Nanker, first, I respect your views and beliefs. I mean that honestly, and it goes for everyone else here with a thoughtful perspective on these things. I do not assume to know all their is to know about existential matters. My views are my own, I did not come to them lightly, and I respect that not everyone shares them.
Whether intentional or not, you've just laid out many of the reasons why I, and so many of my generation, were Catholic. In many ways, I still identify with Catholics because of my upbringing and my time in the church, but as an adult I find much of the catholic teaching to be abhorrent to my personal views, and I find many of the catholic beliefs to be absurd to the point that they border on science fiction. I am not arrogant enough to expect the church to change to accommodate my way of thinking.
As anyone who has ever studied the cosmos with any degree of seriousness can surely understand, I find it difficult to formulate much in the way of concrete beliefs about who we are, where we came from and why we're here. I certainly believe it would be foolish to dismiss the possibility of a higher power or a creator based on the lack of hard evidence. On the other hand, I have seen nothing in the bible, or the Koran, or in any of the other books of the other world religions, that provide satisfactory answers to my questions.
It is quite clear to me that most of the bible is allegory (a fact that has unfortunately escaped a great many of the religious folks I know), which is not in itself a bad thing. Allegory is a useful teaching tool. Many of the lessons of the bible seem to me to come from the right place, and it shares that trait with the other world religions. For that reason, I do not begrudge anyone who finds their purpose or place in a particular religion or a particular church, or who finds the answers to their questions, or at the very least solace regarding the meaning of their existence.
But for me, I do not need a book written by mortal men centuries prior to the enlightenment to instruct me on matters I generally find intuitive: don't murder, rob, lie, cheat, steal. Do the right thing. Value your friends and family, as well as all your fellow man. I consider these universal ideals. On the other hand, I do find a lot of the values of the men who wrote the bible - particularly attitudes toward women, homosexuals, etc. - to more reflect the attitudes of their time than any timeless truism passed down from the heavens.
Anyway, I understand your defense of your church. I don't know what the answer is for the church as an institution. I understand and respect its unwillingness to change - the church doesn't exist for the sake of it, but to spread a specific message and idea. For that reason, fundamental change seems like a contradiction. A state can change its philosophies and policies with the times, but the church is its philosophies and policies, so if it changed them it would cease to exist. But as the church's grip on peoples' thoughts loosens over time, I question whether it will be able to stay relevant.
Things seem to be sort of regressing to the mean, so to speak - women and homosexuals are beginning to experience the kind of equal treatment they seem to naturally deserve, and I don't see that trend reversing. People's attitudes about sex and marriage are becoming more logical and less influenced by a church-based attitude that is seemingly devoid of reason or logic. Like so many things with the church, the reason has always been "because we said so" or "because God wants it that way," and those explanations just don't stand up once people begin to question them.
OK, I think I've wandered a bit off the path here. I thought your post was thoughtful and I wanted to respond. I suppose I've done that, in a way.
