John Carr recommends…
I’ve long been a fan of Louis Theroux and am currently enjoying ‘Life on the Edge’, a retrospective TV series on ABC Ch22 made last year during lockdown. Theroux and his work are best known outside the USA and it’s good to see that he’s now attracting more followers in America. His programs involve substantial interviews with people who are members of ‘weird’ American groups. Some of the groups are sects or cults, but many are not organised groups at all, merely numbers of individuals who share the same or similar views and obsessions. Most hold quite extreme religious, political or philosophical views, sometimes involving a range of conspiracy theories. To say that the members are eccentric is to understate their ‘weirdness’. There’s a very good review of Theroux’s new and earlier series by Anna Russell in The New Yorker.
We members of SOFiA are also often viewed as ‘weird’.
We declare that God does not exist, yet insist that nevertheless the concept of God does actually stand for something. These ‘somethings’ are our highest values, our loftiest ideals, and our areas of ultimate concern.
God might not exist as a supernatural entity, but He certainly exists as a symbol.