01-09-2007 17:32

More thoughts

I have thought more about Terry Wallace and the issues surrounding the clash between religious groups. In some ways it is similar to the clash between Western culture and the culture of the Muslims who are turning to fundamentalism, though still on a smaller and less intense scale.  
 
I am not trying to make a moral or ethical comparison. It is just that people become strongly identified with ideas and with a group that promotes activities and rituals that are based on these ideas. Then when changes are introduced that threaten the ideas, it becomes more than just a discussion of concepts. It becomes a discussion about the validity of the self-identity that a person has and the identity he or she is trying to establish. 
 
This is true on both sides.  
 
But, the issues need to be discussed and views presented plainly, and as you say, with compassion. But as the article you provided a link to by Kat Griffith shows, just revealing your thoughts can raise shackles, and can be interpreted as an attack. It is not an easy thing to do. 
 
I am rewriting the article, perhaps talking about the issues of the clash of ideas in more general terms rather than directly in response to Wallace.  
 
I do not think that the concepts I presented are all that important. Religion is more about compassion and yearning for light than about concepts. But there are concepts that are just part of a system of concepts and refer to nothing that we experience or are aware of. There are also concepts that point to truth that is experienced, even though sometimes dimly. If the concepts are of the latter, then as we find more of the truth, we can abandon the language and even the concepts like an accomplished musician stops thinking about musical concepts and plays the music from his or her soul. It seems to me that a clinging to a set of fundamental concepts is something quite different. 
 
I know and love people who have very strong beliefs that the Church has taught for centuries and that do not make any sense to me. But the people who think somewhat as I do, and who cannot accept the rituals, the creeds, and beliefs of conservative Christianity should not be degraded.  
 
Friends Journal did us no service by publishing such a polarizing piece. But you are right that my piece was also polarizing and I will not send it in its current state to Friends Journal. Hopefully in a few days or more I and post another version. 
 
Thanks.

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