Fionn........I started looking at other ways to express my spirituality in 1970. I investigated and experimented with a number of Eastern disciplines, some of it in conjunction with my study of martial arts disciplines. For a time I completely rejected the religion I was brought up in and embraced pagan beliefs. I spent a period of time, and still find great interest and understanding in Buddhist concepts and practices. And I started reading and investigating how the early Irish and European Celts came to understand Christianity without throwing out all that they had come to understand about that which is ever watching. Over time I came to understand that we take many paths to understanding the same thing. This is the one that works for me. I must tell you, Fionn, that I resent you suggesting that somehow this all just comes as a result of what I was raised in. It has come as a result of my journey which has been long and has had many twists and turns. I don't know about your journey, but I have taken the time to explain something about mine. A sign of maturity in these discussion is when one attempts to understand and then examines their own views in light of that discussion. It seems to me that your style is to sit in a smug position (in your own mind) that your philosophy is right and the rest of us are making excuses. Why don't you try simply explaining your own positions, and never mind lecturing me about what I should do? Those who have met me and know me also know that I don't come willy nilly to these things. I have crammed a great many experiences into an altogether too short 51+ years. I don't claim that I am correct, but I do claim to have arrived at these philosophies by deliberate thought and meditation. Please don't insult that by suggesting I would be suprised if you are signed up to it because you searched it out from various options. This is why you come off the way you do in these discussions.

Might I suggest that you read Peter T's posting above? Rather than making any imperious, self righteous statements, he simply defends his position and then, with admirable sourcing, makes new arguments. His posts cause me to go back and think about my positions and then arrive at my own response. Yours just seem to point out what I said before about you.

Could we now return to the discussion at hand, as opposed to whether or not I am an automaton, or a thinking, reasoning, human being?

Mick