What if your faith just died?

[ICametoLurk]

Leviticus 13: 45-46 specifically requires facemasks to prevent the spread of plagues. It also mandates quarantines and social distancing.

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

Religion is the opium of the masses and your dope wore off.

I can't actually say with any credibility what's going on with you, everybody has trials at times. What I can offer up is my own experience. I converted to a religion for a brief time, but left the church because I had a bad breakup with a girl there and felt rejected by my peers of that age there (they weren't mean, I could just tell I didn't fit in with them). Nobody there really put any effort at all into keeping me around, and I quickly wandered into another church where I felt a lot more spiritual. I told myself I'd keep practicing the old religion and that God may have a purpose for wanting me to be in a place that the Church rejected. But it didn't.

The truth I realized was that I never actually did convert in my heart, I just liked what I saw, wanted to convert, wanted worldly things associated with the church, and so the roots were too shallow to survive being replanted. I still find the religion fascinating and feel emotional attachment to it, it kind of feels like home even though I was only with it for a very brief time.

It's all a larp, it's shit we make up to give meaning to our real feelings of spirituality. I have something of a religion I build in my head - I can feel deep connection to things like stars, polar roses, the forest, etc. - but any ritual or structure I'd give it would be meaningless because the age and collective activity of religion is what legitimizes it in our heads. It would also be a solitary activity. This I think is something I used to snort at that people call "spiritual but not religious." I tried self-consciously practicing Christianity anyways, but it doesn't work, it's frustrating, when I read the Bible I HATE IT even more (it put me off going to church) because I see right through all the ancient Hebrew goat herder bullshit, it doesn't feel like I'm reading the word of God, it feels like I'm reading one ancient tribe's personal mythology that is as narrow in scope as the world right in front of them and is as morally disgusting as they themselves are. There's parts of the Bible that I like (mostly as literature, Ecclesiastes, Lamentations, and the Sermon on the Mount), but Genesis is awful.

You implied you started believing in God as an adult, maybe you're going through something similar to what I did. You may also just be having a normal lapse in faith like happens to everybody, even preachers.

 

[The Great Chandler]

Personally I like being an ant. I don't need some transcendent belief to no longer become human or some grandiose materialistic dream to have it better than I currently have. If something good comes along, that's fine! I think what you're looking for isn't religion, but spirituality, which doesn't necessarily come out of the Old Book, but out of yourself. If you happen to find God or some sort of self-evaluation on your own? That's great! Now some people, like you said, go 'medieval' out of cope from clown world, which is a turn off to a lot of people who just want to see God, not to make their lives more uncomfortable just for the sweet gig of going to heaven. Personally, I'm not one to judge. Some people just see the surface idea, not the idea.

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

Personally I like being an ant. I don't need some transcendent belief to no longer become human or some grandiose materialistic dream to have it better than I currently have. If something good comes along, that's fine! I think what you're looking for isn't religion, but spirituality, which doesn't necessarily come out of the Old Book, but out of yourself. If you happen to find God or some sort of self-evaluation on your own? That's great! Now some people, like you said, go 'medieval' out of cope from clown world, which is a turn off to a lot of people who just want to see God, not to make their lives more uncomfortable just for heaven. Personally, I'm not one to judge. Some people just see the surface idea, not the idea.

It is definitely possible to be religious without being spiritual, I see plenty of people who seem to believe religion like it's just a fact of existence but don't have any of the heart behind it, no sense of wonder.

 

[teriyakiburns]

I haven't had any kind of atheist "awakening" nor do I feel "angry at God." I just feel nothing. I'm not convinced by the things I used to find convincing. I'm not moved by the things I used to find moving.

This sounds like depression more than anything else. Lack of feeling and motivation, lack of conviction about previously held beliefs, lack of motivation in life. It all fits. Get some sunlight and lift.

 

[Astro Loafo]

I doubt. If you really lost all your faith, you'd become a hobgoblin.

 

[gang weeder]

You are describing faith as some kind of emotional state. It is not. It is a belief that God exists and He is good. You can be depressed and in a shitty emotional state while still holding that belief.

What denomination is your church? If you're this dissatisfied with it, leave. I changed to a different one because my former church decided to worship gay pride flags and George Floyd instead of Jesus Christ.

 

[BBJ_4_Ever]

I can really see how it comes across like that from what I wrote. I'm not sure how it ended up that way. Writing that exemption statement was something I had to do utterly alone, and in writing it I felt I'd articulated exactly what I believe, independent from any community or clergy. Logically, it should have left me stronger in faith even if also more alienated from the community. At first it seemed that was the case.

There is no way for me to truly practice the faith I had in a vacuum. There are obligations and rituals that you're supposed to be taking part in all the time as part of the community. In fact if you fail to do so you effectively excommunicate yourself.

The Desert Fathers and even some more modern hermits managed to exist outside the direct auspices of the Church and love and serve God. Since the ceremonies no longer hold importance to you, does loss of the sacraments bother you more or the loss of the personal contacts if you don't fulfill the obligations?

 

[Begemot]

"People asked me to wear masks to the store, there is no god!!!"

Holy shit you christcucks get more and more like fragile tumblrites every day.

Jack Scalfani was a Goddamn mistake.....

 

[RollerGator]

Man, you can′t trust anybody these days
I took my car to the garage just to get a new alternator and they put in a whole fuel pump! Cost me a hundred dollars extra!
You can't trust anybody these days, about all you can do is die around here.

I got no hope for anything happening!
No, the check is not in the mail!
No, I don′t love you!
Yes, that was me who cut that fart, okay?
I'm owning that, alright?
'Cause that′s the smell of death warmed over Clown smile!
I′ve been to the circus before and let me tell you, buddy, those guys are in makeup!

