Beirut Wedding:

Thanks for an intelligent inquiry.

_____

Unitarians are an odd lot. Founded in around 1823, they have no professed creed. The congregation, if you were to visit, would comprise of theists ( a belief in 'god' or 'gods'), pagans, nontheists, and all sorts of people of intellectual curiosity. A litle bit of everything all thrown together.
_____

Now Ray had some fundamental Christian learrning when he was growing up, and some great river is flowing thru his writings because of that. But waters are muddied easily in life, and his ability to discern the source of his greatness, tho he attributes to God, is somehow lost in translation, so to speak. God? What God? That would be the reply, most likely. For Ray's God as he perceives him, is unlike the one in scripture.

I don't have my copy of The Martian Chronicles with me here, so I'll paraphrase. At one point during the important conversation between the Captain and Spender, the two address the Martians' religion/philosophy of life. Looking at the carvings (if I recall correctly) representing animals, the Captain remarks: "It looks pagan". Spender replies: "An animal does not ask itself why it lives. The answer is life itself." That stunning reply was a real eye-opener when I first read it age 12. I certainly couldn't reconcile it with the dreary goings-on in church at the time.