To wonder how to deal with losing my faith?

[Spudauphinoise]

I have always had a relatively strong faith. I am Catholic, was brought up with the faith, and I really knew nothing else. While I rarely go to mass, I always felt a strong personal faith, prayed regularly, but kept it private, I don't see it as anyone's business, and my husband has no belief. I don't know why but recently I feel like I just don't believe in anything anymore, and I feel so down about it. My dh doesn't get it, and thinks believing in God or heaven etc is daft. But it is not his influence that has changed things, we rarely discuss, and he has always respected my faith. I have always felt lucky to have faith, as a comfort. Maybe I have just been living blindly, and now that I stop to think, I suspect there is nothing. All of my friends either believe or don't, so there is no in-between person I can speak to. I am about to start my ds at a faith school, and maybe that has triggered feelings. I know that is a whole other debate about faith schools.
Anyhow, has anyone experienced this loss of faith and do you have any advice as i am finding it very upsetting, in a "what is the point" way. Thank you

OP, I think lots of people with a strong faith go through times when you just don't feel it anymore, it can be part of a journey towards either no faith (and learning to live without that meaning) or towards a more examined and deeper understanding. Are you saying that you no longer have any sense of 'divine presence' in your world or that some of the religion you learned as a child no longer seems meaningful?

Even if you don't want to pray anymore, or can't assent to everything in a creed, you don't have to give up prayerfully reflecting on your life, thinking of others with love, feeling thankful, and being open to the amazingness of the universe.

I lost my faith about 10 years ago. Since then I have lost both my sister and my mother - and the thing I found comforting as an agnostic was the sense of a life at least in part well-lived. My sister had finally escaped a bad marriage, was set up in her own lovely house, which she'd made her own, with a beautiful view, and felt happy enough to start painting again. My mother died peacefully in her sleep the day before her 80th birthday, surrounded by her family, including her baby grandson (my DS), having had a lovely meal with friends the night before - if ever there was such a thing as a "good death" she had it. Both their funerals were celebrations of their lives - I remember my nieces chose Queen's "Fat bottomed girls" to play at my sister's because it was one of the abiding memories of their childhoods/teens - bouncing round the room crazily dancing with my sister out of sheer exuberance.

It's helped me to realise that a life without religion can still be a deeply meaningful one, because what matters on a spiritual level is our relationships with other people. (It's also helped me get my head round one of the reasons for losing my faith, which was a loss of patience with the doctrine of forgiveness of sins - the idea that you confess them to God and he forgives you without any need for the step of making amends to the person you have wronged - to me, the Jewish Day of Atonement, where you go and make recompense to real live people rather than some distant deity, makes far more sense to me. I'm sure a few Christians will be reading this thinking "but surely genuine repentance does involve making recompense to the person you've wronged and getting their forgiveness", which I suppose it does, if properly understood - but I think it's also been used as a cop-out by organised religion to forgive the unforgivable, including sexual abuse by priests: "oh well, he repented, so that's all right then, we'll just move him to a new parish and he can start again.")

Am not religious, and have no idea where you'll end up on this OP, but doubt has always been a part of faith, no? As per this poem (which has the best first line).

Batter my heart, three-person'd God, for you
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend
Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurp'd town to another due,
Labor to admit you, but oh, to no end;
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captiv'd, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you, and would be lov'd fain,
But am betroth'd unto your enemy;
Divorce me, untie or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

I became a Christian when I was young despite none of my family being religious. I truly believed and got a lot of comfort from it. However i wasn't a very 'good' Christian in that I started enjoying normal teenage things. I felt guilty a lot of the time and it stopped making me happy. It took me a while to realise that I just no longer believed in God after I learned about the history of religion and came to the conclusion it was a man made construct.

My advice is to try and see it as a learning opportunity and to talk to people about. I feel as though I have an incredible insight into what faith and religion feels to people and I'm much more empathetic about people with strong views.

Also you may be feeling a bit worried that giving up religion means you have to face the fact you believed something in something that wasn't real for a long time. Don't feel stupid, in many ways you are wiser for allowing yourself to think in different ways.

I think that religious schooling is a good thing on many ways as Christianity is so entrenched in litrature and history it gives a great amount of knowledge

Good luck

I identify as C of E and I go to church fairly regularly, but I'm very free and easy with which bits I truly believe in. It works for me.

I also enjoy reading philosophy, and finding out more about the meaning of life outside of a religious faith.

Thanks OP for this thread. I still have a faith, but when I consider how it has changed over time I do wonder if I will eventually lose it and what I will do then. As it is, faith is only a small part of what keeps me in church. The other part is enjoyment of the aesthetics of the service, the feeling of being connected to history, and also because I do not actively disbelieve - ie, I don't believe it's all a complete load of huey.

I think some contributors to this thread have missed the point rather. Yes, it is easy to come to an intellectual assent that believe in God is unsustainable. But it is still like a death of sorts - so much of what gave your life meaning no longer has flavour.

