Re: Your Thoughts On Deconstructing My Spirituality

Thanks for all the feedback to my earlier post about my re-examination of faith. I appreciate the emails and phone calls and free coffee I’ve gotten out of it too =)

I started to respond to some comments in the comments section but figured I’d copy them here and respond to everyone in a post instead.

In order…

@Anon

Thanks for your thoughts. I’d love to know who this is. Maybe I should disable Anon posting so this doesn’t happen on accident (I don’t imagine you’re trying to hide). I suppose the problem is that this sort of encouragement means nothing once someone thinks that faith, God and church is a social structure, a product of man, something that is reinforced by psychological processes and not something supernatural. Bible versus about God watching over me and promises that His word will last longer than the earth and sky really don’t mean a thing once I think the bible isn’t any more inspired or divine (and I’m not mocking here, just making the point clear) than a copy of the Sunday paper (lol@Sunday irony). I understand what God claims to be according to scripture, I just don’t have a rational reason to believe that scripture is divinely inspired or that God is real at this point in my life. I understand that faith is not rational, but right now I can’t remember what made me believe outside of just turning off some rational parts of my thought processes.

@Max

Thanks for the respect Max, and I’m really glad you’re enjoying the blog so far. I celebrated many times when people in my life came to believe in God, both because I believed it meant something about their eternity, but also because there is something totally not-spiritual worth celebrating about anyone making any rational and honest change from one position to another onto your side of the fence, something affirming maybe, but even more simple, a little touch of comradery knowing that you can share something with that person that you couldn’t previously, and that you’ve both made it through a tough existential journey into the same, new world.

I definitely encourage you to keep looking at what’s available on both sides of the fence. As you can tell, there are very sharp people in both camps and it’s important that we challenge ourselves to understand each side better than the average person from either side, and not just settle when we’ve managed to connect with someone who’s views match our own. That said, now that we’re of the same general position on this matter of truth, I’m glad your instincts keep you here, so long as you’re being diligent to grow in your understanding =)

@Geordie

To Geordie: It’s tragic to others because they believe it’s true. I agree that for some that belief exists only to support a desired lifestyle, though I think we can both agree that for most it’s a real belief, not something people consciously think of as just “something we say because it lets us live lifestyle X”, but for many, and I point to the people who are really putting effort and care into growing as people and developing their spiritual lives, it is something that really provides answers and for them it’s worth digging into despite challenges to arrive somewhere that gives them existential comfort.

And I’ll challenge your point that I’m stepping away from faith for purely pragmatic reasons. Yes, it is possible that this played a part on the subconscious level, but I’ve had many ups and downs in faith, sometimes where I was getting very little from it apart from the promises and “truths” that kept me going (this is pragmatic, but not in the way you’re talking about). It’s going to be a challenge to leave for many reasons, included there are social, existential and lifestyle adjustments. In many ways it would be easier to stay, but I’m too much of a philosopher to keep my self in the square peg as I grow into a circle (man my analogies are AWFUL today). I’d like to say that my choice has been rational, but because I’m now viewing faith and religion as psychosocial foundations, I suppose I have to chalk this up to something similar in some way, eh?

@Serena

Should be an interesting (and loooong) conversation with the family for sure. I guess I’m looking forward to it. I must say, while I think your reason for not liking LFF or Christianity is very reasonable, it’s not really a great reason to think it’s not true. Truth is objective, and neutral to personal taste =). I totally agree that the “don’t make your own plans” is awful, but I don’t actually think that comes from scripture, just ignorant people wielding it. I don’t really understand the point of bashing on members of some church unless it just served as the jolt to get you looking at what you believed again. I’d be really curious to know what actually made you believe that Christianity was not true after believing for several years that it was.

Not having reason to believe, now that sounds like a good reason not to believe; in this or anything.

@Patrick Sullivan

I dunno man, did you know he once created an actual wrestling federation?

@Don

I’d like to hear your story some time. With your reluctance to share, I’m guessing some difficult or perhaps horrible event led you to question all you’d been brought up to believe. I think it’s totally normal for those things to kick us out of the “room of faith” so we can see what’s really keeping the room together. I hope from that outside perspective you’ve challenged yourself to explore the reasons for your unbelief rather than just stuffing faith under bitterness or sadness. Like I’ve said a few times already, absolute truth is either real or not, if it’s real, it doesn’t matter how sad it makes us. If God is real but something bad happened, God is still real. Those tough times should only serve to motivate our closer inspection. Just a thought, to strengthen your conviction and encourage more exploration =)

@James

Hello my friend. I hope that some of my responses here have given you comfort that I am very much working to grow this new realm of my philosophy with the same care and honesty that I watered my theology and Christian philosophy with for so many years. We’ve always made sure in our outlook to put anger, sadness, excitement, bitterness, mockery, standards and majorities aside to explore every issue with a rational eye that’s blind to everything but the core issue. As always, I hope you’ll call me out when I slip up and pull some ammo from a dishonest magazine (seriously what happened to my analogies…).

I wanted to ask “well why doesn’t it matter more to you that I operate with integrity than where my soul ends up in eternity”, but I know your answer is that you have faith that only on the path of honest wisdom will I have a chance of finding my faith again. That, and you leave eternity up to God.

@Laura

Hi Laura! Thanks for sharing your experience. I agree, if there’s one thing Christianity nailed at least as something that really provides joy in life, that’s giving people the benefit of the doubt, not judging people and trying your best to get down about stuff that doesn’t matter.

As someone who until very recently shared the same beliefs as your relatives, the issue of evangelism is tough. Geordie and I were chatting about this earlier. Basically if someone fully, truly believes in eternal glory for some and eternal punishment for most, you can’t really blame them for going aggro on someone (in fact, it’s sort of curious when someone says they really believe but doesn’t try to share it with the doomed people around eh?). Yes, at some point there’s a question of effectiveness – my position was always that people were best shown my Christian beliefs through honest friendship and discussion rather than street-corner doomsaying, but not everyone agrees (well maybe they agree with that extreme).

You’re right though, it’s their love so you gotta give them that.

Looking forward to posting more about work in my new life soon, would love to hear your thoughts on how to make the most of that. I’ll be in Seattle Aug 20-26, maybe we can grab lunch.

-Jake Bales.