Progression in Faith

[stepnwolf]

Recently I saw an article on the web about a London church established for atheists. One of the apologists observed that to a remove a painful stone in a shoe one doesn't throw away the entire shoe, only the annoying pebble. At first I quite agreed with him until it dawned on me that this is what I had done in my own religion.

How many forumites have had to set up a kind of religious smorgasbord where we discarded articles of faith that strained credulity? Too often the transition from unquestioning faith to freedom is too difficult and we “threw the baby out with the bathwater.”

Evidently the atheists at the London church are honest enough to admit that their new freedom from dogma lacks something that they have discarded. I'd guess that most atheists are quite happy without faith, but what of the church-going few? I've known a few priests who continue in their office without faith, only to have a familiar means of earning a living and the monthly checks after retirement.

Others have reached a détente with religion, observing traditions, performing the rituals of their faith, as meaningful parts of their lives. They have moved dogma into the realm of as-if. We accept religion as if it all were true in the objective sense, while also believing that behind objective faith there is another reality far greater than what we normally experience.

Is this being intellectually dishonest or merely pragmatic? Is this progress or loss of real faith?

[paul]

>articles of faith that strained credulity

When I was taught theology in secondary school, such articles were termed Mysteries and nothing more could be said. In retrospect I see that the use of the term is derived from the ancient mysteries that the early Christian leaders needed to make compatible with the new religion.

I wonder however whether it is worth distinguishing between the religion and the various institutions that claim to manage it. A similar distinction might occur between Masonry and Grand Lodges.

Thus: is there a primitive (original) Christianity that existed before the churches?

"....the great African Church Father, St. Augustine ........... answered as follows: That which is known as the Christian religion existed among the ancients,and never did not exist; from the beginning of the human race until the timewhen Christ came in the flesh, at which time the true religion, which already existed began to be called Christianity"

www.scribd.com/doc/12761150/Augustine-Speaks-of-a-Christianity-Before-Christ

In like manner some Masons claim that Masonry existed from time immemorial without the benefit of modern Grand Lodges.

[paul]

>We accept religion as if it all were true in the objective sense, while also believing that behind objective faith there is another reality far greater than what we normally experience.

I suspect that most thoughtful Christians have areas of discontinuity in their thinking about the reality of their religion.

"Alice laughed. "There's no use trying," she said: "one can't believe impossible things."
"I daresay you haven't had much practice," said the Queen. "When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.""

[stepnwolf]

Excellent, Paul! Your comments were extremely helpful. Thank you!

[paul]

I might also say that there is:

- faith based on belief and hope
- faith based on experience.

Many humans, despite the difficulties of life, believe and hope that there is goodness behind all the troubles.

Such belief-based faith is however an energy that can be eroded by successive and unrelenting troubles - leading to depression.

On the other hand most humans have faith in their mother based on experience and gnostics have faith in the greater reality because of their conscious or unconscious experience of it.


Experiential faith is much harder to erode since the experiential basis provides an ongoing source of psychological energy.