Well, I'm pretty pissed about it, wouldn′t you be? I've been sold a bill of goods, by a clown, no less. Guy had a white face, big red smile, rubber nose little pointed hat. Looked like an ice cream cone stuck on top of a neck!

Well, yeah, I am pretty pissed about it, thank you very much. I watch T.V. Every other minute they′re selling me something
This, and that, and Nike
And blah blah blah blah blah
and do that, and you'll marry that girl,
and you′ll have a floor, and you'll clean it,
and you'll be in a refrigerator with a bunch of margarine! Yeah, and you′ll live forever!
Because if you eat that bean product
or that curd, or that CocaCola, everything′ll be fine! You'll laugh all the way to your fucking grave!

And when you die and you go to heaven or hell, doesn′t really matter. You'll come out of your body, peeled like a grape and you′ll look around and go
'Well, here I am, I took it up the ass for so goddamn long now I′m dead, so where's my eternal reward?'
And guess what, buddy? Guess again.
Yeah, you′ll meet God, alright, you′ll meet God. He's a big motherfucker with a big white face and a red smile and a pointed hat
like an ice cream cone stuck on a neck.
And guess what?

You′ll get the old clown smile death warmed over. You're back down to Earth!
You're coming back this time as a Hutu or a Tutsi! Or someone from Northern Ireland!
Or maybe a Serb! Or maybe one of those Bosnia Muslims in an ethnic cleansing camp this time! Oh, thanks a lot, pal thanks a lot!

Clown smile Death warmed over
Oh, don′t do me any favors, you fucking asshole!

 

[Haim Arlosoroff]

Writing that exemption statement was something I had to do utterly alone, and in writing it I felt I'd articulated exactly what I believe, independent from any community or clergy. Logically, it should have left me stronger in faith even if also more alienated from the community. At first it seemed that was the case.

There is no way for me to truly practice the faith I had in a vacuum. There are obligations and rituals that you're supposed to be taking part in all the time as part of the community. In fact if you fail to do so you effectively excommunicate yourself.

Take up something else to pass the time, you're feeling burnt out.

Trying to force yourself through a thing is tiring in a spiritual way, don't try to force it more but try to relax it and give it time to refill. Honestly, it sounds like you need to relax a rule or two in your life if you aren't already. Drink a beer with some friends and eat some wings. If you're more of a solitary person then get yourself an ebook, get a full body massage, and lay in the tub listening to it. Go for a walk and listen to music, try not to think about anything for two hours while you do it.

You pulled a mental muscle, don't force it to work. Let it heal and one day it will have done so and you'll feel like you used to. Its a brain chemical thing, try drinking gatorade too for the electrolytes. That tends to slow me down for 5 mins, and recharges something.

Just don't force normalcy or you'll do permanent damage.

 

[Shitposting boogeyman]

What happened is religion is primarily a way to enforce group cohesion and the effects wore of when you got cut off from the reinforcement rituals.

 

[SofondaCox]

In Matthew, there's a story about a boy with demon infestation. The disciples ask Jesus why they weren't able to drive the demon out, and he told them it was because they didn't have enough faith. That if they had even a mustard seed of faith, it would be enough.

A mustard seed is very small, and easy to lose. If you look diligently, I think you will find it again.

 

[Syaoran Li]

With me, the last few years or so have only strengthened my belief in the existence of God but sometimes it was in the worst and bleakest way possible.

"Spiritually blackpilled" doesn't even begin to cover it. It's been a wild and insane rollercoaster of an experience.

 

[axeltrite]

אֶהְיֶה אֲשֶׁר אֶהְיֶה means to me that‎‎ a belief in God creates him. So I would simply believe again.

 

[Shinzo Abe’s Ghost]

I solemnly proclaim that there is no God, no spark of divinity nor innate goodness embedded in biology in general or mankind in particular. It is an alien notion from sentience within a barren existence that seeks to exculpate its own redundancy through sheer power of make-believe. There is no second-coming nor truth, however scientific or personal, to fill the void that comes with true and honest introspection. You will endure it while you live and it is all that will remain once you die.

No refunds.

 

[Fish Fudge]

It sounds more like you lost faith in the structure your specific church provided, and the community that existed within it.

I came to Christianity late - after rebelling against it for the longest time when I was a wee whipper-snapper. My faith isn't defined or controlled by the church I go to, but it helps to provide a structure. Probably, helpfully, nobody was demanding masks or vaccine mandates - so we never really had any division appear. It might serve you to start to look elsewhere, where people are more aligned with your values. Remember - the church is not the physical embodiment of your faith.

Like I say, I wandered away from my faith for the longest time. It returns - there's really no other outcome to be had if you're true to nature and yourself.

We make mistakes, we stumble, we lose our way. All of that is just what it means to be human. Your God and your faith will still be waiting for you after all of it.

 

[Shitposting boogeyman]

With me, the last few years or so have only strengthened my belief in the existence of God but in the worst and bleakest way possible.

"Spiritually blackpilled" doesn't even begin to cover it.

Elaborate

 

[Shringlecrink]

If?

 

[timewave0]

What’s reality? I don’t know. When my bird was looking at my computer monitor I thought, ‘That bird has no idea what he’s looking at.’ And yet what does the bird do? Does he panic? No, he can’t really panic, he just does the best he can. Is he able to live in a world where he’s so ignorant? Well, he doesn’t really have a choice. The bird is okay even though he doesn’t understand the world. You’re that bird looking at the monitor, and you’re thinking to yourself, ‘I can figure this out.’ Maybe you have some bird ideas. Maybe that’s the best you can do.

-Terry A. Davis (PBUH)