Could use some input

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I have an interesting situation and I am not even quite sure I am posting this in the correct forum, but here goes nothing.

I study philosophy in school and, not surprisingly, I have been a victim of many an existential crisis. Philosophy and logic sort of led me to having faith. My spirituality opened up for me in a way that I never quite thought was possible, and I am very grateful for it.

Soon after this I started looking into Catholicism and fell in love with it. Hard. My nights were filled with reading, with looking forward to church, with praying. My days were spent constantly reminiscing upon things I had read from the Gospels, or about how amazing prayer had felt the night before. I was in a good place.

I started to attend a weekly theology debate soon after this. A friend of mine attended Oxford and received his theology degree and decided that it would be fun to get some serious minded folks together for a weekly debate. Of course, I was more than excited to go. During one of the discussions, a difficult subject came up: The nature of Jesus.

What I mean by that is “Was Jesus God?” In Judaism, he of course wasn’t, and in Islam, he is regarded as being one of God’s major prophets, but of course, he and God are not synonymous, nor is he considered to be the Son of God.

This intrigued me. I picked up a Qur’an and started to flip through it and around the same time I began reading some of Soren Kierkegaard’s (a christian existentialists) works. In particular, Kierkegaard discusses faith as something that is completely paradoxical to our logical minds, he claims that it is almost like a leap in the dark. Something that is indeed full of doubt and despair, but that we must have the courage to cling to nonetheless. I agree with Kierkegaard on this.

In Islam, personifying God, trying to portray God as anything, and I mean anything, is strictly forbidden. To me, this seems to be more in line with how I view faith. I began to see Jesus in the Christian sense as someone who was “turned into God” by people in order to make God something more tangible.

In other words, we believe Jesus is synonymous with God, or “God robed in flesh”, because it makes God easier for us to swallow while still avoiding idolatry.

So, you may be asking, if you believe into these Islamic notions, then why aren’t you a Muslim already? Well, because “something” doesn’t feel right. I used to pray and without fail, would begin to cry. It was a type of passion that I have NEVER experienced in my life. In Islam, when I am praying I don’t feel that. I feel so far removed. I miss that warmth, that comfort, that feeling I used to get when I prayed. I miss the wonderful inspiration that the Virgin Mother was for me as a young woman. I used to cover my head just like Mary did! I was absolutely in love with my faith. I don’t know what happened.

I guess to convey my questions here for you most clearly I will ask you this:

Is the reason I felt such passion and joy during my days as a Catholic because I could “relate” to Catholic iconography? I certainly never had anything in front of me when I prayed, but could it be that just the ability to visualize something in my head aided me? Is the reason that I feel so distant from God now because I have either:

A. abandoned Christ as my savior, along with all of the saints, angels, and Catholic teachings

or

B. Because the Islamic notion that God cannot be portrayed, cannot be truly understood, and stands alone, removed from us, as the only way to salvation true.

I know that no one will be able to TRULY answer this question for me. I know that you won’t be able to logically define some clear cut conjecture. That’s fine.

I guess I just want some feedback.

Please, respectful responses only, no bashing of any faith. Nothing like that.

Thanks:(
 
There’s a spiritual war on, so you can be quite sure there’s a hidden agenda at work for a start, to drag you away from Christ.

Secondly, there is a thing called the “dark night of the soul”, which is meant to test and at the same time refine your faith. It’s usually a sort of very dry spirituality, in which God seems to disappear, almost in fact to abandon you. That may be another aspect of what you’re experiencing.

Third, what gives you the idea the Moslems are right anyway? If by your own confession you felt joy in the Catholic tradition, then what the heck are you doing chasing after a belief that does not offer joy.

Fourth, its unusual for someone to come to faith as a result of studying philosophy. But remember philosophy is only a collection of ideas, which try to explain ultimate reality. For any philosopher therefore, faith must still be a leap in the dark.

