"too Smart For Your Own Good"

[TrailBlazer]

That sums up my childhood.

Shortly after learning the truth about Santa Claus, I began to wonder the same for xianity - What if religion was the great mass delusion of mankind? What if it was all a facade to ensure everyone was good because God was watching us the same way I had thought Santa to be watching us? Preposterous. What if pastors were taught in seminary that church was all an illusion but they were sworn to secrecy like Mommies and Daddies were secretive about Santa? I always wondered, perhaps my suspicion was why I always remained somewhat apprehensive about giving it my all-in.

 

After observing xianity and for a year or two spending my time pretending and believing in the religion without believing the religion, I have come to believe in religion the same way I believe in government - looks fantastic on paper, but in practice it's nothing to write home about.

I wish others could understand the concept of doing good for the sake of doing good, not for the prospect of eternal rewards.

I wish others could understand the concept of loving others because they're fellow man, not because that's a command.

I wish religious folk would think for themselves instead of relying on a 2000 year old book and their pastors to tell them what to think and believe.

 

Now I wonder: is it possible to believe in religion, but not in the supernatural forces behind them? Is it possible to get past our own bitterness toward xianity and accept that it does help millions of hapless church drones to cope with life? Can we learn to see the ideas behind the religious superstitions and rituals to understand that what it's ultimately doing is fostering a subconscious understanding of some more complex notions about life such as love, humility, and goodness. I'm sure many of us are coming to an understanding of these things outside of religion, but could we use our religious backgrounds as a foundation to build on to new beliefs about life?

 

Just some of my thoughts this morning on how we might be able to take our knowledge of xianity and turn it into something positive for ourselves.

[mcdaddy]

Every institution is man-made, even religion. Since they are man-made, they are fallible. Since they are fallible, there are problems within them. People that are comfortable and desiring to stay within the confines of their delusional thought-prison won't come out unless they change their desires, placing truth, learning and wisdom above all other emotions. That's why its so hard to "evangelize" nonbelief - it appeals to the intellect, not the emotions; most religious people go by their emotions, most of the time. The ones that appeal to their intellect will eventually leave anyway. I'm all for more religious education in schools to promote understanding, not indoctrination (secular-style) to show the history behind religions, so that people will have all the information at their disposal, not just what is passed out from the pulpit.

 

Can you have religion without the supernatural forces? Aren't they one in the same? Otherwise its just philosophy.

[roadrunner]

any "new belief" i think/hope would be a more civilized, less superstitious belief system that is based on something other than bronze aged myths. Slowly society is getting more and more dismissive of crap. thats why xians can say "have you heard that Scientology crap man what a delusive bunch of losers" and totally skim the implausibility of their belief. Fuel by evangelizing and social acceptance/confirmation keeps it going but little by little its being pluck apart from generation to generation.

[mcdaddy]

I generally think we're moving in the right direction.

[roadrunner]

me too. its encouraging. I can't wait to see what xianity looks like 30 years from now.

[par4dcourse]

Now I wonder: is it possible to believe in religion, but not in the supernatural forces behind them? Is it possible to get past our own bitterness toward xianity and accept that it does help millions of hapless church drones to cope with life?

 

I think it's more death that people are coping with. I think religion (all of them) are humans way of controlling the uncontrollable. Death and disasters are unavoidable, but if we can bend the ear of some magical being who is in control, maybe......

The lengths to which people go to validate an unproveable god is rooted in desperation. I only take issue when it's pushed on me, my government, or the schools.

[TrueFreedom]

Many Christianities have evolved along with science, philosophy and psychology. I have even seen non-religious Christianities popping up lately. Many of us have heard sermons based on perfectly good secular psychology.

 

From your OP, I think you might enjoy being a part of Pete Rollins' insurrection.

[TrailBlazer]

...Can you have religion without the supernatural forces? Aren't they one in the same? Otherwise its just philosophy.

I guess philosophy is something I tend to think of as a synonym of religion. - A collection of moral principles and the practice of self-betterment that lie behind all the religiousity.

[VacuumFlux]

I wish others could understand the concept of doing good for the sake of doing good, not for the prospect of eternal rewards.

I wish others could understand the concept of loving others because they're fellow man, not because that's a command.

I wish religious folk would think for themselves instead of relying on a 2000 year old book and their pastors to tell them what to think and believe.

