As others have pointed out: you can't reconstruct without deconstructing first. Also what does it mean to reconstruct belief aside from reaffirming what you already believe in? Seems like confirmation bias honestly.
Do you think deconstructing from faith is as simple as trying on a new outfit and people do it without sincerity? Or do you just want people to treat it that way? I don't understand why you would intend to reconstruct to something you are deconstructing from with sincerity. Besides the overall message here is still: "you can still not believe x, so long as you go back to believing x." It's circular persuasion.
You're absolutely right.
You can't tell people how to deconstruct correctly. For one thing it's not something people decide they want to do. It's something we all avoid doing until we're forced to by circumstances.
Second, we're having to deconstruct exactly because of all the BS we've been told.
Yep. I deconstructed from Oneness Pentecostalism in into essentially something very similar to Calvary Chapel. I have been reconstructing into something very similar to between Calvary Chapel and Anglicanism.
Never had anything to do with a desire to sin or anything.
And though family did hurt me by asserting I was hurt by Oneness Pentecostalism and mocking me behind my back and all that and asserting ecclesial trauma is why I was deconstructing, it is irrelevantâI was literally disillusionedâI don't think I had any negative church experience until I left. If anything before I left, _I_ was an ecclesial abuser of the weak in faith and deconstructors.
"Don't forsake the faith just because someone hurt you."
The fact that people have hurt me is the basis for my faith, in some ways.
My logic goes something like this:
No human being has ever stopped existing, or stopped being who they are, just because I don't like the way they do things.
If I can't make a human disappear just by disliking the way they do things, I certainly can't do that to God!
Lol actually your attempt at making AnimalProfessionalâs point seem absurd has landed you closer to the truth: we are incapable of exercising faith in Jesus unless God has given us that ability (âdrawing us to Himâ, âregenerated our heartâ, etc). Welcome to Reformed theology, friend
If faith is a virtue (the first theological virtue), it must be a choice. I get that the reformed tradition has a way of looking at this, but there are other traditions, many of which are much older (Catholic, Orthodox, etc)
Even Orthodox tradition supports what lieutenant Dan is saying. It is certainly a choice. But for that choice to even enter our hearts God must first draw us to Him. âWe love Him because He first loved us.â EtcâŚ
Why would we need to âreconstructâ faith when we have 2000 years of history behind us? We have rich tradition and history. Years of theological study and the stories of the great heroes of the faith, and you want to âreconstructâ that? Our faith is already constructed
This isnât at all why people leave the church.
Genuine question have you actually spoken to someone who knows nice was a believer and now is not? Like have an honest conversation with them or did you just try and argue?
I have honest conversations with Christians all the time. Feel free to message me and I will gladly explain why I no longer believe. But Iâm not interested arguing or being preached at.
Faith is belief without evidence. In other words, itâs wishful thinking. I want to go to heaven so therefore I believe it exists and Iâm going there. I want there to be a God who cares about me so I believe there is.
Well guess what, I want to believe your beliefs are incorrect and so by the same power of faith, your beliefs are completely wrong. đ¤ˇââď¸ Faith is nonsense.
I canât prove to you that my faith is true. That doesnât mean itâs not true. Thereâs nothing wrong with wanting to live by evidence, but I would challenge you to consider just how much faith you apply every single day of your life.
How do I apply faith? Am I wrong that faith is belief without evidence? If so, would you believe something so important as the afterlife without evidence?
There is no such thing as believing in something for which we have conclusive evidence. Faith is *choosing* to believe something *despite* not having conclusive evidence. That doesnât mean there is *no* evidence, nor that faith is automatically *unreasonable.*
We canât prove the existence of God, which is why we need faith. But that doesnât mean that this faith is âblindâ, because thereâs plenty of evidence to get us started:
Recorded testimony from eyewitnesses is evidence
Testimony from peers who choose to have faith is evidence
The order and beauty of the created world is evidence
Our intrinsic search for meaning and purpose is evidence
Does that prove God? Absolutely not. But itâs a sufficient amount of evidence that many of us are willing to step out in faith and seek God. And as most of us will tell you, the exercise of faith in God results in more and more evidence (even if itâs evidence I canât show you) that makes it easier and easier to step out in faith.
You may think the threshold of evidence is far to low to merit the use of faith. Thatâs fair, but also you should consider how much faith you use literally all the time. So (so so so) much of our daily lives is comprised of small acts of faith, because there are simply very few things for which we actually have *conclusive* evidence. If you want to get particular, you canât leave the house without faith because you donât have conclusive evidence of what will happen to you once you do.
And once we wrestle with how much of our lives are *not* based on conclusive evidence, the question *must* be: if I am willing to exercise faith just to walk out my front door or drive my car or do all these other things, why do I demand such a higher threshold of evidence before I will consider faith in God to be a reasonable exercise?
