Guest guest Posted February 19, 2003 Report Share Posted February 19, 2003 On Tuesday, February 18, 2003, at 11:41 PM, (AT) (DOT) com wrote: >> Then what makes it Quakerism, per se, as opposed to, say, secular > humanism? > > A belief in God in some form, I would say, and a desire to do as the > Spirit > leads, otherwise there are, as I understand it, many similarities. Yes, this seems reasonable. > >> No one has yet adequately explained what special quality or set of >> qualities makes for a Quaker, if indeed they encourage free-thinking. > > A desire to be led by the Spirit, even when it is uncomfortable. It may > not > be a " must " , but I think that most Quakers would agree that it is > important. Okay, now I have a friend who is a Spiritualist in England. This sounds exactly like her beliefs. > >> That they assiduously avoid mentioning their dogma leads one to > suspicions. > > As I have said, Quakers eshew dogma, so it is hard to mention it. I have > no > idea where your " suspicions " lead you This merely referred to the suspicion that perhaps it can't or isn't supposed to be articulated. Nothing conspiratorial or nefarious. lol It puzzles me, and rather delights me in fact, that the Quakers, once one of the Puritan sects, has now dropped so much dogma as to be so free-thinking that it's actually difficult to define them. This is remarkable and to be applauded, and it's very rare in religions, although lately it seems a kind of trend among some mainline churches, Protestant ones and Catholic alike, even as other sects become more stridently fundamentalist and harsh. > and, if you want more information > about this, I would direct you to the sites I gave or to your local Quaker > meeting. I'd avoid the meeting, but have checked some of the sites and find them interesting.. Thanks. > I think that this subject has been done to death here. Ah, but death is but a change of worlds. > > Lee-Gwen > > " Any suffieciently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. " --Sir Arthur C. Clarke Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted February 19, 2003 Report Share Posted February 19, 2003 - The Stewarts > This merely referred to the suspicion that perhaps it can't or isn't > supposed to be articulated. Nothing conspiratorial or nefarious. lol Fair enough. I would argue that it can't be articulated because it doesn't exist. > It puzzles me, and rather delights me in fact, that the Quakers, once one > of the Puritan sects, has now dropped so much dogma as to be so > free-thinking that it's actually difficult to define them. It isn't entirely accurate to say that dogma has been dropped from a Puritan sect. In the beginning of Quakerism, it was not exactly a Puritan sect (and Quakers were, in fact, persecuted by Puritans). Quakers did get caught up in a form of Puritanism in the 18th and 19th centuries and that seems to me to have included many dogmatic elements, but it wasn't that way in the beginning and dropping this was simply, IMO, returning to the heart of Quakerism. Lee-Gwen Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted February 19, 2003 Report Share Posted February 19, 2003 It certainly is looking that way... Lady Sappho [ladysappho] Lee-Gwen Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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