What really helps me is that being a member of an Anglican church, it doesn't really matter if I accept everything the church teaches or not. I don't see myself as adhering to a religion so much as practicing a religious tradition from which I can take the things that (I hope) help me be a better person and live a better life. Looked at that way, it doesn't really matter if the Bible stories are true, but what people have made of them subsequently that matters. And contrary to common perception, Christianity is extremly varied in the manner with which it is practiced. I certainly do not believe in a perpetual hell for example, and take great comfort that in all periods of history there have been other Christians who have taken the same view. Some years back DW became Roman Catholic. There is no way I could follow her as that church is far too prescriptive in terms of what it requires its adherents to believe.

I think that if I entirely lost my faith perhaps I'd join the Quakers. Or, as Richard Dawkins does, find a sense of wonder in the natural environment, much as my father (brougt up Presbyterian, now firmly atheist) does. I actually get really happy when I read of initiatives like Atheist Church, or when I read books like His Dark Materials as it gives me hope that if religion does die out there will be something to replace the sense of community and support that organised religion gives its members.

lurcio

Just to add that I think you make an excellent point regarding the doctrine of forgiveness of sins. The problem is that if God forgives, it doesn't matter whether or not the victim forgives. I do believe this has resulted in people escaping justice and also not undergoing the repentance that Christ probably had in mind. Furthermore, the emphasis is also on the victim to forgive. Years ago I knew a man who had been a prisoner of the Japanese in WW2. The Japanese had also been responsible for the death of his young son. He felt it his Christian duty to forgive the Japanese what they did and find peace. His wife used to introduce him to Japanese people to help him to get over his memories of what other Japanese people had done to him. I don't know if he ever managed this, but I have always been very impressed by his example. Still, I do not see that mainstream Christian doctrine imposes anything like a similar obligation on a perpetrator. It's particularly topical right now, as Christian doctrine has such a problem with sex.

Still, I feel I can wrestle with these problems while being part of the church, and I hope that all churchgoers should feel the same way.

I was in the same position as many here. Was brought up Catholic, my family are very devout. Not believing was not really an option. I was always massively uncomfortable with the Catholic Church, from its basic teachings on contraception and abortion and later the horrific child abuse scandals, but always believed in God. My children were baptised Catholic and go to Catholic school, as I still brought them up Catholic despite disagreeing with the established church. I almost had an epiphany when I sat in church and thought ' I just don't feel anything here. I don't believe anything you say' and my faith disappeared. I'm still the same person and I can deal with bad situations better. There is no questioning as to why things happen if you don't take into account that God either wanted it to happen, or is so completely useless that He can't stop it. Bad things happen just because they do, and life is unfair and brutal, because that's how nature is. Not because it was Gods will. It's very freeing! We are moving and I will take my children out of Catholic school, because I feel I cannot support the schools teaching. It is all up to me as my DH is atheist.

I lost my faith when I was a child (my father died and I had prayed continuously for around 2 years during his intense illness). I just knew that if there was a god who would listen to my pleading and do it anyway, then he certainly wasn't one I would be wasting more time on.

When I was struggling with infertility, a very religious friend said I should pray and maybe I just "didn't want it enough or God would make it so." Honestly, I have felt no angst about having no faith except when told that praying will make x,y and z happen. Because it just doesn't. Fertility drugs helped me far more than any god did.

I think because its all you've known, it mist be very hard, but don't you feel free now? Embrace that. Good luck.

I would have loved to belong to a church but had no faith in God,although I think there might be a higher spiritual something. I am now exploring Quakerism as it seems to be in line with my beliefs

I was brought up in faith schools. Mum was never religious. I was at the age of 10. At the age of 11 I read the bible and really valued Christianity. I read the bible again at 13. I saw big gap in holes in all aspects of the scripture and things did not sit right with me at all. I thought about t for 2 years and studied other religions such as Buddhism, Sikhism, Hinduism- not looking for myself but just to see how other people valued their faith and what they believed in.
Then I came across Paganism and I knew after reading about it that it was the one for me. 16 years on and I'm still loving my journey. Yes I've had a couple of wobbles but the things that sits right for me is that there's a Goddess and a God. That they are equal. That if you do something wrong then you're accountable for it. It's not the "Devils" fault. I mean I read the bit in the bible whereby if you apologise for your sins to God when you die then you can go to heaven. Well in that case I expect to see Jimmy Saville and the likes up there.
I however believe in the Summerlands and reincarnation and lessons of life. I just love it, it holds the earth in reverence and the Goddesses and Gods don't want you to worship them. Yes make them offerings but they want to work with you, not for you. They always provide me with what I need at the precise moment I need it. Nothing more and nothing less.
I hope you find peace soon OP whether that be exploring other faiths or reinstating your own.

Be yourself. Be free.

Watch Father Brown :) :)

on a more serious note- I was raised in a secular household, became a practising Moslem in my early twenties along with my mother, who was then diagnosed with breast cancer and it felt like the end of the world, especially since I had three younger siblings (ages 8-16) and their care effectively fell to me, and then reverted back to atheism (almost) as soon as she was cured and life became normal :) :) I have blogged about the experience at length here, if you are interested!

