does anyone know the origin of this phrase?
has anyone else ever heard this phrase?
heh.
I got 86 googlits. the earliest reference seems to be a statement made by Ralph Vaughan-Williams' wife about his religious beliefs. (or lack thereof...)
Vaughan Williams did not possess a conventional faith or belief. The son of an Anglican clergyman and a strict Christian mother, he managed to develop a deep-seated scepticism from an early age. As a Cambridge undergraduate he strode into Trinity College Hall demanding: ‘Who believes in God nowadays, I should like to know?’1; and according to Ursula Vaughan Williams: ‘He was an atheist during his later years at Charterhouse and at Cambridge, though he later drifted into a cheerful agnosticism: he was never a professing Christian.’http://www.hyperion-records.co.uk/notes/67503-N.aspwelcome, nancy!
perhaps made current by an interview with British actor Tim Curry? "He spoke of his childhood as the son of a Methodist preacher and a student at a Methodist school. He described both as being very liberal and relaxed about religion. Consequently, Curry became what he calls a “cheerful agnostic” and remains one to this day."