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I have an internet friend I have know for some 15 years or more now. I have watched her go from a young Christian woman (when I was still a Christian myself) to becoming a Muslim, then an agnostic and now back to being a Christian. I know, the final outcome (so far) would make JeffBase and Vizio moist, but I seek a more practical and sensible answer or one close enough.
I do not live around her to know about every detail of her life, but she grew up in a fundamentalist atmosphere just like I did (the whole "Jesus is coming back," The are the End Times." Love the Jews," Bible prophecy blah blah). She lost both her grandmother and mother over the past 10 years and both played pivotal roles in her life and it was at the death of her mother, she appeared to have move over to Islam.
She is VERY intelligent, well read, well written and mostly self taught. Along the way, she really took on the feminist mantle and like another internet friend of mine, she chose Islam which baffled me. Appears that the lure of Islam was about being in a religion that encouraged covering up her "goodies" so that a man would go for her for her "mind" more that her body, which I must admit, is a perfect one. She also seemed to have developed an obsession with marriage at the same time too and had a short lived Muslim marriage; a failure that prompted her to leave that faith and become an agnostic.
She started a rather successful blog that was emphatically afrocentric and then laden with relationship topics. The afrocentric topics pointed out clear messages about how much Christianity duped our people. She often chimed in on FB posts to show the flaws in the Christian faith and religion in general, but she always seemed to stop short of doing a full fledged onslaught on the "god" idea. Now, out of the clear blue, she is back in church again. In telling her that I support her and that nothing changes between us (despite my plea with her to forgive me from time to time for saying some disparaging things about her faith - NOT her specifically), she surprised me when she said it is ok because she "can see the validity of the critiques that non-Christians make about it and agree." That is the baffling part. She KNOWS, but it seems, like many, she wants to keep God close to the vest, "just in case." I really believe she misses her matriarchs dearly and I think the idea that she can see them again in the sweet by and by, as her version of Christianity teaches, holds a tremendous away on her. I also get the idea that (now in her 30s and single), she seeks a "good man" and like she did in Islam, thinks she might find one who is a "good Christian man."Personally, it just appears she seeks some stability in her life.
I realize some people can't seem to shake the god mystique and she seems to be one of them. The way I look at it is that WRONG/error/flaw/untruth/illogical cannot become right again. I realize that like my experience with grits where when I utter my utter distaste for it, someone will always think I just have not tasted REAL grits or THEIR grits to be convinced that grits is the nectar of the gods, it is the same way some would want to try to convince me about their flavor of Christianity OR spirituality. My friend here would be a prime example of those people that Christians uphold as "atheists who became Christians" when in reality, people like her were technically always on the fence and the matter not totally resolved in their heads. Then you have those Christians who "lie" about their experiences while actually unwittingly making a point for atheism. They will claim (like Vizio) that they were once an atheist (meaning they were NEVER a Christian and probably scoffed at religion at some point in their lives), but once the Gospel reached them, they converted.
For a person like me, I tend to give a lot more credibility to atheists who were ONCE Christian, Muslim, Hindu, etc who after coming to intellectual (not merely emotional) decisions, broke away from a respective faith and just cannot patch up what they have discovered to be faulty to be whole again.
She sounds like someone who gets their self worth from other people. And without her family or a husband she fulfills herself with religion. Lack of faith was too independent for her. She appears to need dependency.
...I tend to give a lot more credibility to atheists who were ONCE Christian, Muslim, Hindu, etc who after coming to intellectual (not merely emotional) decisions, broke away from a respective faith and just cannot patch up what they have discovered to be faulty to be whole again.
and a lot of people go back to God because they recognize atheism to be faulty.
I believe you're talking about an African-American woman here ... that is a subculture that really pressures a person to stay in the faith more pervasively than many others. Much of the subculture revolves around church, and highly respects group decisions about political and religious matters ... safety in numbers you might say. That's in the mix. Combine that with the tendency of women to value lasting relationships and connections more ... and I'd say you have a pretty potent force to keep pulling her back in. Her head is telling her one thing, her heart is telling her another. She needs community, acceptance and social reciprocity more than she needs to be away from the spiritual BS, is all. Let it be, if it works for her personally.
I believe you're talking about an African-American woman here ... that is a subculture that really pressures a person to stay in the faith more pervasively than many others. Much of the subculture revolves around church, and highly respects group decisions about political and religious matters ... safety in numbers you might say. That's in the mix. Combine that with the tendency of women to value lasting relationships and connections more ... and I'd say you have a pretty potent force to keep pulling her back in. Her head is telling her one thing, her heart is telling her another. She needs community, acceptance and social reciprocity more than she needs to be away from the spiritual BS, is all. Let it be, if it works for her personally.
Sounds about right. I can see her using her faith as something beneficial for her, even though, based on what I have seen so far, she is going to be tormented with what she knows to be true and what she WANTS to be true. Yes, she seems like the type of person who NEEDS that support system. The two people who meant most to her are gone and now I think about it, in BOTH cases, she made life changing decisions.
Mordant, I also understand what you are saying about the Afro-American/Caribbean community. You have seen me mention this here and there. So true.
I have an internet friend I have know for some 15 years or more now. I have watched her go from a young Christian woman (when I was still a Christian myself) to becoming a Muslim, then an agnostic and now back to being a Christian. I know, the final outcome (so far) would make JeffBase and Vizio moist, but I seek a more practical and sensible answer or one close enough.
I do not live around her to know about every detail of her life, but she grew up in a fundamentalist atmosphere just like I did (the whole "Jesus is coming back," The are the End Times." Love the Jews," Bible prophecy blah blah). She lost both her grandmother and mother over the past 10 years and both played pivotal roles in her life and it was at the death of her mother, she appeared to have move over to Islam.
She is VERY intelligent, well read, well written and mostly self taught. Along the way, she really took on the feminist mantle and like another internet friend of mine, she chose Islam which baffled me. Appears that the lure of Islam was about being in a religion that encouraged covering up her "goodies" so that a man would go for her for her "mind" more that her body, which I must admit, is a perfect one. She also seemed to have developed an obsession with marriage at the same time too and had a short lived Muslim marriage; a failure that prompted her to leave that faith and become an agnostic.
She started a rather successful blog that was emphatically afrocentric and then laden with relationship topics. The afrocentric topics pointed out clear messages about how much Christianity duped our people. She often chimed in on FB posts to show the flaws in the Christian faith and religion in general, but she always seemed to stop short of doing a full fledged onslaught on the "god" idea. Now, out of the clear blue, she is back in church again. In telling her that I support her and that nothing changes between us (despite my plea with her to forgive me from time to time for saying some disparaging things about her faith - NOT her specifically), she surprised me when she said it is ok because she "can see the validity of the critiques that non-Christians make about it and agree." That is the baffling part. She KNOWS, but it seems, like many, she wants to keep God close to the vest, "just in case." I really believe she misses her matriarchs dearly and I think the idea that she can see them again in the sweet by and by, as her version of Christianity teaches, holds a tremendous away on her. I also get the idea that (now in her 30s and single), she seeks a "good man" and like she did in Islam, thinks she might find one who is a "good Christian man."Personally, it just appears she seeks some stability in her life.
What are your thoughts?
We all have to decide what's right for us. She seems to have looked at the issues, and so I can't complain that she hasn't. So whatever floats her boat. I'm happy for her.
Sounds like she has not found Jesus , for if she did she would not waver , as Jesus would never leave or forsake her , so if she is wavering then she has not found Jesus and needs more development in Christ ....
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