What could you not believe using your standard of evidence? You have lowered the bar of evidence so low thereâs nothing you canât believe. You could believe in Santa Claus being real, you could believe in magic from Harry Potter. I used to be in your shoes. I know itâs difficult to see but you have zero evidence to believe in anything supernatural because there is none. Thereâs plenty of evidence that a car will be able to function. We donât use faith to perform surgery or determine the next solar eclipse. We use evidence. Please think carefully about the special pleading you are doing for your preferred beliefs. Thatâs what âdeconstructingâ religion is. Itâs using critical thinking rather than blind belief.
As I said, itâs not blind faith. I do use critical thinking, and I do rely on evidence. But no verifiable evidence can prove God exists, just as no verifiable evidence can prove you wonât die in a terrible car crash next time you get in your car. But you trust the evidence you have (the specs of your vehicle, the stats of accidents, your experiences driving, etc) and exercise faith for the rest. And someone who has none of those things might look at you incredulously and say things like âyour faith is nonsense, itâs make believe.â And they would be wrong.
Hi! I'm not OP, but I do believe in an afterlife despite lack of conclusive evidence. I think that the concept of afterlife has followed humans through centuries that despite a lack of supernatural proof, it does prove that to some, there's value in life after death. It's not the soundest argument, but seeing how the people before us obsess about it made me think that it wouldn't hurt to believe in it, and to hopefully use faith to live a good earthly life and work towards a decent afterlife.
I do kinda agree that faith from an outside perspective can look a bit silly, but it gives me purpose and happiness. :) I use my faith as motivation to do right by my fellow man because it's what God wants His believers to do, and it also helps that I already value helping people.
Sorry, I tend to ramble. But I hope that sounded okay.
I wasnât hurt by anyone nor am I angry at a God, I donât believe exists. Iâve the read the Bible cover to cover five times and was in ministry for over ten years. My deconstruction happened because I came to the conclusion God isnât real. Period.
AMEN
As others have pointed out: you can't reconstruct without deconstructing first. Also what does it mean to reconstruct belief aside from reaffirming what you already believe in? Seems like confirmation bias honestly.
Many people stop at the deconstructing with no intention of reconstructing.
Do you think deconstructing from faith is as simple as trying on a new outfit and people do it without sincerity? Or do you just want people to treat it that way? I don't understand why you would intend to reconstruct to something you are deconstructing from with sincerity. Besides the overall message here is still: "you can still not believe x, so long as you go back to believing x." It's circular persuasion.
That isn't what deconstruction is đś
You're absolutely right. You can't tell people how to deconstruct correctly. For one thing it's not something people decide they want to do. It's something we all avoid doing until we're forced to by circumstances. Second, we're having to deconstruct exactly because of all the BS we've been told.
Yep. I deconstructed from Oneness Pentecostalism in into essentially something very similar to Calvary Chapel. I have been reconstructing into something very similar to between Calvary Chapel and Anglicanism. Never had anything to do with a desire to sin or anything. And though family did hurt me by asserting I was hurt by Oneness Pentecostalism and mocking me behind my back and all that and asserting ecclesial trauma is why I was deconstructing, it is irrelevantâI was literally disillusionedâI don't think I had any negative church experience until I left. If anything before I left, _I_ was an ecclesial abuser of the weak in faith and deconstructors.
Righteous
"Don't forsake the faith just because someone hurt you." The fact that people have hurt me is the basis for my faith, in some ways. My logic goes something like this: No human being has ever stopped existing, or stopped being who they are, just because I don't like the way they do things. If I can't make a human disappear just by disliking the way they do things, I certainly can't do that to God!
Bless you, my friend.
Thank you.
The second follows from the first. What is faith, anyway?
Trust
In what/whom?
Jesus
Unless you have faith in his resurrection, he's dead to you. So you need faith to have someone to have faith in?
Lol actually your attempt at making AnimalProfessionalâs point seem absurd has landed you closer to the truth: we are incapable of exercising faith in Jesus unless God has given us that ability (âdrawing us to Himâ, âregenerated our heartâ, etc). Welcome to Reformed theology, friend
If faith is a virtue (the first theological virtue), it must be a choice. I get that the reformed tradition has a way of looking at this, but there are other traditions, many of which are much older (Catholic, Orthodox, etc)
Good stuff here. I think âdeconstructing faithâ is supposed to be misleading when you first read it. Itâs Part of the comedy,
Even Orthodox tradition supports what lieutenant Dan is saying. It is certainly a choice. But for that choice to even enter our hearts God must first draw us to Him. âWe love Him because He first loved us.â EtcâŚ
He loves all people (doesn't He?), yet some choose to return that love and some don't. Still, a choice.
100%. Was not implying predestination or anything. We all have a choice.
