Pivotal Doubt - Faith extremely broken

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My doubt snuck up on me, and it’s about as big as it get’s. I’m my own devil’s advocate. gradually overtime some of these arguments have built up. I’ve been struggling with whether to believe the Eastern orthodox or Catholic side of view. Yesteryday I just made some good progress in terms of overcoming sin, I went to confession, and then to adoration service last night. I was hoping I might resolve some worries(Eucharistic dounts and uncertainties) But My heart/mind/soul cracked unexpectedly during most of the service.I was crying, but for dark reasons. It was something slowly sneaking up since that morning I think. Intillectually, it felt like I became completely convinced of atheism, that God wasn’t there. these are the the reasons. One, I had opposings argument I had trouble counterting:

1.Religion is the result of evolution/natural selection, first natural selection made people who fear death(in order to survive), then humans evolved and took over surviving very well due to their high inteligence. then as a result of their high inteligence, they understood that everyone dies, and to escape that unshakable fear of death it was easy for them to “take the bait”, and believe in life after death, and eternal happiness. So essentially the claim that religion is an emotional defense against death.

2.Less strong argument, but the knowledge that everything I know about God has been passed on to me from others, How do I know the original source is reliable? How do I know early believers did not just “take the bait”, as described above, and that history is just painting a positive light on everybody, due to bias. How can I trust the unknown(History, because its so subjective)? All miracles and things I know about, are shrouded in obscurity. some have misleading “facts” being passed around(guadalupe), that would be obviously miraculous, but they aren’t true, like the eye’s dialating, for example. And the “people in the eyes”, claim is not amazing proof. The images are very blobby, and it could well be people reading faces and figures into blobby shapes. People online say it’s “irredescent”, that is, colors change from distance or angle, but due to other misleading claims, I am having a hard time trusting that, and other claims. It is also a fact that the Guadalupe was at least retouched. People are saying the retouched parts aged, and the original didn’t, but see how complicated it gets? It doesn’t feel like this can bolster my faith the way it used to. It’s hard to believe anything about it now. There’s a skeptical angle on every miracle.

3.What is if this is just me unable to cope with death, and the emotional loss of an imaginary friend who knows me perfectly(because friends in real life don’t really know me on a deep level).

4.The knowledge of the placebo affect, and many false religions. Even if God wasn’t there in the sacrament, people would still be filled with reverence and praise because they thought he was there. The nagging feeling that we all could be duped.
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Well anyway. It was awful because it felt like the entire faith of my soul,was absolutely gone, dead.

I did talk to a priest, immedieately after the adoration. His advice for me was kind of along the lines, “sometimes you just have to fake it to you make it”, “this is not an uncommon thing to go through”, “faith is a trust fall”. I was still really worried.

I’m barely managing to keep going, a couple reasons I am barely holding onto to keep going: fear of sin, If denying God is wrong, I don’t want to get in trouble and end up in hell. and If he really did die on the cross for my sins I don’t want to reject that, If he loved that much, I should love him in return.God deserves a chance to prove me wrong, If I get through this faith challenge, there isn’t much left that I won’t know how to handle, and so there could be a reason God let this happen. To emotionally distressing to consider God non existent. Life all amounts to nothing if everyone dies. To disturbing to loose loving friends I’ve found in the faith. I also felt some shame, like no one respect me If I don’t believe in God, I’d betray all their hopes. How could I remain honest, and admit I lost my faith to the priest who decided to pray for me. That is particuarily bothersome, because from previous phsycological struggles, Shame is usually a thing to overcome, to defeat, but I don’t want removeing my shame to remove my faith. the knowledge that If I can overcome these intilectual obstacles, There won’t be much left, and I could probably help other people in their faith, is also something positive to hope for. I’m afraid I’m going to test God. “I’ll give you a chance, but you need to not let me down”.

I spilled every dark thought I could think of here, because from my experience, you need to bring it to the surface to set it straight.

I’m teetering.

Any advice? I also put in a prayer request.
 
