And I admit on my part that my early experiences of personal spiritual liberty started with Dostoevsky rather than, say Sartre, and so my subsequent experiences have been refracted through that perspective. I’ve heard before people say, as you and others said in the comments on IOZ’s post, that meaning can be found or created by the individual even without God, but frankly have not been motivated to pursue this line of thought, because I’ve found my theistic perspective to be both sufficient and to present more than its own share of problems, its own demand for discernment. I’m inclined to agree with you that the “existence or non-existence of God changes nothing,” at least given certain premises, which you allude to.

I was going to read the posts to which you linked before replying to your comment, but then saw they’ll require more than the typical blog post. I’ll definitely check them out.

I have existed a long time as an atheist, a rather arrogant one. I am not so sure, although I still am.

What I mean is that beginning last fall and through the spring, I had a series of experiences that I realized were exactly what people had described to me as religious moments, and that which I had previously dismissed as lunacy.

My outlook now is that I recognize what people refer to as religious faith in God, although I have a unique perspective. My religious experience was refracted through my personal experiences as a deterministic, cartesian atheist. So my understanding of them made sense to me as such. In other words, I really have no objective belief in my particular interpretation, although I do have a self-consciously subjective belief in them. I take a similar approach to my own sanity.

It could be that my take on it is all wrong, that the faithful are right that there is an extraplanar deity. And if you wanted to take a vote on it, I would certainly be an outlier. That does not bother me, because I think some of the more important things is that we both agree on similar sets of premises. The existence or non-existence of God changes nothing in my view. Anyway, I spent about a month writing stuff everyday, and this was the result.

Specifically related to your post here, I offer these takes on it.

http://conepost.blogspot.com/2011/07/narrative.html
http://conepost.blogspot.com/2011/06/man-and-god.html