Not assuming that any of you would go through it.

But I was wondering, from your perspectives, how do you think you would feel during and after such a fundamental (no pun) change? I can't recall if I thought about this during my time as a Xian or not. I thought I'd never change, but I did know it was certainly possible.

It wasn't a pleasant thing to go through, I'll tell you that. I'll talk more once this thread gets rolling.

Well, I've never lost my faith, but I've lost my way. Lots of times. I've felt that huge chasm between myself and my Father because I chose to avoid communicating with Him. But I never changed my mind about my belief. I never doubted what I know to be the Truth.

I've cried out in desperation many times. And always felt Him answer.

I cannot imagine what it would take to lose one's faith. How does that happen? How do you suddenly stop believing the Truth.

"How does that happen? How do you suddenly stop believing the Truth."

I wanted utmost to properly understand what the bible teaches on salvation. That was the unraveling. Basically, by questioning things. Finding severe contradictions on my own. Gradually becoming more disgruntled with superstitious behavior and ideas.

Fundamentalism/biblical literalism went first, then belief in any sort of "magic" went. No magic people (prophets), magic water, or magic blood.

I became honest with myself (not saying Christians aren't- talking about my experience) about my viewpoints on things, and all of the doubts, contradictions, and illogical beliefs that I had to sweep under the rug in times past all spilled out.

Yeah, going thru a major mental transition like that is tough. My wife went thru it at the same time.

When you say contradictions, do you mean in the Word?

It seems when you most often hear about people discovering contradictions that it's most often doctrinal differences between old and new testaments. Which, of course, is true. Old Testament - Law. New Testament - Grace. A lot of churches never teach on the difference between the two. Is that what you mean, or was there more?

The rest of what you said, I could understand. And you know God isn't surprised by this either. Do you think losing your faith has anything to do with how you come to the Lord? Do you think it happens as a sort of coming of age for kids raised in the Word? As opposed to people who came to the Lord through trials, later in their lives?

For me, I guess I did lose my faith in my 20s. But I never called it that. I was raised Catholic - no questions allowed. I wanted to know why God was supposed to be forgiving, yet he judged us. I wanted to know how there could be so many religions in the world, and yet we were right. And who were the chosen people and where did that leave us? SO, when I was out of my parents house I went out on my own and found comfort in new age crap. All that - do whatever you want, when you want, because you deserve to feel good stuff.

Then God came looking for me! When I look back now, I can see that He never left me. He gave me just enough room to find what I needed to find, then He called me back. My issue was never with Him, but with religion. He never chaged.

It's too bad that this is such a common thing today, people that are too "smart" for Christianity. I mean no disrespect SE but I think that very often we find what we are looking for. How strong was your faith before this? I doubt it was very strong. When you began your "research" you had already known what you were looking for. There are some very, very educated people out there who believe in God. It basically comes down to faith but I think in order to be subjective and truly educated on a subject you need to hear both sides and go in with a totally open mind (a very hard thing to do). At the end of the day I think you could find just as much evidence that there is a God as there isn't. That is where it comes down to faith. I'm sorry to hear you've lost it. I pray that you realize that no matter what God hasn't forgotten about you.

:thumbsup:

We aren't used to thinking of the Church in terms of a denomination, since that infers something that is broken into parts-- although you can certainly think of the various local Orthodox churches as being parts of the whole, they are united in faith and part of a single Body. What is a denominator? A fraction of the whole. This infers a division which is incompatible with the unity that exists, and must exist, within Christ's Body. Are we made up of severed limbs? Any "limb," or branch to use Christ's metaphor, that is severed from the whole, is no longer part of the whole.