As for Christ - about 20 years ago I suppose, I sat in a Presbyterian Church and heard a testimony by an ex-homosexual that at his second suicide attempt, Christ materialised in the room, moved towards him and seemed to merge with him. From that time on, he never even had to struggle with the temptation of homosexual behaviour, despite being mixed up in “everything going” (in his own words). Heard of Mohammed or Allah behaving in that way.

Finally, the Church has approved the apparitions of Mary at Zeitoun in Egypt, which started in 1968. Well over a million people witnessed her over quite a long period of time. So why did she appear only over a Christian Church in a Moslem country, and not over a mosque?

But in the end the decision is yours.
 
Torn_Up said:
What I mean by that is “Was Jesus God?” In Judaism, he of course wasn’t, and in Islam, he is regarded as being one of God’s major prophets, but of course, he and God are not synonymous, nor is he considered to be the Son of God.
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Of course this debate came up in the first three centuries of the Church and was settled many years ago. If you feel the need to resurrect it and wrestle with it, I suggest you read the Early Church Fathers from this time period and their defense of the orthodox position and debates with Jews and pagans.
Torn_Up said:
In Islam, personifying God, trying to portray God as anything, and I mean anything, is strictly forbidden. To me, this seems to be more in line with how I view faith. I began to see Jesus in the Christian sense as someone who was “turned into God” by people in order to make God something more tangible. In other words, we believe Jesus is synonymous with God, or “God robed in flesh”, because it makes God easier for us to swallow while still avoiding idolatry.
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Well, I would say we believe Jesus is God because he **IS **God, He revealed this to us, and he taught his Apostles the Truth about the nature of God-- I would not say his divinity flows from some need on the part of believers to turn Jesus into God.
Torn_Up said:
A. abandoned Christ as my savior, along with all of the saints, angels, and Catholic teachings

or

B. Because the Islamic notion that God cannot be portrayed, cannot be truly understood, and stands alone, removed from us, as the only way to salvation true.
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Read the Early Church Fathers
 
Although I read philosophy as a subsidiary in my first degree, I never had an ‘existential crisis’, I don’t think it necessarily goes with the territory! Perhaps, being Jewish and part of the tradition of ‘two Jews, three opinions’ and a family where everything was (endlessly) debated into the ground, I was prepared for it all.

The study of Philosophy isn’t really a means of ‘coming to’ anything, it’s about different ways of seeing and the application of critical method. As such, it can be a means of justification and destruction of justifications but orthogonal to the search for psychological/spiritual satisfaction.

Often, here, I make the point that ‘Christianity isn’t Judaism plus Jesus and Judaism isn’t Christianity minus Jesus, they work differently’ and I think you’re faced with a similar problem when dealing with Islam. You carry with you the cultural and emotional ‘baggage’ of Christianity and, when viewing Islam, you like a lot of what you see but you want it to ‘work’, emotionally, like Christianity. It can’t and won’t do that, Islam works, emotionally, like ‘Islam’ and that’s it – though Shi’a does seem to have certain correspondences with Christianity’s ‘Passion’ nexus in the devotion to the martyr figure Husayn.

I don’t think that a ‘crisis’ is the best time to make life-changing decisions, what’s the hurry?
 
Kaninchen said:
Although I read philosophy as a subsidiary in my first degree, I never had an ‘existential crisis’, I don’t think it necessarily goes with the territory! Perhaps, being Jewish and part of the tradition of ‘two Jews, three opinions’ and a family where everything was (endlessly) debated into the ground, I was prepared for it all.

The study of Philosophy isn’t really a means of ‘coming to’ anything, it’s about different ways of seeing and the application of critical method. As such, it can be a means of justification and destruction of justifications but orthogonal to the search for psychological/spiritual satisfaction.

