Eric has got up to part 5 of a series looking at naturalism and supernaturalism as methods of describing ultimate reality.
Thanks for the link Jeff–looks interesting. I’ve never read Reitan, so I’ll have to take a look around his site and see what he has to say.
Sonia
Sonia,
I enjoy reading Reitan’s blog even though I often have a hard time understanding exactly what he is trying to say (a bit like reading some of our own dear Jason’s discourses 
). However, reading both Eric and Jason has lead me to start dipping a toe into the works of the great philosophers as I realise I have very little foundation on which to build a world view except ‘as it seems to me…’ 
The further into this journey of existence I travel (51.5 years and counting) the more agnostic I become about all sides of the argument (meaning I so little understand the depths of argument on either side of the debate that I cannot ‘know’ with any real degree of certainty enough on which to base a decision). That may be an unpopular view with some on these boards but it is the most intellectually honest stance I can take at the moment.
This is, of course, why I can’t ‘will’ myself into a Christian faith. However, I am beginning to attempt to not hold an ‘atheistic’ world view just on the basis of bad prior experiences with Christianity. There again, in line with most people born into the Western world, Christianity is the only religious/supernatural world I am even vaguely interacting with - Islam, Hindu pantheon etc… doesn’t even register - so in order to be fair…
To a degree I understand and even agree. I have come to the conclusion that I am simply agnostic about the whole hell thing. I simply don’t know and can’t make a judgment based on what I do know.
And the basis of your faith is that the judge of the earth will do what’s right.
Jeff,
I always respect the agnostic far more than the dogmatist. Of course, there is such a thing as “dogmatic agnosticism”, a skepticism about knowing that seems to refute itself. How would one know that they could not find the Truth?
Speaking for myself (the only person I am qualified to speak for), I am coming to the conclusion that if one is to have any kind of contact or connection with God then it will have to come as a ‘direct injection’ so to speak from the Deity Himself. The philosophical arguments on both sides pretty quickly revolve around mind-twisting concepts that frankly defeat me. Even the so-called ‘historical’ evidence for something like the ressurrection quickly gets mired in technicalities (on both sides) such that both seem plausible to me (and that’s only considering Christianity - miraculous happenings are reported by other faiths as well but these are dismissed on the whole by Christians because they ‘know’ the other religion to be false).
Having said that, there are a few individual christian lives (and some from other faiths and no faith) that speak to me more than arguments and logic ever can (the Jesuit priest Gerrard W. Hughes for one and Nelson Mandela for another). The behaviour of others inspires me more than pages of rhetoric (and convicts me as well in my lack of worthwhile activity in this life). This is to a large degree offset by what I would describe as behaviour from people of faith that disappoints or saddens me. This doesn’t mean I expect perfection from them as the people I admire also have some whapping great flaws; but it’s the times they embody the spirit of serving ‘the other’ that tugs at my heartstrings the most. The 2 parables that give me the greatest hope for the truth of Christian Universalism are the good Samaritan and the prodigal son.
In short I am more and more inclined to describe myself these days as an agnostic with hopeful universalist leanings 
Thanks Jeff, for that link. I found one of his articles that pretty well sums up my feelings on a certian point: “Sigmund Wollman and the Wrath of God”