As far as I am concerned, “something more” is very sufficient in leading one toward deeper paths of spiritual experience with what I would call “the Real.”  If there is a God, God has chosen to hide Godself extremely well, but I assume with good intentions.  We as people are very different from one another, and both religion and our personalities are in a large degree (not completely) social creations issuing out of many things, most of all our life experiences and our contextual backgrounds as we have grown up in whatever part of the culture we have grown up in, and I am sure that our familial backgrounds are signficant indicators (yet partially) as to what kinds of people we are becoming.  And I am also of the mind that humans possess what I would call significantly autotomous “free will.”  We are grossly affected by all that we experience in life, but not necessarily to the point that we are determined in a fatalistic way.

I have traversed the spectrum of full-blown deterministic Christian Calvinism to a very relativistic liberally driven pluralistic viewpoint in the expanse of about sixteen years now.  I have gravitated back toward the right a bit, and thus label myself as a Progressive Christian with a lot of agnosticism still rearing its head in my thinking.  The point is, this is where I am at today, and I’m not convinced that there is any one true place to settle in terms of religion/spirituality.  Just look at the religous scene today out there today.

This doesn’t mean I don’t believe in truth because I do.  But how much truth is empirically demonstrated vs. mythically apprehended through faith.  I am a non-literalist when it comes to believing in a literal fashion much of what is offered in various religious scriptures.  As I understand it, even the people groups in the ancient times (such as when the bible was written) in which their scritpures were written were never intended to be read or interpreted literally, but historically, mythically, and metaphorically, with all the truth that can be gathered by reading in such a way.

If you get a chance, check out on youtube.com Marcus Borg on religious pluralism.  I suspect that the gist of what he said in his almost one hour long presentation could be very helpful to you.  And he doesn’t come down on atheists or agnostics, either.  I was an agnostic for thirty years before I was “spiritually awakened” and I don’t feel the least compelled to convince people that I am right and they are wrong today.  And might I add that I also am not a full-blown relativist.  I have faith that there is a “God” and only “God” stands the best chance of knowing and being what it may be best to know and be.  But I also believe that any thoughts or inclinations I may have pertaining to the apprehending of Truth has to be run through my own limited and fallible, imperfect perspective which is always relativizing.  The question I am most interested in these days is “Is it good for all of humanity, or does it dehumanize others?”  If there is a God, I assume that this God is transpersonal in some way (beyond what it means to be human, but not so far removed that this God doesn’t understand us, we just have trouble understanding what we might call an ineffable God).

It’s fairly simple for me in that I assume there is “something more” which I am in some way accountable to, and that this something more wants me to, over time, become less self-absorbed and more others-centered, that I might love “God”, others, myself, and the rest of creation in such a way as to honor the One who ultimately brought me into this world who/what still remains an Ultimate Mystery to me this day, yet an Ultimate Mystery that I sense I “know” more in a holistic and intuitive way apart from having to believe what certain religions say God “must be” and yet they continue to battle over thier ideas of what “must be” and yet purport that their little niche in the world of understanding is the one correct way of perceiving Reality. And I very honestly say that I have no doubt that I, too, get much of it wrong.  But I won’t compel people, especially through the medium of fear, to agree with me.  And this is where I stand today, and I am sure my a/theology will change in the coming years.

I wish you all the best,

Chris.