UberKuh

I rejected Christianity when I was quite young because it made no sense. I was an atheist for a while, but I then had a series of intense, spiritual experiences and embraced a more eastern/syncretic outlook.

I completely agree that the particular theological model adopted by monotheist religions generally, and christianity in particular, is very unsound.

However, I believe that there is nonetheless some truth to Christianity and the Bible, that amid the tall tales and savagery, that true spiritual lessons are recorded there, lessons filtered through the particular lenses of an ancient and primitive people.

Again, it is undoubtedly the case that the traditional Christian model does not work and is thus false.

However, maybe the model adopted of the Divine is just plain wrongheaded. Here's an alternative model, which may be wrong, but it at least illustrates that there is a different way to approach these questions.

First, abolish the notion of God as some being out there, separate and apart from you and the world. Imagine, rather than God is a systemic property of the universe -- that God is rather a principle of goodness and beauty that underlies the world. Then imagine that the physical universe is a few steps below that, that the physical universe is in some sense a degraded form of the true goodness which underlies it.

Still, we need to account for the massive amount of evil.
To me, the only answer is that there must be some countervailing greater good which justifies it. This is certainly where it gets complex, but if we imagine that, in line with Hindu tradition, all humans have a divine inner core and that the goal of life is to manifest, to realize this inner divinity -- self-actualize if you will -- it becomes a little easier. I view the world as being governed by a complex web of natural law, and its metaphysical analog, karma. Reincarnation complements this view in that it allows people repeated opportunities to self-actualize.

The point being it is very wrong-headed to think that some dude, named God, is somehow calling all the shots. Rather, humanity and natural law is what governs down here. However, all the suffering is justified in several ways. First, humans are partially responsible for it -- either via prosaic mechanisms or via past action, i.e. karma. Second, the promise of achieving self-realization is such a great boon to the universe, in Buddhist terms, the promise of attaining Buddhahood, that all the horror of this world is lessened in its light. And as for why we are in such a bad world to begin with, again we can invoke karma to some degree. And the good news about karma is that it works both ways. While karma may influence our current circumstances, we can set in motion new patterns of cause-and-effect to change this.

I don't purport to claim that why I have proposed is bullet-proof or fully fleshed out, but I tend to think it is not racked with the intractable problems that Christianity is.

Try as I might, I can't rid myself of the conviction that, despite appearance, that there is some higher principle, some good principle at work in the universe. My major point is that I think one should be careful of throwing out every notion of "higher good" just because one system which purports to explain it is horribly flawed. We don't look poorly on biology merely because Aristotle thought sperm contained muscle, or on physics because Aristotle invoked entelechies, similarly we should careful of not damning an entire metaphysical idea -- namely that there is indeed something transcendent and good which somehow undergirds the universe -- simply because we have very poor theories of it.

I see the horrors and perplexities of the world, but I still very clearly feel that something transcendent and beautiful is going on, something greater than mere material forces. As an artist, I'm sure you can relate to this. I can't quite put my finger on it, or understand how it works -- at least not in totality -- but I feel "something more" is going on.

BTW, I very much share your frustration with people who have no interest in questioning their beliefs or in figuring things out. Don't let them dampen your spirits or jade you.