Today I realized all of a sudden (with a little help from my girlfriend) that actually my hope level has increased by three points from where it was two months ago. Two months ago I sometimes didn’t feel like betting much money anymore on me sticking to the Christian faith much longer.
This amazed me: Why do I have more hope now, even if my appraisal of the probability of God’s existence hasn’t changed much in the last 2 months? Here’s one reason: Some months ago, in the beginning of my crisis of faith and doubt, I imagined that I would just return to my old faith when I’m done with doubt. And I definitely did lose hope in that.
But at the same time that I lost hope in returning to my old faith some different hope was slowly creeping up: a hope in finding a new faith. And the gain of the latter outweighs the loss of the former.
Good for you, Wowy. What do you need to help you find your new faith? Revelation? A creed? A community?
Quester, Thanks so much for all these comments! Also, for your reply to my comment on your own blog.
— what I need? hm, God (IHE) may know that.
I myself guess that I need 2 (individually necessary and jointly sufficient) things:
First, a personal “revelation” of him – nothing miraculous, but I need to MEET him. Second, clearing some obstacles out of the way, such as coming to terms with the bible.
It’s like with a car that needs to get somewhere: Meeting God would correspond to the fuel that gets the car going and driving. Coming to terms with the bible would correspond to clearing the road from rocks which lie on it.
(IHE stands for “if he exists”)
Ah, so the new faith you have hope for is still in a Christian conception of God?
yes, well, if I could just choose what I LIKE the most, it would very much be the Christian faith. …and so, since I don’t have time to look everywhere anyway, I spend most of my searching time at the place where I would LIKE to find something…