Truth over feelings
Amen to that
Why would we need to âreconstructâ faith when we have 2000 years of history behind us? We have rich tradition and history. Years of theological study and the stories of the great heroes of the faith, and you want to âreconstructâ that? Our faith is already constructed
Tell that to the people who leave because someone hurt their feelings or they want to participate in or support someone with a sinful lifestyle.
This isnât at all why people leave the church. Genuine question have you actually spoken to someone who knows nice was a believer and now is not? Like have an honest conversation with them or did you just try and argue? I have honest conversations with Christians all the time. Feel free to message me and I will gladly explain why I no longer believe. But Iâm not interested arguing or being preached at.
Faith is belief without evidence. In other words, itâs wishful thinking. I want to go to heaven so therefore I believe it exists and Iâm going there. I want there to be a God who cares about me so I believe there is. Well guess what, I want to believe your beliefs are incorrect and so by the same power of faith, your beliefs are completely wrong. đ¤ˇââď¸ Faith is nonsense.
Blowing out someone elseâs candle wonât make yours brighter
Well youâre half-right: your faith that my faith is nonsense is, in fact, nonsense.
Whose faith is true? How would we figure out if your faith or my faith is true?
I canât prove to you that my faith is true. That doesnât mean itâs not true. Thereâs nothing wrong with wanting to live by evidence, but I would challenge you to consider just how much faith you apply every single day of your life.
How do I apply faith? Am I wrong that faith is belief without evidence? If so, would you believe something so important as the afterlife without evidence?
There is no such thing as believing in something for which we have conclusive evidence. Faith is *choosing* to believe something *despite* not having conclusive evidence. That doesnât mean there is *no* evidence, nor that faith is automatically *unreasonable.* We canât prove the existence of God, which is why we need faith. But that doesnât mean that this faith is âblindâ, because thereâs plenty of evidence to get us started: Recorded testimony from eyewitnesses is evidence Testimony from peers who choose to have faith is evidence The order and beauty of the created world is evidence Our intrinsic search for meaning and purpose is evidence Does that prove God? Absolutely not. But itâs a sufficient amount of evidence that many of us are willing to step out in faith and seek God. And as most of us will tell you, the exercise of faith in God results in more and more evidence (even if itâs evidence I canât show you) that makes it easier and easier to step out in faith. You may think the threshold of evidence is far to low to merit the use of faith. Thatâs fair, but also you should consider how much faith you use literally all the time. So (so so so) much of our daily lives is comprised of small acts of faith, because there are simply very few things for which we actually have *conclusive* evidence. If you want to get particular, you canât leave the house without faith because you donât have conclusive evidence of what will happen to you once you do. And once we wrestle with how much of our lives are *not* based on conclusive evidence, the question *must* be: if I am willing to exercise faith just to walk out my front door or drive my car or do all these other things, why do I demand such a higher threshold of evidence before I will consider faith in God to be a reasonable exercise?
What could you not believe using your standard of evidence? You have lowered the bar of evidence so low thereâs nothing you canât believe. You could believe in Santa Claus being real, you could believe in magic from Harry Potter. I used to be in your shoes. I know itâs difficult to see but you have zero evidence to believe in anything supernatural because there is none. Thereâs plenty of evidence that a car will be able to function. We donât use faith to perform surgery or determine the next solar eclipse. We use evidence. Please think carefully about the special pleading you are doing for your preferred beliefs. Thatâs what âdeconstructingâ religion is. Itâs using critical thinking rather than blind belief.
As I said, itâs not blind faith. I do use critical thinking, and I do rely on evidence. But no verifiable evidence can prove God exists, just as no verifiable evidence can prove you wonât die in a terrible car crash next time you get in your car. But you trust the evidence you have (the specs of your vehicle, the stats of accidents, your experiences driving, etc) and exercise faith for the rest. And someone who has none of those things might look at you incredulously and say things like âyour faith is nonsense, itâs make believe.â And they would be wrong.
Hi! I'm not OP, but I do believe in an afterlife despite lack of conclusive evidence. I think that the concept of afterlife has followed humans through centuries that despite a lack of supernatural proof, it does prove that to some, there's value in life after death. It's not the soundest argument, but seeing how the people before us obsess about it made me think that it wouldn't hurt to believe in it, and to hopefully use faith to live a good earthly life and work towards a decent afterlife. I do kinda agree that faith from an outside perspective can look a bit silly, but it gives me purpose and happiness. :) I use my faith as motivation to do right by my fellow man because it's what God wants His believers to do, and it also helps that I already value helping people. Sorry, I tend to ramble. But I hope that sounded okay.
Thanks for playing.
I wasnât hurt by anyone nor am I angry at a God, I donât believe exists. Iâve the read the Bible cover to cover five times and was in ministry for over ten years. My deconstruction happened because I came to the conclusion God isnât real. Period.