Doubting Thomas?

So. It's really weird to look back on my Ecclesiastes blog and then read some of the things I've been writing recently (obviously, these recent things are not on my blog). I've been going through a bit of a spiritual detox that I have a lot of trouble articulating to anyone, including myself. Plus, I'm terrified to articulate these thoughts because they're not exactly Biblically-sound. I've been reading An Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University by Kevin Roose. The book is about Kevin, an undergrad student at Brown University, attending Liberty University for one semester as a sort of "study abroad" experience. He was raised a Quaker pacifist, so what brought him to Liberty was intellectual intrigue... and he is an aspiring journalist, so he made his experience into a sort of anthropological ethnographic endeavor. As an undercover Christian, he discovers a lot of interesting things about evangelical Christians and also, inevitably, about himself. I'm about 3/4 of the way through the book, so I'm not sure where Kevin ends up spiritually. He touches on a lot of things about Christians that have been baffling me as well. I'll pull a snippet from my recent journaling that gives a bit of an overall picture to the state of my soul: "I figure if this Christian God is real and he loves me and his love can never let me go as Paul says in Romans, then so be it. I’m in no real danger, right? “No power of hell, no scheme of man can ever pluck me from His hand.” So really, I have nothing to lose being where I am, and this does bring me some solace in the midst of my inner turmoil. Eh, it’s not really turmoil. I’m just being dramatic at this point. 21 is definitely the age for identity crisis and confusion, so I’m just following the typical life strokes I suppose. In any case, it’s been an enlightening experience, and I don’t see an end to it all just yet. Perhaps an ending isn’t what I’m looking for." I've confided a lot in a couple of people and a little bit in one or two others. One of the things that stood out in Roose's book was when he discussed a debate that went on between one of Liberty's professors and a group of atheists. The atheists basically destroyed the Liberty professor in the debate, and Roose noticed it shook some of the students' faith. He almost expected the whole student body to slowly drop this whole God thing, but when everything seemed to be rolling along back to normal very soon after the debate he figured it could have something to do with the inconvenience of dropping out of faith in God. And I believe he's right about that. I've definitely thought about repercussions that could result from my period of weakened faith, and for the most part it terrifies me. I was kinda born into the mindset I've possessed for the first 20 years of my life. Thinking about going back to UMW with my thoughts had my stomach in knots. I've integrated myself so much into the Christian community, and while I know my friends wouldn't abandon me because of where I stand spiritually I would still be suffering a serious disconnect with all of them now that my relationships wouldn't be so strongly "built on Christ's love." I was thinking about leaving UMW for health school before my questioning even began in order to follow the dreams I had before coming to college. While my fear didn't have anything to do with my decision to transfer out of UMW, I have to admit it's a huge relief not to have to face a lot of discomfort I may have been heading toward. That isn't to say I won't miss my friends intensely, because I definitely will. I plan on continuing to build the relationships I've developed. And so there's really no conclusion to all of this rambling. I haven't dismissed the Christian God as improbable, and I haven't dismissed the general notion of God whatsoever. I told one Christian friend this: "I've gone through and am still going through a lot of pretty serious doubting, but I have a hard time really explaining it. It's not so much of an abandoning my faith sort of doubting as it is a stripping my faith to its raw core sort of doubting." And I still stand by that assessment. Uh, inconclusive conclusion, but I should stop myself before I head toward another invisible resolution.