Often, here, I make the point that ‘Christianity isn’t Judaism plus Jesus and Judaism isn’t Christianity minus Jesus, they work differently’ and I think you’re faced with a similar problem when dealing with Islam. You carry with you the cultural and emotional ‘baggage’ of Christianity and, when viewing Islam, you like a lot of what you see but you want it to ‘work’, emotionally, like Christianity. It can’t and won’t do that, Islam works, emotionally, like ‘Islam’ and that’s it – though Shi’a does seem to have certain correspondences with Christianity’s ‘Passion’ nexus in the devotion to the martyr figure Husayn.

I don’t think that a ‘crisis’ is the best time to make life-changing decisions, what’s the hurry?
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I agree with you about philosophy completely. You’re right, it also doesn’t follow that studying philosophy is going to necessarily lead to an existential crisis. Existentialism really is what got me into the idea of God in the first place, so I came to my interest in God via a branch of philosophy.

Your (name removed by moderator)ut has been super helpful though. I have never thought of it like this before. Although, the thought of “Maybe I am just inclined toward Catholicism because that is what is familiar to me.” has crossed my mind several times.

Thanks for the response.
 
PRAYER is you best weapon. Before you study or do anything pray for wisdom and grace to see what God wants you to see. But you must have faith. Remember what the bible says the smartest people cannot see what a child can see with faith. Faith can and does move mountains.

Good luck in moving your mountain. You can and will do it with Faith in Jesus Christ. ANd read the bible it tells you The Father and I are one.

You will find Jesus Christ is the Son of God who became man. Just concentrate on that. Read how he knew Abraham etc. It will click. Its all in the bible. You just have to read it with your eyes open. Its like sometimes you are so busy looking for hidden things you cannot see what is out in the open. You will find it, and then you will understand the Trinity.
 
Torn_Up said:
The early Church Fathers being? People like St. Augustine and such? Could you point me to some texts?
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Yes, St. Augustine as well as St. Thomas Aquinas are very good works to read. Unfortunately, I can’t think of any titles to direct you to 😦 sorry!!! O yea, I don’t know if any of St. Anthony’s stuff is published, but I would certainly look into it. St. Anthony is like, my favorite saint and his preaching style is supposed to be very easy to understand.

God Bless!
 
The poster who said it is unusual for philosophy to lead you to faith isn’t so well-informed-- the very reason I became Catholic and rediscovered faith in Christ was my time as a philosophy student and even my priest said Christian philosophy has led many a convert to his doorstep. And yes, the early church fathers are some of the richest Christian philosophy you’ll find.

Try reading St. Thomas’ Summa Theologiae if you are confident as a student of philosophy. It can be a lot to pick through at times but he certainly addresses the nature and person of Christ.

On a devotional level, keep going to mass. I secretly went to mass for years as a Protestant and while at that time I thought Catholic truths about Mary, the saints, confession, and so on were weird, the mass still moved me. And I was reading Kierkegaard at the time as well! But sometimes I think he missed the point, sometimes we need faith to make at least a little sense in our minds for us to embrace God in our hearts.

May God bless you and keep you on your journey to the truth about the incarnate Lord.
 
The poster who said it is unusual for philosophy to lead you to faith isn’t so well-informed-- the very reason I became Catholic and rediscovered faith in Christ was my time as a philosophy student and even my priest said Christian philosophy has led many a convert to his doorstep. And yes, the early church fathers are some of the richest Christian philosophy you’ll find.

Try reading St. Thomas’ Summa Theologiae if you are confident as a student of philosophy. It can be a lot to pick through at times but he certainly addresses the nature and person of Christ.

On a devotional level, keep going to mass. I secretly went to mass for years as a Protestant and while at that time I thought Catholic truths about Mary, the saints, confession, and so on were weird, the mass still moved me. And I was reading Kierkegaard at the time as well! But sometimes I think he missed the point, sometimes we need faith to make at least a little sense in our minds for us to embrace God in our hearts.

