I constantly question, explore, challenge, and learn. Matters of faith fascinate me. I feel pretty puny in front of the intense scale and majesty and improbability of the universe. To me, it almost doesn't matter how you construct your approach to that reality. I use science and Christian metaphor to try to achieve understanding of the world, but in the end, I strongly feel we're all like the committee of blind men trying to describe an elephant. I have no tolerance for religious bigotry or attempts to claim certainty, but I have every respect for humble and philosophical approaches to faith.

I come from an ecumenical family and my parents had intense religious training on both sides - they educated us on Christian history and problematics but also quite thoroughly on the Bible and basic Christian theology. I was raised as a freethinker but attended a few churches experimentally, and as an adult became involved in Quaker institutions and studied comparitive religion. I am now a Quaker with an agnostic Christian approach but a broad view of the whole shebang.

Hmm. It doesn't bother me that I don't believe. I don't feel the desire to believe in something I think isn't real. I'm content with it.

Since you're struggling with it, maybe you should look into why you want to believe. What are your reasons? Religion isn't necessary to have faith in a higher power or to be a spiritual person. I don't have religion, faith (except in the good of humans), or spirituality. It doesn't mean I'm right, it's what I'm comfortable with. I would feel uncomfortable with anything else.

We're a part of the universe capable of perceiving some of the other parts -- we're the universe's way of knowing itself. That's awesome enough for me -- who needs faith in unsupported claims when reality is so wonderfully strange?

And if you're really having a crisis of faith, then go feed someone hungry, or tend to someone who's sick, or talk to someone who's lonely. At the end of the day, that's all that matters. It really is that simple, at least for me.

Even that faithful experience this. Mother Theresa did, your priest or minister or whatever you call him or her probably does sometimes. I know people who absolutely do not believe in God who still attend church or synagogue. The message of the Bible, at least the New Testament for me, is so powerful that even if you don't believe in a God what it has to teach about life is still worth it, and if you attend services you experience a powerful and loving community. I recommend the writing of Anne Lamont to make you laugh and laugh some more, perhaps even cry, but she also has some interesting things to say about faith. Everyone has their own path to spirituality. It might be through organized religion, or it might not; it might be through God, or it might be some alternative path. These days it is often some combination. I wouldn't give up the quest for spirituality merely due to a lack of faith in one form thereof. My two cents at least. (and on preview what BitterOldPunk closed with.)

A little story: I was an atheist before I had my first child. I was an atheist since around 21 or so. I remember when it happened. I was walking down a pretty path when I had the epiphany that there was no god. I was content with this. It was almost exciting, a relief in a sense. It all made so much sense to me that there was not a higher power. When I worked in the hospital it especially sealed the deal.

Something happened to me when I had my first baby. I felt like this little infant was an absolute miracle. I became very interested in Christianity, for a brief time. It was the religion I was most acquainted with so I gravitated toward it. I went to church as a kid. My mother taught Sunday School for years. Anyway, I went to church after the birth of my first child. The baby and I while my husband worked on Sundays. I even listened to sermons on the radio. This went on for a month or so and then I woke up and went back to my prior beliefs. I wanted to believe too, but I couldn't do it. I was overcome with gratitude for my child. I wanted to thank somebody. I was in awe of the miraculousness of this perfect human being. I don't know what happened to me. I threw out everything that wasn't wholesome. I was disgusted at the very small collection of porn and implements I owned and threw them out. I had a strong aversion to violence and stories of suffering. I wanted to protect him from everything that was ugly and vile and painful. I think this might be a common thing for new mothers.

As a substitute for faith I marshal all the resources my reason, compassion, and sense of humor can give me. Been doing alright so far!

I guess by way of background: I'm a practicing Catholic. I attended Catholic schools for most of my educational career (4-12), have gone to mass every Sunday for as long as I can remember (with maybe a half dozen exceptions - a couple of times when I've been sick, the day after my mom died); I'm pretty damn steeped in Catholic culture and religious tradition.

It's really hard for me. I don't know anyone for whom religious faith is easy. For a lot of my life, I've found myself dissatisfied with simplistic, pat answers to difficult spiritual and existential questions. I get fed up with the trite, Chicken Soup for the Soul bullshit that got thrown at me in a lot of my lowest-common-denominator-everyone-has-to-pass religion classes. It's even harder when the people who seem to have the easiest time with it - at least the ones who are most vocal about it - were intolerant and willfully ignorant, to the point of self-parody.

I struggle with it a lot, because it's hard to not dismiss feelings of faith as superstition or wishful thinking, as if I've internalized the attitudes of people around me (my college is not a particularly friendly environment for the religiously-inclined, and many of my friends in high school were freethinking agnostic or atheist types). And in the light of shitty things that happen - my mom dying of cancer for no particular reason, for example - it's hard to not lose faith.

I guess what I take out of it is that, for me, faith isn't easy, but I don't know why I should expect it to me. I've never understood the idea that my faith in Jesus or whatever was supposed to make life easy and fun and a constant Christian Rock concert, or just give me warm fuzzies. Hell, If I don't understand something I keep in mind that Job didn't either, and while it might not be satisfying 100% of the time, there seems to me a certain value in acknowledging that I may not be meant to have all the answers. I keep the faith because I think that it holds a lot of moral truth that I can use to ground myself, and that the spiritual truths that are identified in it reflect the way the world works (at least as far as I can see). I take comfort in it sometimes, but sometimes I don't. And even when I don't, I put for the work into religion - going to mass on Sundays, fasting on Ash Wednesday, feeling guilty when I forget it's a Friday in Lent and I at at Taco Bell for dinner - for other reasons; as a way of honoring the traditions of my family and the people who have come before me; it reminds me to be humble, that sacrifice for others has some inherent value, that it is possible for human beings to overcome our instinct to screw each other and become something more. If that makes any sense. It's hard to consider.

I also have to realize that if my answers don't always satisfy me, I shouldn't expect them to satisfy everyone else. I think it's possible for someone to be a good person without a grounding in religion, and that if God exists, He or She will understand that the world is hard to live in and that most people do the best they can given the circumstances in which they find themselves.

So, in other words, this isn't something I'm good at. I'm not good at keeping the faith, necessarily, but I do it because I think it has value, and that most days I take more comfort in it than not.

I think being Catholic helps me, and being raised the kind of Catholic in the sort of schools I was put in were helpful. Catholicism has a great tradition of intellectualism, Galileo under house arrest aside. And my faith was nurtured in a progressive, post Vatican II-environment where asking questions was seen as a sign of productive curiosity rather than heresy. So maybe that's a coincidence that I happened to be put in an environment where asking questions was okay, so I didn't get frustrated and react against oppressive jackassery. A lot of my friends who were raised Catholic, or who went to other Catholic schools, weren't so lucky.

Sorry, that was a long ramble.

This discussion reminds me of a book that has been making the rounds on the NPR talk shows.

Like others, I don't feel compelled to have any faith. I wasn't raised in a practicing anything household, and some of my life experiences brought me to atheism at a young age, maybe 16 say. I've softened since then, but while I would say that I am agnostic now, I think that's more to do with me deciding that I felt arrogant asserting that THERE IS NO GOD, while various things in this world can make me feel really really small..

