The fire is gone in me. I don't know where to go. My story with the blackpill.

[Doomanon]

John 6:66-68
From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him. So Jesus asked the Twelve, “Do you want to leave too?” Then Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life.”

I remember having a strong, passionate attitude for Christ just graduating out of highschool a few years ago. I had just gotten baptized into Eastern Orthodoxy and had put my Evangelical viewpoints behind me. I even brought multiple people into my church, and some of them ended up baptized themselves or got something out of it. I was having so much fun learning more about the Saints, Church History, and how Christianity developed.

While the fire didn’t burn out for me in Christianity at first, it did in populism. Seeing as how stupid Trump acted, how brainless the GOP is, and the very creepy cult of personality that developed around Trump from the old guard GOP and boomer voters in the US distanced me a lot from it. Heck, Trump did more effort in regulating firearms in the US than the democrats ever did (red flag laws anyone?). It convinced me that the greater threat to firearms in the US isn’t Democrats, it’s Republicans. Trump also did a terrible job at handling the BLM protests. His attempt at suppressing them created even more sympathy for them, making them the largest movement in American history. It showed me something interesting. Direct Action works, but only when it’s used properly. The left is very good at direct action as it stems from old labor union movements, and they know how to get concessions from this action. The right seems to just fumble around until something sticks. Good examples of the right wing “activism” being stupid would be Charlottesville, the Legion of St. Ambrose LARPers, and the siege on the US Capital Building. I do believe that all this chaos made the American people run back into the arms of the old guard Democrats.

Small tangent here, but I didn’t predict Bernie Sanders being Senate Budget Chairman at all. Keep in mind that that position isn’t a meaningless concession. Bernie Sanders is in charge where money goes in the US now. He’s one of the most powerful people in the United States.

Anyways, the strange cult of personality around Trump, and around race pushed me away from right wing populist activism. We didn’t see too much Trump worship in /rel/, but we did see some who tried to put race above God, and some who tried to blur the lines a bit and test the boundaries between race worship and Christ worship. I never found the reason to be in a “white people’s club”. Even when I was more passionate in my Christianity. Frankly, I never cared. I even remember forcing myself to pretend to care and looking rather stupid in some of my older posts in the Facebook group. Overall, I found my political side wandering around, unsure where to go.

Fastfoward to 2020 and covid hits. My priest got covid, our deacons got it, and my spiritual father had it. Thankfully, no deaths occurred. But this resulted in DL being suspended for a very long time, giving me free time to study more. This brought me to eventually reading more about the earliest Christians, when it was considered by the Roman government to be just a small cult with nothing to worry about. Which well…led me to question Christianity itself.

Now before I continue, I’d like to point out that these are MY PERSONAL experiences and readings, and mine alone. I’m not trying to “deconvert” any of you, I’m not trying to convince you to my side, I’m simply telling you my story. I’m more than open to talking about these, in fact, I want to now that the fire from 2016 has settled from all of us. I will however, be only skimming the surface of the objections I developed to the Scriptures to keep things simple in what I’m writing here.

I ended up putting my reading into two separate categories. One being about the gnostics and how their ideas were battling with other Christians throughout history. Another being about philosophy, more specifically the existentialists. The various philosophers I read about were people like Sartre, Kierkegaard, Albert Camus, Simone de Beauvoire, and Max Stirner.

Looking into the gnostics showed me about the various types of battles and writings that the Scriptures had, and how books seemed to be written, rewritten, taken out, put in, altered, etc. So many people genuinely believed scriptures like the Gospel of Peter, the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Judas, etc. were divinely inspired by God. It made me wonder why or how God could even work in such a disorganized system of believers at this time. And keep in mind, this was when information wasn’t spreading as fast as it is now. The church of Rhossus was using the Gospel of Peter for a long time, even allowed it by the bishop Serapion despite it’s docetic leanings. How were they supposed to know whether a text like that was inspired or not?

Now for the existentialists, these modern writers talked a lot about how the world basically has no meaning to it. Camus eases you into it, while Sartre and de Beauvoire smack you over the head with it. Stirner takes this to a larger extreme in that he believes that morals and culture don’t exist, and should only be used to a humans advantage. The existentialists do…well…let’s just say a really good job at shaking faiths. And I have yet to really receive an answer from God in regards to the idea of zero meaning in the world. Because if all our meaning only comes from God, that’s rather depressing to me. I like what I can put in the world and my efforts, but if I can’t do it without God, then what’s the point other than doing it “just because he said so”? The existentialists (especially Camus) say that just because something is meaningless, doesn’t mean it’s useless.

