My World Gathering
Llyn's 2nd email . . .
Dear Leith,
By all means blog me -- or any bits you consider worth it.
Very chuffing to be so spread around. Last time I tried Google had no hits for
'Theology, Logic' or 'logic, God' except someone denying there was any
connection and a nutter with a world shattering diagram based on Cheop's
pyramid.
I have decide to try to produce some sort of 'spin-off' from the thesis
after I cease being YM Clerk (August) but Judith also has plans for me to spend
the rest of my life gardening -- that has philosopical connections since
Voltaire says that the only thing realy worth doing is cultivating the garden.
However, I do have a summary chapter/paper spun off for a Religious Studies
conference. You might like to see that. If so, paper or e-mail?
I woke up
this morning realising that Quaker homosexuals are the Qs who most clearly would
acknowledge Friends as their 'support group.' But an organisation
dedicated to assisting people in their own idiosyncratic beliefs is a pretty
queer fish: most people want some organisation that gives them some secure
beliefs, partly because developing beliefs (the logical consequences that flow
from tenets) is such an intellectual game and not for the faint
hearted. And it cannot be a simple support group for everyone because
supporting people who believe in torture and those who do not would split the
group in sunder pretty quickly -- if for no other reason than being a support
group is of less moral worth than being against torture.
[Thought:
Fundamentalist Qs and non-theist Qs can stay Quakers because they agree on the
BIG moral issues such as not killing people???]
Must stop - the painters
are about to drive me from this room of a the rest of today while they start of
painting its walls.
Again my thanks. We'll keep talk, I hope.
Walk
Cheerfully,
Llyn
Leith: The sentence in the middle of this email has had me thinking a lot lately. An organisation which supports people in finding their own beliefs is a bit unusual, particularly when there are religious connections . . . but why?
Is there really anything wrong with Quakers (or some other hypothetical organisation, if that is less scary!) being committed to people rather than principles? Couldn't Quakerism be about supporting people in their attempts to live moral lives even though we don't agree on the exact morals involved? Couldn't we VALUE critique and diversity for their own sakes?
And on a related topic . . . what does it mean if we don't have a doctrine? Some Friends/Quakers/people may see nothing wrong with having a doctrine, but I grew up being told that Quakers don't have a (uniform!) set of beliefs, or book of rules (they're more like guidelines!) because we don't claim to know the Truth. However, as soon as you get down to some serious talking, it seems like us individual Quakers are all pretty convinced WE know what basic Quakerism is all about, although we're a little bit cagey about the whole issue of whether or not we have or need to have anything in common with other Quakers!
(I mean, we don't need to believe the same things - obviously that would go against the whole 'lack of doctrine' thing - but we all know there is that of God in everyone . . . I mean, that's what Quakers are, they're people who look for the good in others . . . . . . . . . don't they???)
P.S. What exactly is 'Truth'? I've spent some time studying this for my PhD, and the concept seems to get more and more complicated, and less and less plausible, in direct proportion to the amount of thought about it! (11/14/05)
mez: this will be a quick one. Just on the point of fundamentalist Q's and non-theist Q's both staying quakers cos the agree on the big issues... well... i dunno. i reckon there's probably plenty of room for pretty varying beliefs, even on the big stuff. sometimes its a struggle if such differences exist within meetings/yearly meetings... but it seems to work ok with people on opposite sides of the world. I don't know that quakers on different parts of the world are much more similar than two other random people on other sides of the world... we came across this question at wgyf, what do we have in common. In our group, we never came up with a conclusive answer. It proved rather hard to find similarities. (and yet this wasn't a problem, peopel weren't going around saying 'oh how can you be a quaker then!!) anyway i will post again later when i have more time. (03/15/06)