I can't remember exactly how he put it, but Joseph Campbell once said something like, "Uncertainty—mystery—leaves open the possibility of having a religious experience. Certainty eliminates that possibility."

There are questions to which we will never know the answers, no matter how vociferously we try to claim that we do know. I can live with that. In fact, it assures me that there will continue to be the enjoyment of learning new things. I think I know a helluva lot, but if I knew absolutely everything—if there were nothing new to learn—then I'm not sure there would be much point in continuing to live.

I just can't understand the mind-set of people who have to have everything spelled out in tedious detail, and can't seem to feel secure unless they have their copy of the Boy Scout Manual (or its spiritual equivalent) constantly at hand, and believe everything it tells them without question, and reject any new information that doesn't necessarily square with what they think they already know. There is no possibility here for growth. And without growth, there is no life.

Don Firth