Agnostics “R” Us...

I've never heard about any of the above. Perhaps I shouldn't feel good about it, as it makes sense to be aware of what's important to a large segment of one's society.

I have mixed feelings about the existence of such "idols". The worst part about a state religion is that people must live in accordance with ideas that have never been rigorously tested or that are self-evidently false. One has no choice but to comply. I am not sure whether those idols match the criteria above.

It's peculiar...

 

@Bill Bauer well maybe you should find the book about Timothy Leary and read it, the title is "I have America surrounded" that man was a god into himself.

 

It's not always fear driven. It wasn't for me.

I was agnostic for years, till I started to encounter examples of people with faith who impressed me rather than put me off, and to experience things I couldn't explain through my agnostic world view. Fear of hell never even entered the equation for me.

And re your use of the words "only", "all" and "always" - sometimes you seem very certain for an agnostic!

 

Yes MM - I guess I am.
What I am certain about is that we cannot ‘know’ of the existence of god.
People can know through faith of course - but as far as I can ascertain so far, no Christian I have ever spoken to has said that they have ‘heard’ the voice of god.
They refer to bible texts to get their answers.
From my own experience, god is not interactive in the way that a computer game can be.
In my hours of greatest need, times of utter desperation, I have prayed for a feeling of presence - and felt nothing at all.
Yes - of course - I am a sceptic.

 

I respect your position as always Jazzer. As I sense you respect mine.

I have sensed a "presence", quite strongly on some occasions, which I believe to have been God. But no audible voices, or lights from heaven.

I don't know why some of us seem to get the answers we look for, whilst others get a different result.

Maybe the only thing we can really be certain of, is that we can't be certain of anything.

Or can we?

 

Respect is a definite MM.
I have just never found god.
So I am bound to question his existence.
I particularly dislike the blackmailing threats that seem to be inherent in all religions.
Christianity’s ‘Lakes of Fire.’
(Matthew.)

 

(Continued From This Post)

Hey @Jazzer, I wrote most of this post last month, and then got caught up in educating myself on the coronavirus, and how to best protect myself. I now find myself enjoying your conversation with @Mister Muso, and thought it might be time for me to "dust off" what I wrote a month ago, and post it here. When I first wrote it, I kept thinking "this is my last installment", but then I remember more of what I was thinking and going through during a tranformative period of my life. I then begin to think my story wouldn't be comprehensive if I didn't include "a few more details". So even though I thought this post would be the last "installment, it looks like I need at least one more after this--if anybody's interested. You have told me you're interested in hearing more, right?

So, to continue: -- By the end of my last post, I shared how I'd discovered Western Religion didn't suit me (by a long shot), Eastern Religion didn't suit me either, and on an experiential level, meditation turned out to be quite detrimental. I ended my post with the query, "Now what?" -- Moving on from that point in my life: With no real plan in mind, I maintained a strong curiosity for just about anything I thought might give me deeper insights into life.

I regularly asked friends what they've been reading or delving into. If I was visiting a friend, I would often ask if they minded if I looked at some of the books on their bookshelves (they never minded). I also looked into rather obscure things that might be in the library. Ran across all kinds of new and interesting things, such as astrology, astral body, astral travel (seemed a bit "out there" and a bit "scarey" as well), dreams, "dark night of the Soul" (Oh boy ), "seeing the light", auras, etc. Especially intriguing to me were references to "Audible Life Stream" and "Music of the Spheres" which were apparently the same thing. As fascinating as I found those references to be, there was (frustratingly) little information to be found on them.

At one point, I checked out a book on auras, and ran across a most intriguing account. It was by a woman who described the moment she first began to actually see auras. She'd been at a basketball game, and the lighting where she was sitting was unusual, and created a kind of unusual "shadow". This phenomenon opened up a "window" for her to see things she'd never seen before. She could actually see the auras of the basketball players as they played. Perhaps more accurately, she could see lines of light (and energy) running between all the players on the team.

