So... I am coming to the conclusion that pretty much all of the doctrinal stuff that I have believed for 25/30 years is built on a house of cards and it's about to come crashing down. Question is what do I replace it with?
My intellectual head says that that whole thing is junk and there is almost certainly no God at all. If there were then all the questions that "the truth" is meant to answer is there like what's God's plan, why is there so much suffering in the world etc.
If there is no God however it's quite a mind bend to get your head from a place of hope/expectation to a place of this world is what it is and the best thing we can do is try and be nice people.
I know some people seem to have found a middle ground where the focus is on the compassionate nature of the Christ but I don't think you can really seperate Christ from the rest of the Bible and, by implication, his father and the wider picture. Sure, Jesus set a pretty nice pattern to follow in many ways but I see people all around me being nice people without any kind of faith. If you bring it down to a philisophical base then there is very little to raise Jesus above many other good people through history. If you keep the aspect of a divine relationship in there then you're back to questions about the point of creation - something that the "truth" had a pretty decent story for.
Talking with a trusted friend they were trying to reason that ones we had known that had drifted away were not significantly happier or less confused but that's not the point. It's not about finding another meaning to life. Don't get me wrong, I feel no burning need to replace the "truth" with anything at all. It's just I can't quite get my head round all the implications of there being no God at all yet it actually feels like the most logical conclusion.