It all depends on how you conceive of God, or put another way, what you choose to worship. I don't believe in the JWist version of God, at all.
In one of her books, Starhawk writes about people in more conventional religions asking Wiccans (rather incredulously, perhaps) if they actually believe in the Goddess. Her response is, "Do you believe in rocks?" The point being that people experience rocks, and work with them; they are a part of everyday existence. In the same way, the Wiccan view of Diety as manifest in nature makes all of life and the envirnment sacred, and the Goddess as literally and completely real as rocks, plants, animals, land, sea, and sky, the Grand Canyon, beautiful sunsets, and the Aurora Borealis. Although I am not (quite) Wiccan, this view appeals to me.
Another book that for me embodied a great deal of spiritual wisdom counsels, "Believe nothing; entertain possibilities." This speaks to me of "acting as if" Spirit is real; giving thanks to Something greater than oneself for the blessings and opportunities that life offers, and seeking intimacy, a loving working relationship, with That which confers those blessings and opportunities. I think there are many ways to view Diety, all or most having some value and some measure of "reality," and all failing in some measure to comprehend fully the objective reality, whatever that is.
I'm not an atheist, or an agnostic. I have faith in Something, simply because humans have this innate need for spirituality and to worship and seek a relationship with a higher Power or Powers. Diety is if nothing else the externalized expression of that need, and I don't have a problem with that, or see it as unhealthy.
Cruithne
