, and we seem to rush to getting the right “answer”…when sometimes what we need to grow or stretch our mind is to reflect deeper on the questions we are asking.Besides just wanting answers, are we asking the right questions?
We hear in our meetings all the time “the church is true”…and what do we even mean by “true”? Is it historically accurate? Is it of value? Is it good? Is it literal? Is it pointing us in the right direction?
A ham sandwich gives me nourishment. I don’t think about it often because I just go to the store and get it and slap it on bread and eat it. It gives me lunch. It is what I do. It works for me. So…although I haven’t really taken time to go find out how they made the ham, if it is even real ham meat (I just trust the manufacturer and the government agencies that monitor them) that it is meat from a pig……..so, to me, the ham sandwich is true to the characteristics I have in mind it should be.
That is why I have Obi-wan Kenobe in my tagline…when we search from “true” …it depends greatly from our point of view as what we feel are characteristics needed to be considered true.
If the ham sandwich gives me nourishment…it is true.
If the church nourishes my soul…it is true. If I find out the church is a fraud, it won’t be true. But if I find out parts and pieces of it were questionably fraudulent because of human error…well…I can still believe it is true when other things compensate enough that I still see it nourishes me, even if it isn’t what I thought it was.
If someone tells me they believe the church is true, then believe it is not true, then have an experience and believe it is true again….those cycles mean something about the characteristics that individual is using to determine it’s truth and the point of view of the person consuming that church experience.
The church just is what it is, even if we circle in and around it with our experiences and viewpoints. It can be true to someone and untrue to someone else at the same time.
Just like a ham sandwich is just that…it is a ham sandwich. Some may find it true to them and they like it for lunch, and others find something else. It is just a ham sandwich, that is true.
Heber13 wrote:
If someone tells me they believe the church is true, then believe it is not true, then have an experience and believe it is true again….those cycles mean something about the characteristics that individual is using to determine it’s truth and the point of view of the person consuming that church experience.The church just is what it is, even if we circle in and around it with our experiences and viewpoints. It can be true to someone and untrue to someone else at the same time.
Just like a ham sandwich is just that…it is a ham sandwich. Some may find it true to them and they like it for lunch, and others find something else. It is just a ham sandwich, that is true.
What do you think it means about the characteristics that individual is using to determine it’s truth and his point of view? Since I am that person.
If we are talking about whether or not a ham sandwich is true, we really need to slow down and define the word truth. Because what you said about the ham sandwich being “true” doesn’t really make sense to me. I don’t see what personal tastes, nourishment, and trusting the government has to do with truth. If a sandwich nourishes you, it’s true that it nourishes you, but that doesn’t mean the sandwich is “true”. The ham sandwich doesn’t make any truth claims that we can believe or doubt. The only truth claim that a sandwich makes is that it actually exists. Likewise with art and literature.
Art and literature might attempt to express some idea of truth, but at the end of the day it’s just a painting, song or poem that doesn’t demand anything from you. I’m just trying to understand how you can group the church with sandwiches and art when talking about truth. If we do, we just acknowledge that the church is true simply because it exists and we try to appreciate the artful theology is expresses? If the church nourishes my soul, it’s true that it nourishes my soul, but it doesn’t mean the doctrines and history are true. That’s just redundant, it doesn’t make sense to say the church is true because it nourishes my soul. We should just say, it nourishes my soul and leave truth out of it.
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