This gets at your question about how other groups outside of the Orthodox Church are viewed. We affirm that the fullness of the faith, or the full deposit, has been preserved and passed down within Orthodoxy, by what can only be seen as a miracle by the power of the Holy Spirit, given the odds that have waged war against the Church. We state that this is where the Church of Christ is, but cannot say to what extent God's grace works in other places. Certainly God's blessings are showered on the just and unjust. And certainly there is a continuum of how much truth has been retained in the various Christians denominations, so some are more skewed in their thinking about God than others. No one can judge how merciful God will be, so we'd never say an adherent of any group is going to hell. However, we do desire that we all come to the unity of the faith and are saddened when we contemplate Christ's difficult words, “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’" Matthew 7:21-23 Some have reduced the gospel to a mental exercise of belief in Christ, but He makes it clear here that that is not enough.

Despite the differences of belief between Orthodoxy and denominations, to be united to Christ is really about more than belief, or how we think about God, it's about a relationship, wherein we are spiritually united to Christ. This has always been understood as the second birth into Christ, which is a birth into His Body by water baptism. Ever wonder why Christ gave His apostles the commission to go into the world, baptizing all who believed? Was He really just asking them to make a public demonstration of their faith, or does the Holy Spirit sanctify the baptismal waters to actually do something spiritually to those who are baptized? Hint: Jesus wasn't big on meaningless acts. God uses baptism to birth us into His Kingdom. To join us to His Body, the Church. Jesus said, "the Kingdom of God is at hand." In other words, "The line forms here. Come be born into the Kingdom now." Struggle to the end and enter into Heaven in the life to come. So, it's not that important for us to compare beliefs, worship, and find areas of agreement. What's essential is that we unite within the One Body established by Christ, by which perfect unity is achieved and we truly become one as Christ and God the Father are one.

These are hard sayings, but if you have seen inconsistencies in scripture and the practice of some groups, this understanding of how salvation is really about being united to Christ will help put scripture back into a clearer light. You begin to see why Christ commanded baptism and communion and how whole families were united to Christ together through baptism. You'll understand how faith without works cannot save. You'll see how we must fight the good fight of faith and persevere to the end to be saved, as Paul clearly taught. It starts to make sense when we get back to the original meaning, which Orthodoxy has preserved--not by it's own strength or perfectness, because the men and women in it are not perfect, nor have ever been. It's by the power of God through the Holy Spirit that the Church has been preserved thoughout time. It's the vessel God created for this task, although His grace extends even beyond it's visible boundaries.

Basil

Anyways, I'll pop in for a minute here--

That's the kind of response I expected and I don't blame you. I would've said the same thing a couple years back. My "research" was just good old fashioned bible study. I'm well aware of the old & new testaments being 2 different covenants, I was just trying to understand the doctrine of salvation in the NT. And there isn't one, there are several different concepts of salvation spoken by different writers.

That's the main contradiction that bothered me. Little stuff like the # of horses here or there didn't make any difference to me, as it makes no spiritual difference. But I couldn't reconcile the idea of an all powerful holy spirit with the mess that is the NT.

Seeking to rectify it with with a long-winded explanation (read this verse, and then this one, and this, and in this order too, etc) only argues on the side of uninspired.

And to answer the first question in the quote (from siege), I was 100% convinced. I changed my life in fundamental and irreversible ways due to finding the "truth", and seeing that pretext fade away "like a vapor" was very difficult emotionally. I guess if my faith hadn't been so strong at one time, it wouldn't have bothered me so much to lose it. I could have just flippantly tossed it aside, and wouldn't even be at a forum like this coming to terms with things.

And I'm not an atheist, BTW.

Ok, - let's see if we can keep this train on the tracks.

Thanks! :wave:

Well, at least a couple, if not all my posts were responses to the OP, so I'll at least copy these back, since they are clearly part of this conversation.

And this is a direct response to the Silent Enigma's spiritual struggle:

This also really only makes sense as part of this conversation, not a P vs O thread:

Did you delete my post?!

I see Basil quoted me, but then it's gone.

I think he went a little overboard and just moved half the thread to the new one titled Protistant (sic) vs. Orthodoxy.

Basil

:butt:

Alrighty, this thread is back to 1 page now!

Let's see where it goes from here...