Emile,
As I've told you before, I am apostate. A true believer will think that I was then not a true believer, but I am telling you, I was. At that time, my mind was as fully convinced as yours is now. However, my mind could never be at peace with certain elements of Christian doctrine, and so, over a long stretch of years, I came to the point where I felt safe in rejecting it. That was not easy, as you know what Paul says about apostates. For a time then I was agnostic, adrift, but I couldn't be at ease with that either and so, in the second major epiphany of my life, I saw the first principles by which I have since lived. The first of these is that reason is proper. Not infallible, but not to be faulted, or cast aside for the sake of a peaceful stupor. The second is that I am created, a personal conclusion based on my own reasoning which I have no need to justify to anyone, but which supports the rightness of judging with my mind, for if I am the image of god, what could that image be but mind? Beyond my grounding in these first principles, I have learned to live with the many question marks of my existence. I've also learned through experience some of the same laws laid down in the bible, such as the benefit of monogamy. But my ethics are governed by reason not dogma, so that while I am a proponent of monogamy, I am not against sex outside of marriage, and in fact think that marriage is unnecessary, and maybe even undesirable. Reason is a common denominator that allows the possibility of harmony, even while disagreeing. Dogma does not.
Skipper |