She could clearly see who the leader of the team was (Rick Barry of the Golden State Warriors). Team play essentially emanated from and had its focal point in the leader. This was quite fascinating to me, because I'd been a basketball player (quite a good one), and in a position that usually involves becoming the leader of a team. But for reasons I didn't understand at the time, I shyed away from a leadership role, as I'd never felt I had a good sense of what being a leader entailed. The account by this woman gave me greater insights into an important past experience of mine.

I found this account about auras to be quite believable. It also seemed to be somewhat of a catalyst for stirring some things up within me. I began to notice a certain frustration within myself as I contemplated the extent of how many non-physical things I was naively oblivious to. -- I became more interested in the phenonomen of deja vu, as I experienced it quite often in my life (sometimes unsettlingly so), and I noticed a pattern to it. I wouldn't experience it for quite some time, then all of a sudden, I would experience it many times over just a few short days. What I eventually realized was this would occur just before a big change in my life--almost always a change I'd never anticipated. So, some invisible forces seemed to be at play in my life, and I wanted to know more about them.

Dreams was another topic I wished I had greater undersandings and insights into. I'd had a few dreams that seemed to have a big impact on how I felt when I woke up. I eventually got to the point where I couldn't shake them off so easily as I'd had in the past as it being "just a dream". I began to consider whether those dreams were actually touching on past lives, something I'd begun to give more than passing consideration to. I'd perused books on dreams, but never could conjure up a strong enough interest to do some indepth wading through all the symbolism, and other interpretations. Part of the reason for that is those books almost always seemed to contradict each other, and the symbols they talked about didn't seem to relate to me or my dreams. -- So again, I felt I was on my own.

Dreams that possibly touched on past lives were especially intriguing however, and at one point I remembered a long-forgotten experience I'd had when I was in grade school. I was getting ready for bed, and with my eyes in a tired-like state, noticed the reflection in the mirror seemed a bit off. So I kind of played with it a bit, and noticed my off kilter eyes kind of creating crazy little images. Then all of a sudden, I saw a clear reflection of an Indian chief with a decorated headdress looking back at me. I was pretty startled, and decided I'd had enough of that, and went straght to bed. But even at that time, when I was barely familiar with the concept of past lives, I did wonder in a curious sort of way whether I was an that Indian chief in another life.
-
By my early 20's, I'd determined I wanted to become a chiropractor (because of I had gotten the most help with my health from Chiropractic). But my profound lack of energy and other health issues continually prevented me from being able to achieve my goals. Because of those ongoing frustrations, I became quite interested in reading stories about success, to possibly discover what I might be missing. I'd experienced probably more than my share of success earlier in my life, with a natural dexterity for virtually all things of an athletic nature, and a relative ease with any class or school work that came my way. But after my accident at 15, those things that had been so easy for me began to become more and more difficult. [As I mentioned in an earlier post, I had an increasingly hard time focusing, and was constantly reeling in many different ways from what I now believe to have been chronic brainstem compression in my neck area].

In my desire to become more successful at whatever I attempted in my life, I began to intensely search out books on the principles of success. Was there a possible connection between those principles and the principles of spirituality? Turns out (surprisingly to me), there seemed to be many. The one that most caught my interest was the principle of love. The success books almost always emphasized that to be successful at anything, you needed to find something you loved. If you didn't, you were more than likely bound to fail, or come up short in your expectations. They also (surprisigly) talked about the importance of loving relationships being integral to success in all areas of our lives. I was rather astonished by how many highly successful CEOs unabashedly shared how they would never have achieved their success had it not been for their wives' support (at a time when almost all CEOs were male).

I thought a lot about this, especially after reading uncannily similar "philosophies" time after time from a variety of successful people. It was a catalyst for me to reflect on how much I'd loved playing basketball, and how successful I'd been, and it made a lot of sense to me. The more I considered it, the more I felt love was likely the most important "principle of life" and I should give it much greater consideration, especially on how I might incorporate it more into my life. Along these lines, one thing I'd been noticing during this time was that I seemed to be able to relate quite easily and naturally with animals, children, and older adults, but not as much with other adults. I then began to wonder if that natural affinity was actually a natural sharing of love that was easy for me with pets, hildren, and the elderly.

