I'm drawn to some of this - I certainly think that human beings are drawn to both evil and good, and are often confused about which is which. I believe in neither innate depravity nor innate virtue but in the fact that we are all of us a mixture of frailties.
I think that my feeling is that the power that sustains may be god, in some sense, but is not the personal god of most religion. I hope that that power is in some sense benevolent,that there is providence, but I have no particular reason for faith to go along with that hope. I remember what faith felt like, and I don't have it.
I take your point about heterodoxy within churches - my problem is less with being a cafeteria Christian, because that is a compromise many of my friends have made - but with that central issue of faith. Doctrines and the behaviour of the actually existing church were my stumbling blocks, but the disappearance of faith was and is crucial, and also the source of my spiritual dryness...
My love of and admiration for the historical figure of Jesus is a significant part of my background - but not hugely greater than my love of and admiration for Socrates and Mozart, who were also deeply flawed human beings who improved the human race just by being part of it. I do not believe in the particular divinity of Jeus - I can consider believing in the contribution of all good men and women and other sentient beings to a 'church' of mind and progress that drives existence irrespective of our posthumous fate.
My spiritual life, such as it is, takes place partly in disputation with friends, but mostly through sudden rushes of joy, and the exploration of great cathedrals of sound like Haydn's Masses.
no subject
I think that my feeling is that the power that sustains may be god, in some sense, but is not the personal god of most religion. I hope that that power is in some sense benevolent,that there is providence, but I have no particular reason for faith to go along with that hope. I remember what faith felt like, and I don't have it.
I take your point about heterodoxy within churches - my problem is less with being a cafeteria Christian, because that is a compromise many of my friends have made - but with that central issue of faith. Doctrines and the behaviour of the actually existing church were my stumbling blocks, but the disappearance of faith was and is crucial, and also the source of my spiritual dryness...
My love of and admiration for the historical figure of Jesus is a significant part of my background - but not hugely greater than my love of and admiration for Socrates and Mozart, who were also deeply flawed human beings who improved the human race just by being part of it. I do not believe in the particular divinity of Jeus - I can consider believing in the contribution of all good men and women and other sentient beings to a 'church' of mind and progress that drives existence irrespective of our posthumous fate.
My spiritual life, such as it is, takes place partly in disputation with friends, but mostly through sudden rushes of joy, and the exploration of great cathedrals of sound like Haydn's Masses.