 

Now I wonder: is it possible to believe in religion, but not in the supernatural forces behind them? Is it possible to get past our own bitterness toward xianity and accept that it does help millions of hapless church drones to cope with life? Can we learn to see the ideas behind the religious superstitions and rituals to understand that what it's ultimately doing is fostering a subconscious understanding of some more complex notions about life such as love, humility, and goodness. I'm sure many of us are coming to an understanding of these things outside of religion, but could we use our religious backgrounds as a foundation to build on to new beliefs about life?

 

Just some of my thoughts this morning on how we might be able to take our knowledge of xianity and turn it into something positive for ourselves.

 

...Can you have religion without the supernatural forces? Aren't they one in the same? Otherwise its just philosophy.

I guess philosophy is something I tend to think of as a synonym of religion. - A collection of moral principles and the practice of self-betterment that lie behind all the religiousity.

 

This is what I get out of a secular form of Buddhism. I'm certainly not claiming to speak for all forms of Buddhism nor all Buddhists, this is just what I've gotten out of the stuff I've read. It's not focused on rewards and punishments in the same sense christianity is, at least not external ones. It's all about cultivating the good things that already exist inside of you and realizing that being a moral person is a more satisfying way to live life. It doesn't just yell at you for not being good enough, but tells you to love yourself as you are and provides very practical steps on how to do that, and how to progress. It's the practical steps that, for me, separate it from philosophy. Philosophy is the clear logical rational behind why this is a good thing to do. Religion/spirituality is the doing and the feeling. "Faith without work" sort of concept.

[Antlerman]

I wish others could understand the concept of doing good for the sake of doing good, not for the prospect of eternal rewards.

I wish others could understand the concept of loving others because they're fellow man, not because that's a command.

I wish religious folk would think for themselves instead of relying on a 2000 year old book and their pastors to tell them what to think and believe.

They will hear by seeing it, not by being told it. In other words, live that in ourselves because we choose to, not because we feel afraid of some sort of judgment from the sky. Live free from fear, and love for love's sake. Then all the bluster of those so-called prophets preaching fear and judgment will sink to the bottom of the pond and be forgotten. IMHO.

 

Now I wonder: is it possible to believe in religion, but not in the supernatural forces behind them?

Yes, but it's not so much that you 'believe in religion' as it is you recognize its usefulness when used for actual spiritual practice. So much of religion is unfortunately a totally externalized thing, rather than tools for internal growth. Belonging to a religion, often becomes the end in itself with nothing more. That's when it has the potential to become a poison instead.

 

Is it possible to get past our own bitterness toward xianity and accept that it does help millions of hapless church drones to cope with life?

Yes. But it takes a lot of personal growth and understanding to see it does serve some positive role for where some people are at in their path. I would say that fundamentalism however, in any form, is a negative. That's a dysfunction of religion, but doesn't define religion itself, though most people tend to have that negative face in mind when they criticize the evils of religion.

 

How I see Christianity itself is a wide range of ways people approach it, but for the most part it is as an exoteric religion. That is it is outside themselves. God is external and separate from them, so they approach it in a mythological mindset much the way you described Santa Clause. It's seeing God through the eyes of a five year old, rather than being a part of ourselves. It sounds strange, but a way to understand it is as a separate line of development. They can be rational adults in other areas, but in the area of spiritual intelligence, they are perceiving it as a child might Santa Clause. It is more than possible to understand God in a far more mature way, in a way compatible with a rational mind, in a way that experiences it as an adult, rather than as a child.

 

Can we learn to see the ideas behind the religious superstitions and rituals to understand that what it's ultimately doing is fostering a subconscious understanding of some more complex notions about life such as love, humility, and goodness.

Yes. Definitely. But it takes some personal growth and knowledge to come to that place.

 

I'm sure many of us are coming to an understanding of these things outside of religion, but could we use our religious backgrounds as a foundation to build on to new beliefs about life?

I would say yes. Most definitely what I learned in Christianity has been, to use the term, "transcended and included". You negate that bad, but evolve the good. Atheism for me was tool to negate the bad, but failed as it could not see past that role it serves in order to evolve the good into something useful, spiritually. I don't believe I myself could ever be a Christian again, because I feel as a system on the whole I wouldn't be able to limit myself to it - that is of course while understanding it considerably beyond the literalistic mythological mindset.