Lots of things do this to me. My kids, in various ways, amaze me. Really. How can an infant be born with a liver that will grow with them and work, for the most part, the rest of their life? That's weird man. Nature does it to me. That's one of the great benefits of living in Northern Ontario - I am surrounded by fresh water and forests. There's always the clear night sky to mess with my head too.

Where I am now, it seems, is that I've got lots of work at hand. Daughters to raise, (that challenge is a whole other post), a me that's struggling with depression to work on, a marriage to maintain whilst these first two are on going, friends to appreciate and discover, food to dream up and cook, etc. I don't think I've got time to try to discover the answer to that which has eluded mankind, with any degree of certainty, since we first climbed down from those trees (or did we? I have a feeling we did, but hey, I could be wrong! And me without any science background!).

So, yeah, I'm busy living. I'm humanistic in nature I suppose. I have no evidence to support that we have anything other than NOW (thank you Mr. Descartes) so I'm trying to channel my efforts here. Maybe one day I'll get around to sorting out the rest of it. If I do, I'll let y'all know. I promise.

i'm not sure what the question is.

i've always known there were things i didn't know and a worlds upon worlds of things out there in the unknown, and learning to navigate and understand any of it pushed you towards the edge of your knowledge where you can perceive even more do not yet understand.
i've had revelatory perspective views of how very tiny i am in the scope of the universe and found it liberating, because then what could it matter, an oops or social faux pas?
i know of many things that are more powerful and important than i am, and how crucial the factor of scale can be, and i don't need faith to see echoes of consequences that have had nothing to do with my actions.
At best this is a raft on a stormy sea that could do anything at any time. Hang on, we got starboard starburst and atoms ahoy.

i studied a lot of religion early on, teasing out common threads and hand worn truths. Almost everything seems to boil down to use of language and how people view keeping faith, actively or passively.

What i have a problem with are people who prescribe to any means of thinking without any conscious consent or cognitive action. If it's just because someone said so, you don't even know what you're doing, much less express it, and the billowing wind of someone without much imagination is a dry wind, indeed.

Great, great, great comments so far. So honest.

You might (all?) want to check out the Pew study the US Religios Landscape that just came out (even if you're non-US-ian). It is full of some really interesting findings, such as:

More than one-quarter of American adults (28%) have left the faith in which they were raised in favor of another religion - or no religion at all. If change in affiliation from one type of Protestantism to another is included, 44% of adults have either switched religious affiliation, moved from being unaffiliated with any religion to being affiliated with a particular faith, or dropped any connection to a specific religious tradition altogether.

The survey finds that the number of people who say they are unaffiliated with any particular faith today (16.1%) is more than double the number who say they were not affiliated with any particular religion as children. Among Americans ages 18-29, one-in-four say they are not currently affiliated with any particular religion.

The study seems to indicate that changing faiths, not having a faith, or struggling with a question of faith are all normal, not strange or unusual.

Personally, I was raised in the Baptist church, and what helped me let go of it was the Tao te Ching. I had long stopped believing in Christian ideas, but Taoism sort of helped me order my thoughts. The transition from thinking that there's a big "parent" out there running the universe, to the idea that the universe is running itself, is a huge one, and it didn't come easy to me.

Taoism isn't really a religion as I see it, it's more of a philosophy, or a way of looking at things. There is no dogma, no "belief" or "faith" required. (I don't think of myself as a Taoist, though I know there are people who do... I'm just an atheist, or more accurately, a humanist, who has learned from Taoism.)

Thinking about the Tao taught me to see the difference between "things as I wish they were" and "things as they are." Reading the Tao te Ching helped me get rid of the magical thinking I'd learned while growing up in the church, and to appreciate the beauty of understanding and then accepting how things are, instead of trying to force them to be in a way they aren't.

I hope that doesn't sound like some street-corner guy rambling... I don't talk about my beliefs that often anymore so I'm kind of rusty. Also, it's past my bedtime. If you're interested, I recommend a translation of the Tao te Ching by Stephen Mitchell (like this, though there are many editions out there with different illustrations and whatnot) and also The Tao of Pooh. No joke, that's probably the best introduction a westerner like us could ever ask for. It's a wonderful little book.

I became an atheist at the age of six when I first saw the word in the dictionary.

I've never found my lack of faith difficult to deal with. I do not wish that I could be religious.

At the same time, reenum, I think I heard you asking another question: "How do you deal with life's problems in the absence of faith? How do you make sense of the world?"

My atheist answer is that you just have to accept the fact that life is often -- not always, but often -- harsh and chaotic. You have to look that shit in the eye and accept it for what it is. And then forge ahead anyway.

Wow, BitterOldPunk & caddis.... where's the favorite button on this webpage? That's good stuff. After reading your posts, my thoughts seem absolutely feable. Yet I will put them out there anyway; they may serve as good books to read while doing what you suggest.

I was going to suggest reading some C.S. Lewis. Mere Christianity is good, but if you want to start off with something lighter, try The Screwtape Letters.

Another book I like along these lines is A Quaker Book of Wisdom by Robert Lawrence Smith.

Both Lewis and Smith speak from the perspective of a believer, but neither one beats you over the head with it. Lewis, as you may know, was a hard atheist who converted to Christianity.

One of my favorite quotes from Lewis: ...if you have really handed yourself over to Him, it must follow that you are trying to obey Him. But trying in a new way, a less worried way. Not doing these things in order to be saved, but because He has begun to save you already. Not hoping to get to Heaven as a reward for your actions, but inevitably wanting to act in a certain way beause a first faint gleam of Heavin is already inside you.

In the midst of one of my worst crises of faith, I was unexpected snapped out of it. I was leaning toward atheism at the time, but was at wits end with respect to a friend who was having some problems in his life. In the end I prayed for him... I prayed like I hadn't prayed in years. The response, both in the response I felt from the Holy Spirit as well as the rapid change for the better in my friend were amazingly amazing.

When I told this to my friend several months later, he simply said, "Oh was that you? Because on that day it felt like all the burdens I had been carrying had been lifted off my shoulders."

Now, my faith isn't a constant succession of prayers leading to such events. I'm almost afraid to ask for something so strongly again. But even when I have my doubts, I can draw on that day for evidence that there is something behind the scenes in this world of ours.

I was raised Roman Catholic, but I've never really believed in any of it. No offense intended to anybody, but... well, let's just say that I think it's kinda unbelievable. But it's obvious that religion, and religious practice and especially religious community, is (sometimes) something that people want, or need, that improves their lives.

And so, as a small child, I knew that many people, my own family included, attended church regularly. But I always figured that nobody, and I mean nobody, actually believed in it. You can imagine how I felt when I eventually learned otherwise.

I was raised Presbyterian, outside the church for awhile, then in the church from ages 10-17. I did believe in the Holy Trinity, covenants, etc. for quite a few years. My father, who is the smartest person I know, still believes, rationally and heavily influenced by C.S. Lewis.