For a while I ended up wandering around aimlessly in the “spiritual but not religious” area, simply because I was desperate for God to give me an answer. To talk with him. I tried DL, I tried confession, Eucharist, going back to my old Protestant church (for Saturday services that they did. I did eventually stop going to DL however), I even was so desperate that I tried psychedelics from a self proclaimed “shaman” just to talk to God.

If you’re thinking there’s a point to all this I’m REEEEing about, there isn’t. I’m just venting here. And this is where my story ends. It’s why I call myself an “observer” instead of a Christian. Because I don’t know if I can call myself one now. I’m a totally different person than I was in the glory days of /rel/ or /cult/ or whatever you wanna call it. I’m now trying to figure out what I am, who I am, who God is, if God even exists, what God is…I’m just frustrated to where I’m stepping back from it all.

“But why are you here?”

I don’t know. Closure? Answers? I remember feeling safe with other like minded traditionalists. With all the confusion of Facebook gone due to the purge, I decided to come back now that we’ve effectively been deplatformed.

I’d love to hear responses to this. I know you guys have no idea who I am or why I barged back in here. But I’m willing to discuss these things with you. No, I don’t know why I even typed this out. Likely it’s just therapeutic on my end.

[Jimbo2025]

I have more than a few concerns here, so I’ll take it fairly slowly:

1. Your opening paragraphs would suggest that your faith was based firstly on politics. This is a growing trend in the modern world, tying everything into politics and then pushing all sides to their extremes. The truth of the matter is that for Catholics and Orthodox, the authoritarian centre is the best position to hold since many of our beliefs regarding behaviour in the world could put us on either side, so it’s better to take neither and view each election and candidate a touch more distantly (i.e., do they support Church teaching or not?)

2. Your focus on politics and Faith continues to the point where you would seem to have allowed your Faith to be directed by your politics. Alas, by allowing your Faith to become directed so you effectively placed your faith in people, which is building on sand.

3. Those who put race above faith are grossly misguided in doing so since all races are capable of getting to Heaven, it is then down to individual cases to decide if they will let the Lord work through them and in their lives.

4. The coronavirus may be real, it may be false, but it is, in both cases, being used as a strange Trojan Horse to usher in some new totalitarian regime. The goal of the vaccination is basically to separate the people as wheat and chaff. As usual, the chaff will be burned as soon as they can justify it. First will come ostracism, then persecution. As it was in the Roman times, so it is now: people need to find justifications for their evil actions because God has pre-ordained them to seek the truth and to perform good actions. The increase of depression in the last century is not a coincidence, it is a direct consequence of this major push for evil actions by all. Notice the rampant, rabid sexual revolution of the 70s, the increase of mainstream pornography to the point where Honey Birdette and Victoria Secret can post billboards of half-naked women on street corners and PornHub pops up freely in searches on the main search engines (Google, Bing, etc.). This isn’t a mistake, it is Satan hard at work trying to lead away from Christ as many as possible. Depression can be a chemical imbalance, but it is made worse when the soul is “overburdened” by sin and yearns for the freeing grace of Christ’s Love. Satan cannot countenance humility, so he insists that you cannot be forgiven by God because your crimes are too great, or he insists that you don’t need God’s forgiveness because you haven’t done anything wrong, or he insists that you still have time left to seek His forgiveness, so worry about that tomorrow. These are lies and lead to a confusion of the soul (giving life and reason) vs. the mind and body (which merely use those gifts).

5. Existentialism is a weak philosophy. This is not to say that it cannot have strong proponents or arguments for it, but it is more of a “cope” than a real philosophy. It says, in essence, that you are the centre of the universe, but if all are the centre of the universe, then where is the centre of the universe? How can a Supreme Being exist in this situation? Existentialism is part of denying the virtue of humility. The authors you mention were all convinced of it because they could not cultivate a life of humble obedience to God, so they made themselves into gods so that they didn’t have to.

