tlcmel said:
Hi,
I'm currently in the frame of mind right now where I'm sort of seeking out different religions or spirituality belief systems or whatever. And while one religion makes alot of sense to me however some aspects in that same belief system conflict with my reasoning or beliefs. Why do YOU feel so strongly about your chosen religion?
Thanks
It was a combination of several things. On one hand, I have long sought a faith that I could rest in, take to its logical conclusion, and still live a moral, simple, and human life
and be consistent with the teachings I embraced (granting this was something of an internal affair and developed over time, not being present in me very early). This wasn't available to me with the other options.
I also wanted something with a connection to the past, but which wasn't stale and dead. Tradition and what people have thought is very important to me (I remember the first time I wanted to learn Latin, for instance. We heard the term Latin on the radio, and being a small child then, I asked my father what it was. When he told me it was just a dead language people spoke a long time ago, but nobody cares about now, well, it sparked my interest. It was
old). Who we were gives us the identity we are.
I wanted something where my faith and my logic could rest at ease. They were never intended to war with each other. To varying degrees I found it at war within myself with the other groups (I began attending Christian sects about ten or eleven years ago).
I wanted something that, given its own presuppositions, was internally harmonious. I was a Protestant for a while, and well, I found it to be internally inconsistent (and not old in its teachings).
Sola Scriptura, for instance, was logically irreconcilable. This tension began to drive me away (I am convinced that had I not turned Orthodoxy, I would eventually have turned Roman Catholic).
At one moment I considered paganism. However the need for something old disallowed the neo-pagan movements. They aren't
old; they are reconstructions of what was lost. I looked at far-east religions, but I'm not an Easterner, and its antiquity couldn't resonate with me. I, also, couldn't accept the logical conclusions of some of its assertions. Sometimes through logic, sometimes because they didn't feel true. I had also settled my mind on Christ: even in periods when I doubted and looked into these, my allegiance to Christ would sway me back very quickly. He is Truth (that is the understanding I came to).
Not only did I believe down deep that Christ is Truth and that all that is true in the ultimate sense revolves around Him. I also came to realize that if I wanted the old, the thing that defined my culture and people, then I needed Christianity. It actually wasn't easy to jump ship to Orthodoxy in that sense, for while it fulfilled that requirement, it was also very foreign.
Orthodoxy also has an appreciation for beauty that other Christian groups tend not to have (well, except words). This was foreign to me also, but I found it to be something I needed. I spend too much time on abstraction.
It also had an organic connection to the Apostles with an organic doctrinal connection, something not found in other groups I looked at (with very few groups with a close appearance to it). This appealed to me, because if I wanted Christianity, I wanted it to be real, and not a reconstruction (a reconstructed religion is not the old religion, it is something new wanting to look old).
Lastly, Orthodoxy
felt right. I knew I had found home. Now there were a lot of other factors, but those are some highlights and not telling a chronological story at that. My coming to Orthodoxy was a long time in coming
.
