Is it impossible to lose religious faith?

@fmf said
Catholic.

You are getting ahead of me. I'm "long-winded," but a slow and sloppy typist.

Catholic? Oh my God! To determine who is a true Catholic Christian is beyond the scope of my powers to find the lost sheep. You lost your faith because of the Catholic requirements and commitments? Were you a confirmed Catholic? At what age did you confirm your faith in Jesus Christ? Were you a regular at being a cannibal in the act of eating and drinking Jesus' blood? I mean did you take communion often? Provided you were a regular and steady mass attendant. Did you often confess your sins? Obviously any sins committed for which the Catholic Church recognizes as being sins.

And how are we to assure ourselves that you did not lose your faith simply through the act of having been excommunicated?

And if I may "banter" you some more, what was it that really drove you away from your faith? Did you come to believe, at some point in all those faithful years, that the real Jesus was a liar? Or the real liars are believed by you, to be those you say were responsible for making up Christianity, after the fact?

Come now, don't tell me that you gave up on believing the grand reward which was awaiting for you at the end of the line? The reward coming to you, provided you toed the line by following all the proper steps of Catholicism. Did you, at anytime, freely, and willingly, swell the coffers of your ex parish or/and ex diocese?

Perhaps we need to contact your old stomping ground, and find out from them if you were a true Catholic Christian, or not. A character reference letter, one asserting the faith you lost. It would be much faster than we can ever go here. The Catholics have more requirements and conditions for being a Catholic, than one can shake a stick at. Or one needs to be a board-certified lawyer, or a brain surgeon. But definitely less than it takes to be an intellectual.

This thread is getting more bumps than I intended to give.

@pettytalk said
Catholic? Oh my God! To determine who is a true Catholic Christian is beyond the scope of my powers to find the lost sheep.

What makes you think you are being asked "to find the lost sheep"?

@pettytalk said
You lost your faith because of the Catholic requirements and commitments?

No, not at all.

@pettytalk said
Were you a confirmed Catholic? At what age did you confirm your faith in Jesus Christ? Were you a regular at being a cannibal in the act of eating and drinking Jesus' blood? I mean did you take communion often? Provided you were a regular and steady mass attendant. Did you often confess your sins?

I am not interested in any of these questions.

@pettytalk said
Did you come to believe, at some point in all those faithful years, that the real Jesus was a liar?

No. I see Jesus as a figure portrayed in religious literature to whom certain teachings are attributed and I think many of the key teachings are morally sound regardless of whether one believes he was a divine being or not.

@pettytalk said
Or the real liars are believed by you, to be those you say were responsible for making up Christianity, after the fact?

I'm sure many of them wrote what they wrote and competed with one another in good faith and for what they sincerely felt was the greater good.

@fmf said
I've interacted with people who are theists, atheists, agnostics, Hindus, Muslims, Jews etc. all my life. I've always been interested in what they believe.

I'm only interest with what you believed right now, in order to help you with this thread of yours, where you are asking, specifically, "Is it impossible to lose religious faith?"

Which religion? Since you were to be my guinea pig for the exploration of the impossible question of loss, we can now say that we have narrowed it down to Christianity, and specifically to Catholicism. Which you have confirmed to have been the religion you have lost. A religion you were devoutly following, I imagine, for at least 25 years. Another five not so convincing for you, makes it 30. I'm understanding your numbers to represent and distinguish between the possible true follower, from the not so true and doubtful follower. Am I understanding you correctly?

It took you five years to come to the final decision of throwing away the prize/reward of a lifetime? Life without any time limit, life eternal.

Therefore now faith has a name, and will be easier to find what you lost, or what you threw away, if it was true faith.

For the record, will you confirm that what you lost is your faith in the tradition of Catholicism? Or do you want to claim more than one loss, if you believe to have believed in something other than Catholicism, or perhaps having believed in more than one religion? There have been converts who go from being Christians to being Muslims, and vice versa, just to give an example. In these cases it's not a matter of a loss of religious faith, as it's just a tradeoff on which religion to have faith with.

@pettytalk said
It took you five years to come to the final decision of throwing away the prize/reward of a lifetime?

It wasn't a decision. And, by the time I realized my faith was gone, I did not believe I was throwing anything away.

@pettytalk said
I'm only interest with what you believed right now, in order to help you with this thread of yours, where you are asking, specifically, "Is it impossible to lose religious faith?"

Which religion?

What do you mean by "Which religion"?

@pettytalk said
For the record, will you confirm that what you lost is your faith in the tradition of Catholicism?

Why do you still need me to "confirm" it? Why can't you converse properly?

@pettytalk said
Or do you want to claim more than one loss, if you believe to have believed in something other than Catholicism, or perhaps having believed in more than one religion?

No. Nothing of this kind.

@pettytalk said
There have been converts who go from being Christians to being Muslims, and vice versa, just to give an example. In these cases it's not a matter of a loss of religious faith, as it's just a tradeoff on which religion to have faith with.

Noted.

@pettytalk said
Therefore now faith has a name, and will be easier to find what you lost, or what you threw away, if it was true faith.

With your definition of "faith", what information, specifically, do you think you are adding when you put the word "true" in front of it?

@pettytalk said
I'm understanding your numbers to represent and distinguish between the possible true follower, from the not so true and doubtful follower.

There's that word "true" again. You'll need to tell me what you claim a "true follower" is.

@fmf said
What makes you think you are being asked "to find the lost sheep"?

Where you never in church attendance when the priest on the pulpit was going over the Gospel of John? "I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep." I also recall having seen an imaginative portrait depicting Jesus with a small sheep on his shoulders, just to give me the idea of you being a sheep, or rather, representing you or any other person who was lost, or still lost.

Then there are songs that Christians sing in church, or at home, such as, Amazing Grace, with such lyrics as "I once was lost, but now I'm found....." In your particular case, it may be that you were found first, and then got lost. Apparently you jumped the pen you were being housed in, and then strayed too far off the beaten path.

We are both on the warpath using only words. But now I want to declare a temporary cease fire, since I don't have any more time today to dedicate to our personal war. We can resume our fighting for the search of your lost faith tomorrow, God Willing!

P.S. In stead of "God Willing", I was going to give you the final salutation as, "keep the faith," but then I immediately realized you have none to keep.