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Honestly, the forum is probably not the best place for you. Professional help, both via a therapist and a spiritual director would help. Getting your mood stabalized would probably go a long way into helping you with the more esoteric and spiritual questions you have.
 
Have you ever seen your blood cells, heart, or brain? Do you doubt the truth of their existence because you have not?

I see proof for God’s existence everywhere. All the systems of life cannot just be coincidence or happy accidents.

Everyone has their moments of being a doubting Thomas. Choose faith, choose to believe, choose to be happy.

I agree that it sounds like it would be wise to seek some professional help with your anxiety. Talk to your priest and a mental health provider. Pray to St. Michael the Archangel!

God Bless!
 
Isn’t giving medical advice to see a “therapist”; telling one to get one’s “mood stabilized”; and calling one’s questions “esoteric” a little mean spirited?
 
@Xanthippe_Voorhees is absolutely right. The OP needs more extensive help than what we can offer at CAF.
 
TheOldColonel said:
Isn’t giving medical advice to see a “therapist”; telling one to get one’s “mood stabilized”; and calling one’s questions “esoteric” a little mean spirited?
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No.

We are allowed to direct posters to appropriate professionals for help.

The questions are esoteric, especially when dealing with the nuances of things like the minutia of the potential handling of religious artifacts (which are still a private devotion) and how that affects faith. Esoteric simply indicates that many of these issues are completely obscure.

Suggesting that a poster fix their emotional health before approaching spiritual matters is actually in line with what the church itself teaches.
 
It feels like the emotional health issues are caused by my spiritual problems. I don’t really want to get emotionally comfortable with the loss of belief in God. But I was distressed, because I lost any intillectual defence, in that moment at least, to defend God. That’s why it’s tricky. There is some hopeless, and reluctance to trust carried over from my smaller uncertainties I suppose.
 
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Let no one tell you that what you’re going through is uncommon or that you need professional help. It is quite common to go through periods of doubt on the path to God. It is quite normal. It sounds to me like you are growing spiritually. Such growth is always unsettling and painful. But, it certainly beats the alternative: becoming spiritually stagnant, self-righteous and judgmental. We have more than enough of that in the Church and in the world today. I will pray that God blesses you with his graces as you continue your journey. The best is yet to come.
 
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To be fair, I can hardly find anyone, at least on the internet, discussing these intillectual obstacles, apart from atheists.
So they do seem estoric.

I have barely just a little bit of trust, a willingliness to Let god redeem the situation. But it’s fearful and teetering.
 
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Joe_73 said:
It feels like the emotional health issues are caused by my spiritual problems. I don’t really want to get emotionally comfortable with the loss of belief in God. But I was distressed, because I lost any intillectual defence, in that moment at least, to defend God. That’s why it’s tricky. There is some hopeless, and reluctance to trust carried over from my smaller uncertainties I suppose.
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If you want to follow how the church deals with these matters you would first investigate any physical causes (hormone, exhaustion, etc) then check on your mental health. Once you are assured (by professionals) that you are in good physical and mental health then you can begin to untangle the spiritual realm.

And again, this is how the church itself works on these matters.
 
You are WAY outta line here @Xanthippe_Voorhees

The Church doesn’t deal with people experiencing crises of faith by sending them to mental health people… That would imply unbelief is a mental health condition, and not a spiritual affliction.

OP, I’ll pray for you and answer your post in depth later.
 
Spyridon said:
You are WAY outta line here @Xanthippe_Voorhees

The Church doesn’t deal with people experiencing crises of faith by sending them to mental health people… That would imply unbelief is a mental health condition, and not a spiritual affliction.

OP, I’ll pray for you and answer your post in depth later.
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Uhhhh, yeah if the scope of the problem is far outside a priest’s pervue, yeah, the first course of action would be to ensure that physical and mental health is accounted for. A priest has already advised the OP that what he is going through is not uncommon, yet the poster is still suffering. At this point, therefore, it is wise to see that there are no other issues complicating the matter.

