I appreciate your thoughts and your tolerant tone. I certainly would agree that one can be a Friend from a wide range of theological beliefs and experiences, but I wouldn’t go so far as to say that the Quaker way means that “what you believe is completely correct and ‘ok.’”

I do think certain beliefs are right and others are wrong–even, as is often the case, we cannot be certain about the rightness or wrongness of our particular beliefs about ultimate questions. If, for instance, the anthropomorphic God of Genesis exists in a literal sense, then that is the case regardless of my unbelief.

Rather than saying that all of us are right about ultimate questions about the nature and origins of reality, I would say we are almost certainly wrong. But we get glimpses of a deeper understanding that seem to shed genuine light on the best way to live together in the world, and we can connect and learn from one another, all the while knowing we don’t have the whole truth, and often get things wrong. The part of Quakerism that most appeals to me is an insistence on listening, to the world around us and to each other, seeking truth but never assuming we’ve got it nailed.

“Together we worship and love and cooperate, even as we differ on the particulars of our religious experience.”

And I wonder whether this has accidentally encouraged some strange comments above. I shall come to this after briefly explaining my perspective.

Speaking as an ‘outsider’ (with only a loose connection to Friends through my father’s attending Saffron Walden School upwards of forty years ago) it looks like the most overarching of all the Quaker themes must be the duo of ‘holding to no creed’ and ‘learning only by trusting one’s inner light’, since these seem to quite comprehensively cover the issue of how one is to come by one’s own beliefs and way of living one’s life - theist or non theist or etc. .

Speaking as a philosophy student, I’d like to emphasise the subtleness of this duo, and how some posts here might not have borne this in mind.

‘No creeds’ sounds like a negative theme, but it also has an implicit positive aspect: equality. Having no ‘correct’ set of rules means that the beliefs formed by each individual from their own personal (spiritual?) experiences are just as correct as all others’ beliefs, and completely valid for for that individual.

Am I about right so far? Here’s my point:

The quote I have taken from this website says, “…we differ on the particulars of our religious experience”, but I think it’s important to note that this most probably doesn’t ONLY refer to a split between theists and non theists as the subsequent discussion might suggest.

It seems to me that every single Quaker must necessarily “differ on the particulars of [their] religious experience” from every other quaker, whether they share theist convictions or not.

To sum up pointedly:

1. Are we remembering that if you are a theist/non-theist/not-a-theist/atheist/pantheist/agnostic/new age thinker, and you are a good quaker (i.e. your beliefs are formed from your own inner light/introspection) then what you believe is completely correct and ‘ok’ for all other good quakers? Of course one can be a non-theist(/etc.) and a Friend!

2. Isn’t trying to persuade the others in this discussion of the force of your own position on a matter of faith - especially if they and you are Friends - nothing more than missing *the* point?

I feel I may have repeated myself i’m afraid, but I’d be very interested in your comments/advice/corrections, please - jolly pleased to find this site…

-Alex
(You can contact me via my band website.)

Quakerism helps me develop my spirituality, by which I mean the experience of ideals leading my behavior and thoughts.