Mycos wrote:
>>
>>> When I read what you have been saying throughout this entire thread,
>>> I keep thinking to myself that you keep saying "religious" when I
>>> would use the the word "spiritual". I myself am an atheist, yet I
>>> also consider myself quite spiritual in that I my mind keeps
>>> wandering, entirely of it's own accord, to the very topics you have
>>> raised. But I contrast that way of thinking to "religious" in the
>>> strongest terms possible.
>>
It's hard to know what word to use:
-- "God" carries a lot of monumental Michelangelo patriarach with flowing locks and sinewy muscle on the ceiling. -- "Spirituality" reminds me of my American Indian friend who told me once that when the white man says "spirituality," he should go and wash his mouth out with soap. Sooooo namby pamby. -- "Religion": well, that's churches, dogmas, priests, righteousness, bibles, fatwahs, etc.
So, what to do? It is something that is much easier to bring about when we don't live a life of continual lying and exhaustion, so one reason why I want to work to bring about socialism is because to me without a soil like that this quality of attention I am trying to describe is much less likely to happen or to have an impact. But socialism will not automatically bring this consciousness in its wake no more than marrying someone who is beautiful and good will guarantee a happy marriage. It's all a kind of work that is its own reward and that is never done once and for all.
But I promised myself to stop posting about this because I am doing such a bad, bad job of getting anything across, it's making me seriously doubt my competence as a writer.
Joanna