6. The Catholic Church used to forbid the average layman from reading these works unless he had a grave reason to for this exact reason. Philosophy has within it that curious school of sophistry. If it were to be classed as a religion, philosophy would view sophistry as a heresy since philosophy is about finding truth whereas sophistry is about making arguments. Existentialists rely on sophistry for their arguments, which is why their books are so corrosive to reason. They seem to follow, but where is the answer? Perhaps Camus’ questions are answered by de Beauvoire or Kierkegaard? The truth is that these questions have no answers, otherwise they wouldn’t be existential (the double-meaning of the word must be kept in mind with these people.) In short, these sophists beliefs can be summed up as an exercise in futility, and nothing more.

7. We are not taught that we can do nothing without God, rather, we are taught that our actions receive their fullness in Him. Your vocation is the calling God has set out for you in this life, but you don’t have to follow it, you just have to be aware that you will be far happier if you do.

8. We are not of this world, we are in it. We were made to know, love, and serve God in this world and to worship and adore Him in the next. As a result, all efforts to find a meaning for life solely in this world are doomed to fail.

9. You speak of having become part of the “Spiritual and not religious” crowd, which would imply that you stopped praying. In this lies a great error. It is quite feasible that you are going through a “dark night of the soul”, for which the only real option is a persistence in prayer and a redoubling of belief and trust in God and His unceasing Love for you.

10. Venting is a useful way of expressing a variety of seemingly intertwined topics to a friend or group of friends who can then help you pick through them and disambiguate the problems. It’s not necessarily about reasoning through them to the truth so much as breaking them into their constituent parts so that you can examine and combat them one at a time.

11. There are only really two ways out of the vicious cycle into which you have entered. First, you lose all hope and fall into despair, ending in suicide, or second, you find your way back home. Take heart: You came back here, which is a sign that God is directing your steps so that you can find your way back to Him.

[Mozalbete]

Let’s clear up a few things.

The gnostic nonsense are late, false writings. How do I know this? First, because the earliest mentions of the authors of the gospel, starting in the second century, mention Mark, Matthew, John and Luke. Not any of the fanfic gospel. Second, because even earlier, the quotes of the Church Fathers are of the 4 gospels. There are no quotes of the fanfic gospels until well, well later, as shown in this graph:

Third, their theology is a monstrosity, which they try to compensate by adhering “famous” names to them: Peter, Judas, etc. So, why should I care about those things beyond a curiosity regarding heresies?

And regarding what you say: from our earliest copies, and the quotes of them, we can see that they are pretty much the same as we have today, so there is no rewritten, taking out, etc.

Regarding “le existentialists”, I think there must be no more stupid group on Earth. It is almost painful that people take these idiots seriously. God is not a man, God is your creator, and because of him there is an order and nature of things that can have a fulfillment. We seek the perfect love, and perfect home, and everlasting life that God gives and is. That is our purpose: to reach the Kingdom of God. Without it we are miserable, which is why you are now miserable. If there wasn’t this purpose, there would be no desires, there would be no such a thing as “useful” things, and no goals at all, so the braindead existentialists are just a bunch of hypocrites that just want to be their own gods, a satanic idea that you are starting to entertain, but is exactly what Christ warns against.

That you reduce God’s cration, love, the fulfillment of our nature and the Kingdom of God to “because he says so” show that you don’t care about the truth, but about satanic self-worship. Better enjoy your pride, it isn’t going to do you any good if it brings you to the lake of fire.

There is a point to what you are saying even if you don’t want to admit it: you are miserable with this retarded stupidity you have swallowed from the internet. It is notmal, that is what happens when you go against the order of things. You can pretend you don’t need food and water, but that will just kill you.

So stop this insanity. Nobody care about the gnostics. Nobody cares about the lunacy of the ones who say that there is no purpose, yet make sure to be well fed, warm at night, and a million other goals that just shouldn’t exist if there was no purpose. Do not complain about the GOP so much when you entertain things that are even more retarded.

[Daniil]

There is very little I could possibly add to what has been said above.

But it does seem that there has been a cascade of events, which I am fairly certain were directed by the devil himself, that took the wind out of your sails and caused you to become adrift in the middle of the ocean. All I can really add is that stop trying to talk to God on your own terms. Do what a good Christian does: pray, attend the Divine Liturgy, pray some more, love yourself, and God will talk to you in one way or another. Probably in the way you least expected.