At this juncture, I'd been on kind of an intense search for about three plus years. Not sure exactly why, but I decided it was time for me to become "less intense" about wanting to know about things in life that "may" for the most part be "unknowable". I felt I'd looked over so many different religions and philosophies, and nothing really seemed to click. As I related earlier, I finally came to the conclusion that most religious leaders and authors of religious and philosophical books were "all guessing" (at best). Looking back, it was a rather audacious conclusion to reach for a twenty-some year old. I'd long felt I probably needed some kind religion or philosophy to base my life on. But (surprisingly) what seemed to suit me best were those principles of success I'd read about. And the main principle of virtually all those success books was that of love.

So I reached what felt like a turning point, where I determined I would "just relax", and go forward in my life with love as my guiding principle. It felt "right", but I still couldn't quite shake a "mild" sense of disappointment over not finding what I thought I'd been looking for. For the most part however, I thought my "search" was over, and felt a welcome sense of relief about that. -- And then, just as I was ready to get "settled into" my new philosophy, my new neighbor at the time brought me a copy of her daily newspaper, wanting to show me a letter to the editor she'd sent in on her (very strong) athiest views. I found it interesting, but I also noticed an article on the front page that caught my interest. It was about a rather obscure spiritual group that was opening up a local center, and was going to have an introductory talk the following evening. It didn't say a lot about their philosophy, but it did mention the term "Soul Travel".

What? I thought. In all my past searching, why haven't I run into this before? More importantly, did I want to jump back into my "search" mode, right after I'd begun to relax about my search being over? Part of me wanted to just "let it go". But my natural tendencies (the audacious and tenacious parts of myself) rebeled at so readily passing on some possibly very interesting, and perhaps insightful information. It didn't help however, that this group initially appeared to be some kind of (perhaps flaky) Southern California cult. So, with a a great amount of accumulated skepticism, but also a relative openess to anything that might align with my newly found life philosophy(s), I decided to "go see what they had to say". I anticipated I would likely come home and check one more thing off my long list of so many other things I'd checked off.

Little did I know going to this talk would lead me into one of the more "disquieting" times of my 26-year old life. Though so much of what I was to hear then and in the coming days was quite unique (and incredibly fascinating), it was also a catalyst for me to more fully realize (and experience) just how deeply the dark claws of my former religious upbringing had burrowed their way into some core parts myself. And those claws were not ready to let go without a rather fearsome battle! What transpired brought up things within myself I had no idea were there, and the amount of anger and rage I felt was pretty shocking. How on earth do I reconcile this "rage" with my bright shining new ideal of living my life "based on love"? -- More Later...

 

If it’s up to us we go no place after we die. Kind of a helpless feeling. Hard to be religious with your head buzzing. I have other body problems as well. I was reading/watching the link below.

https://www.closertotruth.com/series/death-final

 

Research these two topics

Is consciousness fundamental to reality? (ie is consciousness the collapse of the wave function and panpsychism)

Is the universe an organismic process as opposed to a dumb machine? (galaxies are organisms with goals)

 

Thank you for this Lane.
So you have always searched for ‘meaning’ and for answers.
I recognise the intensity of that search within myself.

My childhood was an abyss of total emotional, mental, physical pain.
My mother, who I think wished to be a kindly soul, was crippled by her welter of depressive pain, the intensity of which prevented her from any possibility of bonding.
As a baby I was left to anguish, cry and scream my lonely terror of isolation to this uncaring void of a world.
My aunt told me that I screamed myself into a stomach hernia at twelve weeks.
I could write about this aspect of my life for pages, but will leave it there with a mention that eventually, through a study of the work of two great child psychologists, Donald Winnicott and John Bobby, on childcare and the growth of love, I managed to unearth the reasons for my desolation, and to piece together a way to develop a workable ego (sense of self) outside of childhood - no easy thing.

After a long life (now 77) concurrently in music (56 years a professional jazz trombonist) and retail (50 years running a family business in fresh produce and floristry) I have to accept that my several attempts to find god, have yielded nothing, and contributed to my conclusion that he ‘probably’ does not exist.
In moments of extreme distress, from childhood on up, when I have sat on a park bench and wept and prayed to him with tears running down my face, praying just for a sense of presence to ease my torment, to help me through - the result has been a resounding hiatus of ‘nothingness.’

