Kwicker: then in the two options you present, assume the latter, that I'm
"an exceedingly better writer than I had even expected," since the other
doesn't parse for me. I don't believe. Not even cellularly, or
subconsciously. If one can write Narns well, that doesn't mean one believes
they exist; why should this change for writing about beliefs?

Tom: not a "recovering Catholic," but an ex-catholic who was never really
much of a practitioner at all...one of these twice-a-year church family types.
I had no choice going in, being born into that, and as soon as I hit
confirmation and was told it was the sacrament of free choice, I was out of
the room so fast I doppler'd.

Not sure there was any one particular thing that led me to where I am,
just sort of the preponderance of things. I've read a lot of varying
scriptures -- the Bible cover-to-cover twice, the Gita, a number of Egyptian
and Judaic religious texts, less of the Koran than I'd like (some tough
slogging in there), I'm quite charmed by much of what I've read in Zen
Buddhism, I've looked into Native American, South American and African myths
and religious beliefs...and to be honest, in all of this, I've never yet "met"
a Deity that was really much nobler or better than the average person.
They're all prone to eccentricities, fits of anger, flaws, jealousies,
illogic, pettiness, violence, inconsistency and a thousand other traits we'd
be ashamed to see in ourselves. And I've never seen much of anything outside
to convince me that there's order in the universe...so here I am.

Do not, btw, take this as an invitation to debate, convert, or try to
convince. I've come to this by long and difficult roads, there's nothing you
can say to me that hasn't been said before, by others, and if I respect the
beliefs of othres enough not to try and change them, I'd ask that this same
respect be returned.

jms