[Darnok]

You must’ve only read the edgy works of Kierkegaard, and not his sermons. Kierkegaard made a point out of writing philosophy “with his left hand” under psudonyms and sermons “with his right hand” under his real name because his philosophical works were mindgames (as Jimbo said) whereas his sermons were his sincere beliefs. The whole point of Kierkegaard is that nothing exsists by itself but only in relation to something else, and that the atheistic worldview leaves mans soul in a vacum of despair because he is not in an ordered relationship with God, and that the only remedy to despair is submit onesself to the almighty God, for there is, as St. Peter said, nothing else to do.

Kierkegaard founded exististensialism to draw atheism to its logical, nihilistic, terrible conclusion, and then refute it with the gospel. Satre, Camus and the other edgelords just didnt get the memo that the ideas they picked up were literally designed to be so terrible that no sane person would pick them up as a guide for their lives. Kierkegaard didn’t realize just how dark it is in what to him was a hypothetical darkness, and how blind those who wander in it truely are.

[Esoteric_Gorillia]

All of my competriates here have told you where you went wrong and how to fix it. They did forget one thing. We need the sun as almost as much as we need the Son. Our wonderful Lord gave us the ability to enjoy physical labor and find pleasure from being in the sun. So my question for you is are you exercising? Even if it simply putting on an audiobook and going for a walk.
When we spend too much time in our heads, the trend is to spiral downwards. Help your folks with chores, go for a walk, lift some weights or even find a hard labor job. Get out of your head for a while and take basic steps to take care of yourself.

[Duke]

Continuing the discussion from The fire is gone in me. I don't know where to go. My story with the blackpill.:

Here’s a nice lofi music playlist for your consideration: LINK

TLDR; To find God, lose the world.

I too have gravitated towards politics for most of my life, though not because I enjoy politics. Actually I would say it’d be more accurate that I hate politics and the modern politicians we’ve been cursed with. Politics holds my time and interest because I feel a personal need to advocate for Truth, I feel as though without it, this battleground (one as important as many others) would be completely conceded to the Enemy. Modern politics is enough to get any man depressed, watching as godless men and women lead godless countries further into oblivion; I say to you truly, we get what we deserve. Though I recognise its importance, even when fighting for God on the political battleground, I do not feel closer to God.

Politics, like many things is a worldly distraction from the spiritual. Despite this recognition, I can’t shut off that part of me which keeps coming back to that battleground, to do so would be to embrace apathy. Instead I have learnt how to compartmentalise my mind, my spirit, my emotions and my time. Work, girlfriend/wife, school, university, chores, video games, watching tv, browsing the web, watching Youtube, family giving you the shits, socialising, smoking, drinking, covid, politics… you name it there are distractions aplenty for us to partake of, to be overwhelmed with… after all, we do live in the world. They occupy our thoughts, they control our hearts and our emotions. In of themselves, these distractions aren’t “evil” (we can’t all be monks) but without personal discipline they can overtake our lives, and prevent us from seeing that which is sometimes right in front of our faces.

Matthew 6: 31-34
So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

I have found that God is in the quiet places of our minds, those quiet places which we usually silence with the noise of the world, the noise in our hearts. How easily can you hear your phone ring over the sounds of the bustling traffic? It is no coincidence that we hear so many stories of people having spiritual experiences during meditation, often in some remote cave far away from others. While this is an extreme, we can emulate the behaviour by seeking out truly peaceful environments which resonate with us. Personally it is often within nature, during the night (particularly when it rains), that I find peace. It’s during these moments in which I find it easiest to quiet my worries, to silence the world, and to pray. How can we worship a God we don’t know? Prayer is essential, it opens the door to Christ.

If you do this, worst case scenario you become personally disciplined, mindful, and are able to shut out the world. Best case scenario, you connect with God and learn how to find peace. So, “seek first the Kingdom of God”.

Hope this helps, God bless.

Psalm 46
God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way, though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea,though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble at its swelling. Selah
There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy habitation of the Most High.
God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved; God will help her when morning dawns.
The nations rage, the kingdoms totter; he utters his voice, the earth melts.
The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress. Selah
Come, behold the works of the Lord, how he has brought desolations on the earth.
He makes wars cease to the end of the earth; he breaks the bow and shatters the spear; he burns the chariots with fire.
“Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!” The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress. Selah

[Doomanon]

This is a lot of replies and it seems like I’m generating a fair bit of buzz. I’ll reply as much as I can and I apologize if I miss anything. If I get flagged for spamming or something like that please correct me as I don’t know the proper etiquette for replying on this forum format.

