Our disparate paths to truth...

I have to consider, that of those individuals who were most influential, most helped me to define the coures of my life, If I were to name them, among them, there would some who had a profound religious orientation (I say, orientation... not 'belief)'. This does not incline me to to adopt what they believed about their religion, but it leaves me open to an understanding... not of the content of their beliefs, but how, in some, those beliefs are so much a part of who they are--and that this has contributed to their being, for me... images of what it means to be human...in the best way.

No, I don't see their beliefs (or any such supernatural stuff) as necesary to being that kind of person--I've know those who are as materialist and alergic to supernatural explanations as I am--who are there with them... as examples of how to be human... or I should say, more than 'just' human.

But when you find such persons... I feel it important to accept all of what has contributed to their character... it being so rare, that I think, we would do well to be humble in our sense of intellectual superiority. Those few compassionate, fierce souls, the shape of whose lives have been carved in the struggle for justice, the creating of beauty--we need only accept them as comrades... as they would for us. No need to measure one another by our disparate pathes to truth.