May God bless you and keep you on your journey to the truth about the incarnate Lord.
 
njmama said:
The poster who said it is unusual for philosophy to lead you to faith isn’t so well-informed-- the very reason I became Catholic and rediscovered faith in Christ was my time as a philosophy student and even my priest said Christian philosophy has led many a convert to his doorstep.
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It’s not what I said, though, is it?
 
Kaninchen said:
…Perhaps, being Jewish and part of the tradition of ‘two Jews, three opinions’ and a family where everything was (endlessly) debated into the ground, I was prepared for it all…
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I think that your cultural quote might be wrong. I thought that it was ‘two Italians, three opinions’. The attitude of the family debates that you quote seem to confirm it. 😃
 
Cristiano said:
I think that your cultural quote might be wrong. I thought that it was ‘two Italians, three opinions’. The attitude of the family debates that you quote seem to confirm it. 😃
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Imagine it ‘squared’! 😃

Have you ever read Natalia Ginzburg’s ‘Lessico Famigliare’?
 
Torn_Up said:
I have an interesting situation and I am not even quite sure I am posting this in the correct forum, but here goes nothing.

I study philosophy in school and, not surprisingly, I have been a victim of many an existential crisis. Philosophy and logic sort of led me to having faith. My spirituality opened up for me in a way that I never quite thought was possible, and I am very grateful for it.

Soon after this I started looking into Catholicism and fell in love with it. Hard. My nights were filled with reading, with looking forward to church, with praying. My days were spent constantly reminiscing upon things I had read from the Gospels, or about how amazing prayer had felt the night before. I was in a good place.

I started to attend a weekly theology debate soon after this. A friend of mine attended Oxford and received his theology degree and decided that it would be fun to get some serious minded folks together for a weekly debate. Of course, I was more than excited to go. During one of the discussions, a difficult subject came up: The nature of Jesus.

What I mean by that is “Was Jesus God?” In Judaism, he of course wasn’t, and in Islam, he is regarded as being one of God’s major prophets, but of course, he and God are not synonymous, nor is he considered to be the Son of God.

This intrigued me. I picked up a Qur’an and started to flip through it and around the same time I began reading some of Soren Kierkegaard’s (a christian existentialists) works. In particular, Kierkegaard discusses faith as something that is completely paradoxical to our logical minds, he claims that it is almost like a leap in the dark. Something that is indeed full of doubt and despair, but that we must have the courage to cling to nonetheless. I agree with Kierkegaard on this.

In Islam, personifying God, trying to portray God as anything, and I mean anything, is strictly forbidden. To me, this seems to be more in line with how I view faith. I began to see Jesus in the Christian sense as someone who was “turned into God” by people in order to make God something more tangible.

In other words, we believe Jesus is synonymous with God, or “God robed in flesh”, because it makes God easier for us to swallow while still avoiding idolatry.

So, you may be asking, if you believe into these Islamic notions, then why aren’t you a Muslim already? Well, because “something” doesn’t feel right. I used to pray and without fail, would begin to cry. It was a type of passion that I have NEVER experienced in my life. In Islam, when I am praying I don’t feel that. I feel so far removed. I miss that warmth, that comfort, that feeling I used to get when I prayed. I miss the wonderful inspiration that the Virgin Mother was for me as a young woman. I used to cover my head just like Mary did! I was absolutely in love with my faith. I don’t know what happened.

I guess to convey my questions here for you most clearly I will ask you this:

Is the reason I felt such passion and joy during my days as a Catholic because I could “relate” to Catholic iconography? I certainly never had anything in front of me when I prayed, but could it be that just the ability to visualize something in my head aided me? Is the reason that I feel so distant from God now because I have either:

A. abandoned Christ as my savior, along with all of the saints, angels, and Catholic teachings

or

B. Because the Islamic notion that God cannot be portrayed, cannot be truly understood, and stands alone, removed from us, as the only way to salvation true.

I know that no one will be able to TRULY answer this question for me. I know that you won’t be able to logically define some clear cut conjecture. That’s fine.

I guess I just want some feedback.