Anyways, Jimbo I’ll reply to as many of your numbered paragraphs in the same order as you put them. Forgive me if I miss anything.

I’m curious what you mean by “authoritarian center”. It could be argued that the modern US and EU are an “authoritarian center” to most people that wish to die for Republics. Could you elaborate on this? Russia today certainly isn’t an “authoritarian center”, neither is Poland or Hungary.

I do agree that faith being directed by politics is a recipe for destroying it, I think it’s why Christianity is unintentionally being destroyed by the Republican party today, as Evangelical Christianity is nothing more than an extension of Republican politics in the United States.

I agree that they’re misguided, but it constantly got me annoyed by seeing it happen so much, with so little pushback. I’m not gonna name names coughDietrichcough but people seemed so desperate to be pushing the boundaries of race before religion in the Zuccbook group, with little pushback being given. At least, this was my observation.

The coronavirus is real. I’ve personally witnessed people’s families being destroyed by it. I’m not willing to debate this with anyone, as they might as well be trying to argue with me that the earth is flat. I don’t wish to waste anyone’s time talking about this. I’ll say this though, I don’t see how it can create a new authoritarian regime any worse than what we already have.

You say existentialism is more of a cope than a philosophy, but that can be said about…almost anything? Heck, atheists can easily say “Christianity is more of a cope than a religion” and sound just as valid there. (I know you go more into detail about what you mean). I think what the existentialists were referring to were that as Sartre said, mankind is “condemned to be free”. As in, we’re all there is. And we have to create a world ourselves and not rely on a supreme being.

Next in six, you say that existentialism is an exercise in futility. But isn’t that literally what they teach? That finding a meaning in the universe is futile? It’s what Camus referred to as “the absurd”. Finding meaning in a meaningless universe.

What is “fullness”? How do you know you’ve received this fullness? Is it a feeling? Is it just knowing? Do you have a dream about it? This only creates more question about being “full”, as this concept of fullness rather scares me. Do you even have a desire to better yourself after this? Is finding this “fullness” all there is in life that this creator has set out for me? I didn’t ask for a “fullness”, why do I need to have it in God’s eyes?

Yeah, I’ve stopped praying, as years of silence has ended in me throwing my hands up in frustration and looking elsewhere. The question is, how do you “redouble your belief”? That in itself sounds like coping. I don’t believe it’s possible to choose what you believe in, just as I can’t decide tomorrow I’m going to be a Muslim, or a Buddhist, or believe in Samsara. I can’t just “redouble my belief”.

I mean, I don’t want to commit suicide, why is that the only other option for you? Plenty of other people seem to live a happy life, and I’ve met tons of miserable, depressed people in the church.

[Doomanon]

–For Mozalbete–

Even with the synoptic gospels, we don’t know who actually wrote them. What makes us know that Matthew wrote Matthew, Mark wrote Mark, etc. ? Church tradition is what assigned names to them. And the earliest copies we have of those are well into the second century if I’m not mistaken. The gnostics also had their own “church fathers” that quoted their own gospels, and when Trinitarian Christians took power, they buried as much gnostic teaching and literature as they could. It’s only recent that we’re even finding out about them.

You say: “God is not a man, God is your creator, and because of him there is an order and nature of things that can have a fulfillment. We seek the perfect love, and perfect home, and everlasting life that God gives and is.”

What if I don’t want a certain order and nature of things? What if I want to change them? That’s how innovation is done. Is for example, air conditioning changing the natural weather around you that God put there for you? Are glasses changing the eyesight that God gave you from birth? I know this sounds rather stupid, but unless you’ve gone full AnPrim, you probably would tell me “well of course not you fucking idiot!”. Which in that case, we both agree that it’s not fulfillment in simply existing in the world around us and not changing anything, but that there is simply a line between innovation, and full on social change.

You say: “…our purpose: to reach the Kingdom of God. Without it we are miserable, which is why you are now miserable. If there wasn’t this purpose, there would be no desires, there would be no such a thing as “useful” things, and no goals at all, so the braindead existentialists are just a bunch of hypocrites that just want to be their own gods, a satanic idea that you are starting to entertain, but is exactly what Christ warns against.”

