I've wanted to write, even sat down several times with the express intention to write, but words didn't flow, haven't even stumbled their way out of my fingers, and therefore thoughts didn't form, and there hasn't been anything to write.
We didn't go to church today. It was raining, cool, and excellent sleeping weather. So we took advantage of it, along with the hour gained from the time change, and snuggled in. When we finally rose, I fixed biscuits and sausage for our breakfast. By the time we read the Sunday paper, the morning had slipped into early afternoon.
As part of an excuse for not posting, I read the article by Mark Vernon "How to be agnostic" that Ms Heyward recommended in her comment to the last post, thrice in fact. I've printed it, marking the paper in places I thought most important, and have been trying to write something about it for these past days. It's an important article, has adjusted some of my thoughts, and I thank Julie Heyward for pointing it out and linking to it.
While the subject is comments, another comment I received has also been very important to me. It's the second one here. I am humbled that something I have written has assisted someone to solve an inner conflict, but ... . I have felt my own inner conflict has been solved several times, and I keep returning to similar, or even identical, questions and conflicts. For this lady, I suspect she hasn't finally and completely solved her inner conflict either, though that is certainly arrogant for me to say. My hope is that she, as I, keep returning to the questions and discover that on each level the answers continue to raise questions. I also hope she doesn't take this wrong, because it seems very arrogant for me to tell her, or anyone, that they do or do not have solution to their own inner conflict. I would be very honored if she, and anyone else who reads this blog, would continue to comment.
As recap, that "Tuesday Evening blog post and the one before it, "Saturday Afternoon," was the beginning of this version of my questions and belief statements. For me, it began with this paragraph from Saturday Afternoon.
A fully involved, fulfilled life, it seems to me, is likely one in which the person acts from a deep desire, pressing toward a goal that may never be reached, but pressing nevertheless. And I believe that every person should have the opportunity to live that way. But what does that actually mean? Is every person ever free to reach for the goals of his heart, or is that for a minority who have the intellect, time, and resources to do so? Examining these, and questions that follow them, raise ideas, prejudices, and fears that need to be examined.
From that, I proceeded to:
... The first question, therefore, should be, How strong is that doubt? I've been having a serious conversation with myself, and it started something like this.
Questioning self: Do you believe in God?
Responding Self: What God are you asking about?
QS: Oh, for Christ's sake, the God of the Bible, The God of Abraham, of Mohamed, the Prophets, Jesus, The Gospels - that God.
RS: No.
QS: Well, what God do you believe in?
And as partial answer to that:
I do not believe in a Being that exists throughout the spiritual history of so many people. I doubt that specific Being exists. There is not a creative force that set the universe into motion. There is no Being that demands worship.
I do believe quite strongly that there is a unity of life that unites all persons in a way I can't explain. I believe there is a connection of people, animals, and earth. We are all a part of one another in ways that we've either forgotten or have chosen to ignore.
Having read and thought about the article recommended by Julie Heyward, I have a much more acute understanding of just how ignorant I am in this type of conversation. I am unable to compare Bertrand Russell and Socrates. And it shines a bright light on one of my most glaring faults. When I was a teenager, for some long forgotten reason I decided that I was not going to depend on the knowledge of those before me. I was going to discover all necessary knowledge for myself. I didn't read the classics or most other books of the greatest teachers. I read a lot, but nothing from those shelves. As a result, I haven't the depth of knowledge they would have given me. Arrogance is a sign of a stubborn, weak mind, unwilling to learn from the experience of others.
Early in Mark Vernon's article, he says, " ... for all religion's ills, for all its irrationality, religious traditions preserve a way of fife that human beings are poorer without." That can only be true, it seems to me, if there is an underlying assumption that religion is the only way to preserve that way of life. I am not ready to accept that assumption.
I have to stop for a while and do some family things. I hope this post has stepped further along a path that I have no idea where it ends. In some ways, I hope that it does not.
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