Question #122: If you were happily married, and then met someone you felt was certain to always bring you deeply passionate, intoxicating love, would you leave your spouse? What if you had kids?No
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I think my praimary objection is that they seem unnecessary.
If I'm going to accept that humans are innately sinful, that our flesh has a natural proclivity towards iniquity (as described by whatever moral system you subscribe to), then why should there also be a great Accuser? If you're already prone to sin and do things that generally make you feel rotten about yourself, why should there be another entity that compounds this inclination? It doesn't make sense to me why God should institute a tempter figure, when all the tempting is already taken care of.
And I'm pretty sure I don't believe in Hell, I should've said. It's not really that I actively disbelieve in it, but more that I don't care about it. Same thing with heaven, miracles, and nearly all dogma.
The Religious Society of Friends doesn't have a set doctrine for much of anything beyond the Inner Light, the idea that each human being has something of the divine in them. From here the idea expands: if everyone has God (for lack of better word) in them, and we are to worship God, then why do we treat one another so awfully? Quakers are generally concerned with making sure that life here on earth doesn't become a hell for fellow humans and for ourselves. The real heaven (if it exists) can wait.
If I'm going to accept that humans are innately sinful, that our flesh has a natural proclivity towards iniquity (as described by whatever moral system you subscribe to), then why should there also be a great Accuser? If you're already prone to sin and do things that generally make you feel rotten about yourself, why should there be another entity that compounds this inclination? It doesn't make sense to me why God should institute a tempter figure, when all the tempting is already taken care of.
And I'm pretty sure I don't believe in Hell, I should've said. It's not really that I actively disbelieve in it, but more that I don't care about it. Same thing with heaven, miracles, and nearly all dogma.
The Religious Society of Friends doesn't have a set doctrine for much of anything beyond the Inner Light, the idea that each human being has something of the divine in them. From here the idea expands: if everyone has God (for lack of better word) in them, and we are to worship God, then why do we treat one another so awfully? Quakers are generally concerned with making sure that life here on earth doesn't become a hell for fellow humans and for ourselves. The real heaven (if it exists) can wait.
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