 

I know there are those within Christianity whom I could say "get it", and they don't see it literally, and do see it as a means to personal spiritual growth, but there are far too few who would understand it in such light to be useful to me as a system. It's symbols are actually not as baby-like as you typically hear interpreted back to you from the mainstream. There's this one book I haven't read yet, but am curious by the title alone, which should say something. He titled the book, "Without Buddha, I could not be a Christian". What does that tell you?

[raoul]

That sums up my childhood.

Shortly after learning the truth about Santa Claus, I began to wonder the same for xianity - What if religion was the great mass delusion of mankind? What if it was all a facade to ensure everyone was good because God was watching us the same way I had thought Santa to be watching us? Preposterous. What if pastors were taught in seminary that church was all an illusion but they were sworn to secrecy like Mommies and Daddies were secretive about Santa? I always wondered, perhaps my suspicion was why I always remained somewhat apprehensive about giving it my all-in.

 

After observing xianity and for a year or two spending my time pretending and believing in the religion without believing the religion, I have come to believe in religion the same way I believe in government - looks fantastic on paper, but in practice it's nothing to write home about.

I wish others could understand the concept of doing good for the sake of doing good, not for the prospect of eternal rewards.

I wish others could understand the concept of loving others because they're fellow man, not because that's a command.

I wish religious folk would think for themselves instead of relying on a 2000 year old book and their pastors to tell them what to think and believe.

 

Now I wonder: is it possible to believe in religion, but not in the supernatural forces behind them? Is it possible to get past our own bitterness toward xianity and accept that it does help millions of hapless church drones to cope with life? Can we learn to see the ideas behind the religious superstitions and rituals to understand that what it's ultimately doing is fostering a subconscious understanding of some more complex notions about life such as love, humility, and goodness. I'm sure many of us are coming to an understanding of these things outside of religion, but could we use our religious backgrounds as a foundation to build on to new beliefs about life?

 

Just some of my thoughts this morning on how we might be able to take our knowledge of xianity and turn it into something positive for ourselves.

You're asking us to tolerate them when they do the opposite regarding us. Quite a hard pill to swallow.

[Antlerman]

I think it's more death that people are coping with. I think religion (all of them) are humans way of controlling the uncontrollable. Death and disasters are unavoidable, but if we can bend the ear of some magical being who is in control, maybe......

Are you familiar enough with all religions to make this statement? Do you know the motives of everyone within them as to why they appeal to them? Can you legitimately summarize all religious experience, in all religions, in all times as being about coping with the fear of death and controlling the uncontrollable?

 

I can tell you from my personal experience it wasn't about that, much less does it have anything to do with it at all now. Where would I, as only one person, fit within your understanding? I'll tell you in my own words its not about an afterlife or controlling the uncontrollable via some agent of magic. It's very simple actually. It's about drinking life into me and knowing the nature of being inside me in this world, in this present now. It's about being free to live. Perhaps there's more to consider in how you look at these things?

 

The lengths to which people go to validate an unproveable god is rooted in desperation.

Well, I guess for me it was never about what you were talking about, and proving God exists was irrelevant. I see those who do this to be lacking in actual experience and try to validate their beliefs to themselves in order to continue in them, through trying to convince others of something that to them is uncertain except through a force of mental will power to believe. For me the question of God is not a question. It's more a question rather of how do we understand it or talk about it. I'm in agreement that such fanciful understandings as a magic performing sky parent are severely lacking in a modern world. I just don't throw out the baby with the bathwater.

 

You want to know why I really left Christianity? It's because the baby was barely visible swimming in the murky bathwater of bronze-age myth in a modern world. How can we take such primitive understandings of something spiritually transcendent and integrate that into a modern, rational world, where we aren't in a constant state of cognitive dissonance? How can we hold to spirituality and not have to force-fit myth within our otherwise rational worlds?

 

I agree with atheism that debunks such bathwater superstitions and prerational myths as facts. I don't agree at all, for solid rational reasons, that there is no baby, that it's all 'crap'. The 'proof', if any that is needed, is in fact in looking what at is actually realized in positive, healthy ways. What benefits come through its practices and teachings? It's not about proving Zeus or Jehovah are real gods in some otherworldly, supernatural realm. That's beneath the question, but it's the only question that modern neo-atheism seems to like to take on. It's like shooting fish in a barrel and feeling proud of it. That's much too easy, especially when you hand selected the fish to shoot.

 

I only take issue when it's pushed on me, my government, or the schools.