Please, respectful responses only, no bashing of any faith. Nothing like that.

Thanks:(
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The nagging at your heart is the hypocrisy of Islam. I can give you three good examples.
  1. Islam forbides the anthropomorphizing of God, yet, in the Qu’ran, God is anthropomorphized. Islamic apologetics unintentionally prove this to be the case when they try to show the anthropmorphism is symbolism or humanization - which is exactly what anthropomorphism is. Two examples of anthropomorphism:
3:73 Say: Surely grace is in the hand of Allah, He gives it to whom He pleases; and Allah is Ample-giving, Knowing.
5.64 And the Jews say: The hand of Allah is tied up! Their hands shall be shackled and they shall be cursed for what they say. Nay, both His hands are spread out, He expends as He pleases;
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  1. Mohammed’s dying words were that his burial not be made into a place of worship. Yet after he died, Muslims turned his tomb into a mosque (Islamic place of worship).
You can read about Mohammed’s mosque here: forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=344768
  1. Islam is based on two fallacies: begging the question and appeal to authority. These destroy Mohammed’s credibility as a prophet, and, as such, Islam’s authenticity as a religion.
You can read more about that here: forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=340506

If you seek out the truth, than seek out the religion that is unafraid of philosophy and that uses philosophy. For philosophy is ordered to the truth, and if a religion is unafraid of philosophy, than surely it is unafraid of the truth. But beware of pseudo-philosophy, too.
 
Torn Up, i would urge you to read Peter Kreeft’s work, particularly his scholarly work, given both your fluency in philosophy, and the somewhat “campiness” of his lay work. I, too, often become frustrated contemplating the nature of Jesus (i.e., the paradox of the Hypostatic Union). My solution to it comes in two discrete approaches:

(1) God (meaning any being with omnipotence) may “subsidiarize” himself, or some of his unbounded essence, into a material form. In that subsidiary form, his essence is no less God, but He may choose to suppress some attributes while in material form, including his cognitive function. Think of it this way: I have tools in my apartment that make it possible to perform repairs, without which i could not. I can choose to place those tools in a cupboard. I still have them, and I know where they are, but I may choose not to avail myself of their use. Similarly, I am not ever-cognizant of information that i nonetheless possess. I know my former addresses, but I must “access” that information. If i had greater control over my cognition, as God would place over His material form, I could choose to place certain information “in the cupboard”, and not access it all (e.g., “only the Father knows” the time and place of the eschaton, etc.)

(2) Ultimately, Christianity is an historical claim. The events of the gospel either did, or did not, occur. I happen to think that there is exceptionally good evidence to credit the events of the gospel, and the claims that derive from those events. These are claims are complex; indeed, sometimes confusing. However, we cannot ignore the event for want of understanding its consequences.

Hope this helps, and PLEASE do defer to Kreeft, and keep praying.
Kaninchen said:
Perhaps, being Jewish and part of the tradition of ‘two Jews, three opinions’ and a family where everything was (endlessly) debated into the ground, I was prepared for it all.
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haha, quite similar to the 4 Irish, 13 opinions, all of which eventually rejected by each of the proponents, with a liberal sprinkling of anathematizing.
 
Even though Islam rejects the portrayal of God as a person, I do believe Moslems pray to God the Father, just as Jews do. You can’t pray to a nothing, you must believe that God cares for all his people. Whether you envision God the Father or God the Son or God the Holy Spirit, you are praying to a God who cares about you, who wants to help and guide you, and listens to your prayers.
 
Early Church Fathers can be found here:

newadvent.org/fathers/index.html

Start with St. Justin Martyr, St. Athanasius, St. Alexander of Alexandria, Aristides the Philospher, Iranaeus of Lyon, John Cassian (Against Nestorius), Tertullian, Council of Nicea and Council of Ephesus.
 
Torn up, thank you for a thought-provoking thread.