I don’t remember saying I’m miserable, I hope you’re not projecting anything onto me that you struggle with. If you are, please don’t. I am frustrated though, and being told what I’m thinking doesn’t help with that. (Yeah that’s rich coming from someone named “Doomanon” right?). Also, to be blunt here, the concept of eternity in general just scares me. I didn’t ask to be put here, why does God toy with us this way? Heck, in Genesis 6:6-7 it says that God basically regretted creating us and is realizing he’s stuck with us. Is God now limited with us? This only brings up even more questions. God’s “fulfillment” seems to be limited to God’s regrets. Why worship a regretful God? That seems to be the more miserable position there, to realize that you have to stay in eternity in a heaven where you’re not guaranteed to even be yourself anymore. Can you tell me with confidence that you’ll still be the same “you” in heaven?

Anyways, I’d appreciate it if you don’t pretend to read my mind. I’m not “miserable” as much as you seem to want me to be, I’m confused and frustrated with certain things.

[Doomanon]

–For Daniil–

Would God even appreciate it if I only came to DL with simply just doubts, questions, and half-assing the whole thing? Cause I know that’s how I’d be if I went there. And I don’t want to be disrespectful.

[Doomanon]

–For Darnok–
I’m curious as to where you found this with Kierkegaard, as he also believed in a nutshell, that churches are a bad idea which is what caused him to be ostracized from the Church of Denmark. He believed Christianity had to be truly individualized as that’s what his audience was. Individual, simple Christian readers. He taught many things that I think a lot of traditional Christians would try to steer from.

I also disagree with your thoughts on Sartre and Camus not getting the memo. I think they did get it, but they didn’t believe in God. So they simply present their thoughts of it. By this I mean they show you that there is no meaning in the world, and present it to you in a way of saying: “Yeah, scary right?”. Sartre seems to emphasize this with his: “Mankind is condemned to be free” comment. But says that we have to create meaning for ourselves with his other catchphrase of “existence precedes essence”. Camus does something similar, but kind of leads you into it with a smile on his face with his Myth of Sisyphus essay. Maybe that’s an analogy for how the world is going today? I don’t know.

[Mozalbete]

Stop making up fantasy. Every single mention of the writers, going back to authors from around the year 125, mentions the same authors. They are mentioned by Tertulian, by Iraneus, by Clement, by the muratorian fragment and by Papias so spare me the 21st century insanity about how “hurr durr we don’t know!”. And additionally, Justin Martyr’s disciple, Tatian, wrote a summary of the gospel called Diatasseron, which means “made of 4”. We perfectly know, there is literally no opposed witness to their authorship.

What I have given you are literally, literally the easliest christian writers, and the gospels you mention are quoted only until quite late, so again stop repeating the same reddit garbage for idiots who are not prepared for them.

If you don’t want a certain nature and order of things, you are just a retard wanting to be a rebelious child. Stop parroting buzzwords, since we are not talking about something traditional, or some random printiciple, but the very principle that creates the natural desires of people. God is not a man, God is not just some proposal among many, or just some made up way of doing things. God is the Logos, the alpha and the Omega, and you are just a sad child who, like jews, just wants to rebel against the Logod out of hatred towards God and love of your vices.

I couldn’t care less about innovation. The principle of what defines us is inmutable. Again, stop projecting your manmade revolutions on God.

I don’t remember relying on what you say about yourself. You are the one coming here for help, who will grow old and die in terror when seeing how your revolutions, attempts at “innovation” and atheistic euphoric redditors can’t help you. You are in denial, so I’m going to say that you are miserable, simpe as.

The way you keep talking about God as “toying with us” is just disgusting and a display of the decatent west. You are a spoiled child who thinks he knows more than God, is on par with him, and can determine what is convenient for him according to the 4.5 years he has lived. God is not stck with you. God could erase you from existence with a word, and Genesis 6:6-7 reflects what we deserve in our wickedness, in which you willingly participate.

Even a child can understand these allegories, but you seem to be too retarded to understand even the most basic of things, wanting to play le epic philosopher about “oooh the regretful goood”. Lmao what a pretentious idiot you are. Humble yourself, since you have a big mouth and a very small, but prideful brain.

Heaven is the fulfillment of our nature, of our essence. But please, feel free to follow your reddit rebelion against God. While you euphorically burn eternally, we will laugh at fools like you, armchair philosophers who got high and decided that masturbating was definitely a higher purpose than seeking God.

[Doomanon]

–For Esoteric_Gorillia–

I go camping a lot, lots of traveling (fully vaccinated so these days I can go most places again), backpacking, jogging, etc. It’s amazing what certain Native American reservations in the US can give you when you’re out with nature.

