I'll have to examine my thinking for the rest of my life, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.
It's not just information we have to overcome, it is ways of thinking as well. But I agree: it's rather a good thing to live a conscious and considered life. Indeed, I believe this is the point of Christ's teachings regarding getting out of the Pharisee mindset, that he fulfilled the law.
At some point, I think I that any organization that espouses one set of rules about God must be wrong, because it confuses belief with relationship, thought with experience; and I have found my valid path to the divine is individualistic and experiential.
I'm interested in discussing the assumptions or thought processes that lead people down these different paths...Others have retained the belief that there is a God or that the Bible is true.
As a JW, my psyche was too abused by scripture taken out of context, "begging the question" logic, and an environment that upholds appearance over substance. Hypocrisy, suffering, and an undercurrent of masochism (placing suffering on a pedastel) ruled the world I saw.
I don't know if my passion for honesty and hatred of lies comes from my JW background, or if it is part and parcel of my inborn humanity. I do know I cannot abide dishonesty, nor the promotion of ideas that cannot be proven as if they are "facts".
I've attended several Christian churches (Baptist, Pentecostal, Catholic...), and while some of them generated a sense of belonging in me (being a part of a group), I've never experienced a sense of divinity or being in contact with God through any group. Certainly I never experienced a relationship with God while a JW. I always experienced the WTS as trying to interfere with my communion with God, usurping my relationship with Him. With the latest teachings on the FDS now being the only ones who can approach God through Christ, I see I'm not mistaken. I utterly reject that any other man must serve as my mediator with God.
After becoming inactive I explored many ways of reaching the sacred. I found an experience of the divine in Native American and Meso-American ritual. I found emotional satisfaction in Buddhist belief. I found an ethical standard in Secular Humanism. I learned that meaning is individualistic.
I was determined to not accept anyone's understanding of God that I had not experienced myself. Now that I have had many experiences to examine, I conclude that whatever I have experienced is indeed just my experience. It's enough for me. I can assign a bunch of meanings to it, and I can describe it to those that are interested, and in the end it is proof of nothing at all. And yet it is enough.
It's not that important that others might accept or deny what I have experienced about "God". It's not important that what I've experienced is "God" or just another part of my own psyche. Meaning is individualized. What my mind makes up about these experiences may or may not agree with what another mind makes of it.
What this has taught me is that understanding God is not important in a pragmatic way. Maybe God is there and maybe He isn't. What does it matter, beyond some people's need to prove there is a God, or what God is supposed to be like, or what God is supposed to want? What is important is how I live my life, how I treat others, what impact I have on the world around me.
Everything else is just thoughts, just mind-stuff, less than a breeze in the air.
What is important is, if I have God beliefs, how I am influenced to act in the world. How I treat others. What I espouse as good standards to live by. My standards will be based on pragmatic issues, by outcomes.
It does leave me in an intersting (perhaps) state. Do I believe in God? I'd have to say, No, I don't have conscious thoughts that God exists. It doesn't matter to me. It disturbs me when others demand that He does, or that I accept that He does. There's no evidence to support it.
At the same time, I derive comfort in this experience of being connected, related to, something that is larger than I am. Is it God? The biosphere? Gaia? The creative yearning of the Universe? A fantasy? My Higher Self? Who knows? It's a supportive experience, and the meaning is highly subjective.
As I said: it's enough.
