Let's suppose you have a message you want to get out into the world.  You gather a room full of reporters, and you have a press conference.  You announce your news, taking careful pains to explain everything thoroughly and completely so there will be no misunderstandings.  You give examples so that everyone will comprehend.  You allow questions to be asked so that everything will be clarified.  You tell them to go out and distribute the message, tell everyone.

The next day you pick up the newspaper and see your story.  It has some of the elements that you emphasized, and it does contain the total story, but the writer has managed to put a little bit different spin on it than what you'd intended.  If someone read that story, they would get all the main points you'd wanted to get across, but because of the way it was written or some of the additional comments of the reporter, people probably just won't understand it quite the way you'd intended.  And not only that, but you gave that story to a roomful of reporters, all of whom put their particular spin on it and sent it out to the masses.

If you contact those reporters and say to them, "But you didn't write what I told you" they would say, "Yes, we did.  We wrote down all the points you told us, and even quoted some of what you said word for word.  But it's our job to help people understand by giving our viewpoint, and that's what we did."  You probably don't feel they gave an accurate, word-for-word account of what you said, but obviously the writers feel they did.

Enter the Bible, as well as all other spiritual script.  Students of the Bible make the claim that it is "inspired", that it was dictated word-for-word by God to writers who then copied it down exactly.  They claim it to be free of error, and without mistakes.  They do not recognize that to claim such a thing would violate one of the most important Christian doctrines, and one of the unalienable human rights most fundamental to the existence of all creatures, the doctrine of Free Will.

Free Will is very simple.  At every moment, each of us has a choice.  We can choose what we want to think, feel, believe, speak, and how we want to act.  No one can force us to make a choice other than one we freely choose to make.  More importantly, GOD does not force us to do anything.  We are not forced to believe in him, not forced to follow him, not forced to love him.  At no time in history was anybody forced to do anything, or else free will cannot and does not exist.

If at the time they were writing down the Bible, the writers were forced to write certain words by God, and not allowed to make a mistake, then there is no free will.  For you see, God never keeps us from making mistakes, and he never forces us to do right.

Paul said so in I Corinthians 14:32.  "The spirits of prophets are subject to the control of prophets."  ?In other words, God did NOT at any time cause a prophet to act outside his own free will.  We know this because according to Jeremiah, it was possible for a prophet who believed he was speaking for God to give a false message.  “This is what the LORD Almighty says: "Do not listen to what the prophets are prophesying to you; they fill you with false hopes. They speak visions from their own minds, not from the mouth of the LORD” (Jeremiah 23:16).

If it is possible for a prophet to give a false message even though he believes he is speaking from God, then it is equally possible for the writers of the Bible to believe they were speaking for God when they wrote their own writings.  I’m not saying the Bible doesn’t contain ANY truths about God, but there is much that has been added by the writers which they believed pleased God, but which really reflected their own beliefs and biases.  And God did not stop them from writing these things because this would violate their free will.  For instance, we know by Paul’s own admission that not everything that he wrote came from God, but were his own commands.  However, after giving them, he adds the caveat that he believes the Lord accepts his judgments as “trustworthy” (First Corinthians 7:25).  Herein lies the beginning of the Catholic Church, and their belief that the when their Pope makes a decision, he is speaking for God, and everyone is subject to his decisions.  Such a dangerous tradition brought us the Bible we have today, and the institutional myths of the church.

How could God expect to get across his message when human messengers are so unreliable?  He chose the only venue that could bypass language barriers and human error.  He chose to put his message in a universal forum that everyone could understand:  Nature.

Romans 1:19-20 says "since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature--have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse."  Nature contains the message.  If you look at nature, you will see simple lessons containing truth, and if you want to look further, you can investigate the mathematical underpinnings of all matter that exists in nature, and you will come across a very eloquent and elaborate proof of God.

Our understanding of truth, then, depends upon our direct empirical experience with the world around us.  Everything we see, and every experience we have teaches a spiritual truth.  God created our world so that everything around us cries out with his truth.  This is the only way that men can be "without excuse".   One cannot learn truth completely by simply reading the writings of others.  One must experience that truth.