[Doomanon]

–For Duke–

That’s interesting. You don’t feel closer to God on the political battleground. I wonder how this is on a larger scale. I definitely relate to that. Maybe frustration can lead the mind astray? I’ve also felt that in the quiet places, questions continue to linger even more though. How do you deal with those?

Also, this will sound incredibly silly, but it’s a question I’ve really been struggling with. How do we know that I’m praying to the right God? Is it a feeling? An ascension of knowledge? I only realized recently that I don’t actually know what I’m praying to.

[Doomanon]

–2nd reply to Mozalbete–

I’m going to reply to the points you made in your second reply, and ignore the unnecessary comments you made where you talk like a fortune-telling comic book villain.

I’m curious why you mention some of these writers. Tertullian embraced the at the time called heresy of Montanism for a while, and founded his own personal movement. Irenaeus made very interesting predictions about the end of the world, and (in my personal opinion) tried to use borderline numerological methods to figure out who the antichrist would be, as well as using numbers to refute the Valentinians as well. The Muratorian Fragment also accepts the Apocalypse of Peter, and doesn’t mention Hebrews, James, and 1 and 2 Peter. Papias was known for exaggerating and mythologizing various accounts of the gospels as said from Eusebius, who looked down on Papias greatly. Eusebius seemed to consistently say that Papias was too literal with his interpretations of the gospel, and even supposedly quoted other writings that aren’t currently in the scripture.

Now, how do we know that heaven is our total fulfillment? Have you experienced it? Have you been there? Who are you to say you know what heaven is like? That’s all I want to know.

You seem scared that I’m bringing up objections, so you muddied your reply with various ad hominems and insults that are very unnecessary. I hope you find peace to whatever anger you seem to have inside you for you to resort to all of these rude comments of yours.

[Mozalbete]

It is almost amusing how in your despair you try to paint these writers as insane idiots who made up things. They are all very early witnesses of who wrote the gospels, all of them Church Fathers.

Your 21st century musings againt Iraneus, you effeminate western pig, are irrelevant, because we are talking about the authorship of the gospels.

The muratorian fragment mentions the apocalypse of Peter because it was already around by then, but even adds “though some amongst us will not have this latter read in the Church”, something that of course you fail to mention, putrid snake. And it is irrelevant, because we are talking about the authorship of the gospels

And for Papias the same. You can spend all day parroting reddit posts, but it remains that he is the earliest person who directly mentions the names of writers or the gospels, precisely quoted by Eusebius. And all of them are perfectly consistent, without any challenging tradition. So again, what you say is irrelevant, because we are talking about the authorship of the gospels

So you can take your fanfics, son of the Devil, and shove it up your fathers’. All the historical witnesses are against you, so deal with it and go dilate, retard.

You have to be literally braindead to think that people claim that Heaven is our ultimate goal because we have been there and we like it. This anime-tier response alone shows you are a retarded manchild trying to play with adults. I will leave you to try to sqeeze your 3.5 neurons so that you can try to guess why being in the presence of God is the ultimate fulfillment of our nature. Pro tip: consider who created our nature.

You seem scared that I give proper names to demons like you, who are effeminate pigs whose head will be crushed by Christ. I hope you repent or that otherwise, Christ will give you what you deserve, whitened sepulchre.

Overall, as St John Chrysostom said: when you hear someone blaspheme against the King of the Angels, confront him, and punch hin if necessary, sanctifying your fist with the punch.

[Darnok]

Yes, God would appreciate it.

[Comrade.allie]

This is something I struggled with as well. However, it’s such a non-issue. Satan tries to get inside our head to ruin our prayer lives, as it’s the only way to experience communion with God on Earth.

Prayer is simply the lifting of the mind to God. All you have to do is speak to Him, or you can meditate on the mysteries of the rosary or on an aspect of Him. Of course, we don’t “know” God, but that is the point of prayer and scripture. God is a mystery and He reveals Himself to us little by little. With great devotion, and grace from God, one can reach high levels of prayer and truly experience the closest thing to Heaven on Earth. (Look into the 9 levels of prayer. Harambe has an article on this).

