I was raised in the church; first methodist, then baptist, then "nondenominational christian" (translation: evangelical full gospel, bible based, spirit filled).
By college, I was fully steeped in the mythos, then discovered that my questions resulted in "interventions" and prayers and talk of "possession versus just demonic attacks" for asking those questions.
I watched an adorable couple go from adorable to broken when the 20-something year old "elders" decided to exorcise the he of the couple from demons named "lust" and "perversion" by one of the "elders"--in front of the she of the couple--and everyone else. The college age church, started by a professor that was evangelical, was a terrifying look at what a bunch of assholes a bunch of christian boys could be when given power over others.
I left. I was angry---at that group, at the church, and at god.
I finished school sans religion---joining the agnostics--i.e., who knows and who cares, got a job, partied, got married, had kids, got divorced and found that I needed to both know and care.
For over 10 years I read about the church, islam, the hebrews, the bible, the gnostics, the theosophy movement, the spiritualists, animists, wiccans, hindu (not one religion but rather a group of religions), the brahman, the buddhists, the taoists (one of my favorites) the satanists (know who loves going to satanism? exchristians--the other religions don't actually believe in satan.)
I read. I argued online. I read some more. I finally purged myself of my childhood beliefs---a hard thing to do, but necessary to get rid of the cognitive dissonance that reading the bible caused me. (I recently read it again, and couldn't believe that I ever found most of it believable as both history AND spiritual truth)
From that, I found I could start over and examine beliefs without the fear of hell or promise of heaven.
Here is what I found.
I can call anything I want "god". (ask any 12-step program and they will explain that to you) and so, when I say god, i am not speaking of an anthropomorphic being or a single entity at all. I can call god by dozens of names or no name at all and it changes not one of my beliefs.
I do not try to separate science from spirituality, in fact, I have combined many of my spiritual beliefs into my scientific understanding of nature---and it's all nature, all natural.
There is nothing supernatural. If it seems supernatural, then science just hasn't figured it out yet.
The laws of god are the same as the laws of science. All the controlling sin stuff is just that, control, external control. No law of god can be broken. (WHAT? then what about sin? what about hell? don't get me started on hell)
There is no one and nothing outside of god--call it universal consciousness if you like. The idea of some separate but not equal "evil" is a result of dualism (the idea that for everything their is an opposite---which works well for actions but not so much for god. That means, good and evil are part of the same whole. (and isn't perception pretty important in determining good and evil---i'm sure hitler thought the americans that ended WWII and stopped his eugenics wet-dream were seen as evil, well, to hitler)
If you want to know how you fit into the whole, the answer is---the same as everyone and everything else.
Think energy.
I'm sure you have seen the t-shirt about "we are stardust"? Well what is stardust but atoms. Big Atoms, small atoms, just atoms.
And what are atoms made of? Protons, neutrons and electrons and a whole lot of empty space.
So what are protons, neutrons and electrons made of???
energy. Energy. It's all just ENERGY---you, me, the food I ate, the air I breathe, JUST ENERGY!
We perceive things to be by our senses---but the things we see are just a narrow spectrum of visible light---we can not see most of the spectrum-- interacting with our retinas and sending messages to our brains. The things we hear are sound waves interacting with our ears and being translated in our brains to sound, the things we smell are literally molecules stimulating the specialized cells in our noses and taste is similar, but we only taste sweet, sour, salty, bitter (and some have the imami thing), And, then there is touch. How is it that touch allows us to feel so many textures, temperatures, etc. We are literally feeling the forces--of gravity, of electromagnetism, strong and weak, temperature indicating energy level. Our senses detect these things and make things seem solid or liquid. Hot or cold. Heavy or light. Bright or dark. Our brains are translating energy so we can interact with it, recognize it, and work with it.
We are just energy--as is every other thing in the universe.
So, what is this thing we call consciousness?????
Is it really "I think, therefore I am" Or is it present in every "particle" that exists. Is consciousness the thing that keeps energy doing what it does, that makes a proton attract an electron, that decided what atom will be made, what rock, what one-celled organism, what person?
Humans and religion have long acted as if somehow early man knew god and then we forgot and we just need to go back to being early man. Why would that be true?
If we recognize our own consciousness and respect the consciousness of every other animate and inanimate object in the universe, we will act in a moral fashion.
We don't need to inflict our rules on everyone and everything else. We will stop raping and pillaging. We will recognize the consciousness of everything that is being exactly what it is supposed to be.
Truly, what most of us call consciousness is literally our own human narcissism.
You, and everything, exists because of consciousness (call it anything you want, it's a word, and frankly I don't know if words have energy or not)--and that creates the universal consciousness. The Universe is learning--alive--evolving. WE ARE PART OF THAT!