On my mother grappling with the structural misogyny of Islam: thenewcomer.wordpress.com/2012/07/05/praying-was-the-fun-part/

On the family pressure around being an observant Muslim, and the realisation that it treats women unfairly, followed by the great ditching:
thenewcomer.wordpress.com/2011/03/26/once-upon-a-time/

I became fed up with the mental acrobatics that are required when believing in a 'God' who can sit back and allow people and animals to suffer. The believers around me used to thank God for all kinds of ridiculous stuff (parking space, exam results, recovery from minor illness, house purchase to name a few) and it just dawned on me that God is, in fact, just a wee pocket magician to humans. Something to comfort them and grant their wishes. It's all made up and has no meaning for me.

The stuff Jesus apparently taught didn't make any sense whatsoever and was weird and baffling - there's no actual historical proof that he even existed. Also, I don't like people and I don't want to feel guilty for feeling like this. If God wanted people to love one another, he shouldn't have given them the characters of mean, vicious chimpanzees. That's just perverse.

I don't like the blackmail either - Love and serve Me or you don't get into Heaven yeah, right, you can keep it then. I hate company anyway, it'll probably be like fucking Butlins anyway

It's nice to be free now

I lost my faith nearly 20 years ago now. Or rather, what I really lost was my self-deceit. I had always carried doubt inside me, but had denied it, or pushed it down. But it was always there, and when I finally allowed myself to look at it, I realised I just didn't believe.

I wandered in a dark place for quite a long time afterward, I think some belief systems refer to it as "the dark night of the soul", and then I finally grasped the grey and unsatisfying truth that I basically don't know any of life's big answers, and decided to leave it at that, rather than attempt to fill in the blanks and deceive/force myself into believing the answers I gave myself.

Instead, I decided that I would rely on the resources I hold inside myself. I listen to my inner counsel (empathy, conscience, intuition), and meditate, and try to do what I feel is right, and what I feel instinctively is helping me to grow.

What helps me (although some may find it rather grim I guess), is that either there is some afterlife and some larger purpose (in which case death is not to be feared, and answers can wait), or there is no bigger plan, and death means dust (in which case I would not want to live forever in the universe anyway).

I feel for you. I lost my (fervent) faith when I was a teenager. I felt lost, rootless and scared. That person I'd always taken comfort in and talked to when I needed them was gone.

The process of losing faith was hard. Having lost it, I adjusted and I hardly think about it now. I'm an agnostic, I suppose - looking at the wonder of the universe it makes me wonder if there's something of some description behind it. Could you readjust to look at it that way do you think - that there's some higher entity but not one that organised religion would recognise? Though it does not bring the same comfort, of course.

when you think how massive and infinite the universe is, and how little we really know about it and its vastness, there has to be SOMETHING bigger than us, or something behind it unfathomable to us

No, there doesn't.

The vastness of the universe makes it less likely to Mme that there is a God. The csun is a star, just like all the millions upon millions of stars that we can see. We are on a piece of rock the ideal distance from our star to sustain life. Why would a God make an entire universe of the same thing, over and over again, much of it uninhabited? If He did, he's clearly overstretched himself, because he's not doing anything of any consequence on Earth! We don't know how or why the universe exists. Maybe there isn't a why, and the how is just that a big explosion happened for whatever reason. That will eventually be decided by science, not religion.

Why would a God make an entire universe of the same thing, over and over again, much of it uninhabited?
If there is a God, I don't think we could ever presume to know his intentions, or that we are the central part of them. We might be just a tiny part of his plan.

If He did, he's clearly overstretched himself, because he's not doing anything of any consequence on Earth!
If God was going to supervise everything on earth, we'd be living in a zoo where the animals are fed and watered by the keeper and kept in separate cages to stop us killing each other. Not much of a life really.

We don't know how or why the universe exists. Maybe there isn't a why, and the how is just that a big explosion happened for whatever reason.
You can't separate the how and why. If that big explosion came out of nowhere, there must be a cause. What existed before then to cause it? I'm still waiting for the answer, and nothing in the considerable reading I've done has satisfied me on that.

But why does there have to be a plan? Maybe we just exist because we exist? If God exists, what is the point of him then? If he is not going to do good, and let bad thing happen, or if he just created something then let us all get on with it?

I do realise this is really for philosophy and is probably not helping OP, so I'll not say any more, but I do think that when you lose your faith it is very difficult to get it back. In my experience it just goes, and you are fine without it.

I think it is quite difficult when you realise what you've been brought up to believe (Catholic as well) is a load of old nonsense. So, I do understand why it's a bit unsettling, OP.

If I have to go to mass now (for funerals etc), it all seems absurd; can't believe people actually buy into this stuff.

There's plenty of people like you. There doesn't have to be a point - that's quite liberating, I think. It's not all about you (one, I mean).

And, if god exists, believing in it doesn't change that. So, why worry about it?