Now if god is in fact a reality, all knowing, all wise, all caring, all powerful, would he not have seen the distress of a desperate little kid, the torment of a young father, a painfully struggling guy......and answered my prayers.
When the answer to that question is ‘zilch,’ then I have to conclude my own answer.

When I observe Christianity I see a book, a church, a congregation, but no current evidence for god himself.
No interactive entity.
When I look at the apparent historical biblical events - Moses descending Mt Sinai with two tablets of stone, the commandments on which form the whole basis for Christian teaching, can I truly believe that that happened?
I struggle to believe it.
Bloody hell - I only just believe in the existence of Charlton Heston!

(More later buddy.)

 

Those verses troubled me a lot, until I learned that there are in fact four different Greek or Hebrew words in the Bible which have been somewhat carelessly all translated as "hell". And the idea of hell as a place of conscious eternal torment wasn't one which the original Bible authors would have recognised, but rather it became popular during medieval times - Dante's Inferno, for example, which was a pure fabrication from the artist's imagination.

The word translated as "hell" which Jesus used was Gehenna, which was actually the name of the main rubbish dump just outside the city of Jerusalem, with "fires that never went out". You wouldn't put a live body onto a rubbish dump, but only a dead one. Remember he always spoke in parables and metaphors when teaching publicly. Centuries of mis-translation and misinterpretations have added layers of confusion to the original meaning.

This is a great article for those who wish to read more:

Hell: A “Biblical” Staple The Bible Never Actually Mentions

 

Step out your front door or back door your choice and look closely to the destruction of the world, your life, your childrens life, the future we embrace. The massive killing of human life. And my favourite the person who goes to church on Sunday beats his wife and molests his children. And then the wife and children pray to some god for help only to realise fuck there's no god answering.

 

One of my christian friends described the experience of hell as:
“living apart front the presence of god.”

Bit like life then.
I have no experience of god in this life either.
Just more of the same.

 

I found this very insightful. Thanks.

 

Hey @Jazzer -- I think I'll dispense with my next "installment" for now (perhaps for good), as it doesn't seem all that important at the moment. However, I do want to let you know that I also recognize the intensity of your own search, and I find many similarities between yours and mine. I've noticed your "makeup" and mine seem to be quite similar in many ways as well. Here's some of the traits that I really like about you:

An important one in my book, (as they say) you're nobody's fool. (In a similar vein, I consider myself to be a veritable nononsense kind of guy). I've noticed you don't believe something just because some so-called authority tells you to believe it, or what your childhood religion told you to believe--me either. Which leads me to a second point: You don't believe something, regardless of whether it's presented to you by an authority, if you can't back it up with some kind of personal experience of your own. To me, this is a clear sign of someone who uses good discrimination, which in my mind is a valuable (perhaps indispensible) "spiritual" skill.

There's more I could list, but I think I'll just get to the heart of the matter; You regularly talk about the importance of love and kindness. This is so similar to what I was feeling and believing when I finally decided to "end my own search", and "just relax", and live my life based on what I considered to be the noble attributes of love and kindness. By this time, I had come to believe that living these attributes was far more important than finding some kind of organized religion or philosophy. -- Here's the ironic part of my experience:

It was almost immediately after I had come to this "state of mind" (for lack of better words), that I discovered a spiritual teaching that not only mirrored a lot of my own philosophy(s) in some uncanny ways, but was able to expound on my own belief system with thoughts, ideas, and ideals that seemed eminantly sensible to me (though at times a bit unsettling). Once I began to seriously consider and "take in" some of this new "input", the dark claws from my old religious indoctrination dug in for a battle, and didn't want to let go. So why did this occur?

