Songcoyote wrote up a good post on the reality of gods/goddesses/spirituality. It seems to cover my attitude about the metaphysical and he does a better job writing it up than I would. To sum up: we are not dealing with something external, we are dealing with something deep inside ourselves that we project into the external so that we can work with it.
A number of months ago when I was really in the groove, it dawned on me that everything is here already, all we need to do is see it. I was thinking in the framework of Christianity (having a discussion in my head with a christian friend) and got a new perspective of “Heaven on Earth.” It is here already. God has given you everything you could want or need. You just need to know how to see it or how to find it or how to make use of it. And the more you work on your spiritual side, the more in tune you are, the better you can “see.”
A concept I am working on now is that all religion is about symbology. Every concept we have of gods/goddess/spirits/etc. is really a symbol for something else. How can we, as finite beings limited to the information we collect with our sense, even think we can understand or communicate with something infinite. We create symbols that we understand and work with them to get us closer to understanding that which lies beyond them. Where religions get into trouble is when they mistake the symbols/map for the territory they represent. Or believe that their symbols are better/more important than someone else’s.
Curious. That’s probably the exact opposite of my belief. We deal with something far outside ourselves that projects itself inside of us, so that we can work with it.
Not that it really matters, though. Because it’s the working with it, that’s important, wherever it comes from.
And, yes, I fully agree that the idea of someone’s symbols being more important than anyone else’s is where religion, and pretty much everything, gets into trouble.
Upon stepping back, it is always interesting to see the wide area of beliefs that is shared by most if not all of the world’s religions. The moral codes are at base quite similar. Even more so, if you compare just the religions in the tradition of Moses (Judaism, Christianity and Islam). The dietary laws of Jews and Muslims are amazingly close, to know that they consider each other horrible would be laughable if it weren’t so sad. The same goes for Fundamentalists and radical Muslims