[Duals21]

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I decided "I could believe" that sentence, and I just made the decision "to believe it" - and now I feel I know it's true. God is love… the rest is commentary. God = Love - Love's not a person or being, and it doesn't exist outside of us, therefore God isn't a person or being that exists outside of us. To me it's all an internal, subjective process.

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I truly think that the story of your acceptance is beautiful, and in some ways I feel the same way. If I felt that I was allowed to define 'God' in any way that I wanted, I could surely feel good about calling myself a believer. Unfortunately, it seems to me that for the word to have meaning, it has to have communicative power. People have to know and understand what you are talking about. And, unfortunately, when most people pose the question "Do you believe in God?" they mean something very specific. Generally, they are talking about the Deity held by Monotheists to be the sole creator, and often the sustainer, of the universe.

It is clear that your belief in God has nothing to do with such a definition. Now, personally I think it is unnecessarily confusing to refer to your feelings as a 'belief in God', but it would be absurd for anyone to argue that your beliefs, no matter how you choose to describe them, do harm to anyone (including yourself). In my view, harm is not done by religion itself. It is done by the unthinking acceptance of religious doctrine, just as harm is done by the unthinking acceptance of an any system of beliefs. In my opinion, it is harmful to believe, on the basis of no natural (as opposed to supernatural) evidence, that homosexuality (for example) is wrong. However, I have no anger towards people who after careful thought adopt this opinion, even though I happen to disagree. Similarly, I have nothing but respect for those who find a belief in "God" after thorough search and consideration.

For the record, I am personally convinced that your conception of 'God' is much closer to that of Jesus than Pat Robertson. Because of the misunderstanding of metaphor, symbol, and ritual, a very rigid misconception of what Jesus (and probably Mystics in many other religious traditions) were talking about has become the norm, and this is truly unfortunate.