Hi Susan,

I appreciated your comments.

"Where I may be diverging from your view is that my actions based on these and more-recently-embraced values has been greatly changed, strengthened, and made more "courageous," less "self-consicious," in the actions, the motives, the desired outcomes, the need even to know the outcomes.... actions that are enlivened and entwined with the personal presence of God with me when I take those actions."

I think I know where you are coming from. I have an odd background in religion. I was raised fairly agnostic/atheist from a predominantly Jewish lineage on my mother's side, who was herself raised as a Roman Catholic. I was at one time baptised as a Congregationalist, became a Unitarian, explored Nicheran Shoshu, the mod-Buddhist off-shoot and spent a little time with the Bahais. I also explored Siddha Yoga and from all of these travels derive my understanding of how some folks feel about their "conversion" experiences or the presence of a deity. Through all of that, I hesitate to condemn people who have their personal beliefs. I have, however, found freedom from religion liberating and as a result have developed a social-consciousness that I never would have had if I had remained with any of these spiritual-seeking enterprises.

"And the values themselves have changed, grown, developed; partly as a matter of intention based on new imperatives with which I agree from my faith, and partly as a result of the learnings I have had while doing not what I might have wanted to do, but what I felt was obedient to God's imperatives whether discerned from Scripture, the teachings of preachers, or the personal presence of God and His guidance before the act and His affirmation after the act."

I respect The Sermon on the Mount as did Jefferson. However, I regard it as important
mythology (in the Joseph Campbell sense). It is a blueprint for sane behavior whether I believe in an actual Jesus or not.

"For me, this is one of the best aspects of my life in the faith as I look at it dynamically in present time and as I look back reflectively-- the constant challenge that takes me where I had not gone and where I would not have gone whie in the grip of my own interests. "

I understand this fully and feel the same way although in my experience I can share those views as a process in letting go of God.

"And these actions are conformed to my love of our Lord-- very much NOT a matter of rigid, rule-driven obedience by rote."

You are far too intelligent to be "rule-driven by obedience by rote". I understand Epsicopalians to be the more intellectual of the prominent religions and I am reminded
that there exists an atheist Episcopalian who loves the sense of community and ritual that is provided as well as the residual religious knowledge about the bible that he absorbs.
He nonetheless remains an atheist.

"I'm sure I'm not articulating this well, no matter how accurately I may try to write. But I think it is very, very different from the life in faith that most anti-religionists have witnessed, experienced, or been raised within or around. I think it is very different from what people rail against, and from the assumptions that drive their animus."

I think you have expressed your views very well. I am more sympathetic to them then I have communicated, even though this sense of liberation, internal strength, development of social consciousness and a kind of hopefulness emanates from my personal quest and arrival that a God is not the answer for me and I am relieved of that structural burden. That doesn't make me hostile or unsympathetic to your experience which I can respect without having to embrace it personally. I remember times in my life where I believed in a God and thought it transforming and life-changing. For me, it was something I went through and I don't regret it because it did make me more understanding of this feeling in others. Now I see it differently. I think one can be an un-believer and still have the awe and sense of wonder when you look at the sky, the course of evolution, the amazing accomplishments of science that are constructive, the tuning in to Einstein's capacity for the appreciation without his embracing a personal God. His was a God of Spinoza, more pantheonic than monothestic. Carl Sagan communicated this sense of "spirituality" without religious references and his life reflects a deep committment and respect for
the world and the universe.

As to whether there is any proof of God(s) or Jesus, it is a logical fallacy that you can prove a negative. The question is unanswerable in any sense because of its built in illogicality.
I prefer to see hard evidence before I will accept someone else's account. But in no way will I condemn good behavior however it is motivated.

A word about the Manichean use of "Good and Evil". I reject these as absolutes.
I prefer terms like "dysfunctional", "anti-social", "pathological", and other operative terms that define behavior.

Once again, I respect where you are coming from and in no way want to denigrate your personal experience.

Frank Hamilton