Response to Chronofile Post on Gnosis (English)

Glad to hear the lecture went well, groso modo, and that you found it interesting. Had my back not been such an issue that day, and had I not worn myself out due to said back, I would have been interested to hear this lecture. As a Unitarian Universalist, I'm generally always interested in information about religious or spiritual traditions with which I am not familiar. Of course, my biggest "concern" with religious movements of any kind are that people actually believe in them! That might sound like a ridiculous sentence, but let me explain.

I think it's wonderful that people follow various rites and practices in the manner of their ancestors who did not know what we know today. I think it's also really important to keep an open mind about questions of spirituality. Science hasn't given us all the answers yet, and it may not be able. So, when people use religion as a metaphorical expression of spiritual hope, and as good examples of how to live one's life, then I think religion is grand. However when people come to believe in the literal truth of their tradition at the expense of other belief structures, and especially of reason, logic and science, I then find myself in the guise of the amateur anthropologist as I observe them, smiling away on one side of my face reassuringly, but on the other clucking and sniggering as I gaze at my fellow, rather hairless, ape descendants clinging to their primitive belief structures, periodically comitting murder, rape, war, and sundry atrocities in the name of their mostly mythological deities. Moreover, the age of the tradition has little to do with its development. Some very old religious traditions are just as doolally as Heaven's Gate. While others such as Baha'i and Buddhism over a gentle ride along life's long quiet river, coupling curiosity, meditation, prayer and ritual with hope, compassion and even some reason.

As for me, well, I continue to venerate the great Question Mark and commune with my fellow iconoclasts while partaking of our most holy liquid, extracted so many moons ago for the first time from those funny Ehtopian beans. This post puts me in mind of another Celtic story about Saint Gwenole and the Druid, but in stead of posting it here, I will post on my site, tyddyneira.blogspot.com