For me, my path to, I guess agnosticism, started as a logic exercise. We learned in Sunday School that our God was the true god, and everyone else believed in a false god. But I guess at some point I realized that they all believed the same thing about my faith! I like how Miko and BOP put it - it's like the story of the blind mice and the elephant. We're all looking at different parts of this elephant, and arguing whether it's more tree-like or snake-like. So that's how I decided that I wasn't really religious. I haven't really decided if I believe in a Higher Power, but right now I can't think of any way a Higher Power influences my life.

I do get a little uncomfortable with the loss of an afterlife. Heaven is very comforting, especially late at night when I'm thinking about my own mortality. I think that's something I still struggle with a lot.

I just have been born without the God Gene. I totally respect and support those who have it. I just don't have it, and that's ok with me. It sounds like you have it, so good luck searching.

Yeah, I'm pretty much like Lori and rainbaby. (heh, I remember telling my mother that I wasn't born with the God gene when I was about 12, and getting sent to my room.) I don't have any need to explain things with religion, I'm happy just accepting that as a species, we don't have all the answers. They might come, they might not.

FWIW, I was raised Catholic, my whole family still is, and I blame the excellent education at Jesuit school for teaching me critical thinking and how to question things :)

"ask, and it will be given to you;seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives;he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened."

Oh, and to answer your question... I think belief chose ME. But it started as a faint little flame that now blazes like an inferno.

I have always felt that there was something out there, or in here, a spirit, or whatever, but I have not figured it out just yet, and maybe never will. I can't give it a name. It's maybe better that way.

I was raised by an Irish Catholic Family and went to Catholic schools from Kindergarten to 12. I have a great respect for the Catholic church but I can't ever remember believing or having faith in a greater power or prime mover.

Even as a child it seemed wrong.

I don't believe in an after-life. We are here and we are aware. We have the capacity to witness the beauty and the crushing coldness of the universe. That is a blessing and a curse.

I have lost a child. My youngest son is dead. I do not for a second believe he is somewhere else. His life has ended all too soon for those of us who knew him and are still here. But he does live on. He has affected all of us who knew and loved him. He is in our hearts. I don't feel any need for faith in something else. He lives on within us.

Just a bit ago I was sitting on the love seat with one cat on my lap and another pressed up against my thigh. Both were purring. One was gazing up at me with big watery eyes and the other had his head buried in between my shins as he hates the light. My girlfriend was sitting across from us reading a book. The fact that my mere presence makes others happy is all I need to know about where I stand in the universe.

And hells bells BoringPostcards, we are so much brothers. The "Tao te Ching" and "The Tao of Pooh" are both, along with "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" (he too lost his youngest son all too early. Odd that.) are key touchstones in my life.

Fuck me. It's taken me 40 minutes to write these few lines.

reenum I wish you all the best in your quest.

I have faith. I don't have religion. There's a difference.

I was really religious in high school (though my family isn't), for totally bogus reasons. (If you live in small-town Texas, people's first question to you is "What church do you go to?" It's a way to fit in, and I needed that. I think that's what draws a *lot* of people to church, in all honesty.)

My real religious epiphany didn't come when I declared myself saved, though. It came when my Sunday school class staged an 'intervention' with this girl Nicole, who was a year younger than I was. (I was a senior in HS.) Nicole was on the wrong path. She had a boyfriend, might have been having sex, probably drank a little. In other words, she was a typical teenager. But we confronted her, belittled her, made her literally repent in public. (And mind you, this was in a Methodist church. That's religion lite. Can you imagine if we'd been Baptists?? But anyway.)

After this whole intervention -- and that's what we called it -- I realized that it could just as easily be me. That they could "find out" about me, do the same thing. (That's how I thought about it at the time, though I didn't know then I was gay, or at least didn't know what to call it.) So I quit. Realized it wasn't the way I wanted to live. Realized that if there is a god, that's not the shit it's into. But that people who follow that god -- that's the shit they're into. And I wanted nothing more to do with it.

But that doesn't translate into a lack of faith.

I have faith in things. Don't ask me what things. I can't articulate them. But I do have faith.

I don't know if there's a big puppet master in the sky -- my rational side pretty firmly believes that there isn't. But I believe that some/most things happen for a reason. Sometimes those reasons are crystal clear to me -- if only after lots of reflection and overthinking. Sometimes they're really fucking baffling. I'm okay with that. I accept the fact that there are lots of things I will never understand, and I work towards understanding the things that are understandable. It works out. It all works out. I think a lot of people need a god to reassure them that things will work out. (They'll be forgiven, they'll live eternally, good will win and evil will be punished.) I just sort of have that attitude without needing to name the thing that's responsible for it.

Sometimes this translates into extreme optimism. ("Hey, everything is going to be okay!") Other times, it's extreme fatalism. ("Why does it matter? In the end, we all become compost.") That, too, I'm okay with. It's part of being a thinking being, of having moods and whims, and of constantly re-evaluating the information and experiences we're presented with. C'est la vie.

And in closing, my fellow Americans (et al), I'm reminded of two relevant collections of verse. The first, an Emily Dickinson poem, sums up my 'religion.' The second, an Iris Dement song, sums up my attitude toward it.

Some Keep the Sabbath..., Emily Dickinson

Some keep the Sabbath going to church;
I keep it staying at home,
With a bobolink for a chorister,
And an orchard for a dome.

Some keep the Sabbath in surplice;
I just wear my wings,
And instead of tolling the bell for church,
Our little sexton sings.

God preaches, a noted clergyman,
And the sermon is never long;
So instead of getting to heaven at last,
I ’m going all along!


Let the Mystery Be, Iris DeMent

Everybody's wonderin' what and where they all came from.
Everybody's worryin' 'bout where they're gonna go when the whole thing's done.
But no one knows for certain and so it's all the same to me.
I think I'll just let the mystery be.

Some say once you're gone you're gone forever, and some say you're gonna come back.
Some say you rest in the arms of the Saviour if in sinful ways you lack.
Some say that they're comin' back in a garden, bunch of carrots and little sweet peas.
I think I'll just let the mystery be.

Everybody's wonderin' what and where they all came from.
Everybody's worryin' 'bout where they're gonna go when the whole thing's done.
But no one knows for certain and so it's all the same to me.
I think I'll just let the mystery be.

Some say they're goin' to a place called Glory and I ain't saying it ain't a fact.
But I've heard that I'm on the road to purgatory and I don't like the sound of that.
Well, I believe in love and I live my life accordingly.
But I choose to let the mystery be.

Everybody's wonderin' what and where they all came from.
Everybody's worryin' 'bout where they're gonna go when the whole thing's done.
But no one knows for certain and so it's all the same to me.
I think I'll just let the mystery be.
I think I'll just let the mystery be.

I was raised as a Catholic and became an atheist at 13, although looking back I had never really bought into dogma at all. I remember suggesting to my mom around 8 or 10 that kids (mine, specifically) should be taken to lots of churches so they could decide for themselves. I'm now something like an atheist Quaker although the latter is primarily a social connection rather than a spiritual one. I also do a lot of yoga, with the accompanying meditation and thinking about the interconnectedness of things - for some people this would be spiritual and probably my thought patterns overlap with theirs somewhat but the underlying structure is different.