Agreed. They should be secure enough in their religion to not need to convert others. The fact that they aren't speaks of it's invalidity to them, as I see it.

[Deva]

This is what I get out of a secular form of Buddhism. I'm certainly not claiming to speak for all forms of Buddhism nor all Buddhists, this is just what I've gotten out of the stuff I've read. It's not focused on rewards and punishments in the same sense christianity is, at least not external ones. It's all about cultivating the good things that already exist inside of you and realizing that being a moral person is a more satisfying way to live life. It doesn't just yell at you for not being good enough, but tells you to love yourself as you are and provides very practical steps on how to do that, and how to progress. It's the practical steps that, for me, separate it from philosophy. Philosophy is the clear logical rational behind why this is a good thing to do. Religion/spirituality is the doing and the feeling. "Faith without work" sort of concept.

 

This is the great thing about Buddhism. I mean there is a depth of philosophy behind it, and yet you can go into it as far as you would like - and its OK if you only want to go partway. Or you can go very deep. Anyway, its all OK. You don't NEED to believe in stuff that isn't part of your experience.

 

For me, the bedrock philosophical belief that hooks me and keeps me there is that we all have the Buddha nature. This means fundamentally that we are not sinners, flawed or rotten to the core, but good, flawless, in fact. If it didn't have anything else (which it surely does) that would almost be enough. Almost all of the statues of Buddha show him smiling. This means he saw the nature of reality and it was really OK.

[TrueFreedom]

Almost all of the statues of Buddha show him smiling. This means he saw the nature of reality and it was really OK.

 

Lost and struggling

Tee-hee, ha-ha

Life is suffering

Tee-hee, ha-ha

Smile on little buddha, smile on

Little buddha, smile on

It's only illusion then you're gone

 

[TrailBlazer]

You're asking us to tolerate them when they do the opposite regarding us. Quite a hard pill to swallow.

Yes I am, and yes it is.

Because if xianity taught me anything: how someone else behaves toward you is inconsequential to how you should behave toward them in return. Personally, I'm not willing to stoop to the level of intolerant christians- they would get too much satisfaction out of this.

[TrailBlazer]

Antlerman- I appreciate your insights and your attitude toward religion. You remind me of a professor I talked with during the time of my deconversion. Being a prof at a Christian College, I'm sure he wouldn't have told me if I asked, but I think he has reached very similar conclusions about religion. He didn't try to drag me back to Christianity, he didn't try to tell me my conclusions were misled; he shared with me about how he's made peace with religion and how he found his own way to approach religion instead.

 

Definitely an eye-opening conversation. Instead of becoming bitter with all things jesus-related, I decided to make my own peace with religion and learn from my experiences in the church.

 

I agree about fundamentalism, its been my experience that a few fundamental churches have become the canker sores of the church body.

[Antlerman]

Definitely an eye-opening conversation. Instead of becoming bitter with all things jesus-related, I decided to make my own peace with religion and learn from my experiences in the church.

I would be really curious to know more of what he was saying in that conversation. In all honesty, if he had come as far along towards these kinds of realizations as you allude to, for him to remain within the role of a professor within a conservative Bible college, I can't quite fathom how well that role worked for him in his own personal devotional life. In a sense its being insincere to coddle a bunch of literalist children, supporting them in their view, while realizing something so much more.

 

I've known a couple of people in Bible College roles as teacher in just that situation. One with a double PhD, seeking a role in a conservative Christian College, the other a good friend of mine who continued as a teacher after he had lost his faith. In the former case, it's like he was making a choice to use his skills for employment, whilst knowing that how he was expected to teach was in fact so far behind him in his thinking, that he admitted that in a sense he was lying to them.

 

The latter, a good friend of mine I graduated Bible College with continued teaching there after we graduated. The result for him, as I see it, was really a postponing of his being able to be freed from that sort of environment in order to even begin to flesh out what he really feels. There's a whole host of things that came along with that which I feel stalled his 'recovery', whereas I plowed my way through it unabated. Not that my path and his can really be compared like that as we are different individuals, but still being embedded in that role while you now longer share that level of thinking cannot be helpful or healthy, IMO.

 

As far as making peace, that's great you have been able to do that. It can take some time to heal those wounds. I see a lot of the typical vitriol and the whole neo-atheist, anti-religion stances as really about creating boundaries in order to differentiate oneself from their prior dominant controlling system. "Religion is bullshit!", is in essence saying, "I refuse to allow others to think for me!". What that is of course is us saying that to ourselves. We attack religion symbolically to say, "I will think for myself now". And that's fine. That's what iconoclasm is. It symbolically smashes the old idol to make room for the new. But ultimately, the goal is to heal and in fact build anew.

