Paul's Perambulations a personal blog

April 11, 2009

Some Thoughts on Religious Experience

Filed under: Religion — admin @ 9:34 pm

Fran and I had a three-hour discussion/debate about religion today while reading Dawkins’ The God Delusion and preparing for our Easter family gathering tomorrow afternoon. Two of our topics were 1) a lot of folks will go to Easter services tomorrow (or Passover recently) more from cultural habit than any sincere religious belief. Does this make any sense? Is there any honesty in it? and 2) according to many Christians (including the aforesaid Easter attenders), Quakers are not truly religious but heretical (and so Fran’s relatives hanged them in Boston). I’ll be at Meeting tomorrow morning as usual, but Easter Sunday is not a special event for Quakers.  For Quakers, as a matter of religious faith and practice, each and every day should be celebrated as much as Easter.  Additionally, my type of Quakers speak of the gift of continuing spiritual revelation and not of a bodily resurrection. There’s some interesting biblical support for this view, but I must say that I’ve never met anyone who would change his/her belief in the face of a close reading of the earliest texts. The texts themselves have no significance unless we find them a catalyst for spiritual growth. FOR A SUBSTANTIAL TREATISE ON MY RELIGIOUS THINKING, SEE COMMENT #2.

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