Journaling Changes

This is a new start for journaling, in a New Year, and the first topic I was thinking writing about is religious faith. I think my personal attitude about it may be changing, from that of strict 'fundamentalist' atheism to something very recognisable by the Quakers and Western Buddhists who I've spent time with, and I want to reflect on that.

I was thinking this morning of the Creed - I don't believe in a creator god at all, I don't believe Christ was a unique embodiment of an eternal divinity, nor that it is his death that promises redemption for all his followers. I don't believe in the virgin birth, the miracles or the resurrection. However... I do feel a cultural familiarity with Christianity and the gospel. I feel that to denounce my Christian upbringing (as an unquestioning child then an earnest teenager) would be to renounce a family member, to betray something others (especially a grandmother and an influential kind teacher and vicar's wife) trusted me with.

Now, Quakers may be just the place for people with that 'sitting on the fence' attitude, who want to hedge their bets. However, there's much more to Quakerism, I believe, than just saying "well, that patriarchal Hebrew and Popish stuff is a bit too hard for us to swallow whole, but there's some nice stories about lions and lambs which might have something in them." I doubt many see Quaker meetings as an undemanding, non-hypocritical way to play Pascal's gamble: "if I at least pray a bit to a vaguely defined god and it does all turn out to be literal truth, I'll save myself from an eternity of suffering." No, I think Quakerism is something much more affirmative, positive and valuable: we all have direct, personal access to a common divine 'thing' that's real. That 'light' gives us comfort, helping us to endure the hardships and to savour and cherish the everyday. It also gives us a moral compass and motivation, so we can see and are impelled to do that which makes the world a bit better - reducing violence, greed and inequality.

Quakers, and I think others of a similar spiritual outlook from all faiths, would stress that the divine is something naturally within everyone. That's aligns with my understanding of the Buddhist and Zen idea that we all have the capability of enlightenment within ourselves. Once you accept that, you treat others, even your 'enemies', with a respect that leads to tolerance, generosity and a preparedness to work through differences. Quakers and Buddhists would also both look to gathered silence or the calming of meditation as the way to access and recognise that light within.

So I'd recognise what people mean by the inner Buddha self, and perhaps that constant current compassionate presence of Christ, as being a way of describing or expressing that calm, reassuring, world-connected sense of something that worth cultivating within our hearts.

That does lead me to wonder whether relativism has to hold here, even if it's directly incompatible with science. I wonder if there's also necessarily an inner demon or Satan that we may have to deal with too. Also, I'd ask what it means for the doctrines of loss of self in Buddhism, translated I think into the defeat of the ego by New Age Western Buddhists or mystics like Alan Watts and possibly Eckhart Tolle.