The best answer I can give is that I exposed myself to a teaching based on love and kindness, and started doing some simple "spiritual exercises" to have more of this in my life--something had to give. And that was some of the darkness embedded in me by my earlier religious teaching. This took me a while to figure out. Some of my initial reactions of anger to what I was hearing was because it didn't jibe with what I had been taught. Never mind that I believed I had totally discarded what I'd been taught! But as time went by, I noticed that these unusual "anger episodes" were coinciding with me experiencing an unusual amount of love, a kind of which I had ever experienced before. So in a sense, I found myself in a bit of a "tug of war".

To mention, there were some important things about this spiritual path that really appealed to me, and I suspect you would totally respect: 1) No do's and don'ts; That is, we can advise you on what's best for you in a spiritual sense, but it's always your decision whether or not to take that advice: 2) Don't believe something just because you've heard about it from us (which would include books); Always do your own investigating, and come to your own conclusions; 3) Never proselytize; As in, never try to unduly influence another persons's spiritual beliefs or orientation; It is everybody's sacred right to believe what they want, and nobody should ever interfere with that; 4) Don't give us any donations to support the organization, unless it's from the heart, and it feels totally uncoerced to you. -- There's more, but I'll stop at this point.

With all this said, and with the hope you have a clear understanding of where I'm coming from, I'm going to leave you with a couple of links to two 3-minute videos released by this (still) relatively obscure spiritual path I've been referring to. One gives a very brief overview of a main thesis of who we are as Soul--What the Path of ECK Is All About; The other gives a brief introduction to a spiritual technique (mantra) that helps open one's heart to greater amounts of love--Eckankar, Miracles in Your Life. I leave these with you, trusting you will understand I'm in no way trying to influence what you choose to believe or not believe. I feel confident you're OK with this, because I view you (much like myself) as a "curious" guy, who enjoys looking at others' perspectives, and is very grounded within himself to discern what has merit and what doesn't.

I also believe you have a bit of a sensitive nature, which I believe is the case with a lot of musicians. I would be surprised if in all your years performing as a musician, you didn't gain the ability to tune into the energy of the audience, and whether or not they were with you. Were they enjoying the music? Were they thinking you were a dud? lol My brother's a musician (primary instrument hammered dulcimer), and he gave me some good insights on this! -- In that light, my thought is that if you watched these two short videos, you could get a sense almost immediately if they carry a vibe of love and kindness, which is what my own belief about these videos is. Once you get this sense, it's totally up to you whether or not you have any questions for me about my own "chosen path".

In my earlier post, I mentioned two references I had run across in my search that especially intrigued me: 1) Audible Life Stream; and 2) Music of the Spheres, and that I'd become frustrated over not being able to learn more about them. You might find it interesting that I discovered Eckankar had more than plenty to say about this topic. In fact, it turns out to be one of the cornerstones of its teachings. So just as I had earlier discovered there's a lot of similarities between the principles of success and the principles of spirituality, I now discovered there's a lot of similarites between music and spirituality as well.

In the two videos I linked, references are made to "God" (which I hope is OK with you), but I want to emphasize that this path's idea of "God" is virtually nothing like that of Christianity. My understanding is they view God more like that of an "Ocean" of Love and Light and Sound. They often emphasize that "Spirit" can be seen as Light, and heard as Sound, and experienced as love. -- I still have somewhat of an issue with the word God myself, but whether or not I or anybody else believes in God is mostly a moot point in my mind (does anybody think God would really care?). What I believe is infinitely more important is what our own personal experiences are with love, and kindness, and life, and our own predilection to have the highest regard (and love) for all our fellow Souls. -- And of course, so much more...

 

Great post Lane.
Actually intriguing to me.
I will have a chance to reply later on.
Good to know you brother.

Dave xx
Jazzer

 

Hi @Lane - I’m back.
Yes - we share probably many similarities.

Yes I do rattle on a bit about ‘love and kindness’ - which essentially everybody probably believes in I guess.
So why would I go on about such a universally accepted aspect?
I want to be a good caring person.
I need to believe that I am.
My integrity is crucial to me.

My religious friends tell me that mankind is inherently bad,
‘Unless they have surrendered to God, confessed their sins,
been saved by grace, and been filled with the Holy Spirit.’

