On non-belief and the existence of God

[Michael]

That's great for you that you can have faith without having ever been given an explicit experience of God's existence. Great for you, and *only* you ...Can I be blamed for not knowing which religion to place my faith in? God being omniscient and knowing of the myriads of lines of thought I could potentially take to end up at any religion... I would hope the answer is "no".

I'm with Kierkegaard on this one. The choice is to take a risk or never find anything. But is it really *only* me who doesn't have an explicit meeting with God other than a general sense of the numinous, and trust in his guidance in my conscience and in the lives and narratives of people who have sought the way of God, and trust in the person of Jesus? My impression is that I'm in the majority rather than the minority, and I'm quite sure I'm not in a minority of one. Indeed the writer of the letter to the Hebrews describes faith as 'the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen'. It may be that you come from a different background where lots of people talk of much more direct experiences.

On the topic of other religions, even across religious divides we can often find deep connections . In many ways I feel a stronger connection to a devout Muslim, or Hindhu, or Buddhist, than to someone who does not engage with any religion. That's not to say all paths are equal, but they are not totally mutually exclusive either. That's why I meet and sit with Buddhists once a week. We find a commonality in silence (silence often unites where words would divide), and then we share our different paths.

If you have 15 minutes spare at some point I can recommend the video below, with Philip Goodchild who is Professor of Religion and Philosophy at the University of Nottingham in the UK. It considers various ways of looking at religious diversity. It's not a particularly slick production, but it is thoughtful and without polemics. I like the last position he describes (from about 10 minutes in the video), though to some extent I can relate to all positions apart from the first.