Thanks for your suggestions, Dia.I'm going to note the authors and books you suggested looking into and see if I can find any of them.
I'm personally not ready to examine any one religion seriously yet, but I'm looking forward to studying as many of them as I can from the perspective of the followers.Get the facts from the source, I say.I'm not just interested in Christianity, but in religion in general.I especially want to learn more about Native American faiths, Wicca, various other "country dweller" paths:), and the Eastern religions.
I've had the good fortune to have travelled much of the world when I was a child (and in fact distinctly remember experiencing culture shock when my family moved back to the United States when I was ten).Although a lot of the memories have faded, I've been left with a feeling of being joined with all of humanity, and to the beautiful places on the earth that I was privileged to see.I love how we are all unique, yet somehow the same.I love to seek out persons with backgrounds very different from mine and get to know them.I am truly looking forward to being a citizen of the earth, as well as of my own country.
I hope I can share with my children and help them appreciate and respect people of all different backgrounds.I've always attempted to do this, even while a JW, but it was hard when everything was held up to the standard of one "absolute" religion(one can't really get the entire essence of a different culture if you don't use that culture's mores to understand it alot of the time).I'm very glad now that I was a "spiritually weak"(would that be independently thinking?) parent:)I never did really get with the program, because it all felt too forced,and I never believed that faith should be crammed down my children's throats like a plate of brussels sprouts just because it was supposed to be "good for them".Where does free will fit in when your child, who would rather be out playing baseball, is stuck in the house for a family Bible study on a lovely summer evening? Yet sometimes, that old feeling that was foisted on me by critcal hardliners that I was somehow deficient as a parent comes back, and I really have to fight not to lose the knowledge that I have done the right thing.
Yes, we are all a bit confused right now,but it's been the great catalyst for many insightful conversations.My nine year-old wanted to know the other day why the persons who crashed into the WTC could kill so many people and still consider themselves to be approved by God.It was the perfect chance for me to discuss indoctrination and extremists views of religion, and to let him know that the majority of the people of that faith absolutely do not feel the way that group did.I gently related this to WTS policy,being careful to let him lead the conversation and quit when he got uncomfortable.
One thing we are all giddy with is the freedom to just be who we are and learn about what we want in the way that we want.I will never give that freedom up to another organization or person again.