What Is Theology?

That's an interesting question. My father was a Roman Catholic. He was in no way devout but we did attend services a few times per year. My mother was somewhere between an agnostic and an atheist. I was a rebellious teen who deeply explored the occult, satanism, etc. As a young adult I went through a long period where I believed in nothing. You'd have to consider me an atheist with sentimental-like agnostic leanings. Then in my 30's I started reading a lot about various religions including Christianity (in all of its various flavors), science, evolution, atheistic perspectives, etc. So, to cut to the chase, I was introduced to a foggy and vague faith "system" as a child, spent time in the wilderness, then came to faith as an adult after taking a deep, educational dive into the matter. That doesn't mean that I don't have a lot of unanswered questions because I most certainly do, but I am comfortable in my faith and in my limitations as a human to ever fully understand 100% of anything I study.

 

That's very interesting. Your history shows that you were skeptical about the various faiths you adopted throughout your life. Otherwise, there wouldn't have been so many changes.

My theory is that there are certain personality types that are attracted to the fringes of various religions and political ideologies. Some people wonder how someone can swing from one extreme to the other, but it's not really about the details of what's believed in a political ideology or religion. It's more about how a group or set of beliefs make them feel.

I distinguish myself from the broad label of "atheist" because that doesn't rule out belief in pseudoscience or the supernatural. Atheists just lack belief in a supreme being, but they can still be irrational and scientifically ignorant. Not all atheists come to their position through logic. Many turn to atheism through a bad experience with religion or because they saw a lot of hypocrisy among the religious. This isn't just my theory; there is research that supports this. But, this takes me back to "feelings."

I am a freethinker, meaning that I use evidence, logic, and reason to come to a conclusion. Not every gnostic atheist or agnostic atheist is a freethinker or skeptic. I could never see myself believing in the occult or theist Satanism (I make the distinction because the most popular Satanist groups are actually atheist and don't believe Satan exists).

Similarly, there's the horseshoe theory in politics that says that the far ends of the political spectrum are close together. Some people have come up with the term "crunchy-to-alt-right pipeline" to name the phenomenon of far left hippies drifting to the far right. That also falls into my theory that certain personality types are attracted more to how ideologies make them feel than the tenets of the ideology.

Elsewhere on social media, a person had questioned something about Christianity. Another person responded, "Don't think when it comes to Jesus. Just believe." I think this is a very dangerous mindset to have, and it's how people get drawn into cults or predatory businesses i.e. MLMs.

 

The distinction I would make as it relates to my own experience is that I don't belief I had a faith during the skeptical periods. I never really adopted a faith to subject to skepticism. To me, academic inquiry/curiosity/exploration doesn't become faith until getting through skeptical inquiry.