Because from next week I will not be participating in this forum any more please find a set of references which outshine all of the usual stuff about the mommy-daddy "creator"-God at the root of conventional exoteric religion.

Transcendental Realism & Radical Narrative
http://www.cesnur.org/2009/slc_skalsky.htm
The Forgotten Esotericism
http://www.dabase.org/up-5-1.htm
A Prophetic Critique of the "Great" religions
http://www.dabase.org/up-1-2.htm
On the self-serving nature of conventional exoteric religion - from The Truth Book
http://www.adidam.org/teaching/aletheon/truth-religion.aspx
http://global.adidam.org/truth-book/true-spiritual-practice-4.html

A shocking description of what Western culture (in particular) is really all about
http://www.beezone.com/AdiDa/Aletheon/ontranscendingtheinsubordinatemind.html

On Science, religion & culture
http://www.dabase.org/Reality_Itself_Is_Not_In_The_Middle.htm
http://www.adidam.org/teaching/17_companions/paradigms/real_god_is.html

Sells,
>> Rather than an exclusive focus I would rather see narrative and systematics (or dogmatics) working hand in glove. Narrative alone is not enough, and dogmatics alone is not enough. <<

I agree. With a suitable “plastic surgery” on the two sentences I get:

Rather than an exclusive focus I would rather see the focus on the “God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob”, and the focus on the God of (some) philosophers and scientists working hand in glove. The Book of Scripture alone is not enough, and the Book of Nature alone is not enough.

It represents exactly the position I have been trying to defend in earlier debates with you.

Dear Steven,

<<I do not know whether there exists some being or entity that could be called the "creator of the universe." What is more I don’t ever expect to know.>>

Why should it matter? The creation of the universe (if indeed it occurred) was an ordinary temporal event, so if indeed there was a creator, then he/she/it was an ordinary being, not God, not someone worth wasting your time and devotion on!

<<But I am as certain as it is possible to be about these things that "God" as that is understood at least among practitioners of the "Abrahamic" religions does not exist. I am equally sceptical about the existence of the Hindu Gods.>>

Indeed. What's existence got to do with God? Why that obsession with existence in the first place? Existence is mundane and of no consequence.
Theism has its advantages, but as an atheist your religion benefits from knowing that God does not exist, it has the advantage of not falling into the illusion as if He does.

God is to be loved - with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your strength - unconditionally. It is not for man to place silly conditions on God such as expecting Him to exist... wishing to drag Him down with you into this worldly mire just because one finds it convenient for their own temporary existence.

<<By joining a religion you acquire a community and that is no small thing in a big city.>>

Either you join a group that is dedicated to support each other coming closer to God, or you are just in for the nice chit-chat.

Yuyutsu has delivered us an amazing message:

"God is to be loved - with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your strength - unconditionally. It is not for man to place silly conditions on God such as expecting Him to exist."

So I should unconditionally love someone or something that might not exist? Gawd struth!

Can someone provide a phone number or email address where this 'god' can be contacted? I have several issues I'd like to raise with him or her...or it. Babies born with cancer is one of them. Nominating Jews as his special children is another. Priestly molestation...the list goes on.

P.S. God is dog backwards! That is deeply significant.

Dear David,

<<So I should unconditionally love someone or something that might not exist?>>

I did not claim the above:

1) God is not a someone or a something.
2) It's not that God "might not exist" - God DOES not exist.
3) There are no SHOULDs, so do as you please: what I wrote was addressed to Stevenlmeyer, whom I believe is a sincere aspirant. Loving God unconditionally has a profound effect on the aspirant, but if you are not, if you rather continue suffering in this world of illusion, then this statement was not intended for you.

THE SECOND COMING

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.

The darkness drops again but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

(W.B. Yeats)