>Yeah, I know. And I believe faith is a beautiful concept. It is certainly central in AA, which I have not given up on yet. I am not Catholic but have been to many Catholic masses and "let us celebrate the mystery of faith" always raises the hairs on my neck. To believe the unknowable, the unprovable, through faith.

This is the ultimate test for me - and proves me as a thorough unbeliever. It raises hairs, but on my... what do you call it? Top of my head. Shouldn't there be a word for that?

Anyway, that's something I dare not do - live on just belief, on someone's say-so. I'm not brave enough.

>There is a great passage in one of Graham Greene's late novels, "Monsignor Quixote." It was a very thinly disguised spin on "Don Quixote." In it the monsignor has a terrible dream. Jesus returns to earth and proves himself to be exactly what he said he was -- the son of God, the savior, the whole deal. Water into wine and the other parlor tricks. This dream left the monsignor devastated. "I have no more reason to live."

I'm getting the idea that he wanted to show the risks of finding the meaning of life outside oneself. If you can't find it inside, you risk that the outside reasons may fail you and then what, you lived for all the wrong reasons up to that moment? And I find it strangely appropriate that the term to describe such life is originally related to organized religion: vicarious.