When I was very young, about 5 or 6 years of age, I went with my sister and mother to a laundromat that was situated in a sort of strip mall. A few doors down was a thrift store which my sister and I loved to peruse while my mother sorted colors and delicates and such. On one occasion I was drawn to a little (perhaps 3 inches high) statue of the Blessed Virgin. My family was nominally protestant and somewhat anti-Catholic and so I am sure I had no personal knowledge that this was indeed the Blessed Virgin. To my 5 year-old eyes she simply looked like a mother. I don’t know why, but my young mind had seen her then as the personification of Motherhood. Well, for ten cents I bought it as a gift for my own mom, telling her that "she’s a mom like you, isn’t she?! My mother still had the humble statue upon her death 33 years later.

I can not logically prove that God was involved. I can not logically rule out some unknown statement or picture that I’d seen beforehand and simply recalled when I saw the statue. This seems to be a problem with faith. It strikes me that this subjective evidence and proof comes to us in moments when we may not recognize it as such, and only later in conjunction with another experience do the dots connect and we see it as God’s hand at work. That is, I suspect that God reveals things to us in the past that will only enter our immediate awareness at a later time, and when they do, our evidence and proof of it is lost and can only be accessed by faith.

Consider Einstein’s theory of general relativity. Now, general relativity was present long before Einstein was conceived; yet, it was only in the early twentieth century that it was formalized and revealed to mankind. Einstein once likened his passion for physics to “thinking God’s thoughts after Him.” This is sort of what I mean by recognizing God’s actions from a vantage point only accessible by faith and not by immediacy.

My own suspicion is that this is so to keep us from seeking after experiences for experience’s sake in order to “prove” our faith again and again, because to do so primes us to seek after gifts instead of the Giver. By removing the immediacy from the experience and having it be recognizable later and only by faith instead of by an experiential moment our ability to trust and believe is strengthened by reason of it’s being exercised in an act of the will when experiential certainity is absent.

God (according to Catholicism) is eternal, infinite in knowledge; infinite in power. God is pure Spirit and is not subject to the limits of space/time, temporality, material quantity, etc. How does God (as defined above) interact with the material universe if He has no likeness with which to identify in that material universe? How would we recognize it since we lack a sufficient vantage point from which to “see” eternity and infinity? How does God interact with temporal beings like us in space/time locations when God, by definition, can not be localized?

Now how does this all tie together?

Potential infinites can never assume absolute infinity, by definition. However, absolute infinites, by definition, could contain all potentialities. If not, then there would be a function that could not be logically performed, and that would entail a loss of being truly absolute.

The rift, if you will, between God’s “otherness” and our “this-ness” could only be bridged by His taking up temporality into Himself, and by virtue of His being infinite sustaining all potentials. Thus, the otherness is maintained, but the “thisness” is brought into relationship (a hypostatic union, perhaps), and despite it’s total dependency is sustained only by God’s own infinite power; knowledge; goodness, etc.

The contact point is in the Person of Jesus Christ; that is, in the infinite God assuming temporality in order to incorporate temporality into Himself. The otherness (Christ’s Divine nature) and the thisness (His human nature) are brought into a relationship through His infinite power that sustains and actualizes the potentially infinite, temporal nature He has assumed.

The relation extends to us individually through prayer, in which our temporal natures are in contact with His eternal nature at a particular moment in time, much the same way that Christ, Who is God, was in relation to human nature (and still is) at a particular moment in time in the Person of Jesus Christ.

The trouble with Islam in this instance, (that of your prayers) is that there is no reconciliation of the “otherness” of God with the “thisness” of ourselves and so there is no point of contact between us and God within Islamic prayer. Don’t get me wrong . . .there is great virtue in simple obedience for obedience’s sake, but in this case only Christian prayer has the potential for meaningful communion with the Infinite. Allah can not be portrayed for this reason, whereas Christ, owing to His taking up temporal and material things into Himself can be portrayed in an image. and interacted with meaningfully through prayer.

