--- Doug Pensinger <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Deborah Harrell wrote: > > > Yet we live in a marvelous world, with such a > >variety of living things: snow algae! <snip> > >and us...the singing apes. All > > of us made out of stardust. Frickin' *amazing*... > > I could have written almost everything you did in > the above post, less the references to the divine. > > For myself it is not necessary to attach > spirituality or numinous > experiences to the notion of a god.
<smile> Not *necessity,* rather 'organically grown out of.' It isn't that I *require* a god to have created the universe, but that I *experience* what I can only call Divinity. In case it wasn't clear, my notion of godhood -> divinity has evolved and changed radically from what I grew up with: I started out as a bred-and-born Lutheran, found part of the doctrine of Christianity incompatible with what I learned in college (about people and what I consider 'fair & just', not coursework or book-learning; IOW I never saw science and God as incompatible, but church doctrine and humankind 'did not compute' for me), and have been altering/refining/redefining my concept of the Divine ever since. And you didn't ask, but did I ever think of the possibility that there was no such Entity? Yes. In a nutshell, I quit experiencing the numinous for a time; then it resumed. Bottom line: my experience and concept of the Divine makes me strive to be a more understanding, kind and involved person. I frequently fail, but I do keep trying. <wry> That still doesn't answer your question, does it? Debbi __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month! http://sbc.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l