J
jasphair
Guest
Greetings, everyone!
I’m having a real struggle with my faith right now. Though I can train myself to think that the God of the Bible (and Jesus) is the only true God, I’m having a hard time dismissing all other religions, and their respective deities (e.g. Mohammad, Buddha, Joseph Smith, etc). In going to Protestant churches over the years, I’ve been taught that becoming a Christian means dismissing all other religions, if for no other reason, because Christianity is not a “religion”, but a “relationship”, something that is unique. We need not work our way to God, as God extends His hand to us.
I was required to take a World Religions class not too long ago, and this class did a study on all the major world religions. I found all of them interesting, however, the class essentially destroyed my faith, leading me to feel that my belief in God as being the “true” God was no more credible than a Muslim’s belief in God, the Buddhist’s, etc. As the Bible is a major foundation of Christianity, my faith in that was utterly destroyed as well, making me feel like the Bible is just as credible as the Torah (alone), the Koran, etc. The entire message of this class (and I had to write papers on this), was “These are the many religions of the world. All of them attempt to determine how the world came to be, and who created (and governs it). There is no wrong religion, as each has its own hypothesis in these regards, so pick the one that sounds most interesting!”.
Sooo… in light of my destroyed faith, I’m struggling to keep hold to the idea (Jesus Christ) I once believed in with complete faith, disregarding logic, and the opinions of others. I know feel as though it’s everyone’s guess as to why we’re here, who made us, etc, and that you can ask a dozen people these questions, and get a dozen answers. In many cases, people will point you to scriptures, but with many people having different scriptures, it’s hard to decipher what’s right. As this is a spiritual matter, and concerns how I can/should live my life, and my eligibility for life after this, finding these answers is a grave concern to me (given I don’t know how long I have on this Earth), and I’m frantic to find my way back on track.
By the way, you’re probably wondering what I’m doing posting this on a Catholic forum. In all honesty, in wanting to find a new church, I was very much put off by all the Protestant churches (many of which claiming to be THE closest to scripture, the most correct, etc), and looked to history. I believe the Catholic church is probably most correct (as I believe Jesus had Peter bring the church to Rome), and the Protestant reformation was more or less an upraising led by selfish and sinful individuals (e.g. Henry VIII) whom decided to put their own interests first, as opposed to the interests of God’s kingdom. I realize that may be a rather rash misunderstanding, so please feel free to correct me.
I’m having a real struggle with my faith right now. Though I can train myself to think that the God of the Bible (and Jesus) is the only true God, I’m having a hard time dismissing all other religions, and their respective deities (e.g. Mohammad, Buddha, Joseph Smith, etc). In going to Protestant churches over the years, I’ve been taught that becoming a Christian means dismissing all other religions, if for no other reason, because Christianity is not a “religion”, but a “relationship”, something that is unique. We need not work our way to God, as God extends His hand to us.
I was required to take a World Religions class not too long ago, and this class did a study on all the major world religions. I found all of them interesting, however, the class essentially destroyed my faith, leading me to feel that my belief in God as being the “true” God was no more credible than a Muslim’s belief in God, the Buddhist’s, etc. As the Bible is a major foundation of Christianity, my faith in that was utterly destroyed as well, making me feel like the Bible is just as credible as the Torah (alone), the Koran, etc. The entire message of this class (and I had to write papers on this), was “These are the many religions of the world. All of them attempt to determine how the world came to be, and who created (and governs it). There is no wrong religion, as each has its own hypothesis in these regards, so pick the one that sounds most interesting!”.
Sooo… in light of my destroyed faith, I’m struggling to keep hold to the idea (Jesus Christ) I once believed in with complete faith, disregarding logic, and the opinions of others. I know feel as though it’s everyone’s guess as to why we’re here, who made us, etc, and that you can ask a dozen people these questions, and get a dozen answers. In many cases, people will point you to scriptures, but with many people having different scriptures, it’s hard to decipher what’s right. As this is a spiritual matter, and concerns how I can/should live my life, and my eligibility for life after this, finding these answers is a grave concern to me (given I don’t know how long I have on this Earth), and I’m frantic to find my way back on track.
By the way, you’re probably wondering what I’m doing posting this on a Catholic forum. In all honesty, in wanting to find a new church, I was very much put off by all the Protestant churches (many of which claiming to be THE closest to scripture, the most correct, etc), and looked to history. I believe the Catholic church is probably most correct (as I believe Jesus had Peter bring the church to Rome), and the Protestant reformation was more or less an upraising led by selfish and sinful individuals (e.g. Henry VIII) whom decided to put their own interests first, as opposed to the interests of God’s kingdom. I realize that may be a rather rash misunderstanding, so please feel free to correct me.