One last thing. The “Incarnation,” which I have mangled into a quasi-philosophical thought experiment above, and the Gospels’ retelling of it is a lot like the remembrance of an event through new eyes that I mentioned above. It was only after the Resurrection that the Apostles recognized events that happened prior through these new eyes, as if Christ were depositing faith all along, but only in hindsight and by faith could the Apostles recognize the events for their true significance… much like I recognize now that God was planting the seeds of my conversion 30-plus years ago in a thrift store in California.

All my best . . .
 
Torn_Up said:
I have an interesting situation and I am not even quite sure I am posting this in the correct forum, but here goes nothing.

I study philosophy in school and, not surprisingly, I have been a victim of many an existential crisis. Philosophy and logic sort of led me to having faith. My spirituality opened up for me in a way that I never quite thought was possible, and I am very grateful for it.

Soon after this I started looking into Catholicism and fell in love with it. Hard. My nights were filled with reading, with looking forward to church, with praying. My days were spent constantly reminiscing upon things I had read from the Gospels, or about how amazing prayer had felt the night before. I was in a good place.

I started to attend a weekly theology debate soon after this. A friend of mine attended Oxford and received his theology degree and decided that it would be fun to get some serious minded folks together for a weekly debate. Of course, I was more than excited to go. During one of the discussions, a difficult subject came up: The nature of Jesus.

What I mean by that is “Was Jesus God?” In Judaism, he of course wasn’t, and in Islam, he is regarded as being one of God’s major prophets, but of course, he and God are not synonymous, nor is he considered to be the Son of God.

This intrigued me. I picked up a Qur’an and started to flip through it and around the same time I began reading some of Soren Kierkegaard’s (a christian existentialists) works. In particular, Kierkegaard discusses faith as something that is completely paradoxical to our logical minds, he claims that it is almost like a leap in the dark. Something that is indeed full of doubt and despair, but that we must have the courage to cling to nonetheless. I agree with Kierkegaard on this.

In Islam, personifying God, trying to portray God as anything, and I mean anything, is strictly forbidden. To me, this seems to be more in line with how I view faith. I began to see Jesus in the Christian sense as someone who was “turned into God” by people in order to make God something more tangible.

In other words, we believe Jesus is synonymous with God, or “God robed in flesh”, because it makes God easier for us to swallow while still avoiding idolatry.

So, you may be asking, if you believe into these Islamic notions, then why aren’t you a Muslim already? Well, because “something” doesn’t feel right. I used to pray and without fail, would begin to cry. It was a type of passion that I have NEVER experienced in my life. In Islam, when I am praying I don’t feel that. I feel so far removed. I miss that warmth, that comfort, that feeling I used to get when I prayed. I miss the wonderful inspiration that the Virgin Mother was for me as a young woman. I used to cover my head just like Mary did! I was absolutely in love with my faith. I don’t know what happened.

I guess to convey my questions here for you most clearly I will ask you this:

Is the reason I felt such passion and joy during my days as a Catholic because I could “relate” to Catholic iconography? I certainly never had anything in front of me when I prayed, but could it be that just the ability to visualize something in my head aided me? Is the reason that I feel so distant from God now because I have either:

A. abandoned Christ as my savior, along with all of the saints, angels, and Catholic teachings

or

B. Because the Islamic notion that God cannot be portrayed, cannot be truly understood, and stands alone, removed from us, as the only way to salvation true.

I know that no one will be able to TRULY answer this question for me. I know that you won’t be able to logically define some clear cut conjecture. That’s fine.

I guess I just want some feedback.

Please, respectful responses only, no bashing of any faith. Nothing like that.

Thanks:(
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Here’s a quote from the pope that may shed some light on the emptyness you have felt outside of Christianity:
Dear friends, truth is not an imposition. Nor is it simply a set of rules. It is a discovery of the One who never fails us; the One whom we can always trust. In seeking truth we come to live by belief because

ultimately truth is a person: Jesus Christ.
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