Do you value truth over feeling ?

The sacraments. Objective truth more or less. Thats why feelings are probably a bad indicator. I can understand your frustrations because when you are told you faith depends on how you feel rather then what you think or believe then it can be unnerving when those feelings arent there.

In the creeds I dont remember reading a section about "feeling" any one way or another though.

 

Definitely. Faith should not be watered down into being synonymous with "feeling." I have full faith that God knows what's best for me, but I don't always feel that way.

 

Nailed it.

 

A quote from Lewis's "That Hideous Strength" comes to mind:

"You do not fail in obedience through lack of love, but you have lost love because you never attempted obedience."

As was mentioned earlier, if you want to know peace inwardly, your feelings must come in alignment with the Truth, not the other way around. They get this way through the practice of obedience, regardless of how you feel. In time, your feelings will be transformed, and then the hard discipline of self-denial becomes the easy thing, because it is truly what you desire to do.

You believe that your feelings will never change and will always be in conflict with what is right. This is not true. If you willingly sacrifice those feelings -- trading in your tired, worn out notions for the true ones from Christ which are undying and incorruptible -- they will be returned to you much improved. This is the "Great Exchange" of the Kingdom. It's simply the way it works.

We get into trouble when we do not want to give up our feelings. Like a petulant child, we cling to them because we do not trust there is anything better. Lewis is again helpful (from "Weight of Glory"):

“It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”

As for why your feelings are in the state they are currently -- well, that is where the whole notion of sin and the fallen state of the world comes in. A topic for another time, perhaps.

 

NO

 

But isn't that what religion is all about? That each religion claims only it knows the full truth (others may have part of the truth, but only part).

 

I am not sure if this is relevant, but one point of clarification: In Christianity, the Truth is not a set of facts or principles. It is a person. So, we know the Truth when we know Jesus. We grow in that relationship, just as we do in all relationships. But it's odd to talk about "full truth" or "partial truth" or "percentage of truth." You don't say that you only know a percentage of your friend or your brother or your spouse. You just say that you know them. You may not know them well, you may not want to know them any better, or you may want to get to know them more in time. But knowing them is an either/or condition. It is the same with Truth in the Christian understanding of reality.

So, better stated, the quandary of "Do you value truth over feelings?" should read: "Do you value Jesus over self?" That's really what we are discussing here, and that is what it always boils down to: His way or our way. It is our choice which we will take.

 

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make with this. Sure, most religions claim they are the one and only truth. But that doesnt change what actual truth is.

For example, if Christianity is true, then those other religions are not true. If Christianity is not true, then either one of those other religions might be truth, or they might all be false. Truth remains the same, regardless of whether or not anyone believes in it.

 

Not good book.

I've read two of his books and I'm trying to think If I learnt anything positive from it... The only good thing I got was that it's important to communicate in a relationship but everything else I remember was terrible. My hot take from his books was: Don't date and if you happen to date make sure you don't break up because if you break up your they will haunt you for the of your life. You could never truly love the person you marry if you have an ex because you gave your ex a bit of your heart. This made me scared of dating so I didn't date until my 30's. In fact, I think that's one reason I started looking at porn. Nothing was said about porn stars haunting you, it was just ex-girlfriends so I felt porn was better. Of course, the book doesn't encourage people to watch porn but I figured out watching porn was safer. It wasn't until my 30's that I got a girlfriend and I was scared we would break up. The beginning of the relationship was great but she wasn't happy with things after about 6 or 7 months and wanted to end things. That freaked me out because I simply couldn't have an ex-girlfriend. I persuaded her to not end things and she agreed but neither of us was happy. She didn't feel all that happy with being in a relationship with me and I felt unhappy because she wasn't happy. In the end, I ended the relationship. I couldn't cope with it anymore. But then I began hating her and wish I had never met her. I believed she was going to haunt me for the rest of my life. Then I began hating myself for being stupid enough to get in the relationship in the first place. I now reject that message of the book on one level but that message was drilled into me as a teenager so a part of me believes that it's true. I now have a complicated relationship with dating, romance and sex. Sometimes I think it's a good thing and sometimes it makes me mad.

I don't think it's just Joshua Harris. Family members believed in this purity thing and told me I shouldn't date and that I shouldn't kiss a girl until I get married. But Joshua Harris had the biggest influence over me. I'm not saying it's just evangelical purity culture that causes me to hate dating, romance and sex but I think it plays a big part. Watch the Joshua Harris documentary was a revelation because there were people who read the book and as a result became traumatised because they didn't marry the first person they dated. So yeah, not a good book!

If he's read the book(s) there's nothing you can say - the damage has already been done. I will acknowledge not everyone was affected in such a negative way. Just hope and pray what he read it isn't traumatising him.

 

You say everyone is human and we all fail at perfection. It’s the nature of being.

 

When it comes to the passions, feelings, and emotions, yes, we must follow truth above them but we must also learn to align our feelings with the truth. We must love truth and detach from a love of what is untrue. That’s what we’re doing here, right? We’re learning to hate the slavery of PMO and trying to foster a love for the freedom of self-control! How else will recovery be sustainable if we do not align our feelings with this truth?

Lust is an inordinate attachment to sex like how gluttony is an inordinate attachment to food. When you do not give into lust, you are controlling it. Any lust is too much just like any gluttony is too much food. There is no such thing as gluttony in moderation nor Lust in moderation. Saying you can be uncontrollable in moderation or inordinately ordered is an oxymoron.

 

Is was more responding to this

I know you personally didn’t view it this way but I wanted to clarify why I didn’t either.

I disagree that we cannot control our feelings. We absolutely can which is one of the reasons we’re held responsible for our actions. I personally feel controlling our feelings is knowing when our feelings cross from ordered desires to inordinate ones. Of course any feeling the deviates from the truth and the way in which that truth should be lived is when a feeling crosses from ordered to disordered.

 

Just my opinion: We may not be able to control our feelings. I'm not sure. Sometimes I feel sad or angry and I have no idea why. It just comes out of nowhere, and it takes me some time to figure out what's up.

But we absolutely can control how we respond to our feelings, even if they take us by surprise. We can learn not to react without thinking. We can take the time we need to understand why we feel the way we do before we take any action. This is all part of the journey up out of addiction, I think. At least, this has been my experience.