It was never really a shift for me though. I was raised
Methodist, which had an easy God concept. More metaphorical than
anything else. They were focusing on being good and doing good
things here on earth because it's good. Experimented with
different religions, all around the Christian realm, Vipassana
Meditation, some Osho later on. In the middle for about 5 years,
I was Eastern Orthodox Christian. Full force into it. Was in a
monastery for a short time. Even there, when puzzling the Triune
concept and having it "click in" during prayer, it was
comprehending a system to me, same as when quantum mechanics
processes 'clicked in' as a teenager when studying black holes
and QM for a high school paper. [I was going to be a theoretical
physicist - kinda glad I didn't 'cause this was 1990, and I
would've been stuck doing 'string theory' for years]. Anyway,
did I *ever* 'believe'? Not in the way that people think of
belief. I never knew what "faith" meant. Still don't. It's kind
of a meaningless word to me. Always was. It was always
psychological to me. I could see pragmatic benefits to prayer
and the like. I experienced them. I'm agnostic because I see God
as metaphorical for unknown processes and systems. The source of
intention is cognitive and I don't believe in the Platonic realm
(never did) - so there's no place I can say that a platonic God
*could* exist: YET at the same time, there's more than I don't
know about the Universe than I do, so I can't also say there
might not be some sort of animating 'something' that operates on
the level of valances and such. For all I know, some of what QM
is describing *is* God. I don't know. And that's the thing: I
don't know. So I leave it open.
