Thank you!
Everyone Has Faith; That is the Only Option
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Kishkumen
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Re: Everyone Has Faith; That is the Only Option
"I have learned with what evils tyranny infects a state. For it frustrates all the virtues, robs freedom of its lofty mood, and opens a school of fawning and terror, inasmuch as it leaves matters not to the wisdom of the laws, but to the angry whim of those who are in authority.”
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Morley
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Re: Everyone Has Faith; That is the Only Option
john, thank you for the time and effort you always put into your replies.
Perhaps some of the problem I have with your explanations stems from the apparent fact that our minds seem to work so differently. I'll agree that an understanding of the spiritual can be difficult when seen as a puzzle to be solved, I'll even agree with your concept that the result might be better represented as a collage. But for me, the collage has to have some internal consistency, a golden thread that unites and explains the piece as a work of art. I wasn't able to find that in Mormonism. I'm happy that you were.
After a few bad episodes with the so-called virtues of faith, hope, belief, et al, I wasn't able to make them work any more. As a faltering member, I tried prayer, fasting, quiet meetings with Church 'higher-ups,' and even the entire round of formal missionary discussions. Maybe I had learned by that point how tricky the mind is--how easily we prepare and then swallow our own self-deceptions--and had found with that that I could never go back. Choosing to have faith that I could ride a bicycle was nothing like choosing to believe in the God of the LDS Church. God knows how hard I tired. In the end, I knew that it would cost me my soul if I stayed.
As always, John, thank you for the dialogue. You help to polish my hard edges with your persistent display of grace.
Perhaps some of the problem I have with your explanations stems from the apparent fact that our minds seem to work so differently. I'll agree that an understanding of the spiritual can be difficult when seen as a puzzle to be solved, I'll even agree with your concept that the result might be better represented as a collage. But for me, the collage has to have some internal consistency, a golden thread that unites and explains the piece as a work of art. I wasn't able to find that in Mormonism. I'm happy that you were.
After a few bad episodes with the so-called virtues of faith, hope, belief, et al, I wasn't able to make them work any more. As a faltering member, I tried prayer, fasting, quiet meetings with Church 'higher-ups,' and even the entire round of formal missionary discussions. Maybe I had learned by that point how tricky the mind is--how easily we prepare and then swallow our own self-deceptions--and had found with that that I could never go back. Choosing to have faith that I could ride a bicycle was nothing like choosing to believe in the God of the LDS Church. God knows how hard I tired. In the end, I knew that it would cost me my soul if I stayed.
As always, John, thank you for the dialogue. You help to polish my hard edges with your persistent display of grace.