 

To remain in the "I'm not them!" mode is to define yourself in the negative which is in fact still tied directly to the old. Neo-atheism, as useful as it is to a point, is essentially defined by Christianity itself. To rally around a negative like that can ultimately be no different than rallying around the cross saying "We're saved and they're lost". It's really kind of the same thing that way, if it becomes what defines you. I often muse that the neo-atheism is in essence 'Christianity without God', in this sense.

 

It is possible to find peace, without having to wage war, or outright turn a blind eye. It's through compassion and understanding. In other words Wisdom.

[TrailBlazer]

Definitely an eye-opening conversation. Instead of becoming bitter with all things jesus-related, I decided to make my own peace with religion and learn from my experiences in the church.

I would be really curious to know more of what he was saying in that conversation. In all honesty, if he had come as far along towards these kinds of realizations as you allude to, for him to remain within the role of a professor within a conservative Bible college, I can't quite fathom how well that role worked for him in his own personal devotional life. In a sense its being insincere to coddle a bunch of literalist children, supporting them in their view, while realizing something so much more.

 

Again, I dont know for sure what he identifies as. He has a handful of impressive degrees and a child to raise alone after his wife passed. He struck me as very synnical, mildly depressed, and used sarcasm liberally. He's a self-proclaimed skeptic; I got the impression he was more of a deist than a christian.

 

When I approached him, I told him with teary eyes that I had become jaded with religion. He said that was splendid and he would love to chat with me. He talked about finding a new way to God through nature and science. We talked about quantum physics, biology, great artists, music theory, and everything in between. We talked about christian history, mentally ill apostles, and passages written in the bible that probably were never meant to be taken literally.

 

I told him I didn't like his class because I got the impression he was sarcastically mocking us students and nobody seemed to notice it. (He didn't deny that!) I asked him what he believed was worthwhile in life. He answered, beauty. Beauty found in nature, in art, and in humanity. At the end of probably seven hours total sitting in his office, he thanked me for chatting with him, which I thought was odd, and told me not to give up searching for my own spirituality.

 

As far as making peace, that's great you have been able to do that. It can take some time to heal those wounds. I see a lot of the typical vitriol and the whole neo-atheist, anti-religion stances as really about creating boundaries in order to differentiate oneself from their prior dominant controlling system. "Religion is bullshit!", is in essence saying, "I refuse to allow others to think for me!". What that is of course is us saying that to ourselves. We attack religion symbolically to say, "I will think for myself now". And that's fine. That's what iconoclasm is. It symbolically smashes the old idol to make room for the new. But ultimately, the goal is to heal and in fact build anew.

 

It seems to me, leaving church to "think for oneself" only to become a follower of the prominent atheist thinkers or to parrot the words of popular anti-religion slogans is not much different from being a non-thinking drone of religion.

We're all just people, right? If you think I'm going to hell when I die, and I think death is the end of life, what relevance is that to how we should get along while we're both in the present moment? Can we not get along and agree that we both believe life exists?

[Antlerman]

I told him I didn't like his class because I got the impression he was sarcastically mocking us students and nobody seemed to notice it. (He didn't deny that!) I asked him what he believed was worthwhile in life. He answered, beauty. Beauty found in nature, in art, and in humanity. At the end of probably seven hours total sitting in his office, he thanked me for chatting with him, which I thought was odd, and told me not to give up searching for my own spirituality.

Wow, yes this guy does sound like he's like those who find themselves in a position as teacher of something they don't agree with. It just occurred to me is that this is what I saw coming for myself in graduating Bible College on the way into the ministry. I had grave misgivings growing during my last year of schooling, but delayed looking at them too deeply until after graduation. Then I was faced with the expectation that I was going to return to be the assistant pastor in my home church, and I had to face it head on at that point.

 

I told myself, I can't in good conscience use my abilities to persuade people to devote their lives to something I have such deep doubts about myself. And so I laid it all out on the table and spent several months in very focused study to sort it out. It was not only intellectual, but was also a head on look at how I felt spiritually. Even in the midst of all that fear instilled by their terror-theology about the devil trying to get you to doubt this truth, I looked to God at that time and made a commitment to sincerity with what was in me, whether right or wrong. I would be true to that within me and let God be the judge. The end of that was me writing my pastor a 66 page letter explaining the points I saw that essentially crumbled the entire edifice of their doctrines which they claimed set them apart from all others and made them alone right. I never heard back from him.

