I'm not sure exactly what sort of response you are looking for, but hope this helps.
Your story here echoes mine a lot. I never choose Christianity it was just the default. I would alternate between periods of fervor and struggle, and eventually got really depressed. I studied the bible, religion, and history, and eventually found they just didn't add up. When I first realized I didn't believe it was very upsetting. I prayed, I asked for help from family members, and Christian friends, and I couldn't understand why I couldn't just believe like they did. After a little while though I stopped feeling bad about it. In fact, admitting I was an atheist helped me get over my depression in a way Christianity had never allowed. I hope you see similar results.
If you want to talk about this anymore, or this isn't the feedback you were hoping for, I'd be glad to talk with you more about it.
Thanks. All I really wanted was your reaction, to know kind of what your experience was, and to make sure my reasons I listed for all this made sense to other people.
Yeah a lot of your reasons are the same as mine. The only one I might reexamine is the "morals exist outside of religion." I could see someone getting confused by that.
Oh and at least some of the links don't work right. They have extra text for some reason at it makes it open a page that doesn't exist instead of the one you want.
My initial reaction was to share some of my ideas about these subjects (not argumentatively), but that can wait until you and I can be in closer conference, should you desire to hear those thoughts at all.
I will say that I am honestly not surprised by this, partially because I am a pessimist, and I sometimes notice, I won't call them patterns, that other people don't seem to be aware of, but as I am not always right, and sometimes these tendencies are just in my head I decided not to say anything lest I offend someone.
I should it goes without saying that the conclusion you have come to does not negatively effect our friendship, and my opinion of you has not been lessened in any way.
If there is anything you want to discuss that you don't mind other people seeing you can do it on here. Otherwise you can call me or I'll be seeing you all next week
Aaron I'm not really sure what to say here. I have heard something from you the likes of which I would never hear. That is, not that you have doubts about your faith, but you saying here are my reasons, please dont argue with them our debate them at all. Im not sure that is consistant with the stated nature of this LJ, and I know it is diametrically opposed to the way I normally operate. That being said how honest of a reaction do you wat from me? Id be lying if I said this didn't change our friendship, that would be impossible, yet I would never allow this to define it. Its clear that you have put a lot of thought into this, but I would be lying if I told you I was completely surprised. I always knew you doubted at least to some extenet, ad I think I saw some element of this coming when you made this journal, even if I would never have identified it
( ... )
First I would like to tell you to make sure Dave reads this whole thing.
I wish I had worded things differently. There is more to this whole thing than just the arguments I listed, as I already mentioned. But if you want to tackle each one of these listed "complaints" I would enjoy it if it was at all different from what I am used to hearing. I just wanted to avoid an intervention or something when I got back. My pursuit is still for the truth, I have just become more pessimistic about finding it.
I put this whole post on my livejournal because I knew it would get read and allow for feedback, I didn't intend for it to be like the other topics with a lot of debate. It was meant to be separate but livejournal was just the best method of getting this information out there.
Don't worry, I've read it...I want to do some thinking before I respond...I'll probably just end up talking to you when you get back. Don't worry, it won't be an intervention, there are just some things that I'm curious about, and would like to discuss.
Comments 17
Your story here echoes mine a lot. I never choose Christianity it was just the default. I would alternate between periods of fervor and struggle, and eventually got really depressed. I studied the bible, religion, and history, and eventually found they just didn't add up. When I first realized I didn't believe it was very upsetting. I prayed, I asked for help from family members, and Christian friends, and I couldn't understand why I couldn't just believe like they did. After a little while though I stopped feeling bad about it. In fact, admitting I was an atheist helped me get over my depression in a way Christianity had never allowed. I hope you see similar results.
If you want to talk about this anymore, or this isn't the feedback you were hoping for, I'd be glad to talk with you more about it.
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I will say that I am honestly not surprised by this, partially because I am a pessimist, and I sometimes notice, I won't call them patterns, that other people don't seem to be aware of, but as I am not always right, and sometimes these tendencies are just in my head I decided not to say anything lest I offend someone.
I should it goes without saying that the conclusion you have come to does not negatively effect our friendship, and my opinion of you has not been lessened in any way.
Reply
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I wish I had worded things differently. There is more to this whole thing than just the arguments I listed, as I already mentioned. But if you want to tackle each one of these listed "complaints" I would enjoy it if it was at all different from what I am used to hearing. I just wanted to avoid an intervention or something when I got back. My pursuit is still for the truth, I have just become more pessimistic about finding it.
I put this whole post on my livejournal because I knew it would get read and allow for feedback, I didn't intend for it to be like the other topics with a lot of debate. It was meant to be separate but livejournal was just the best method of getting this information out there.
Reply
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