A friend of mine has poked some gentle fun at me and my idea of a religious quest suggesting when I write about  religion that  “is studying Religion from the outside” which he says  is “like studying sex by watching or reading Porn or Academic writing. I’m sure you would agree that studying sex and doing sex are quite different.” I certainly agree that doing sex and studying sex or watching sex from the outside are very different things.

However, I don’t agree that I am looking at religion from the outside. I am more sympathetic to some forms of religion than others, but that really applies to everyone. Evangelical Christians for example look at all religions from the outside except one! So too with Muslims, at least the fundamentalist Muslims and Christians. The only religion that counts is their true religion.

I look at more religions from the inside than they do! One of the things I don’t like about the fundamentalists is that they have tried to hijack all religion leaving nothing for the rest of us. That is one of the things I liked about Life of Pi and why I recommended it so highly as a start on this journey. Why should we confine ourselves to one religion?