How do I deal with the fact that I can't bring myself to believe? It's an interesting way to phrase the question, a bit like asking why I can't bring myself to eat chocolate ice cream. I *do* eat chocolate ice cream, I just don't eat it often or in the ways that most people do. (I'm stretching the metaphor. Bear with me.) I believe in humanity, in the capacity for human growth and kindness and wisdom and pain and cruelty. I believe in nature being a wonderful thing, the product of billions of years of chance and evolution and vicious survival pressures. I believe that humans have made wonderful things and I believe that time has made wonderful things, but I can't believe in a great clockmaker and even less in a directly-active personal god. It doesn't make sense to me that such a creature should exist.

I also believe that humans find great comfort in stories, myth, and folklore - we always have. And we've gradually prioritized some of those stories above others as they spoke resonant truths. And I think that is where gods come from, from evolutionary and emotional truths that were encoded into stories generations ago. The problem is that people forget that there's a human storyteller behind it all; that the reason these stories are still around is that they speak to the universal human condition. (This means, of course, that Neil Gaiman is the savior who will lead us to a new land.)

You can believe in the truth without believing in the deity.

Your question made me think of Mulder's I Want To Believe poster. I'm sure there's somewhere interesting I could take that but I'm really tired right now.

Would give arse_hat hug if possible.

On preview, would buy pup a beer or 10, if possible.

"But I believe that some/most things happen for a reason." Pups, I also believe all things happen for a reason.

That reason is the physics of our universe. I also believe all the things that happen to me have a reason. My actions. I have lived an interesting life but I regret none of it. A lot of my actions have caused me pain. Sometimes because my actions caused others pain.

I did it and I need to own that. I can't find salvation in saying I was deficient in belief or faith in something.

I think my current formulation is that god is the space in between beings. Though I don't really think of it as "god" -- it's more that I really have faith in the beauty, unpredictability, possibility, and exhilarating vulnerability that exists in relationships. And it's not something I can touch or hold or measure -- despite training to be in a career in which we try -- so the only way I can experience it is by stepping back and not trying to control it. By believing in it. And by trusting my innate ability to understand it, without complicating it.

Or, as we said in my class this evening, by being willing to be dazzled.

How do all of you keep your faith, or alternately, how do you deal with the fact that you cannot bring yourself to believe?

I don't pray five times a day (like every muslim should, but I try to make the effort). I don't read the Quran (but have promised myself that I will soon). I'm not a part of any muslim group or organization, but I respect some people who truly are Islamic, and do the God's work.

The other stuff, I don't much care about. Bottom line: I know if I do the right thing, try to tell the truth, and not hurt anyone in the process, I'm not that bad a guy in god's eyes hopefully.

A bit more about belief.

I felt I had found a fellow traveler when I read the first half of Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan. The first part where he talks about faith.

His stand (to flippantly sum up a few hundred pages) was this: God is God because we can not know him! I mean some folks might be richer and more connected than I am but so what? They are not God. God is the dude who can call the shots because we can't explain who he is. He is beyond human experience. If I can explain to you who God is then he is not God. He is just someone with more power than I have.


Faith in a greater being is ALLWAYS personal and experienced. If you can explain your faith to me then it is a lie. If you can believe your faith should hold dominion over me then your faith is a lie.

"But I believe that some/most things happen for a reason." Pups, I also believe all things happen for a reason.

That reason is the physics of our universe. I also believe all the things that happen to me have a reason. My actions.

Favorited a million billion times.

Mine will be the most boring and shallow answer this question will reap, but here goes: I deal with my faith or lack of faith (because as you will see, I'm not sure which it is) by not really caring. If some god somewhere is sending me secret signals of his/her/its special intentions for me, they haven't done a very good job of seeing that I get the message. But if/when I specifically look for just-for-me messages, I can find them everywhere. Everywhere! If I do a rain dance and then it rains, it might be the rain god responding directly to me. If I tell a white lie then stub my toe, it might be one of the more dour gods teaching me a lesson, if I think of my friend and my friend calls me at that very moment, it might be a godly act. If so, god is weird... But, nevertheless, if I want a god, it's easy to find one, easy to decide what I want that god to ask/expect of me. Other people are also very good at finding signs that indicate what they want god to expect of me. One way or another, faith is well within my grasp.

But the world, what we know of it - just the plain, unadorned scientific facts of it so far as our tiny understanding has determined, is absolutely astonishing to me, and that's enough of a god for my purposes. I have no motivation or need to look for miracles, because it's all pretty much miracle to me. To me, this means I am either a person filled with faith, or that I have none at all. Or both. Christianity is full of things I can wholeheartedly embrace - so are the other religions. I embrace them. And reject them. I believe and disbelieve in angels, ghosts, UFOs, ESP, out-of-body experiences, and life after death. Each of those things is as likely to me as the Fibonacci sequence, or the fact that I was born at all. In other words, very unlikely. Faith isn't a decision for me; what is, is - whether I know about it or understand it or not, whether I choose to believe in it or not. So, I don't choose. I am simply aware of some things, mistaken in some things, and unaware of other things... and so is everyone else.

Seeking the Truth, the One True Way, is like ... I don't know, insisting that every book have one single absolute message, every word have one and no more than one meaning, that colors have no shades.... that there must be one and only one way to get from point A to point B. So I don't seek that; I understand that there is an almost infinite number of ways to arrive at a destination. So how do I personally navigate that immensity? I don't. I take the scenic route, and wander about on the way seeing things that I didn't already know would be there, and learning about the geography as I go. Some things lead me to other things, and show me how to travel better. I don't need to have a set course, a single map with one red line drawn on it, because if I did, for me, it would be arbitrary - like closing my eyes and sticking a pin on a roadmap, then then following that road for the sake of having something to follow. For people who want that, they can find a great deal of truth and good advice that way, and more importantly, probably, hope and solace. The best and wisest will cleave to the most humane, loving, merciful, tolerant and generous aspects of the map they choose and reject the cruel and hurtful byways. I look at all the maps, and try to do the same... while also understanding that not everything is mapped.

So... God talks to me every day. Or never. And the message is the same: wonder, awe, responsibility, hope, fear, and miracles; look around you, and be amazed. Do good.

"God talks to me every day. Or never. And the message is the same: wonder, awe, responsibility, hope, fear, and miracles; look around you, and be amazed. Do good."

A bit awkward but eloquent.

I have no God gene either.

In the past, to make empathic space for other peoples beliefs, I've concocted a long philosophical tract that equates God to the synergistic properties of humanity. The soul is our memory when we've gone or the difference between a world with us and a world that never had us. I still believe that to a degree, much as I believe we're hard coded for morality.

But, I have no faith and truth be told, any congregation annoys me.

When I was much younger (11 or 12), the school I went to made me go to church once. We got the "If you don't believe in God you're going to Hell" talk. It pissed me off then and the idea of it still pisses me off. I understand it within the context of the mythos and I understand why as the inventor of a religion you'd insist on it, but it just strikes me as bad and desperate.

I guess that's why I can't get myself to be accepting of other religions. (With the exception of Sikhs and Quakers).

The thing is though, and I firmly believe this, that with or without religion, the world would still be the same. If everyone were athiest, we'd still have wars and the subjugation of women and homophobia. We'd still have rituals for celebrating the union of couples and mourning the deaths of loved ones.

