My friends, I've come full circle. Not entirely full circle - I'm not a conservative Christian anymore - but let me explain. My entire driving force so far in my spiritual journey has been the question, "What is reality?" What is the Truth as far as God, metaphysics, religion, ethics, etc, has been the reason I wake up in the morning and do what I do.
And for two years solid, I really struggled with it all. I think most of this struggle came from the fact that I had strong attachments to a particular set of beliefs that I realized I couldn't rationally justify in any way - in fact a lot of it I could directly disprove with a noticeable lack of effort (i.e. the Bible is the inerrant word of God? Um, I don't really think so. Sorry.) But after I was able to step outside of my upbringing for a while, I was still tormented. I realized that I couldn't really justify any discussion about metaphysics, the nature of the Divine, and all that kind of talk. I should have realized this the second I started studying Kant, but it didn't really sink in to my being until this past week or so.
Guys, we can't do it. We can't figure this stuff out. It's impossible. We just don't have the epistemological set up to "know" these things. Last year I would have told myself to shut up as I sat down to contemplate, but I'm fine with it now.
It sounds strange to say that I'm settling into a contemplative, ecumenical form of agnosticism, but that's kinda the way it is. I have too much respect for the world's religions to call one "right". They all have a certain take on the human condition, and in that way they're all useful in certain contexts. I see no reason why, once we let go of dogma and the desire to justify ourselves, they can't coincide and learn from each other.
So I'm not a Christian. I'm not a Buddhist. I'm not Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Confucian, or anything else. I'm a lover of people, a seeker of truth (though I'll never truly find it in the metaphysical sense), and I'm finally okay with it.
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