Now - as explained in my post above - I have truly (desperately) searched for God.
I needed God’s presence in my life.
I was dying - dying of isolation.
I never felt it.
It never came.
I did not want to come to the conclusion that God did not exist
- but what other conclusion could I come to ??

My integrity is crucial to me.
I cannot jettison my intellectual reasoning, and accept, pray to, worship, a God I cannot find.
God has never appeared in any capacity throughout my entire life experience.
Yet I need to believe in something?

Despite what the ‘born again Christians’ say - I believe a person can be ‘good’ purely because they decide to be, they want to be, they are determined to be ‘good.’
Having suffered neglect, abuse, isolation etc... at such an early age, I truly know what ‘hurt’ feels like.
‘Hurt’ can kill you.
I never ever want to hurt anybody on this earth.

So what do I believe?
What can I truly believe in?
Be sensitive.
Be kind.
Be loving.
Endeavour to lead as good a life as possible.
It is not difficult - it comes quite naturally.

The ‘religionists’ will not have it that people can be good - by decision.
I disagree.
I do not reject their god - I quite simply......CAN - NOT - FIND - HIM.

Now Lane - I will give your videos a good look,
but I should just mention that in a way, I am loath to adopt anybody else's,
any spiritual teacher’s, ready made concepts, by comparison with my humanistic principles - but we’ll give it a go.

Take care brother

Dave x
Jazzer

 

@Jazzer -- Be true to yourself brother; be true to yourself!

 

So they kill their god. Then afterwards they worship him then they kill the ones that don't.
That makes sense.

 

I do not accept, or agree with, any of the teachings of Jesus Christ, the alleged savior god/man. The Golden Rule is a bastardization of the Silver Rule, from the ancient Orient, which stated, "Do not do anything to others that you would not want done to yourself." The Xians have twisted this wise saying, into an excuse to force their beliefs on others.

"Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, either in this age or in the age to come." Matthew 12:32, New American Standard Bible

I can say, without hesitation, or fear of heavenly reprisal, that the mythical holy ghost/spirit is possibly the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the human race, and the very thought of worshiping an invisible spirit, or even believing that it exists, is insanity.

 

I’m with you brother.....x

 

I was raised Roman Catholic and went to Catholic school for grades 3 to 6 back in the 1950s before Vatican II so a very conservative brand of Catholicism to be sure. Thus, I can relate to getting "unhooked" if you will from a conservative religious upbringing. I recently read a book written by a historian who is a renowned Bible scholar who was raised a Christain fundamentalist through his college education and beyond. As a result of his work over time, he evolved to an agnostic atheist. Thought someone might like this book: "How Jesus Became God" by Bart D. Ehrman. Certainly will help unhook one from early brainwashing on Christianity he says with a smile. It is written with the lay person in mind so it is for the non-historian as well.

 

Sounds right up my street HO.

 

I agree, Bart D. Ehrman is great. All his books are fantastic for anyone interested in Christianity from a historical perspective. His podcast with Sam Harris was also very interesting.

 

Meh, sounds like just another confused agnostic to me

If you're interested in both sides of the debate, you might want to make your next read after Ehrman's book "How God Became Jesus - A Response to Bart Ehrman" by Michael F. Bird.

In the words of the 80s hair metal band Extreme, there are three sides to every story: Yours, Mine, and The Truth.

 

I am interested in ancient history (see my avatar )and this is why I have read most books from Bart Ehrman since he is one of the world expert about the subject and his writings about early Christiany are really fascinating.
IMHO Michael F. Bird is definitely not in the same league academically.

 

Thanks for the idea. I have seen that book in the past. I am not looking to be a Christian or any religion myself. That is not just based on this one book Ehrman wrote. As a result of my seeking over my 73 years, I have landed in the space of agnostic atheism. I do not believe (key word "believe" meaning unwilling to take the leap of faith) in a God although I would not rule out there is one. If there is one it is probably not like the ones the Abrahamic religions have proposed. I just don't think I can ever know for me that there is a God and certainly question anyone can ever figure it out one way or another. I also don't think there is anything in religions that is "The Truth" but only opinions. I am fine with others taking the leap of faith if that works for them as long as they don't impose their religious beliefs on others by instituting them in laws everyone must follow like in some countries with state religions. The purpose of my post was to offer those "stuck" in a type of Christianity they were raised in they might benefit from Ehrman's book. I would agree if they want to look at the other side of the debate they should read the book you suggest and probably many others before coming to a conclusion. Thanks again for your sharing.