Religion makes some people feel they belong and that's a good thing. There's an inbuilt desire in people to believe there's something more and the fact that religion fills that desire is also a good thing.

Personally though, I don't believe any of it. I'm a dyed in the wool athiest. It's just what I am.

I was brought up in a loosely Baptist family. We went to church on Sundays and I went to Sunday school. I stopped attending as soon as I was allowed to. Since then, aside from a year of resurgence in my interest when I was 19, I've gradually lost my religion, and in fact any traces of spirituality.

(Of course people have the right to their beliefs, but I can't get down with them on that.)

I don't think about it much -- I just gradually accepted that I don't believe in that stuff. It doesn't torment me. Occasionally I'll watch a Discovery Channel show on Revelations or something and it'll strike me that if hell is real I'll probably go there, and the thought gives me the willies. (Though I don't know; depends whose rules you listen to. I was baptised as a teenager so maybe I have that as insurance.) Each time I just remind myself that I don't even believe in that.

The only time that my lack of faith has troubled me was after the death of my ex-boyfriend a couple of years ago, from cancer. Learning he was terminal didn't make me seek a reason in the universe, to understand why bad things happen. It came after he died. I guess I expected that after such a loss I would feel something... a presence, a grace, a glimpse of his spirit, a peace... Instead I felt nothing. Zilch. It was disappointing, because I wanted it to be like I'd read in books and seen in movies, but it wasn't. It wasn't beautiful at all. But I was able to accept that eventually. I believe that if I'd wanted to experience the spirit world I would have. I think our minds are capable of convincing us.

Still, nothing in me reaches out for a god.

I was forced to go to church as a kid - the Church of England in its dullest form. Chanted gobbledegook liturgy, cold, almost-empty buildings, no emotion, no meaning to any of it. I was made to join the choir (even though I can't sing) and attend every service - all of this was just to make my dad look good. My mother never went.

As I was unable to reconcile the idea of a loving God taking care of me with the horror of my home life, I realised at a young age that the whole thing was a crock.

From time to time, usually if I have visitors, or when I visit my friends in Ohio, I'll go to church, to be polite. I actually like going into the buildings (there are some amazingly beautiful churches and cathedals in the world) and I enjoy listening to the music. But I never participate in the ceremony, other than standing up/sitting down when required to do so. I think it would be hypocrtical to do otherwise.

I find the stories in the Bible and the whole Virgin Birth thing to be utterly preposterous. They just Do. Not. Compute.

I think that how your life pans out is a combination of work, attitude and to a huge extent it's just dumb luck. But I also believe that negativity attracts like, so people who go through life fuelled with rage and bitterness will have this reflected back at them in the people they attract.

I love that Iris DeMent song, mudpuppie. This is my mantra.

"I believe in love and I live my life accordingly."

negativity attracts like, so people who go through life fuelled with rage and bitterness will have this reflected back at them in the people they attract.

Amen to that.

I regard religion as "just" another secondary modeling system. Simply put, it's another kind of "language". It has its flaws and limits. It cannot possibly describe the whole universe to me.

I find solace in poetry. It helps me convey how I feel. I value religious texts for their poetic content.

True people teach false dharmas.
False dharmas are all true.
False people teach true dharmas.
True dharmas are all false.
North of the river grow oranges, south of the river tangerines.
In spring, their flowers look the same.

See this AskMe question.

I was brought up in the mainstream christian religion, but only believed briefly: a child’s way of feeling good about having an “answer”. But, as Sunday school went on, I just couldn’t find a way to really believe in religion as an institution: How can there be only one correct way to the final “heaven”. It seemed inconceivable that all others were sent to damnation/whatever if they just didn’t happen to have the “right” faith. What about the cavemen or animals killed on the roadways?

I place all creatures on the same level, so a strictly humanistic religion wasn’t understandable. While some non-christian religions do account for the lives of our fellow creatures, I think my main sticking point is the fact that there is some “goal” or measurement of one’s worthiness. We’re all worthwhile in some way. (critters included)

And the issue of cruelty is non-conducive to my belief in a kind and caring “great being” or “understanding of the universe”– I don’t care how you package or try to explain it. Eating other creatures and plants in order to survive is hard enough to come to terms with…but placing meanness or evil into any type of religious explanation; even the thought that you cannot truly have “good” without “bad” is not something I can accept. I’m too much of a softie. Any religion that tries to “explain away” horrible things or even tries to find a “place” for horrible things is not something I can understand, as much as I tried. I’ve finally just decided that crap happens, it just happens – no explanation needed. And, good stuff happens too. =)

When I was around five or six I asked my mom for permission to not "have to" believe in God (as in" Mom do I have to believe in God?"). She said that believing is up to each individual and I could choose to not believe if I wanted to. Ta-dah, no guilt for lack of faith that was never there.

Thanks for this great thread, bunnies.

seek, and you will find.
ask, and you will receive.
knock, and the door will be opened to you.

edit: LOL! bunnyfire beat me to it.

I have faith, but I've never really believed in God. My faith is in myself, other people, the laws of physics, the earth and the confluence of atoms from whence I came and to which I shall return. I do good by others, and generally have good done by me - although my life has been pretty rough in places I am happy, educated, well-fed, in love, have all of my material, spiritual and emotional needs met and well, life is great.

I was born into a strict, militaristic, frankly quite ridiculous Pentecostal group and spent much of my childhood in abject terror of imminent Armageddon. I did what was expected of me, received the holy spirit and spoke in tongues, got baptised, sang at the supermarket on Saturday mornings and accosted people in the street to hand them pamphlets, but I liked going to meetings (~8 hours on Sunday) most of all because the assembly hall had underfloor heating. I lay on the warm floor at the back of the meeting and read for 3 or so hours at a time, interrupted by fellowship tea and a couple of hours of Sunday School, while it all droned on around me. The 24-hour "prayer and fast"'s were sheer heaven, despite the hunger. It was lovely at the time.

I realised I couldn't be bothered with it any more when I was 8, and mum told me I couldn't participate in the 40 Hour Famine, an annual charity event to raise money for starving people, because "it's their fault. They don't believe in God". This was right around the time of Live Aid, so the images were everywhere and I soon decided that any god that did that to people could live without me. Puh-leeese. So I stopped going, and got on with my life.

I recognise that my early, extreme experiences with this group (which ultimately led to me being removed from my parent's home for three years, and then emancipated at 15) colour my view of faith and religion, but it took many years for me to acknowledge these can be positive forces for some people. I saw only the negative consequences for myself, my family and the world around me. I've since enjoyed going to different religious services, read the great works of all of the major religions and find they are very interesting stories, and I am fascinated by the sociological impact of religion, but I simply don't believe and have to fight against trying to understand and rationalise belief in others. So, to your answer your question, I regard my lack of faith in a God as just the way it is, and deal with it by putting one foot in front of the other, doing the most good by the most people most of the time, and looking forward to the day I can give back to the earth the atoms it took to keep me doing so.

This is a very interesting thread. Thanks!

