I have to ask, dear Nick (peace to you!)... excluding those who use their beliefs to oppress and/or try to control others, what harm is there in one excepting one's own beliefs? If such beliefs causes one to be a better person, treat others better, do good in the world (perhaps not on a large philanthropic scale, but even street people need a sandwich and warm blanket now and then)... what is the HARM? I get it that those who claim
"no fear" really DO have fear... of religion and its actions/consequences. And I get that there is the fear of the "slippery slope." But sometimes that is going backward, isn't it? Missing the point that SOME have realized that it is just as "natural" to believe in God... but WITHOUT any relation to religion (or its consequences), indeed even renouncing it?
Folks talks about "balance" and "moderation" and things of that nature. Why utterly reject that there just may be a MIDDLE ground... simply because of what occurs by means of those at the remote pole? Aren't BOTH poles unreasonable... if we're talking true balance? One does NOT have to believe in, go along with, or accept religion... and its institutions and actions... to believe in God. In the same vein, one does not have to reject God utterly to be of sound mind.
I still submit that both camps are "guilty" of the same thing: insisting that others completely and totally accept their beliefs (or lack thereof)... or be rejected as "inferior", even insane. I submit that there is absolutely NO difference, that BOTH camps are blind... to their own extremism and hypocrisy, if nothing else.
I cannot fathom how a question gets asked... and rather than simply answer the question (i.e., "No, God doesn't speak to me, at least, not as far as I'm aware of," or something to that effect), it turns out, as it always does... to one particular camp insisting that the other is not sane. Certainly, everyone who DOES believe in religion is not considered insane. How then can those who DON'T believe in it, but still believe in God be considered so? The latter is, IMHO, merely an improvement in human "spirituality." It means accepting what is spiritual, literally, without tainting it with what is oh so very human.
Anyway, that's my $0.02.
Again, peace to you!
A slave of Christ,
SA, who has learned that "sanity" is really actually a balance between the extremes...