Comment by ThomasL on Ask OB: Leaving the Fold · 2008-11-11T23:01:00.000Z · LW · GW

Everyone else seems to be responding to the last half of your question, not the first. If I might suggest, bring your doubts up and ask yourself what you would need to answer them. Can they be answered? Which are fundamental to faith and which are inconsequential? I wouldn't look just in any of your usual sources. There are thousands of years of religious teaching. Has someone asked the questions you have before? Did someone answer them? Does the answer satisfy you? Does some other answer satisfy you? For Christianity, much has been written over a great sweep of history. St. Thomas Aquinas's Summa Theologica comes to mind as well the writings of St. Augustine, St. Anselm, St. Abelard, St. Bonaventure, and Ockham. Recent arguments come from G.K. Chesterton, C.S. Lewis, Soren Kierkegaard, etc. Have you studied their answers (and their critics)?

What do you still believe without controversy? It is unlikely, for example, that you suddenly believe in murder as a solution to argument, or beating children for entertainment. Why not? Some may sneer at that question, but it is truly fundamental. If you believe it is wrong, why is it wrong? There has to be an answer that you formulate, and that answer will rest in something which you believe. Why do you believe it? Work outward from there.

In my experience much of what is taught in a church has little or nothing to do with Christianity. If you discard this periphery, do you have anything left at the core that is worth believing in?

What you choose to believe is important. I wouldn't try to figure out the best ways to abandon everything from before without first deciding what you believe now, something which should be conducted with all seriousness. I hope that no one in your life would have any issue with that processes. If they do, you may need to weather their disapproval and continue on your search. Ultimately you cannot believe on someone else's say, you have to decide for yourself; but I wouldn't plan to uproot my life through indecision, I would do it through new decision.