Do you choose this simplistic, intellectually bankrupt, view of faith because you find the fullness of Christianity is overwhelming?
Intellectually bankrupt and simplistic? The Bible is not written for some kind of master theologian or super genius - the KJV is a direct translation from the original Hebrew and Greek texts into basic English. The Bible is literally written so that a preteen can understand it. It was not written for your demographic or my demographic, it was written for everyone to read and understand clearly. There is nothing hidden in God's Word - everything God wants us to know is within those 66 Books of the Bible. This is partially also why I do not accept Enoch or the Apocrypha as canon.
Wouldn't you say it's prideful, and somewhat arrogant, to assume you're not wrong?
I'm not wasting time sitting in a congregation in a church where the pastor and congregation are going to be worshipping directly into Hell. How would it be "arrogant" in any way to avoid churches with wolves and snakes running the show? With the pulpit full of people like that, what chance does the flock have? Every last church in close range to me which isn't Catholic or Eastern Orthodox has one or many of the following problems: is Calvinist, pushing woke politics/progressive Christian nonsense, has a female pastor or someone calling themselves "apostle", does not only use the KJV, uses contemporary music instead of hymns and "worships" like a nightclub. If you are in some worldly church like that, you need to RUN and run FAST. If I have to make a two hour round trip every Sunday, then so be it.
I know I'm not wrong about Catholicism, either. I'm not going back to a church that falsely teaches there is a place called Purgatory, that worships Mary, that prays to Mary and dead popes and saints, which calls male human religious leaders "father", which teaches about "mortal and venial" sins, which teaches bishops cannot get married, which displays graven images, which has an altered Ten Commandments, which teaches you have to confess to a priest to get sins forgiven, which teaches Mary is an intercessor, which does repetitive prayers to Mary, which teaches Mary did not have more children after Jesus was born, which does the sign of the cross, and which has mandatory celibacy for priests and nuns (nuns are not Biblical, either, neither are monks). These are all things I used to do, have seen Catholics do with my own eyes, and used to believe.
The Catholic will claim that "we don't worship Mary/statues, we venerate her/them!" - praying to someone or something is an act of worship! The entire denomination is rife with idolatry.
All these people in the congregation of a Catholic church crying and heartbroken over an INANIMATE OBJECT being broken. The attached video above reminds me of a statue of Dagon in the Old Testament getting its head knocked off.
If you're interested in Orthodox-esque fiction, Tolstoy's Two Old Men is a beautiful story that captures the bare essense of the Christian ethos (despite being written by Tolstoy)
I'm actually going to be reading a Dostoevsky book soon, not Tolstoy. I read a lot of Russia-related stuff in general because a lot of my paternal family comes from Romanov Russia, though I mainly read history and haven't read much in terms of fiction/adjacent literature from that part of Europe. I don't even read that much fiction to begin with. Really, the only fiction I read would fall into one or some crossover of the following categories:
- Christian fiction
- Morality tales/old folk tales
- Political fiction which aligns with my political sensibilities
I tend to avoid fiction because fiction is generally meant for women. Don't believe me? Walk into a Barnes and Noble and look at the popular fiction they promote - they're clearly marketed to women. The other kinds of books that big chain book stores like that would promote are "classics", aka books normies will recognize from high school English class.