The Battle for God

Being a left brained, logic-orientated thinker has gotten me into "hot water" too many times to mention. However, it has led me to the realization of one of things I ultimately value which is "Truth" (and I am candidly admitting truth is perception based). Every fundamentalist in every religion will tell you he/she has the truth of God (or Allah, Yahweh etc). I have lost count of the number of people who think my search for truth has led me astray, especially in a religious context, and that I am therefore "lost". Their "religion" however, will "save me". I have come to realize that a great part of Karen Armstrong's book focuses on how the three great faiths and their followers discern what I term is their "spiritual truths". It also acknowledges the fact that for even the most ardent followers, there is great difficulty in determining spiritual truth. Take for example sacred scriptures in general. Those who wrote down sacred scriptures had no choice but to use the language of humankind with its inconcise and limited vocabulary and concepts. They used this language in creative ways to point to spiritual truths that cannot ultimately be expressed in words, but must be directly experienced. Books and scrolls can only point the seeker in a direction that will lead him/her to a direct, personal experience of what I term "divine truth". Fundamentalists in general fail to understand that God's truths are not and never can be adequately understood through literal interpretations of sacred scripture written in any language created by humans nor can they be bound up in any book of paper and ink. Rather, God's truth can ultimately be revealed to us ONLY through direct experience. Scriptures, the Torah, the Quaran can point the way, but cannot in themselves, provide true spiritual understanding. While I deeply respect the scriptures of my religion, the Christian bible, in that they, like the great scriptures from other cultures around the world, including Islam and Judaism, point to the eternal truth of God's witness to Him/herself within us. The eternal truths toward which these scriptures point are not dependent on the perspective and limited, culturally conditioned language of the ancient cultures that transmitted to us God's revelations to them through those scriptures. How many so-called Christians today have the slightest clue that what they view as the literal word of God contained in scriptures were "purged" and "selected" (read that "edited") in an atmosphere of the most bitter infighting among a group of Roman Catholic bishops as late as 367 A.D!? Thankfully, even after subjection to politically motivated chopping and editing, our Christian scriptures still tell us that true spiritual understanding is the "living word", and is "written on the heart". What bothers me the most about Fundamentalists is that they are always exclusive about spiritual truths. I call them the "we're right clubs". "We're on track and everyone else is missing the boat!" Well, I agree that truth is not arbitrary, nor is it simply "relative". Water doesn't always boil at 32 F and freeze at 212 F for example, however many people believe it to be so. Such absolute "truths" that fundamentalism fosters negates and degenerates the value of our own awareness. Awareness is very "loosey-goosey" as an intellectual concept, yet as a personal experience it is absolutely universal and quite concrete, even if we have a bit of trouble putting it into words. It is always the least specific part of our understanding, yet it is the most concrete, simple, and obvious of our experiences when appreciated directly. For example, we may not be ever able to explain how we have an awareness of why we recognize the combination of posture and movement in a friend at a distance. Yet these things clearly reflect for us that particular personality, and we know. It is our experience that it is that person and no other. So literal-minded, "common sense" negations of awareness as a universal aspect of our experience ignores important aspects of our perception of spiritual truths. Scripture tells us that this kind of spiritual faith is not born of us, but is "granted" by the "grace of God". It is the faith that is born of spiritual knowing; the faith of those who have had the very "substantial" experience, the self-evident cognition or better, recognition, of that which is "unseen". We have only to make the choice of opening ourselves to receive it and become its stewards. This is how we can know and understand the deep truth embedded in the scriptures as it resonates with our own personal EXPERIENCE of God. Without my own personal experiences, the scriptures become abstract and confusing, vulnerable to every sort of misinterpretation. With valid, personal spiritual experience, I am able to immediately recognize their essential truth, even allowing for biased translations, or worse, perhaps distortions of scripture as it has been passed down, not to mention the limitations cited earlier, imposed by cultural perspectives and the fundamental inadequacy of human language to fully communicate spiritual truth. This is where I find all fundamentalists are "missing the boat". In conclusion, I find most fundamentalist spiritual truths, especially when based on scriptural references, are not only irrational, but they are usually fear-based, meaning, "If I don't cling to this particular belief system, I might suffer eternal damnation," or some similar idea. They desperately cling to the past, looking for inspiration and comfort instead of adapting to this brave but not perfect new world we live in. New ideas and personal experiences that may differ or challenge their belief system are attacked. I disagree with this strongly, as I believe that the gates of "itijihad" are NOT closed to new spiritual truths, no matter what the belief system as that is akin to saying "no new personal experiences of God, Allah or Yahweh" are allowed. Such beliefs have resulted in the creation of huge religious enigmas for many thoughtful people and sadly, often rejection of all spirituality. In order for me to discover my "spiritual truths" as they pertain to my beliefs, faith and religion I MUST continuously challenge, struggle, question, examine and yes, sometimes respectfully disagree. In order for me to grow on a spiritual level I must seek out my own truths and these truths are based on my own, personal experiences and awareness of God, irrespective of scriptures, scrolls or religious authorities. Now having said all that, does anyone want to join me in eternal purgatory?

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