Since calling Christianity “bullshit” counts as thrashing it, I retract that portion of my comment, and apologise.

As for “thrashing their faith”, on what do you base your opinion? I’ve read nothing from Laura that does that.

If you must be censorious, at least show your basis for it!

I’m assuming you’re a young person.

It’s easy to harshly judge others, and trash their faith. Harder to realize the limits of our own experience, and understanding, and to be open to the possibility of God.

Taking a blogger vacation, Laura, so wouldn’t be around for awhile to comment.

Pray that you will come out of your slump. You have a wonderful future with Steve, and your precious little girl.

@HumanistDad, yes, that’s right. I should have put “faith” in quotes, because I was thinking about how they regarded me. To lose faith would be seen as failure on my part. But I don’t see it as a personal failure. I have too many others to worry about that!

And you are all right about the “how I looked to others while still a Christian and so depressed I could barely move” comments. Very right. It’s hard to separate what people show to the outside world vs. what’s really going on. I need to remember to do that. I forget.

I would look into UU if I weren’t just burnt out on church in general. I may do that in the future, if Steve and I move once he graduates and we no longer have a good group of secular people to hang out with at the school/there’s no community freethinker group.

I’m thinking, eventually, really bad things are going to happen to everyone. We live in a broken, and fallen world.”

Wow, I see what you’re saying, sure was a shitty designer wasn’t there!

“My husband actually lost his children, and marriage after he became a Christian believer.”

Assuming your husband wasn’t from the middle east or something, this comment doesn’t make sense and frankly sounds untruthful. In the Americas the courts don’t take away custody for being a christian, they more typically do it because of mental unbalance or hostility. Ask yourself what is the REAL reason he lost his kids.

“We are all going to experience the death of our loved ones, illness, etc.”
Every Christian will at some point experience a “crisis of faith,” and understand that we don’t have all the answers. Partly, it’s a matter of years, and experience.”

Don’t you really mean that in every christian’s life there comes a point where they begin to peer through the bullshit? They realize that it doesn’t all make sense or work the way it should. They don’t have answers for a lot of obvious questions so the struggle until mental fatigue sets in and either they ignore the contradictions or become atheistic.

Yes… I would think that this might be a tip-off to reconsider the whole system. Scientists don’t have crises of faith about science, for two reasons: 1. they’re already skeptical. They know that the theories they’ve worked out are very good approximations, but not, excuse the term, “God-given truth”. Science is subject to revision. 2. Science works. If you doubt something, you can rederive the formula or redo the experiment yourself, and it works. I don’t have to rely on some guy in robes telling me that “science works in mysterious ways” when I think something doesn’t make sense.

My point is, religions fail on both of these points. Some of them do a bit of point 1., and allow you to question some things, but never the big ones. And if prayer worked (not in a “sometimes when I pray I feel loved” sense, but in a “pray in this way and there is clear communication with something outside yourself” sense), there would be no atheists.

How can another person have a “power over to destroy our faith?”

I don’t always agree with everything ZDenny says, but I sense that he genuinely cares, and is trying in his own way to help.

I wouldn’t call this man’s posts, at least the ones I’ve read, nothing more than a mixture of “revulsion, intolerance, and hatred.” Is it possible that you are projecting more into these remarks than what is actually there based in your own experiences?

How about showing him some kindness, and mercy??

My husband actually lost his children, and marriage after he became a Christian believer. We are all going to experience the death of our loved ones, illness, etc.

Every Christian will at some point experience a “crisis of faith,” and understand that we don’t have all the answers. Partly, it’s a matter of years, and experience.

Laura, I think you need to be more gentle with yourself. Give yourself, and those friends, the gift of time.