I think there are just a few people who would. It's a silly thought, and a foolish one, and one I know better than to think, but there it is. I mean, I can think of some really good reasons and I'd half expect Jesus to turn up and say "You already know, why are you asking for the millionth time? When your kid does it you get annoyed, so what's the deal?". Even then, the therapeutic angle will very likely turn into a sudden explosion of cancer and other illnesses in 20 years' time for those who did pursue medical therapy, and you can't really argue it was therapeutic ultimately if that ends up being the case (heart attack and cancer are likely the end-game for these people -- or suicide). I mean, it is temporary, but that doesn't really make it any easier unless one also becomes an end-of-the-world hopeful. And yeah, eternity is forever, but relatively speaking a day is a day; of course, I think it's safe to assume that eternity is of such a nature that one moment there causes one to 'forget' about the ~100 years they had on this Earth. Life here isn't really that great anyway, but I think 'fear and trembling' accurately describe my state when I consider the reality of the situation. It's great to talk about building space ships, but I find the movement from here to there to seem terrifying. ...Although if eternity exists outside of time, and one day I'll be there, then aren't I there already, and have always been?
Why, certainly! And I'm with you on the starships.... the distance from what I know to what I think I know of God is, shall we say, a plethora of parsecs? i think that is, in part, the reason that Paul was not permitted to speak about what he saw, because I think the human mind in its current fallen state is unable to physiologically handle it. I imagine that even in a perfected eternal state, the human mind will need eternity to process the data.
I'll create a new thread in Contro when I have some free time (not because what I have to say is necessarily controversial, but rather, sensitive). I agree, especially on the latter thought. Since God is infinitely creative, and we'll still be finite, God could blow our minds for eternity -- well, I should think He will regardless. But that fear of the unknown is frightening.
I concur. Sometimes, I think that the "busyness" of life and the demands on our time and attention are necessary buffers to keep us from having too much time to contemplate the infinite. Speaking of which, (other than the ongoing, underyling issues of your life and brain,) how are you doing in terms of "mommy" and "daddy" life?
Reading the article I am left with the impression he is so diasappointed about himself he projected his negative feelings on his faith. A rather odd way losing your faith. Sorry to hear about your bad period, prayers uploaded. Agree.... In my case rationality, faith and feelings are often at war with each other. In the end, when it's real bad, I am thrown back at my experience with God looooong time ago. It's the only thing I am absolutely sure about. Rationality and knowledge are nice, but it made a bad believer of me. I admire those Christians who never felt God inside and are rock solid in their faith. I can't. On the other hand if you never felt the presence of God in your life (Phil 4:7) or God never touched your feelings then IMO you are missing something essential and makes you vulnerable.
Aside: One aspect of depression/anxiety that often gets negleted in the spiritual discussion, imo, is the physiological cause, in so many instances. The ravaging depression, per example, that takes so many of our most promising people is clinical, physical in nature - said.
This leads into something I still ponder once in a while. It's a bit of a rabbit trail from your original topic but as far as a default state is concerned it's at least somewhat relevant. If the default state is salvation we need to figure at what point the default shifts to not-salvation and whether that point can be delayed. If so, then it is theoretically possible for someone to attain salvation through their own efforts and therefore not need a Savior. If the default state is not-salvation then it doesn't bode well for the stillborn or children who die in infancy, which casts major doubts on the loving nature of God. I can just imagine judgment going something like "well, yes, you lived for four days that were filled with pain and machines that beeped but sadly you failed to accept the sacrifice Jesus made to atone for your sins, so I guess that's just too bad". With that in mind, and given the whole thing about the tree of knowledge of good and evil, I can't help thinking the default position shifts some time after we come to understand the difference between right and wrong. But anyways.... Following from above, I suspect once we become aware of right and wrong and the freedom to choose we have to make decisions and have the ability to choose good or evil. Once we reach the point at which we can think of things beyond our own immediate needs the question is whether a belief in some kind of god is innate or learned. I'd lean towards the default position being one of agnosticism in the sense that we see something and wonder how it works without knowing. As a loosely related side note, I took my shop vac apart today. It stopped working and blew out a lot of smoke unexpectedly. That's not usually a good sign where electrical equipment is concerned. I didn't know what the problem was, so took it apart to see if it was something I could fix. As I unscrewed bolt after bolt, lifting piece after piece out of the assembly, so I came to learn more about what was going on inside it all. Finally I reached the heart of the unit - the motor - and tried to get it to turn. Here, as with much else in life, the default position is "I wonder what's happening here" paired with "I don't know, I need more information". So I investigated, explored, peeled back layers as needed, and at each stage I learned a little more. Finally I got to a point where I could see the relevant workings, study them in a little more detail, and draw a conclusion. Now I know for sure that my shop vac is dead. There is no more "agnosticism" with regard to the state of it, it's dead and the motor is in pieces in my scrap metal bucket. In the same way with life we start from "I don't know" and, if we take the time to think about things, we can draw conclusions about whether we believe in god/s or not. Some would say atheism is the default position but I can't see anything other than agnosticism as default - we start out not knowing. When you've experienced some kind of vision then, as you say, you have to explain it somehow and any argument that relies on the vision not happening falls flat right away. I don't want to pry into the issue you're struggling with but would assume it's the one you posted about a while back? (This isn't an attempt to coax an answer, this is a public forum and I'm sure you know not to post any more than you're comfortable with). If so it's not something I can even imagine trying to work through, and anything that takes even thousands, let alone tens of thousands, of hours of prayer is the sort of thing that can't be usefully addressed with one-liners or pat answers. When God seems silent and distant, when it feels like we might as well be talking to the walls because they're just as likely to give a response, it's easy to be discouraged. It seems to me that there are three available options: 1. God isn't there at all 2. God is there but doesn't care 3. God is there and does care, and there's a reason for the silence. From what you've said about your original vision it's probably safe to rule out the first option, which leaves the question of whether God cares or not. That at least somewhat reminds me of the thing that atheists post thinking it's clever, about why God allows bad things to happen. I'm sure you've seen it, the gist of it is that if God is unable to prevent them then he's not much of a god, and if he's able but not willing to prevent them then he's not much of a loving god. I'm sure you've countered that line of reasoning at least once, because the key problem relates to the "able but not willing" aspect of it, specifically the notion that we get to decide what counts as a "bad thing" that we expect our puppet god to prevent. It reminds me of what Habakkuk wrote (I don't have the exact reference to hand, something like Hab 3:23) which, heavily paraphrased, says something like "even though everything has turned to (poop) I will still praise God". Essentially he is saying that he doesn't know what God is doing, he doesn't know why everything has gone south, but he's going to continue to praise God regardless. As the good Rabbi mentioned, Paul wrote on comparable lines with the whole concept of "temporary afflication" however much it seems anything but temporary when you're in the thick of it all. Jesus also said that if we would follow him we must take up our cross and follow. Each of us will have a different cross to bear and it's hard to see how it can help to even try to offer advice regarding how to carry a cross that sounds like it's a lot heavier than anything I've had to carry myself to date. About all I've got here is the line in (I think) Phillipians about how he who began a good work will see it through until the day of Christ Jesus, and when Peter asked where else he would go, since Jesus had the words of eternal life.
