/lit/ - Literature

>>20227902
Philosophy is a love of wisdom, and according to the bible, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Basically you can't philosophize without accepting Christ, and if revelation wipes away the need for philosophy, philosophy becomes pretty much useless. So giving license to do it is pretty redundant.
>All I meant to do was reassure you that philosophy isn't incompatible with Christianity
I know, and its true I might be overthinking this, but it seems you haven't thought this through.

>>19395936
Well, it was... different. I'm not from a high-church background so seeing the whole thing gave me a little bit of culture shock, but in a good way - it felt right. I especially enjoyed how most of the liturgy was sung or chanted, the procession the priest and deacon made with the censer around the congregation, and the little bit right after the service where everyone sang to an older man for his birthday - not the traditional birthday song, but some kind of blessing that everyone joined in on. I did feel pretty awkward during the service, since other people got to the service books before I could and I ended up just standing in the back watching, but everyone greeted me warmly during the coffee hour they had afterwards and I got to sit down with the priest for a little bit. He was friendly and responded well to my questions, but I got the sense that he found my lack of knowledge on some church topics a little bewildering (I'm from a Mormon background).
Nobody was super pushy with me in trying to get me to keep coming back, but they did tell me they hoped to see me again when I left. It was an hour's drive to get there, but it turns out there's a smaller local chapel not far from me where they hold some services every other week, so I think I'll go check those out.
I do want to keep taking things little by little, though - I don't want to try and become le epic based and redpilled trad orthobro with a million icons in my room or whatever, and additionally I think my family will react pretty negatively to my interest in denominations outside the LDS church. Not sure how to talk to them about it but I have a couple weeks before Thanksgiving to think.
Again, thanks for your helpful posts, anon. I hope your Sunday was as nice as mine.

Can any of you anons help me to make a decision, or at least take a step towards one?
For years now, it seems as if the color has been draining out of my life. I can't concentrate on anything as long as I used to, and what I do concentrate on feels dull and drab where it used to excite and stimulate. I can distract myself for a time, with escapism, or by throwing myself into work, but the feeling always comes back eventually, and I find myself seeming to watch my life like a movie rather than participate in it, and the things that occupied me until just a second ago seem to matter as much as the things that happen to an actor in a movie. There doesn't seem to be anything satisfying or fulfilling in life.
I grew up in a Mormon household, and remember various moments of worship where this world seemed to touch another one beneath or alongside it, one that was more real than this one. I treasured these moments and took them as proofs of the faith I was born into, but over time have begun to doubt the truth as I was taught it - to me, the LDS faith seems to be some sort of anti-Gnosticism and its practitioners do not worship God at all, but some sort of powerful yet contingent being - and I've come to more or less accept the Nicene creed, and that one of the big denominations, Catholicism or Orthodoxy, is most likely the true Church. But I've hit a wall there. The issues between the two at times seem an impassable gulf, and at others very trifling things soon to be overcome, and at other times I've felt like it doesn't particularly matter which I choose as long as I choose one and commit to it, with the end result that I feel sort of paralyzed, and can't bring myself to so much as send an email to one local priest or another for fear of committing by doing so. There's also another fear, that I'll end up pursuing something like what I am trying to leave, an ultimately empty faith with good intentions but which misses the mark. Everything I've read and felt says otherwise, but I'm afraid regardless, and that contributes to my paralysis. The bent towards mysticism in Orthodoxy makes me more inclined to that side of the house, but only just.
Lastly, I have the same problems that most 20-something men in my situation have - excess Internet usage as a kid led to me growing up into a single porn addict who's never so much as held hands, and of course here I am looking for the most "based" and "redpilled" and "trad" denomination out there in the hopes that it will somehow fix me. I at least hope that unlike many who seek to convert I'm doing so because I genuinely want the truth, but it's difficult to evaluate that kind of thing objectively.
I think if I keep considering it from different angles and reading stacks of theology and the like I'll never be able to take another step forward and commit to a new faith the way I would like to. Joseph Smith prayed on which faith to join and received an answer within the hour, but I don't think I have that luxury.

>>14658579
Jesus