>>207993Before I start, I'd like to thank you for your detailed reply. It's not very often I get to discuss this kind of subject in such an open and constructive manner.
Your marble analogy was very thoughtful and poignant, and the portion about the events in our lives shaping us is very similar to my own outlook on it. I've always had an appreciation for psychology, and it's ability to quantify what and how the events in our lives (especially during our formative years) will impact us.
Psychological wounds aren't all that dissimilar to physical wounds. Too much trauma will cripple you for good (the ugly statue), but some is needed to give your life definition and to help forge you (the beautiful statue).
It's interesting how your life and mine diverge, yet our inquisitorial sides are very similar. Speaking for myself, I was raised irreligious on purpose so I would be free to choose whatever faith I wanted. I searched for a while, until I asked myself: "Do I really need this"? I had no problems with my state of irreligion, had no existential quandaries about life and death, and I found the answers that the faiths provided me were insufficient and often contradictory. Thus, my search ended, and to this day, I still have no prescient need for it in my life, though it took me a long time to fully respect it's effects on others.
We may not agree on the existence of a higher power, though we're of like minds about finding our present answers insufficient, about branching out, and about studying further into the truth of both our world and our own beliefs.
After getting over my fedora tipping edgelord phase, I couldn't help but notice the bizarre politicization of atheism; of how something ostensibly about irreligion and
only irreligion would be simultaneously pressing issues of race, gender, identity and whatnot into it's agenda. Sure enough, digging into it revealed intersectionality, which in turn led to the discovery of Cultural Marxism, and from there I began to realize just how poisonous it was. When pressed on these issues, these so-called irreligious individuals responded with the very righteous indignation they accused their religious counterparts of, and I quickly learned just how shallow their understanding really was; the very same lack of understanding you identified in the cherry-picking, poorly read, falsely worshipping and dogmatic Christians.
An oft-cited accusation from the dogmatic Christian side, the accusation of atheism being a religion unto itself? That, as it turns out, was absolutely true, but not for the reasons either side thought.
The experience was all at once edifying, humbling, and eye opening, and over the next several years, I was forced by my own critical standards to confront my own biases, to rethink everything I knew. Like you, I came out of it with a new lens with which to view things through. I'll never forgive the likes of Marxism, of the Frankfurt School, for turning what was supposed to be a real, respectable alternative, or even successor, to prior Christian thought into their political cudgel. It reminds me a lot of Darth Sidious warping Anakin into Darth Vader, if that analogy works. To see Marxism implode as spectacularly as it is now has been nothing short of delightful for me; seeing the faux atheists exposed as the brainless dogmatic hacks that they really are, taking their marching orders and abdicating any and all independent thought and introspection, just like the false worshippers you see in your own camp.
I maintain a hope that once the dust clears, we may see a kind of renaissance of secular thought, only without the hooks of Marxism dug in to puppeteer it around. The Luke Skywalker to the Darth Vader, if you want to continue the analogy.
Whew, sorry about the ramble, but I thought it was necessary to help contextualize things. You're right, it's very hard to do. Still, interesting how the more things change, the more they stay the same.
I may be able to answer your question on finding a church and a priest to follow. Unfortunately, it's the same answer both I and
>>207755 found: doing your own study and developing your own views independently. It's a definite trial, and you'll have a lot of material to sift through, a lot to think about, and a lot of questions for both yourself and for your God. However, believe me when I say you're already most of the way there: that questioning mindset of yours is the lion's share of the work already done. You have all the tools already, all you need to do is go through the material and ask the questions until you eventually find your answers.
I'm not suggesting you should abandon your faith outright, far from it: you should strive to keep such a deep, integral part of yourself working and healthy for as long as you are able to. There's absolutely no need to fix what isn't broken. That desire you have to see your faith fixed, to reform what's broken, is an admirable thing. Use it to your advantage, let it help in your quest for finding your truth.
The reward for your efforts, true contentment and understanding of yourself, is a priceless one. But never forget that the answers should be yours, and yours alone. Draw inspiration from others as much as you want, but if you value the ability to look at yourself in a mirror, do not
ever just copy another person's answers.
This was probably quite a scattered post, but I hope it helps you, anon. And hey, if we're both wrong, and we end up scaling the Mountain of Knives deep within Diyu's depths, I'll be glad to climb it with you.