Another Spectrum

Personal ramblings and rants of a somewhat twisted mind

Ask four Quakers …

by 4 Comments

…and you’ll get five different answers (Quaker saying)

Others claim Quakers can’t even agree in fundamental beliefs

Quakers say “Why should we? The path and experience of each person is unique”.

Author: Barry

A post war baby boomer from Aotearoa New Zealand who has lived with migraines for as long as I can remember and discovered I am autistic at the age of sixty. I blog because in real life I'm somewhat backwards about coming forward with my opinions.

4 thoughts on “Ask four Quakers …”

Leave a comment

  1. rebecca s revels
    29 Mar, 2021 at 1:54 am

    Our paths are different, each journey unique, every experience personal.

    Reply
  2. sklyjd
    29 Mar, 2021 at 11:42 am

    So you could claim to be a Quaker, do not attend church and even believe there are no gods as an atheist justified as a different journey through life, but on the death bed become a believer just to deliver on your commitment to Quakerism and God?

    Reply
    • Barry
      29 Mar, 2021 at 12:34 pm

      The simple answer is no.

      To elaborate:
      Quakers don’t go to church.
      The possibility of an afterlife is in the realm of speculation and is not worthy of consideration.
      Become a “believer” in what exactly? Quakerism isn’t about belief. It’s about practice. Quakers aren’t so much believers as practitioners. One becomes a Quaker by convincement, not by way of conversion. There is nothing intrinsically different between a Quaker and anyone else.

      To put it as simply as I can, there is no “right” belief. Quakers are a community of shared values and practice, not a community of shared beliefs.

      Reply

Leave a Reply

Please log in using one of these methods to post your comment:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s