On Divinity

I have lots of thoughts on the topic of... divinity.  I hesitate to even use the word "God" because it is so value-laden, and almost impossible to escape the images and definitions that automatically formulate in most people's minds.

Most of my thoughts remain intentionally uncommitted, because once you do that you have stopped searching.  I do see some truths in all of the religions on Earth, as one world see the outside would through different panes of stained glass.  But I also see no reason why one must accept any particular scripture or faith. 

And religions, even all of our Earthly religions combined, are just one perspective of a vast, almost incomprehensible metaverse.  Religion offers only a perspective, a frame, a narrative, to make sense of it all.  It doesn't make religions true or false, just a looking glass.  No more, no less.

And for whatever good spirituality and faith have provided mankind, religion itself often corrupts it.

On top of that, religion certainly is not necessary for morality.  Religion, for me, is not just overly restrictive.  I have seen some of the worst morality come out of it that I'm entirely turned off!

(By the way, Penn says most terrorists are Muslim, but that is not true at all.  That wasn't the logical point he was trying to make, though.)

I have met many cruel people who came in the name of God, and many good and kind atheists.  Terrible things throughout history, even now, have been done in the name of every religion.  But that also does not discount that religion has been a major institution that contributed to civilization.  For all the persecution and oppression and wars, religion has also many times kept society from falling apart, propelled it forward.  Nothing is so black and white.

That doesn't mean you can't believe in God or shouldn't believe in God.  I believe in what some might call God.  I just think you don't have to believe in God, and if you do, your definition of God can vary from another person's definition of God.  Some people may believe in many gods, or believe the Earth Goddess.  All of that is fine.  Believing in something greater than yourself is a healthy part of the human condition.

But now we may be nearing some of the limitations of religion, at least for many.  That does not mean they cannot tap into the Great Spirit in the Sky, the Higher Power, Mother Earth, the ancient gods, the White Light, the divinity within all of us, or whatever you identify with.

My spiritual cosmology sees an impersonal, ineffable, infinite Source or Force of all energy.  Beneath that endless river I see many other gods or spiritual beings or celestial stars or inter-dimensional aliens or whatever you want to call them (all myths are just attempts to explain the unexplainable) of various ages and powers climbing up towards that Source.  And we are all in various stages of hatching to become those same stars.

But that's just me.  Your views are entirely yours.  And my views could very well change.