Maybe, but mostly a random thought on temporality. If we assumed that eternity was outside of time, then from an in-time perspective I will have entered into eternity at some definite point, whereas from an eternal perspective I've 'always' been there, because it wouldn't make sense to speak of my enterting at some definitive point, since no definite temporal point exists. I'd consider this incomprehensible, rather than nonsensical.
Voice like an angel. Saw her and WIllie Nelson in concert last summer ,and her voice is just a pure now as it ever was.
Right. Then to make it comprehensible it's not a "maybe" but a "yes". Makes the numerous incomprehensible passages like "before the creation of the world" comprehensible as well. Well, maybe.
In an alternate universe, I knew at least one pastor and wife who did not seem to be overly concerned about their own adulterous exploits. One would initiate an affair in vengeance on the other. I was perplexed by his testimony that "God did not actually care about sin." She would often act flirtatiously with me while he acted recklessly with a friend of mine who served as a secretary. Each had a history of divorce and extramarital affairs. Charges of embezzlement brought things to a close, after so much damaging testimony. They were opportunists, adept at raising money toward homeless outreach. Really had me worried as they tried to coopt a valid ministry. I recall a time when there was no end to this kind of stuff. "Deconversion" seems innocuous in comparison.
Reading this story reminded me of a tale I heard about a guy who tried to donate some food to a food bank. He showed up at the church and rang the bell, only to have someone screech at him that he couldn't just show up any time he wanted, the food bank was only open certain hours. When he said he was there to donate food the door opened, a woman glared at him and grabbed the food before slamming the door in his face without so much as saying thankyou. I'm not sure he rushed back to donate any more food.
I'm going to speak from first-hand experience, and give my thoughts on some of the points raised. I'll try to be concise. For one friend of mine, they left Christianity when they became convinced the resurrection was not a historical likelihood. For another friend, they saw Christianity's origins as fundamentally misogynistic, and could not reconcile that with women equally capable of anything men can do. For me, I decided I was not applying the same rigorous critical approach to the Bible that I demanded for non-biblical religious texts; when I applied the same standard across the board, I concluded that biblical prophecy had 'failed' (for lack of better term). I know others, but you get my point. Not everyone who leaves Christianity 'lost' their faith. 'Losing' implies a lack of deliberation or choice. For the three of us, and several others I know, it was a conscious decision. Christianity's threat of damnation doesn't mean anything to people who don't believe, or stopped believing, Christianity is true. I've entertained this idea many times over the years. Christian friends and I would suggest this whenever we talked about some person we knew, or had heard about, who used to be a Christian. I don't want to raise up the OSAS debate here, but that's pretty much all this claim is: if a person 'lost' their faith, they never had it, because OSAS. There might be times in my life when I found OSAS a tempting theology, but probably for a decade or more I've firmly believed OSAS can't be squared with certain clear-cut statements in the Bible that insist people need to endure in their faith lest they 'fall away'. There's no need to 'endure' if your salvation is locked in the moment you have faith. Regardless, now as a former Christian, the claim has lost all semblance of validity to me. What I think now is that this idea -- that former Christians 'lost' their faith because they never really had it to begin with -- is a sort of No True Scotsman. It is meant to satisfy the worry of a current Christian, the one who thinks 'if it happened to them, might it happen to me?' It tells them, 'no, of course it won't happen to you, because you believe and they never did'. No one will ever get me to cast doubt on the sincerity of my former belief. It was not inferior or insufficient. Whatever theological evolutions I went through, they were always under the assumption that Christianity is true. I was a rock-solid Christian from the moment I understood it as a kid up to the early months of last year. I had my epiphany rather suddenly, and after conscious, careful deliberation, I decided I was not being consistent. And when I applied my standard consistently, I decided Christianity did not hold up, and stopped believing. If you find Christianity uniquely compelling, fulfilling, and you think there is truth to it, then no one can tell you you're wrong. Only you can make the decision on where to place your faith. If you some day decide you don't believe it anymore, it doesn't mean you never believed it.