 

I know, I was being slightly flippant again. Sorry.

Ehrman's work is very well researched and may well help to "de-program" those conditioned by over-zealous fundamentalist background (to which I was never subjected). For myself, I've oscillated between believing all religions are equally good/bad/indifferent, and on the other hand finding my own hope in a personal faith in one (grew up in a Presbyterian chuch, eventually found my own faith at university). There are still a lot of questions to be asked though. What can we really know about the Jesus of history? How close is the Jesus of the gospels to that reality? Or the Jesus of Paul? Maybe the Christian religion just got lucky by arriving at the height of a technologically advanced (for its time) Roman empire which eventually became sympathetic to it. Maybe it's a mixture of all these things. I've not read a complete book of his but I'm familiar with his ideas. Any time I've read a similar book I always come away with more questions than answers. Perhaps that is each author's intention.

EDIT: I do believe there is such a thing as objective truth, but each of us may only be able to discern some part of it. Like the story of the blind men around an elephant trying to figure out what it is by feeling different parts of the same creatures.

 

@Mister Muso -- You pose a number of interesting questions. Regarding you reference to "personal faith": I've long been of the opinion that there are essentially as many religions in this world as there are people. That is, everybody has their own set of perspectives, experiences, and insights into life that are unique to them, which then evolves over time into a personal set of beliefs (religion?).

I've often thought in terms of, "Don't tell me what your religion is, show me how you live your life". I think how you live your life is a much greater reflection of a person's religion than whether someone belongs to some kind of larger organized faith. -- And if we all have our own unique religious thoughts and beliefs, who's to say one person's religion is better than somebody else's? I don't think you can, because I believe everybody's belief system is valid.

I think the question becomes whether somebody is willing to change their belief system(s) as they have new experiences. I think on the whole, virtually everybody is. Because in my belief system about life, one constant is that there's always change. And with change comes different ways of looking at life. And in my own personal philosophy, this happens in perpetuity. That is, there's no end to learning about life, and no limit to how much love we can share and receive. -- I'm an optimist by nature!

 

I have no idea why some people find a religious faith and others don't. It does seem more likely that you will adopt the faith of your parents than that of another country. Or some will reject it perhaps because it was imposed upon them too severely. Some will have a "road to Damascus" conversion experience, some will just slowly and quietly come to embrace their beliefs. Other will cry out to a God just in case one is there, only to be disappointed. Whilst others will never give it much thought and just carry on living their lives.

It's been said that things happen in the world exactly as if there were no God - bad things happen to good people, viruses stop the human race in its tracks. Then again, how would we know - maybe God is there in the background, quietly preventing things from being much much worse?

In the end, arguably, things have a way of working themselves out for most people, whether they call it God, or fate, or the universe. But still there are always some who die in pain, alone, undeserving of their suffering. Such cases are a challenge to us all. As you say Lane, perhaps the best response is not to agonise to explain it, but rather to show by how you live your life what your faith means, wherever it has taken you. I've felt like abandoning my faith a few times, and yet here I am, still trying to make sense of it, to relate what I see and feel to my world view supported by those few occasions when I've had an intense feeling of connectedness to my maker. Perhaps I needed those experiences, because without them I may have gone wildly off the rails. Who can tell. I've learned to be equally wary of those who express certainty in such matters, whether they have a particular faith or not.

And yet… and yet… something within me wants to shout it from the rooftops that my God is real, that he does heal, that he loves each one of us unconditionally. But I hold back, because there will always be the exceptional cases that are difficult to explain and become an obstacle to the argument. And often I feel I'm not at all a good example of what a Christian should be. Still, at the end of each day, I would rather face life, with all its ups and down, with my faith, than without it. And I love listening to other people's stories, in case they have identified another part of the puzzle that has escaped me.