I see that you ran into some of our stricter members. The members of the CSH forum come from all kinds of religious and spiritual philosophies. Some are devout athiests (is that an oxymoron? ), others like myself are agnostics (I call myself an “agnostic with hope”), others are pagan, wiccan, buddhist, taoist, or follow Native American spirituality, and still others from even more diverse paths.

There are times when someone will get a bit too strict with the science and reason stuff – and forget that the term spiritual itself is something that cannot be quantified scientifically. Like everyone else, we have our moments of being fallible humans – spiritual or not, clergy members or not.

Don’t be discouraged if someone seems to be jumping on the “I want proof” bandwagon. For the most part, we accept that whatever beliefs are held by the individual are valid for that person. As long as you aren’t trying to convert anyone, then any barking you hear is much worse than our bite

I hope you’ll come back to the forum and talk to us again. I found when I first got there that I preferred to stick to general interest topics, like politics (and I can go on forever about THAT!), until I got to know the personalities enough to feel comfortable discussing my spirituality. That way, if someone did jump on the skeptic bandwagon right away, I already knew what they believed, and could deal with it without feeling attacked. It worked for me – maybe it will work for you.

Oh, BTW – AndyH is one of our regulars, although she later changed her “handle” to Preceptor. She’s been away for a while, but will be back. I love her writing style – she can talk about the most serious, intense topics, and still say it in a way that makes you laugh! She’s a good friend of mine, even though we live on opposite coasts and have never met.

That’s how CSH is…. Once you get to know us, you can’t help but love us!!