Sunday 12 March 2017

Attitudes To Life and The Beyond

Nicholas van Rijn seems to have been Catholic from birth and never to have questioned his faith. Born in poverty, he has concentrated first on survival, then on the accumulation of wealth.

Dominic Flandry remains unable to believe despite having been engaged to a Dennitzan Orthochristian who was assassinated and will later be canonized by her own people.

Axor is converted to Jerusalem Catholicism and seeks further evidence to confirm his faith.

Here is a fourth response to religion:

"[Juniper] had no doubt [Tom Brannigan]'d taken up the Craft because everyone else in Sutterdown seemed to be converting..."
-SM Stirling, The Protector's War (New York, 2006), Chapter Thirteen, p. 363.

Everyone must make his own decisions. For what it is worth:

unlike van Rijn, I did question received beliefs;
unlike Axor, I see no reason to convert;
unlike Brannigan, I would not go with the crowd.

That leaves me with Flandry - except that spiritual practice and experience need not depend on belief.

2 comments:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

With all due respect, the view you stated in the last sentence doesn't seem to make sense. What use or good is "spiritual practice and experience" if it is not directed toward an end or goal? Such as contemplation of or worship of God?

Sean

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Sean,
Zen meditation is not goal-directed but is contemplation of what is here and now.
Paul.