[creep]

I've been thinking of going to church lately.

I wouldn't call myself a believer necessarily, but I do believe in such things as many people now have dismissed due to utter faith in science. So, I'm not "Christian", but I think the bible is an important book and contains wisdom. If you haven't read Ecclesiastes, I suggest you do. It was written by some old, powerful man (no one really knows who), basically reflecting on his life and imparting wisdom. It's the kind of old testament book that has inspired great leaders for centuries.

Anyways, the idea of a church community really comforts me. I would be open with my own beliefs, and the reason why I'm attending church, and hope to build long-term relationships with those people. I also want to do some good outside of my academic work. When or if I have children, I would want them to attend church with me, with the understanding that they don't have to believe in God in order to gain something very valuable. I want them to grow up in a tangible, physical community of people who have their best interests in mind. Now that "inclusive" churches are more popular, I think I am going to find one.

[dragonwriter]

> If you haven't read Ecclesiastes, I suggest you do. It was written by some old, powerful man (no one really knows who), basically reflecting on his life and imparting wisdom.

No one knows that it was written by an old, powerful man, either. The tradition is that it was written by King Solomon and contains his parables, and that the framing device of a third-person narrator reflecting on someone else's parable is a rhetorical device, but there are certainly interpretations that, whoever the subject is, the (primary, there are some parts that are generally accepted to come from a different author than the main body) author is (as the framing suggests) a third person narrator, relating wisdom sayings that came from, or at least are attributed to, another source.