I would classify myself as an agnostic theist, and by the way I have love every little bit of this thread -it has bee really lovely.
My greatest conflict with faith is with approach.
I was raised as go to church, pay your tithes, say your prayers, keep the sabbath, proselyte, then service till you bleed . Done. Yay Heaven! It is not necessarily ho the religion is itself per se, but it is in many ways how my parents would like to solve my crisis of faith.
I have no bad feeling or hard memories of my childhood religion. I love it with all my heart. Infact, I wish I had no hang ups as my close sister and my loving parents are both incredibly active and it means all the world to them -especially as I have children now too. I would love to have my children grow in that church actually, I believe it did nothing but good for me. Haha I feel my mother shaking me as I say that saying "then what's the problem, you're mostly there, right?"
It's just that I don't fit. I think that sounds sort of weird, but the subject matter to them as S's ( I was the only N in sight in both directions in my family) is very concrete, and for me, my spirituality is--not. I would like to talk about...maybe the implications of the concepts of the morality of justices and how it applicable today as opposed to the past. How we feel for those around us and truly see them and the walls we make. Maybe apply that to the biblical themes. -not that they wouldn't necessarily, but I get pretty blank looks. It for them is a pretty redundant dish of serve serve serve, do do do, right right right. I love it, but I'm not it. I have angst too. It's been hard for me to pray for a long time.
My father told me today after he surprised me and my two little girls to go to lunch that all he wanted for Christmas was for me to go back to church. It means so much to him, but him saying that is case in point of how differently I approach it. If I could just force it, or have it happen that easily I would have done it long ago. I would make my life so much easier. When I heard about the Hong Kong heiress Gigi's reaction to her father trying to get some man to woo her from being a lesbian with 65 million dollars I thought it was pretty much the exact relationship I have with mine (he is an ESTP) "At first I was entertained by it, and then that entertainment turned into the realization and conviction that I am a really lucky girl to have such a loving daddy," Gigi said. "It's really sweet of him to do something like this as an expression of his fatherly love."
I don't know, my faith is so entwined with my family. I was having a hard day with it when I saw this so sorry for the length.
I also find it uncomfortable to think of myself as believing one single set of beliefs, because it feels polarizing to me. If I believe that, then I believe everything else is wrong. I could never be that certain.