To saralynn, thank you for your contribution.
It looks as if your spiritual search and mine were aimed in different directions. Nevertheless, as you say, we had similar experiences and similar states of mind when it all collapsed.
I can certainly relate to most of what you wrote here. In the loss of hope and faith: seeing other peoples lives transformed by God but having no revelation myself ... faith ending in despair ... sinking into depression for more than a year. Then in coming to terms with life after faith, with the loss of my convictions and learning to live in the new and very different situation.
I have not read any of the authors that you mentioned. I find philosophy difficult to follow. There often seem to be too many unproved assertions with other ideas built on them. I prefer to have things with a firm foundation.
Process theology is something that I had never heard of. I looked it up on the internet and was not really drawn to it.
Evolutionary Christianity is a new name for something that I am very familiar with, the idea that modern science and the Christian faith can stand side by side without any contradiction other than the creation stories in Genesis. I find it sad that many Christians are quick to reject modern scientific ideas without ever learning about them. Yet they would be the first to condemn non-Christians for not reading the Bible. I have looked at books that attempt to give a so-called scientific explanation for a young created earth. They tend first to reject the argument that certain scientific constants have always had the same value, and then try to back up the creationist ideas by arguing that different scientific constants have always had the same value. In a sense they dig a hole to try to bury science and then fall in it themselves.
(If any fundamentalists are reading this, there is no need to comment here; I am not intending to get into arguments about creation in this thread.)
I have studied psychology and am aware that Eastern philosophy has had an influence, particularly in the humanistic school of psychology.
You finished by suggesting that I believe in my own resurrection. That is one thing I cannot do, because life after death is simply of no interest to me.
It looks as if your spiritual search and mine were aimed in different directions. Nevertheless, as you say, we had similar experiences and similar states of mind when it all collapsed.
The fact that I was denied any sort of revelatory experience myself was disappointing, but not troubling because I trusted in the words and deeds of others whose lives were transformed by God. However, this all ended abruptly in what I can only describe as an existential revelation, not of hope, but of despair. I suddenly knew that all my aspirations were based on hopes, dreams and illusions. I prayed, but the prayers floated up into a Universe devoid of spiritual warmth and I sank into a serious depression for almost two years.
It would please me to report that an angel came down and kissed my forehead, but, no such miraculous event occurred. My faith has not been restored to what it was before. However, I have come to terms with the loss of my convictions and have learned to live in a Universe that is filled with mystery, paradox and ambiguity.
I can certainly relate to most of what you wrote here. In the loss of hope and faith: seeing other peoples lives transformed by God but having no revelation myself ... faith ending in despair ... sinking into depression for more than a year. Then in coming to terms with life after faith, with the loss of my convictions and learning to live in the new and very different situation.
I have not read any of the authors that you mentioned. I find philosophy difficult to follow. There often seem to be too many unproved assertions with other ideas built on them. I prefer to have things with a firm foundation.
Process theology is something that I had never heard of. I looked it up on the internet and was not really drawn to it.
Evolutionary Christianity is a new name for something that I am very familiar with, the idea that modern science and the Christian faith can stand side by side without any contradiction other than the creation stories in Genesis. I find it sad that many Christians are quick to reject modern scientific ideas without ever learning about them. Yet they would be the first to condemn non-Christians for not reading the Bible. I have looked at books that attempt to give a so-called scientific explanation for a young created earth. They tend first to reject the argument that certain scientific constants have always had the same value, and then try to back up the creationist ideas by arguing that different scientific constants have always had the same value. In a sense they dig a hole to try to bury science and then fall in it themselves.
(If any fundamentalists are reading this, there is no need to comment here; I am not intending to get into arguments about creation in this thread.)
I have studied psychology and am aware that Eastern philosophy has had an influence, particularly in the humanistic school of psychology.
You finished by suggesting that I believe in my own resurrection. That is one thing I cannot do, because life after death is simply of no interest to me.
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