I don't know much about the Quakers, other than they were heavily into direct Deity-person contact, and they're like Anabaptists in that you might talk in church if the spirit moves you. That they are pacifists, or they used to be. That Nixon was one. That John Linnell once told a story in front of a microphone about arriving late to a Quaker wedding: they were all quiet, waiting for the spirit to move someone to speak, and he was made very nervous not realizing that this was the practice. He thought something had gone horribly wrong and the wedding had come to a halt.

Do you recommend Quakerism, and do you do so because you knew a particularly spiritual practitioner of the faith?

No, I, too don't really know much about the "Friends," but they seem intelligent, tolerant and forward-looking, and not captive to words and sacraments and symbols. And overweening politics.

I think I just have been so tired of being told what I'm supposed to believe. In the last half-year, after chucking the whole fucking thing on a vacation-type basis, I feel i've gotten back some of my peaceful, interconnected feeling with what I'll call God, for lack of a better word.

Maybe you don't need a new religion but, like me, you need to trust yourself to find a new path, and just see what it is? Define it after it occurs. Or don't, like I think will work best for me.

Or, FSM sounds like fun!!

That would be my husband's new religion. He even has a FSM on the bumper, which caused someone to leave him a note attached to the windshield wipers, something about may the blessings of the noodely one, etc, etc. He was delighted, so I can't imagine that coming off the bumper any time soon.

...of course when the FSM fails us we can always dedicate ourselves to the pursuit of slack.

I think of myself as a Christian, but I can't believe the Bible literally, and if I'm honest, I have no problem believing Jesus was divine, but I also have no problem believing Krishna was also. If exclusivity (I, the Lord thy God, am a jealous God) is the absolute core of Christianity, if it is the basic required belief, I fail the test now.

Which is scary. And I only realized this after nearly a year of intense arguing with a die-hard atheist about it. He didn't convince me that God is a stupid hoax, or at least a great disappointment in the sky, as is his opinion, but explaining what I did believe did make me look carefully at my own thoughts and feelings.

How horrific and disturbing, but very enlightening!

Father, if you are indeed Jealous, and my thought that you manifest via other vehicles is blasphemous and painful to you, I am so sorry, but how can I go back?

Once you envision The Almighty as broad and deep, it gets very difficult to cram him back into a narrow bottle.

I have no problem believing Jesus was divine, but I also have no problem believing Krishna was also.

I have trouble with Jesus' divinity... there, I've said it.

Once you envision The Almighty as broad and deep, it gets very difficult to cram him back into a narrow bottle.

Exactly. And, continuing to believe in God, while discontinuing other components of Christianity as inconsistent with what I see as God's love made flesh or made real in THIS WORLD (broad and deep), may mean that you and I can take this new view of the Almighty and explore it.

Maybe God doesn't belong in any bottle, and this is the truth we are supposed to find.