Very nervous about posting - my faults and the gap between my beliefs and my actions are well known to all who know me, but for what it is worth, here goes...

So many things I could respond to, but two immediately spring to mind, closely related to each other. The first is about absolutes. If you argue that there are no absolutes, you end up with a statement along the lines of 'there is no such thing as absolute truth'. The obvious problem here is, does that statement apply to itself? Is it absolutely true that there is no absolute truth? And to answer yes or no to that statement is equally absurd. Whether we realise it or not, we accept some things as being absolutely true.

The other line of thought that interested me was about whether it matters what you believe. Without writing a book in reply, I think it *does* matter, and for two reasons. The first is that what we believe affects how we act - you can't on the one hand say that it doesn't matter what you believe as long as you believe, and at the same time condemn people whose beliefs lead them to kill, or suppress the beliefs of others.

The second is that some of the things that are being posited as worthy of belief would have major consequences, and surely any thinking human being wants to know if they are true. If you want to build an aeroplane, it matters whether gravity is real. We cannot change the way things are by being ignorant of them or not believing in them.

WEll, that's all for now - I'm sure you can all do better than that...

CC