Also, when investigating spiritual issues the church DOES recommend that a person ensure that they have “ruled out” physical and mental issues or at least be aware of any that might present so spiritual advice can be given with full knowledge of a person’s capability and culpability. It is not going to advise my friend who’s becoming a priest and extremely mentally healthy the same way it advises his mentally ill brother.
 
Yeah, I’m really uncomfortable with telling someone based on an Internet post that doesn’t clearly indicate anything except concern over spiritual doubt that he needs a doctor or mental health professional. Especially since he has already talked in person to a priest who may well have referred him if he seemed in need of such help.
If he’d said he was unable to function in daily life or had some other condition like cutting or anorexia, I could see the response, but this person appears to be looking for an Apologetics discussion. Plenty of us have wrestled at some point with a spiritual crisis or with doubt and not needed physical or mental health help. I can see presenting the option to the person, but without more, it sounds to me dismissive, like “You’re too ill to understand. See a doctor and if necessary, post back when you feel better.”
I also notice he has past psych struggles, so if he thought he needed help of that sort, would he not already be familiar with the process to go get it?
 
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The only thing going on was the concern over whether I would end up in the orthodox church or the catholic church. I was very distressed at the prospect of ending up on the other side, due to loss of unity with everyone I know. But that emotional struggle was subsiding slowly, and has subsided right now, due to overiding priorities. It’s less important at the moment. I’m sure If I get through this it will come back up as an issue, but right now it’s minor in the scheme of things.

The other thing is I cannot deal with the loss of belief in God emotionally. The meaningless of life that would result. Non believers would tell me I need to get over it, but my spirit and hope is essentially dead If I believe that. I would essentially try to see myself as my own God, and try to live life according to the way I see fit. I don’t think I can handle that kind of crisis, and it’s one of the things stopping me from cosenting to disbelief in God.
 
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I did some ridiculously philisophical thinking(by means of free writing), It lead me to the conclusion, that atheistic science does not have a very good explanation for consciousness to different degrees, besides the theory that everything is conscious, which doesn’t hold up well with me, because it doesn’t explain localized, but widespread conciousness(in the brain). Why wouldn’t consciousness extend past it? Why does our consciousness stop at “sensors” . Just something beyond our comprehension anyway. It didn’t do too much though, cause at that point things got too incomprehensible and confusing to arrive at any conclusion… the idea of Natural selection was bothering me a bit.But It did fill me with a sense of awe at the vastness of the universe, the unlikeliness of inteligent life, ithe universe would have to start out with a monumentally massive ammount of particles interacting with eachother for organisms as we see them to make sense in terms of probably. Because while indeed god could work through it, it seemed so crude to create a whole bunch of animals just to let them die out and have the survival of the fittest.
Good News
I kinda complained to God, in humbility “I will do try to do my part, but you got to do something to get me through this”.
At one point I thought I should ask God for a sign, and I vaguely got the idea that God was just waiting for me to ask, and to pick one. So I put on a piece of paper the first thing that came to mind for a sign. A rabbit, with a 7 on it, seven rabbits would do as well.

So I went to mass this evening. I knew I was to confused, broken, and needed some guidance, so I refrained from recieving communion, cause I didn’t want to risk it. But It hit me near that time, It’s dark likely that Jesus is here and I’m doing him no good not trusting his church. Still a little confused. But After mass I remembered The testimony of a priest giving a local talk, and he shared that one time there was a guy at the back of the church in sort of a fit, and he prayed for any demonic influences to be driven out(if they were there), and at that moment the guy relaxed. I should trust this guy,so I do have something miraculous to hang on to, even though I forgot about it. I probably could still use some prayers though. I’m still in a dangerous spot. And my faith is quite weak and troubled; tentative. I was wondering why God doesn’t show himself very much, and I never really got very much of an answer except recalling that sign. I might not need more. but we will see. I think I definately have some more stuff to talk about with a spiritual director or someone.
 
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