On Mon, 13 Dec 2004 08:14:14 +0000 someone who may be Jon Senior
<jon_AT_restlesslemon_DOT_co_DOT_uk> wrote this:-
>A history that you yourself have posted might be a starting point. They
>are not helped by an identically named organisation in the states who
>have a markedly different attitude.
Your first posting regarding Christian Aid U.S.A. referred to them
as such, so it can't be too confusing.
>And those of us who are happy for religion to continue, but who feel no
>desire to support the church, have an uneasy feeling about "religious" aid.
The Christian Aid web site as the answer to this.
>I find it hard to reach into my pockets to support organised religion,
If you dig into your pockets to give money to Christian Aid then you
are not supporting organised religion.
>when I believe that it is responsible for a greater amount of
>unhappiness worldwide than happiness.
Not a belief I share.
I happened to glance at the Letters page of "The Independent" this
morning and there was a good letter on some of the things we have
been discussing. Because of the **** nature of the web site I have
copied the whole letter.
http://comment.independent.co.uk/letters/story.jsp?story=592501
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Sir: I was extremely grateful for a lot of good sense in Howard
Jacobson's article. However, his belief that "the religious" are
easily lumped together into one group "to whom truth is vouchsafed
in a single voice and is therefore held to be incontrovertible" must
be corrected.
It is true that there are such religious people who seek to resolve
the mystery of God and reality. There are also, though, those who
seek to deepen them and are open to the exposure of truth through
the arts, sciences, contemporary culture and insights of faith
communities different from their own.
Faith is not certainty to such religious people. It is more like
piecing together a collage rather than signing on an immoveable
dotted line. It is the questions that religion asks of us, not the
answers, that keeps the spiritual adventure mobile.
To argue, as Mr Jacobson also does, that the religious "dread their
own shadows" also ignores the fact that authentic religion's
untranslatable language is that of the myth with its deep journeys
through the fog of the human landscape.
I will laugh with anyone at the absurdities, hypocrisies and ironies
that religion can lead to. I do expect, however, that those who
write the jokes take a little bit more time in trying to understand
what they are laughing at or their jokes will be as shallow as their
understanding.
The Rev MARK OAKLEY
London WC2
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