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Re: the ring of truth (was This Week's Recommended Reading)
Thank you Peter: I couldn't have responded better myself.
I add only tmy personal belief about Jesus: hat Jesus is importat to me
because of what he taught, and represents-- the union of humans with the
divine. It alomst doesn't even matter to me whether or not the ressurrection
*really* happened, because what makes the resurrection important is what it
*means*-- that humans need rebirth, need communion with God, among other
things. I can't stomach the idea that Christians are the only people with
access to either the divine or rebirth: such imagery and ideas appear in
others forms in other faiths, and each faith is a religious reponse to the
needs of the people who invented it. Each, therefore, has something unique to
teach us. Even different periods of the same faith find the practitioners of
that faith adapting to their unique needs. My problem with fundamentalism and
evangelicalism's adaption is that it rests in what seems to be the "if I
close my eyes I won't crash into the wall" approach to things like modernism,
evolution, etc. (I say this from my experience growing up in that
subculture.) There are others means of negotiating those things, and of
understanding them, many of which are more, er, open-eyed, but which still
result in a robust, genuine spiritual response to them.
As far as I can tell, the story of my personal faith is the story of me
finding out what those things are, and which work best for me.
-John
--
+++++++++++++++++++++
"Those on their way are almost invisible
to those who are not. A man or woman
recognizes God and starts out. The others
say he, or she, is losing faith."
-Jelaluddin Rumi
+++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.geocities.com/eustacescrubb
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