A good practice for a prayer session is to begin with spiritual reading; either scripture or an edifying devotion such as the Imitation of Christ. Read a short passage, perhaps no more than a chapter for the Bible, and a couple paragraphs for other reading. You can even meditate on just one verse. Read it slowly, ponder it, consider how it applies to you, resolve to make changes within yourself for the better, pray to God for help with knowledge and other issues pertaining to the passage, and when you finish with that, just remain in silence with the Lord. In order to gain a contemplative spirit, and to get to know God, we must be still at times, quieting our overactive minds. We may not feel Him, but He is always with us. From there, that can help you to do other forms of meditation or to do a different prayer, or you can just do that on its own. We must do what we can as we ease into prayer, and don’t beat yourself up if you fail, just get up again and humbly beg for strength. You may also pray to Our Lady. Create a devotion to her, and she will help lead you to the Lord. Look into setting up a prayer schedule that is doable for you, and stick to it. I also really enjoy doing short prayers in the morning such as an offering and Anima Christi, and doing my devotions then as well in order to ponder them throughout the day as my mind wanders.

If you don’t have the energy/focus to pray for long periods, ease into it. Say the Jesus prayer, say ejaculations, simply recall God in your mind and ask Him to guide you, ask the Lord for His will, and don’t forget your guardian angel and the saints. This is what I do when I struggle, and though we should push ourselves and remain disciplined, burnout is very real and we must be careful.

Also, do not rely on consolations from prayer. They are like spiritual dog treats that God gives us to push us along, but they hold us back from maturity. He sometimes remains quiet because He wants to test our love for Him. Do we truly love Him and are devoted to Him, or do we just practice Christianity in the pursuit of the good feelings it gives us?
This is something I failed to realize when I was a protestant and didn’t have the spiritual direction that Church teachings gave me . Fr. Ripperger’s videos rlly helped me realize the error of my ways. I “lost” faith because I based my entire belief on how good religion made me feel, and the consolation of prayer. I looked for signs and despaired, eventually apostatizing. Now, I realize that faith is based in wisdom, and I gave myself a strong foundation to grow from. We are so weak and flawed, so we need many many hedges to catch us, and protect us from the enemy. Satan will attack you from EVERY direction, so we must remain vigilant.

I may be wrong, but based on some of your questions/concerns, I really worry that you may have skipped over some basic catechesis, and you should also really focus on studying spiritual warfare. It’s so easy as a convert to flock to the fun stuff such as reading about saints or abstract concepts, but we truly must buckle down and have a FIRM understanding of all the basics, and revisit them often.

Also, lukewarmness is a major issue so many struggle with. It can result from slacking in prayer/penance, irreverence/willful distraction from spiritual duties, skipping Church (I truly believe this is why they closed them for covid for so long. There were other options.), dependency on consolations/signs, worldly attachments (ESPECIALLY attachment to habitual sins without much penance and work to avoid sin), etc.

You have so many questions, why did it take you so long to ask them all? I remember Fr. Mike Schmitz said that neglecting such concerns and going silent for so long is incredibly dangerous. He also said, that One doesn’t lose their faith, rather, they give it up.

Finally, don’t get me wrong, I’m not judging you, but we must figure out what we did wrong to prevent it from happening again. We’re all weak, miserable sinners. It’s so easy to fall, and I hope you find true joy in Christ, joy that lasts even though sorrow. We can only have true joy through the Lord, happiness is fleeting.

I hope this helps, and if you’d like, I can link some videos, and perhaps other resources about various things mentioned above. I’ll pray for you, God bless.

[Doomanon]

Alright, I tried discourse with you. I’m just going to leave one last reply to you since I don’t think you’re actually reading anything I say (like calling me an Atheist when I never claimed to be one, or not actually discussing things and simply name-calling over and over again).

I get it man. I’ve been in your shoes before. Heart full of emotion and breathing a bunch of fiery duckspeak on the internet. You seem to be a young man who thinks that he is zealous for his faith. But based on your very surface-level responses and your sudden rise to anger shows me a few things that I’ve also felt when I was feeling like you.

1. You’re clearly not as secure in your faith as you’d like to think you are.

2. You’re frustrated at seeing the world transform around you, and likely you’re too afraid to put actual work in person and have to take it out on people on the internet.

I get it. The internet brings out the most toxic traits in everyone. I’m just letting you know that you’re very likely going to be in the same place as I am now once your fire dies down. I’d advise you not make the same mistake I did and get your anger checked. Likely by your priest or someone? I don’t know, it’s your burden. Up to you how you deal with it.

[Doomanon]

Thank you.