To be sure, there's nothing wrong with reading the spiritual writings of others.  But we shouldn't expect them to be infallible and we shouldn't expect to really understand truth without some direct experience of the natural world.

I am an empirical spiritualist because the only way one can know truth is by experience.  Observing with our eyes, sensing with our intuition, feeling with our emotions:  these are all necessary parts of discerning truth.  We must trust them.  That is how God communicates with us, by providing emotional, visual and intuitive information qued to the empirical experiences of nature.

At this point most people are asking, "But how can our individual experience convey truth?  As you pointed out in the beginning, each person will put a different spin on what is experienced, so you could end up with many versions of truth."  Absolutely correct.  And that was how it was intended to be.  Each and every person is responsible for their own eternal destiny.  One person cannot be responsible for another.  Jesus said there are only two commands:  Love God and Love your neighbor as yourself.   All spiritual writings were an attempt to define for everyone else just what that means.  But it's unnecessary.  You can try to explain to me all day long what loving God means, but it's just your opinion.  I must experience God and be led to my own definition of loving him through empirical means.  Each and every person's experience of loving God will be different, but they will all have similar aspects.  God tailors his love relationship with us to the individual's needs for spiritual nurturing and growth.  There is no way that one way of loving God or one way of expressing love is right for everyone.  God does not expect that of us.  Human beings are the ones with the need for black and white, one-rule-for-all types of systems.  We feel its only fair if its the same for all.  That is an error.  It is the height of arrogance and egocentrism to think that my way must be the only right way, and that my way is the way for all.

The one-size-fits-all approach was shown to be inaccurate by Jesus himself.  The parable of the workers in the vineyard in Matthew 20 pretty much sums it up.

"For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire men to work in his vineyard. He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard. About the third hour he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. He told them, 'You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.' So they went.  He went out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour and did the same thing. About the eleventh hour he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, 'Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?'  'Because no one has hired us,' they answered.  He said to them, 'You also go and work in my vineyard.'  When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, 'Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.' The workers who were hired about the eleventh hour came and each received a denarius. So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a  denarius.  When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. 'These men who were hired last worked only one hour,' they said, 'and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.'  But he answered one of them, 'Friend, I am not being unfair to you. Didn't you agree to work for a denarius?  Take your pay and go. I want to give the man who was hired last the same as I gave you. Don't I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?' "

You see, that's where most of the world falls.  They don't like the fact that God makes an individual agreement with each of us that only applies to us.  They want us all to be subject to the same rule, and don't like the fact that God does not require us to jump through their hoops.  I don't have to belong to a particular church or practice their interpretation of the Bible.  I don't even have to READ the Bible.   Each part of the Bible that was written down was one man's agreement with God.  It applied to that man, but not necessarily to me or you.

God has not left us adrift, but does provide us with guidance.  Individual guidance.  You must simply open your ears and listen, open your eyes and look around.  There is empirical evidence out there.  The trick is, to receive that individual guidance and then apply it to your own life without turning around and trying to make it apply to everyone else in the world.  If God told you that you should not marry, don't try to tell everyone in the world that it's God's will that we remain unmarried.  That was a word just for you.  You can't be judgemental of other people's choices.  God isn't making them jump through your hoops.

We tend to not like being alone, so we tend to try to convince others to join us in our theology.  That is a human failing.  God doesn't need us to evangelize our beliefs.  Oh, it's fine to share with someone, but don't preach or try to compel them that they must accept your position.  Instead, ask them what God has been showing them lately.  Encourage that relationship.  Share your individual empirical proofs, and simply obtain joy from them without trying to push them on someone else.  Say, "This is what God has been showing me about myself, about my situation" without any reference to the fact that he might be showing someone else the same thing.  Allow that person to come to the conclusion on their own that what you shared was meant for them also.  It might not be, but if it is, you do not bear the responsibility for making sure they "get it."

Gently, lovingly, observantly, walk about the garden of your life.  Peek behind every tree, sniff every flower, even welcome the prick of every thorn.  There can be enjoyment in every experience, and value in every moment.