My long trip into agnosticism began when I was 10 or 11 was told that my step-grandfather didn't pray with us at Thanksgiving because he was agnostic. After asking what that meant and having it explained to me, I asked another question. "You mean, people don't have to believe in Jesus and God?" The idea stunned me and woke me to a whole 'nother world.

I was brought up as an Episcopalian. Mum had us attending church regularly until I was six or seven when she quit due to church politics. My two oldest brothers were confirmed, the rest of us didn't make it that far. We still had prayers at meal-times and celebrated the Christian holidays at home (Easter, Christmas, etc.).

By my mid-teens I was pretty sure that Jesus had a pretty good message but no one but myself was responsible for my sins. Not long after that all semblance of being a Christian went away.

I did a lot of reading; mostly Judaism, some Buddhism and a bit of Paganism. I even tried be a practicing Wiccan for a while. I got a lot out of each religion but nothing that really called out to me.

So, I'm agnostic. I've looked for faith for most of my life. It's something I felt that I should have. I've recently come to the conclusion that if it's meant to be found, it'll have to find me. I'm tired of looking and finding nothing there.

taz, I recently heard what you're describing expressed as, "Differing beliefs are many paths up the same mountain." Which I liked, and which I believe. I tend to think there *is* some organizing, relational force in the universe, and various religions and sciences and faiths are all working their way up the mountain of understanding different facets of it.

I like that metaphor better than the blind people and the elephant because there's a notion of progress in it, I think.

I'm a little late here, but I stumbled across this at Real Live Preacher awhile back and loved it. It's more about a loss of faith and I'll paste it below but if the mods feel it's too long, feel free to delete it.

The Preacher's Story in Four Parts
This story originally appeared 4 parts. I've combined them into one for convenience.

The Preacher’s Story Part 1
"I am a strange mix"

The preacher grew up in a devout Baptist family in Texas. Some of you are imagining a domineering father and endless hours of religious abuse punctuated with occasional beatings.

Not so.

I have a great family. My parents were and are gentle Christians who put a premium on living a Christ-like life and helping the poor. We lived near the border, and my parents were actively involved with a group of Christians who were constantly throwing their resources at the piteous poverty that co-existed with us just on the other side of the Rio Grande.

I spent a lot of time in Mexico as a young boy. The preacher knows the mingled smells of outhouses, kerosene, and poverty. It’s something you never forget.

One year during a bitter cold spell my father and his friends showed up at the border with a load of blankets and coats. The forecast was for temperatures well below freezing that night, and they knew a lot of families were going to be cold. The Mexican government forbade them from entering. Some bureaucratic bullshit, I guess.

My dad said his kinder, gentler equivalent of “fuck it” and became a smuggler on the spot. He and the others made numerous trips across the border that day in different cars with blankets, food, and jackets crammed under the seats and hidden in the trunks.

My dad felt that one’s calling to serve God was higher than one’s calling to obey the law. For Christ’s sake, he and his friends couldn’t let children freeze.

“For Christ’s sake” packs a punch when you mean it literally.

My family went to services 3 and 4 times a week. Ours was a nice church filled with good people who cherished one another. I enjoyed being a part of the community and learned to love Jesus in that place.

I came to understand that it was the teachings of that same Jesus that led my parents to fight poverty and want in the border town.

These were the Christian people who nurtured me and taught me my faith.

There was a leeetle problem though. Early on it became apparent that something was different about me. I couldn’t make myself believe some parts of the bible. I was a natural born skeptic.

When told the “Noah and the Ark” story in Sunday School, I quickly figured out that two of every kind of animal would not fit on one boat. No one else seemed to be doing the math. I could no more believe the ark story than I could believe the sky was green. I wanted to believe. Believing seemed nice, but I couldn’t. I COULD NOT.

I felt strange and out of place because everyone else at church seemed to believe everything.

I kept my “believing problem” to myself because I thought something was wrong with me.

Thus was born the strange dichotomy that has become the Preacher. A passionate love for Christ and his teachings mingled with a fierce skepticism that would only grow stronger as I grew older.



The Preacher’s Story Part 2
"College, Seminary, and Disillusionment"

I felt “the call” to ministry after high school. Let’s just say I had a strong desire to be of service to God, and I wanted to learn more about the now troublesome bible.

I went to a University and majored in Religious Studies with minors in Greek and Philosophy. Except for the philosophy, that’s a standard “pre-seminary” degree. Eye opening time! I discovered most serious bible scholars had moved beyond a simplistic reading of scripture.

The bottom line: Not everything in the bible should be taken literally, and, more importantly, not everything in the bible applies to MY life.

After college I spent four years in seminary studying further. I managed to work out my problems with scripture and now believe the bible won’t cause insurmountable problems for anyone willing to study it with integrity.

I was, however, experiencing disillusionment of another kind. The source of this new trouble was my growing dissatisfaction with a lot of the Christian people I was meeting.

Sometimes it seemed Christian people literally took leave of their senses. Once I was at a gathering with Christians who were singing some kind of spiritual song. One of the lines included this hideous phrase, “I’ve never seen God’s children begging for bread.”

I was sickened. “What about those kids I saw in Mexico”? Were they suggesting those hungry kids were not God’s children? I decided these people were living in a dream world. All they wanted to do was sing songs about Jesus and pretend the world was wonderful. The world IS wonderful, but it also contains great evil and sadness.

It seemed to me that many Christians saw what they wanted to see. They needed the world to fit easily into their categories.

Over the 8 years of my formal theological education, I encountered many such examples of Christians who, I felt, were not living honest and authentic lives.

By the time I was out of school and ready to be an employed minister, I was having some serious problems with the church. That’s not good. My options were pretty much “minister” or “you want fries with that?”

One
I believed then and still believe that many Christians are not honest about their own failings, sins, and disappointments. Like Martha Stewart, they try to sell a sugary, imaginary world of happiness to people who are hurting and looking for real answers.

Two
I believed then and still believe that many Christians use manipulative techniques in order to gain converts. Converts are counted and boasted about. I shit you not. They wouldn’t call it boasting, but that’s what it is. Retch!

Three
I believed then and still believe that many Christians have created a sub-culture with it’s own language, customs, and myths. Ministers even have their own dialect and hairdos. Weird. This sub-culture is really more about worshipping America than God, more about achieving than receiving, more about competition than grace. The problem with a religious sub-culture is no one else “gets it”, and you are isolated from the world you are called to SERVE.

Four
I became increasingly disgusted with the institutional and bureaucratic nature of churches. It seemed to me that many churches were worshipping the idols of wealth, power, and prestige. It seemed to me that many churches existed solely to support the Christian sub-culture.

I could write for an hour about each of these, but the Preacher counts brevity as a virtue.

In spite of these troubles, I still believed that something beautiful was possible for the Church. I dreamed of finding a small community of people, dedicated to Christ and to bringing God’s love to the world. These people would be bold enough to live authentic lives and not be tied to a Christian sub-culture.

I would say I longed for a spiritual journey and not a religious assimilation.



The Preacher’s Story Part 3
"Dark Night of the Soul"

After seminary I started a chaplain internship. The program was called “Clinical Pastoral Education”, sometimes referred to as “Tear the Young Minister a New One."

