answers to questionaire

1) 42
2) white
3)female
4)no
5)no
6)yes (Canada Heath Care System)
7)no
8)doctor’s office/emerg after hours
9) no
10) NA
11) No/ not sure. I would like there to be a God, but it seems like wishful thinking.
12) No. But I try to keep an open mind. I figure that if some physicists have taken the question of God’s existence seriously, I should too. But again, it seems like wishful thinking. I think belief in God has a lot to do with existential loneliness and fear of death. I think the longing for God is also related to the unforgetable child/infant bond, which we seek to re-experience and follow after, like imprinted ducklings.
13) Yes, but at a fairly young age. World History was my downfall. It's all Mr. Rudicells' fault. If all those other cultures believed in various Gods, why was mine more real? If medieval popes went around poisoning people and had concubines, how could they be infailable?
14) Yes, sort of. But my family had very mixed feelings about religion. On my mom’s side, her dad always went to church but her mom never went. On my father’s side, his mother went to church, but his dad stayed home. So a certain amount of religious independence was tolerated.
15) Methodist
16) Yes/No. I remember going to church until the minister was killed in a water skiing accident. And then for some reason we never went back. I think my father lost faith.
17) No, but I would read about other religions just in case there was something I was some great answer I was missing out on.
18) NA
19) Yes. See 13.
20) No, I didn’t return to religion. But I think I’ve kept an open mind.I don't feel the need to "seek spiritual answers." And I figure God knows where to find me if God suddenly needs to tell me something.
21) Yes, but it was not a supernatural experience. It was more like a sudden insight into a philosophical question or a finding of meaning in life, an answer to something, a piece of the puzzle.
22) Question missing
23) Question missing
24) No
25) Family in my earliest experiences, then probably school, and then books on my own.
26) No
27) If there is a God, I don’t know why it would require a gender if its not a biological being.
28-1) Y – I don’t know about "communication," but I don’t think God interferes physically in events.
28-25) Y organized religion is not the answer - enlightement comes within. Even if you study religion/philosophy for answers, you can’t make yourself believe something that doesn’t somehow corraborate your own experiences/world view. You can’t force yourself or others to believe anything that seems false just for the sake of belonging to a group. That sort of belief eventually unravels.
The rest are all "N." It’s hard to generalize about these things.
28-18) Y/N - I believe there can be free will, in that I’m not a determinist, but a person may not always be capable of it. I think free will is biologically related to some random, chaotic element in human thinking that becomes selected or amplified by contact with new ideas and experiences. Free will is basically the capacity for change. But obviously, a person with Alzheimers, or schizophrenia or an addiction lacks a certain amount of free will.
28-17,16 N) People are good and bad to varying degrees, at different moments in their life.
28-18. N) I don’t believe things happen for a "reason" but there can still be meaning in unreasonable events. It’s up to us to find it. Life is a good short story, if nothing else.