I have come to favor this translated quote from Voltaire’s “Questions sur les Miracles,”: “Formerly there were those who said: You believe things that are incomprehensible, inconsistent, impossible because we have commanded you to believe them; go then and do what is injust because we command it. Such people show admirable reasoning. Truly, whoever can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. If the God‐given understanding of your mind does not resist a demand to believe what is impossible, then you will not resist a demand to do wrong to that God‐given sense of justice in your heart. As soon as one faculty of your soul has been dominated, other faculties will follow as well. And from this derives all those crimes of religion which have overrun the world.”
On Becoming Unreasonable
Published by ptdog1
A little about me: My name is Thomas Carson Ziegert. I’m a recently retired Elder in the United Methodist Church and live in the Mojave Desert of Southern California. Born in Wilmington Delaware and a graduate of Catholic elementary then public high school I continued for a Bachelor of Arts degree, majoring in Political Science, from the University of Delaware. I spent one semester in Geneva, Switzerland and researched transnational economic relationships at the United Nations Library there. Then I moved to Los Angeles where I got a job and explored my options. Eventually, I went into business, then sold it and pursued my calling into ministry in the United Methodist Church. I graduated from the Claremont School of Theology with a Masters of Divinity Degree and was ordained as an Elder in Full Connection in the UMC, as the first ordained openly gay Elder in the Conference. In between the lines is my understanding that I was gay while a student at the University of Delaware, the limitations that would afford me in my fields of interest throughout my life, especially as a pastor, and my research into what the Bible really said in its original language about homosexuality. I found love then he died of complications from AIDS after an 11 year relationship. We were both diagnosed with HIV in 1986. He died in 1992, I lived. I’ve been asymptomatic through the years. I hope my life honors his and those who honor me by loving me still. About the blog: This blog will be the place I store my writings and where we can more thoroughly exchange experiences and reflections on those experiences. I hope this will be a sanctuary for fearlessly exploring how we understand ourselves and our relationship with God, and be a place of nurture as we grow in our understanding and relationships. View more posts
Searching for God 