I trundled my candy-ass, educated self to the hospital. I was fresh out of seminary and used to sitting around talking about higher criticism.

This hospital gig was just the kick in the ass I needed.

You see, people facing death don’t give a fuck about your interpretation of II Timothy. Some take the “bloodied, but unbowed” road, but most dying people want to pray with the chaplain. And they don’t want weak-ass prayers either. They don’t want you to pray that God’s will be done.

Hell no. People want you to get down and dirty with them. They want to call down angels and the powers of the Almighty. THEY ARE DYING and the whole world should stop.

I threw myself into it. I prayed holding hands and cradling heads. I prayed with children and old men. I prayed with a man who lost his tongue to cancer. I lent him mine. I prayed my ass off. I had 50 variations of every prayer you could imagine, one hell of a repertoire.

I started noticing something. When the doctors said someone was going to die, they did. When they said 10% chance of survival, about 9 out of 10 died. The odds ran pretty much as predicted by the doctors. I mean, is this praying doing ANYTHING?

I’m sophisticated enough to understand the value of human contact, but prayer is supposed to affect the outcome, right?

I began to feel the “ping” of a tiny hammer, tapping away at my faith.

Then I met Jenny.

30 something. Cute. New mother with two little kids. Breast cancer. Found it too late. Spread all over. Absolutely going to die.

Jenny had only one request. “I know I’m going to die, chaplain. I need time to finish this. It's for my kids. Pray with me that God will give me the strength to finish it.”

She showed me the needlepoint pillow she was making for her children. It was an “alphabet blocks and apples” kind of thing. She knew she would not be there for them. Would not drop them off at kindergarten, would not see baseball games, would not help her daughter pick out her first bra. No weddings, no grandkids. Nothing.

She had this fantasy that her children would cherish this thing - sleep with it, snuggle it. Someday it might be lovingly put on display at her daughter’s wedding. Perhaps there would be a moment of silence. Some part of her would be there.

I was totally hooked. We prayed. We believed. Jesus, this was the kind of prayer you could believe in. We were like idiots and fools.

A couple of days later I went to see her only to find the room filled with doctors and nurses. She was having violent convulsions and terrible pain. I watched while she died hard. Real hard.

As the door shut, the last thing I saw was the unfinished needlepoint lying on the floor.

Ping. The hammer fell and preacher came tumbling after.

It’s funny, when your faith finally caves, it goes all at once. You realize you were just a shell held together with hackneyed rituals and desperate hopes. You are not strong. You do not have answers.

I don’t remember the walk back to the office. I must have had the classic, “Young chaplain just got the shit kicked out of him” look because people left me alone.

I looked in the restroom mirror and said, “I do not believe in God.” I knew this was the truth and felt the need to say it out loud. I was on the other side now. I was an unbeliever. It was like waking up in Tokyo and noticing to your great surprise that you've become Japanese. You weren’t raised in Japan, and you have no idea how to use chopsticks. What the hell are you gonna do with yourself?

It wasn't the experience with Jenny that caused my break with God. It was the kids in Mexico, my difficulty in believing parts of the bible, the phony Christians I met along the way, and the hundreds of prayers that seemed unanswered. Jenny was just the last ping of a hammer that had been working on my foundation for a long time.

St. John of the Cross calls it "The Dark Night of the Soul." He says those seeking God will walk the paths of others but eventually those paths will end and there will be no path. They will be left with “Nada, Nada, Nada.” Nothing, Nothing, Nothing.

It broke my heart. I grieved in joint and marrow. My reptilian brain cried. I was sad all the way to the bottom.


The Preacher’s Story Part 4
The Preacher is Out of His Tiny Mind

I received an email from someone puzzled about the grief I experienced when I gave up on God. This person felt liberated when she left Christianity.

I understand how some would feel that way. Many of you only know Christianity from bad books, TV preachers, and the people who watch them. If that were all I knew of Christianity I would celebrate my liberation from it all the days of my life.

But I was exposed early to the real stuff - Top Shelf Christianity - Deep and Old Christianity. This kind is practiced by people who work until they stink and take life in great draughts. Their hands are as rough as their hides, and they DO their faith in secret, hiding their good works in obedience to Christ. They know how to love and be loved in return. Their laughter is loud and has its roots in joy.

These Christians don’t want your money and they don’t advertise. You will only find them if you MUST find them. These are the ones who took me to Mexico as a boy and showed me pain and joy. They hid nothing from me.

I was also blessed by being exposed to the right kind of Christian thinkers. C.S Lewis and his friend J.R.R. Tolkein. Frederick Buechner, Carlyle Marney, and Thomas Merton. Will Campbell who wrote “Brother to a Dragonfly” and Eberhard Arnold. Frederick Dale Bruner and Martin Luther King Jr.

You did understand there was more to this than religious TV and the drivel they sell in those awful Christian bookstores, right? After all, Christianity didn’t sustain itself for twenty centuries by shitting Hallmark cards before a live studio audience.

Hell yes, I grieved. I thought not “believing” in God meant losing this life and, worse, losing these people.

I decided not to give up without a fight. I can be a stubborn son-of-a-bitch. I sought answers. I read the good stuff and talked with the good people.

I learned some things. I found my way.

Turns out Christianity is an Eastern religion. The earliest Christians were Hebrews. Semites. People of the East. They did not know how to separate mind from body. They were holistic before holistic was cool.

In our world we have separated mind from body to our great loss. Here a man may betray his wife and neglect his children, but say he loves them “down inside”.

Bullshit. There is no “down inside.” Love is something you do, not something you feel.

Likewise, we think having faith means being convinced God exists in the same way we are convinced a chair exists. People who cannot be completely convinced of God’s existence think faith is impossible for them.

Not so. People who doubt can have great faith because faith is something you do, not something you think. In fact, the greater your doubt the more heroic your faith.

I learned that it doesn’t matter in the least that I be convinced of God’s existence. Whether or not God exists is none of my business, really. What do I know of existence? I don’t even know how the VCR works.

What does matter is whether or not I am faithful. I think faithful is a hell of a good word. It still has some of its original shine. It still calls us to action.

Once I stumbled upon this very old truth, I prayed the most honest prayer of my life.

God, I don’t have great faith, but I can be faithful. My belief in you may be seasonal, but my faithfulness will not. I will follow in the way of Christ. I will act as though my life and the lives of others matter. I will love.

I have no greater gift to offer than my life. Take it.

That’s it. I pushed all my chips across the table. The preacher bet it all. Why? Because the idea that there is a God who cares for us busts my heart wide open. Because I pushed reason as far as it can go but I wanted to go farther still. Because I wanted to, and... well... I just wanted to.

I’m an idiot and out of my mind, and I don’t care who knows it. Sue me.

The Preacher.

“And what does the Lord require of you, O man, but to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God.” Micah 6:8



Postscript

I’ve been working this simple spiritual program for 16 years now. I seek to be faithful to what my tradition teaches me about God. I fall short much of the time. I ask forgiveness and move on.

After 16 years God gave me two gifts.

Prayer became a joy again. I sit in silence more than I speak nowadays. I’ve been known to sneak into churches and take naps in the pews. I know it sounds crazy, but it feels like God is watching me when I nap in church, and I like that.

