That is why I left Church in the first place, but my belief in God was still strong. It was learning that I am just fine without God in my life that pushed me to question his existence, and then realizing the answer to that question.
One can adjust to many different situations, sure. Believe me...I lived essentially as an atheist (or I guess it would be better to say agnostic) for a period of about a decade after my mother passed away. I know all about feeling free from/to whatever. But we have a higher calling than feeling "fine" with wherever it is we are. As Fr. HLL rightly points out, feelings are deceptive. The passions drag us every which way. This is why Christianity, properly lived, can be so exhausting. As St. John the Dwarf tells us, we are to expect temptation and struggle until our very last breath. And, again, to paraphrase Fr. HLL, that last breath might not be too far away (well, it never is, if you look at the big picture). I don't mean to be dour, just realistic, and I suppose at least a little empathetic toward someone who feels like they're better off without religion. I understand why you feel that way. But that doesn't mean that your feelings (or my feelings, or anybody's feelings) are to rule the day, given how fickle they are.
I mean, I can't say for 100% certainty that God doesn't exist (and I truly believe that not even the most religious of the religious can say that they know 100% that God exists). You know, because you have faith in him. You learn about him and attend Church and commune with him while building a strong relationship with him.
I am always puzzled by this kind of thinking. Mere
existence is such a very low threshold for believing in something, isn't it? I exist, but if I were to start garnering believers to myself, I'd be on the lookout for the four horsemen of the apocalypse!
I've realized that "faith" is all in your head. It's real if you believe that it's real. I just don't believe that it's real, so for me, it's not real.
Hmm. I think faith is all in your head, too...if it
is, in fact, all in your head. But if it is at the center of your whole life in such a way that you can face down doubts knowing that they
also exist in your head, then you might see why there's no reason to privilege the doubt over the faith. To revisit my objection to the false dichotomy of the test you took, I must ask: Why do you follow one to the exclusion of the other? Why is one a sign of the unreality of God or the complete subjectivity of faith, but the other the operating principle by which you'll now live your life? Again, I ask your forgiveness if this is out of line, but it seems to me that from what little I've read about you in this thread, you have vacillated from one extreme to the other. Before you were religious (or what you thought being religious was) to a fault, and now you are disbelieving. You are not living in the middle whereby you may believe
and doubt. As I wrote, I believe that they are both in your head; it's just a matter of recognizing who put them there. As a Christian, I believe that faith comes from God -- it is not willed or believed into existence by the individual. No person, lacking in faith, can consciously decide or will themselves to believe. Is this not what are experiencing right now?
