A Brief Overview of My Views on Theology

I am not an atheist: I have directly experienced God (as crazy as that might sound to some people), a reality (for lack of a better word) that is infinitely mysterious and thus difficult to describe, though heightened awareness and a sense of absolute freedom from the material world come from experiencing God, who is "beyond" all being.  In my experience, God is absolutely and unequivocally not the being described in the Bible (either Testament), the Qur'an, or the mainstream traditions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, although some Christian mystics (e.g., Johannes "Meister" Eckhart and George Fox), Jewish Kabbalists and Hasidim (e.g., Isaac Luria and the Baal Shem Tov), and Muslim Sufis (e.g., Ibn Arabi and Al-Hallaj) have described or come close to describing God as God can actually be experienced.  

However, it is dangerous to conflate the God that can be experienced with the creator described in any text, especially the Bible or Qur'an - to do so distorts the experience itself, rather than describing it and what is experienced in it in a manner that allows others to have the same experience in their own cases.  I am not even sure that this reality beyond existence I am calling God created the universe, and I do not believe that God answers prayers or otherwise performs miracles (i.e., direct interventions in the natural world for the benefit of creatures - experiences of God are not the result of God "intervening," but are rather experiences of a reality that is omnipresent, and thus possible to experience anywhere or at any time - God cannot even properly said to be either within or outside the universe).  

Furthermore, there is no reason to believe that whatever or whoever gave rise to the universe is loving, just, or merciful.  I don't know what my "theistic orientation" is, but I can safely say that I am not a metaphysical materialist or naturalist (dogmatic naturalists and materialists are usually called skeptics in the contemporary world, but authentic skeptics, in particular the Pyrrhonian Skeptics of Classical Greece, suspend judgment about the truth or falsehood of all propositions, not just those that contradict a certain set of metaphysical, epistemological, and ethical beliefs).  I am also not a traditional theist, nor am I, properly speaking, even a pantheist or panentheist.  

My theology is closest to the Via Negativa theology of Pseudo-Dionysius (i.e., the fifth or sixth century Orthodox Christian mystic who wrote under the biblical name "Dionysius the Areopagite," who had to write pseudonymously in order to avoid persecution, but who made it possible for later Christian mystics like Meister Eckhart to espouse their views by referring to his apparently authoritative works, and to reduce their risk of being burned alive, tortured, or excommunicated for their "heretical" views).  Although inspired in part by Plotinus and the Neo-Platonists, Pseudo-Dionysius's brief but profound Mystical Theology lacks the over-the-top sugarcoating of all human suffering and all the natural world's terrible and unpleasant aspects that one typically finds in Neo-Platonist works, especially the Enneads, and in most Christian apologetic and theological works inspired by Neo-Platonism, such as the works of Augustine (which even have the audacity to attempt to sugarcoat the doctrines of eternal damnation and predestination).