Sometimes I “feel” that God exists. After all this time, that's nice, but not necessary anymore.

My old demons still haunt me. Voices whisper to me on dark nights, saying, “You know there is no God. You're wasting your life and you are a fool.”

I hear the voices, but they have very little power because you know I’m not going to stop now.

rlp

That was mesmerizing.

And a tough act to follow.

So I'll say it simply. I have faith, but I don't have religion. And I apologize to others here, but most of the hard-core religious folks I know are also the biggest hypocrites I've ever met. I don't think that God controls everything. My belief is that we chart our own courses, but that He is there to pick up the pieces. My biggest belief is in the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have done unto you.
I wish I were more eloquent, but that's all I've got.

Thanks for these heartfelt anecdotes and insightful analyses, folks. A lot of the feelings are ones I have.

In light of everyone else's testimonials, I feel like I should tell people my story as well.

I was born Muslim and still am a Muslim culturally. I follow a lot of the tenets of the faith, such as not eating pork and not drinking. There are other parts of the faith that I don't do, such as pray five times a day or read the Quran.

Since I can remember, I was appalled by the hypocrisy shown by some "good Muslims". These were folks who would lie, cheat, and steal during the week, only to become pious on Friday. Seeing these people act godly was an affront. It would be phony and superficial of Allah to see these people as better than me simply because they follow the letter of the law rather than its spirit.

I experienced a brief renaissance of faith in college. I started going to mosque on Fridays, and paid attention to the sermons. The imam (priest) we had at that time was a kind and insightful man who would give interesting and thought provoking lectures about how we can be better Muslims and live our daily lives. Then, the good imam was ousted, and a succession of loud and offensive loons raving about hell fire took over. The flicker of faith was dimmed.

Things came to a head for me when my friend graduated from college. His dad came in from Indonesia to attend the graduation. This man was the most outwardly pious man I had ever seen. He read the Quran, prayed five times a day, and quoted Quranic verses at every turn. He was also a crooked bureaucrat who was robbing his country blind. By stealing from the government and the people, he had bought a luxurious lifestyle for himself and his children. I found it hard to reconcile such piety with such disgustingly dishonest behavior.

Since then, I've attempted to be a good Muslim, but I cannot reconcile the extreme hypocrisy shown by religious people.

I have faith. I believe in Allah. But I can't do the rituals and other stuff that I see as needless busywork. I like to think about Allah and try to reconcile my faith with my lack of religion. It's been tough.

I've been trying to explore other doctrines such as deism. It might work. But reading all of the accounts above, I realize that the path to faith is a lifelong journey. Thanks guys. Your words have encouraged me to keep on exploring.

I was appalled by the hypocrisy shown by some "good Muslims".

Totally.

I've deleted several paragraphs, repeatedly. I can't really say it more articulately than, um, "totally."

That said, reenum, if you really do believe, find a way to do it outside of the accepted social structure. If it's something you need, if it's something that's important to you, find a way to do it without letting other people foul it.

But if your beliefs require human validation, and you're not finding it, maybe you need to look elsewhere for life's meaning. And that's totally fine. Not what you grew up with, but fine.

And this thread rocks.

reenum - that you so much for sharing your faith. For whatever it's worth, I often had the same exact thoughts when I was a member of the church. Even now, I know people who are so devout on Sundays, and around atheists, but in their own hearts they're not "right with the Lord", as we used to say.

But, I don't think that necessarily invalidates your own faith! I recognized recently that politics can infiltrate religion as much as any other organization. Faith and spirituality may be a deeply personal and individual thing, but religion has a component of social interaction and responsibility that can be so difficult. It IS possible to have faith without religion, but I think it's difficult. Both Christianity and Islam have a strong component of social responsibility that's sometimes clouded by the ritual, etc. But I don't believe it has to be that way. Community is so important now, even as we become more secluded.

I home I'm making sense.

Phantom favorite button: hit. hit. hit. hit. hit. hit.

Yes.... hit. hit. hit.

I would like to apologize for the assumption that your background was that of Christianity. What a dope I was.

I know the frustration of the outwardly pious, inwardly corrupt practitioner of faith. But a negative bad example does not negate the whole of that faith. There is still a great faith there, even if some miss it and mangle it.

If.... if you have faith, the faith in Allah for you, God for me, whatever, there is one place that faith comes from: Your own soul in communion with the Almighty. The beautiful, heartful stories presented here have shown that there are many ways to come to experience that.

Peace be upon you.

I love this thread. And I wish I had words to express just how timely and relevant it is for me, too. I've tried to contribute to it no less than three times over the past couple of days, and every time the words escape me, because I'm not there yet.

Here's the thing. I grew up with wonderful parents who taught me of a Loving God and a Golden Rule. Unfortunately, the three of us are pretty much unique among my family... most of the rest are of a conservative, bigoted, and inherently hypocritical brand of Southern Baptist.

As a reaction to that, and with my parents' blessing, my approach to religion has always been similar to that of Miko -- constantly question, explore, challenge, and learn.

Also with my parents' blessing, I married into a wonderful family of Baha'is and Buddhists and believers in the Chinese celestial bureaucracy, and found even more to explore and learn from and draw upon.

Then my grandmother (who was herself open-minded and full of love) died, and at age 29 I attended my first funeral. The whole service was solely about how only Believers would ever see Nana in Heaven. As I sat next to my Buddhist husband, whom Nana loved so dearly, the anger swelled inside me. Afterwards, everyone said what a lovely service it was. And they really meant it. A few days after the service, I asked my mom about it... she said, "Oh, sweetie, I'm so sorry. But that preacher was tame compared to some of the funerals I've seen."

That was it - my glitch in the Matrix. I thought it was just my grief, but as the grief has slowly begun to subside, the feelings of discontent have only grown stronger. I can't do it anymore. I still believe that Jesus was a pretty swell guy, but it really hurts to be around most of the people who hang out with him nowadays. So I don't sit at his table in the cafeteria anymore.

I would be ok with that, except that I'm not even sure about the God question right now. Like maybe I'm either realizing that God's not there, or I'm so messed up that I can't connect with God in any meaningful way anymore. That's scary, because no matter what I've believed about this religion or that denomination over the years, the one constant up until now has always been my belief in a Divine of some kind -- regardless of what name he/she goes by. I'm not sure I know what to be -- how to be -- without that.

So what does all this mean? As others have said, the path to faith is a journey. I'm on a really dark patch of road right now. And I really wish that someone had trimmed back these tree branches, because they're scratchy. But (don't lose your lunch here, folks) the one tiny scrap of faith that I still have left is faith in myself... faith that I will figure this out if I struggle with it long enough. As long as I have that, the rest will come in time.

reenum and somanyamys (and others), y'all might be interested in the book After the Ecstasy, the Laundry, by Jack Kornfield. It's mostly a compilation of different people's experiences with maintaining their faith, especially after some sort of communion or enlightenment experience, and how hard it can be; he has snippets from lots of different people of lots of different faiths from lots of different time periods. I found it fascinating.

Thanks, occhiblu. That does look fascinating. I'll definitely be adding it to my "spiritual crisis" reading list.