Hello!
Seveal months ago, I left the Mormon Church. I wasn't mad at anybody and told my Bishop that I wished to be considered a friend of the church and attend from time to time with my family. There were two problems: First, I did not believe the Book of Mormon to be true, at least in the usual sense of the word. Second, I had decided to accept a rather large financial burden on behalf of my wife's relatives in the Philippines and this had brought the matter of the lack of transparency of handling funds within the church, a matter that had bothered me for a long time, to a head in my mind and I no longer wished to pay tithing.
We were friends before we talked and still are.
This has brought me to a period of extended consideration of what I DO believe.
I think the individual whose religious position I admire the most would be Benjamin Franklin. Skeptical, friend of all that was beneficial to mankind, generous with all the congregations in Philadelphia, good humored, especially about himself; I wish I could be more like him. I also love greatly Emerson, Spinoza (though I'm not crazy about his Determinism - I guess he lived too early to understand Quantum Mechanics), the Teachings of Jesus and the Buddha. I have great reverence for Jesus and his teachings, but no more than for certain other Great Souls who have walked among us here on Earth.
I have come to consider myself a Pantheist. But, a special sort of Pantheist. I believe in the presense of Deity in ALL things: War as well as Peace, Conflict as well as Tranquility, Tragedy as well as Joy, Death as well as Life, Pain as well as Pleasure, the Works of Man as well as the Wonders of Nature, a fetid open sewer in a 3rd World Country as well as in a sparkling Mountain Stream. I also strongly believe that I will never accept any church which denies the understandings of Modern Science. Organic Evolution stands out. I feel the function of religion is to reconcile us with the many unhappy facts of the real world, not create a system of denial to use in coping with it.
Politically, I believe in Free Market Capitalism with minimal government intervention, tolerance without encouragement of abortion and homosexuality, the War to free Iraq and consider George W Bush a fine man and good president doing his best in a very difficult world.
OK, my question is, "Am I in the right place here?
Fred