Yeah, it goes much deeper than Protestantism. You'll see me whine about Augustine, Anselm, Aquinas, and pretty much anything that looks like rationalism. I have very strong, very negative feelings about the entire tradition of theology in the West, so there are very significant reasons why I find Orthodoxy attractive. Unfortunately, every time I see a Protestant go after Orthodoxy, I want to convert out of spite. Which... obviously not a good motive. I'm too new to all the crazy schisms and feuds to have figured out how to deal with it yet, and need to calm down and not start drawing lines in the sand too.
Yes but ... you have some background, and so have a starting place. That's good. And you show some wisdom in not jumping about, or doing anything through reactionism. The impulses are understandable - we all have them. They might even have virtuous motives. But the fact that you recognize them for what they are and resist them is also good, so you don't make a move based on wrong motive.
Knowing things like this about yourself should be to your benefit.
Agnosticism? Sounds like there's a story there too! My atheism was more of an "I hate everything about religion and will therefore identify as atheist" than genuine atheism, but at some point they become effectively the same. Not worshipping because you think any god who would demand worship is a tyrant is probably worse than not believing anything at all. =/ It's been a decade since I took that particular stance, but it's still too big a shift to not get some serious whiplash. I have messed myself up spectacularly!
I don't know that it's that good a story. Basically ... I learned all the things many of us are taught as evangelicals. I would even repeat them when asked, but something inside of me rebelled at many points.
Since you mentioned it, why does God demand worship? If He is really God, what's wrong with His ego that He needs all that bolstering? Why does He insist that "somebody has to pay" - with extreme suffering and death - before He is willing to forgive anyone, especially since He demands we do it when people don't ask to be forgiven or even seem sorry for what they did to us? And what's "just" about punishing someone who didn't do anything wrong, to get someone who did off the hook? Merciful, maybe, but it was supposed to be necessary BECAUSE of justice? And very important -WHY let so many people through history spend an eternity burning in a fiery hell, basically because they were born at a wrong time or place and never heard the Gospel? Back to understanding how that can be fair. And while I loved Jesus from the time I learned about Him, God the Father seemed a completely different kind of entity, vengeful and legalistic. If those two are "one" how is it they seem to be pitted against one another - the Father wanting to blast us with fiery everlasting torment, and Jesus essentially stepping in front of us and taking the bullet. Hardly sounds like those two are of the same mind or spirit. And so on .... and that's just while I was a child.
Moving into and through other denominations only increased the confusion. And God was working with me through all this time, and I had some pretty profound experiences that let me know some things, but at the same time, scattered teachings and my misunderstanding of some things created a mess of my own. In the end, my priest referred me to a more experienced spiritual father, who has managed to sort many things out for me, and I thanks God for both of them.
But with Orthodoxy, I found not only many little tidbits of truth that initially intrigued me, but I began to see a view of God Himself that meshed perfectly with what I had really understood in my heart that He must be ... God IS good, and loving, and created man in His image, desiring that we share those things that He created us to be - what He called "very good" when He created man. And not that He is constrained, or primarily concerned with punishment, or that He wants to pretend we are something we are not, but that He really, truly wants to restore us, heal us from sin and its effects, and make us really into His image and likeness again, and has provided the means for us to begin to move into this.
They sometimes say "welcome home" to those who convert to Orthodoxy. That's what it felt like to me - coming home and recognizing the God my heart somehow knew, that had been distorted by the teaching I'd always heard.
I was never believing that no God could exist, but I just couldn't accept the one I'd initially been taught. But I couldn't abandon the idea of God altogether. So ... I don't know how to describe that in-between period of doubt. Agnosticism seems the best label. But I might be wrong.
Whatever, I am finally at peace, having discovered the God that I recognize through my spirit. Glory to God!