 

I know what that internal struggle was like, but I was at least in an easier position than to where I was tied into that role financially and all that complicates one having the ability to set it all aside as I did to find yourself in it. I can't imagine for myself standing in front of the congregation and one day just finally saying "I can't take it anymore!". Instead what could have happened is to compromise and suppress that part of me, or find some uneasy equilibrium and never really dive into the waters that were calling to me beyond that shoreline. Something would have been diminished within me in not protecting that freedom of movement for myself. I guess you can say your story of this professor resonates with something in me. I can see myself in that boat. He sounds like he has something real in him, but its his path...

 

As far as making peace, that's great you have been able to do that. It can take some time to heal those wounds. I see a lot of the typical vitriol and the whole neo-atheist, anti-religion stances as really about creating boundaries in order to differentiate oneself from their prior dominant controlling system. "Religion is bullshit!", is in essence saying, "I refuse to allow others to think for me!". What that is of course is us saying that to ourselves. We attack religion symbolically to say, "I will think for myself now". And that's fine. That's what iconoclasm is. It symbolically smashes the old idol to make room for the new. But ultimately, the goal is to heal and in fact build anew.

 

It seems to me, leaving church to "think for oneself" only to become a follower of the prominent atheist thinkers or to parrot the words of popular anti-religion slogans is not much different from being a non-thinking drone of religion.

We're all just people, right? If you think I'm going to hell when I die, and I think death is the end of life, what relevance is that to how we should get along while we're both in the present moment? Can we not get along and agree that we both believe life exists?

That is exactly the danger. It's like the old saying, 'you can take the boy out of the city but you can't take the city out of the boy'. What follows is the desire to believe in something. What follows is a mode of thinking in black and white terms. "If this is true, than that is false". It's how the fundamentalist Christian machine reasoned, and it's how then looking to science as the new source of Authority reasons. Science becomes Scientism. Instead of the 12 apostles, you have the popular faces of neo-atheism as manufactured symbols of Truth. It's still the same processes going on psychologically.

 

Can we all just get along? Well, I would say yes, but no. In a mode of thinking that sees truth on one side and lies on the other, it's hard to change that mode of thinking itself. It's not just changing one's beliefs that matters, but how one thinks altogether. That's vastly more challenging and difficult than just finding something new to believe in. But its through that process that it shifts our entire perceptual awareness, through which everything we look at, experience, and reason is tempered and guided. Then, as I said before you don't judge people as right or wrong, but in a different light.

 

I don't believe a person who sees the world in binary ways and has a passion about being right can ever find merit or respect another point of view, to try to see the world in less starkly contrasting ways. The best we can do is just continue to be true to love and compassion and point out the fallacy of such reasoning, and hopefully will come to it themselves that such modes of thinking don't serve themselves or the world, that that only leads to holy wars, Christians versus Muslims, Atheists versus Christians and Muslims, etc.

 

Truth isn't anything you can claim to possess. It isn't an idea or any conceptual understanding. It's like the air we live and breath and through which all truths are looked at like changing rays of light that add color and texture to understanding. It's not anything we can penetrate through reason, nor claim to know and build a belief structure around. The moment anyone claims to have it, they don't. No one owns the Truth, nor ever will. It is everyone's right now, and it's simply a matter of seeing past ourselves in order to see it, and ourselves within it.

[Guest Xtech]

Now I wonder: is it possible to believe in religion, but not in the supernatural forces behind them?

 

Yep. It's called Unitarian Universalism :-)

[TrailBlazer]

Truth isn't anything you can claim to possess. It isn't an idea or any conceptual understanding. It's like the air we live and breath and through which all truths are looked at like changing rays of light that add color and texture to understanding. It's not anything we can penetrate through reason, nor claim to know and build a belief structure around. The moment anyone claims to have it, they don't. No one owns the Truth, nor ever will. It is everyone's right now, and it's simply a matter of seeing past ourselves in order to see it, and ourselves within it.

This is a great frame of mind to hold in perspective. Awesome. And now I'm feeling inspired to read some Lao Tzu!

 

 

Yep. It's called Unitarian Universalism :-)

Way ahead of you there X!