I doubt that I have reached any final conclusions about the "big questions", but I do think I'm at a point to draw some lines under some of the key issues to allow myself to move on. Although I feel I'm making progress, I'm embarrassed to see how little what I have to say here differs from my " progress report ", written in the summer of this year. The difference is mainly in the (final?) decision to off-load a lot of "metaphysics" and get down to the practical business of applying all these great ideas to real life. CHRISTIANITY I think I will stop calling myself a Christian. The issue has little to do with "God", an idea that seems to mean anything at all, so therefore nothing in particular. But if we subtract "God" from the mythology, there is no "son" of God, no "dying for our sins", no "saving us". The entire Christian mythology collapses. Once we lose interest in the Bible and it's ca...

As an ordained minister of the Episcopalian church and a serious theologian, Watts gives a serious and sensitive picture of what is wrong with Christianity. Hw sums up the reasons why we need to move past Christianity as it exists (not what we wish or hope it could be) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTIVrFV3S2c The lecture is long but clear and brilliant. If you care about the issue, I strongly recommend that you give Alan Watts an hour of your time. This is not the usual atheist attack on "Santa Claus for Grownups". It is a call for radical reform and a total re-think of what the message of Jesus really is, which, paradoxically, involves rejection of what most people think of as the central dogmas of the Church, such as those surrounding sin, forgiveness, the nature of God, the person of Jesus and so on. If you accept his arguments, you must stop calling yourself a Christian (if you ever did). It is not enough to say you have a private interpretation of the "real" ...