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From: marla@Sun.COM (Marla Parker)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: feminist spiritualty
Message-ID: <113787@sun.Eng.Sun.COM>
Date: 5 Jul 89 21:29:08 GMT
References: <8907011558.AA19050@cattell.psych.upenn.edu> <5725@cs.utexas.edu>
Sender: nadel@aerospace.aero.org
Reply-To: marla@Sun.COM (Marla Parker)
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Mountain View
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Approved: nadel@aerospace.aero.org
Status: R


Whenever a religious person starts talking about her faith,  I can't
help but brace myself.  So many devout people are yammering idiots, I
always expect the worst.

So, Thank You Gretchen for writing such a coherent, well-reasoned
explanation of your interest in feminist spirituality.  I enjoyed 
reading it, even though I'm not particularly interested in feminist
spirituality, much less Christianity.  

In article <5725@cs.utexas.edu> turpin@cs.utexas.EDU (Russell Turpin) writes:
>Frequently I read writers who, it seems to me, are blatantly involved
>in the business of creating a new theology.  What surprises me is that
>they, and so many of their readers, take their attempts seriously.

Why is this surprising?  Who are you to say that one of them or all of
them have not discovered some sort of divine Truth?  Just because I am
comfortable believing in a hot & cold universe that randomly generates
life here and there once in an eon does not mean that everyone who 
disagrees with me is an idiot.  

A sucker is born every day, you may think, but to quote a Christian cousin
of mine,  "I'd rather be a happy Christian than an unhappy athiest,"
comparing himself to my dad.  My dad is a happy athiest, in fact, but the
point is, MY COUSIN WOULD BE A VERY UNHAPPY ATHIEST, I'm certain.  Yet
I do not think my cousin or my dad is a fool.  I'm glad their happy.

My point for Russell is,  who are you to look down on the beliefs of
others?  Some of history's greatest minds have devoted their lives to
studying religion - do you scoff at them as well?  

I believe in faith, that most people have a fundamental need to believe
in *something*.  I recognize this need in myself, and I do not think
it is something anybody should be ashamed of.  As Gretchen wrote,  "a
gender-free God is not very well personified," and again, most people
need to personify thier god in order to relate to it and believe in
it.  So I think that Sophia could be a great help to open-minded 
Christian women.  (And no, you cynics, that is not an oxymoron.)

Gretchen also wrote:
>The idea that we can change images of God to suit our
>current needs is disconcerting, but we wouldn't be the first to do it.

I don't think this should be disconcerting.  Here is a more comfortable
way to say the same thing.  If there is a God, then it is certainly
beyond human understanding at this point in our evolution (biological,
spiritual, whatever).  By changing the images of God to suit your current
needs, you are just exploring the unknown, and trying to get closer
to whatever truth might be.  It could be a bum path, it could be right,
but each person has to decide that individually.

Marla Parker		(415)336-2538
marla@sun.com