When he refers to the "holy spirit" he does not refer to "an omnipotent, omniscient god and then, if you believe it actually exists, not conclude that it is a tremendous A-hole unworthy of worship."
That is not the god that he believes in or talks about. Spiritual people do not believe in the "sky daddy" looking down from above, that so many here on DU like to contemptuously refer to. Yes, there are many unsophisticated, "religious" people who do believe in the "sky daddy." But not great spiritual leaders.
"It requires such twisted, pretzel thinking..."
No, it requires a more uniform use of language to understand what he is referring to. Not a "god" that rains evil down upon us, but more like the "godhead," i.e., the life force or life energy (or what I'm increasingly referring to as "the love force"
that is at the center of and animates all being in this universe and probably every other universe as well.
Read the entire article, parts one and two. Read some more. Here is an excerpt from part 2 that gives better insight (I think) into Fox's belief system (italics mine):
"Matthew Fox: Well, the Cosmic Christ, you know, Christianity really flies on two wings: the historical Jesus, the person himself; he taught what he taught and took on the Empires etc, and he was a mystic himself, an earth based mystic from the wisdom tradition of Israel. But, the second wing is the Cosmic Christ, and that is the unleashing of the Christ Consciousness. In other words, of the awareness of what Jesus said, "The kingdom of God in within you, the kingdom of God is among you." The awareness of the divine presence.
So the Cosmic Christ is the divinity in every thing, in every being in the universe. John 1 of John's gospel says, "Christ is the light in every being." In the East they called this "The Buddha nature." The Buddha nature is in trees, it's in stones, it's in the galaxies. It's the same thing as the Cosmic Christ. It's a metaphor; it's an archetype for the utter holiness of all beings, the sacredness of all beings.
What's interesting about the Jesus take on it, of course, is that it includes the wounds in all things. That's what the crucifixion tells us about, about suffering. And of course, the Buddhas also talked about how every being undergoes suffering in this world. So it's not just pure light, it's also light with wounds. And it's an invitation, therefore, to connect to others, and to realize the brilliance inside all of us.
He goes on about the yin and the yang. Suffering isn't about punishment or an evil god raining shit on us. It is only in transcending our own suffering that we learn true compassion.
Increasingly, in my own life I am learning that most suffering seems to be a result of attachment, in almost a cause/effect way. When I can love without attachment, I don't suffer loss and, in the case of, say, a beloved pet passing away, the less I cling and the less they cling, the more easily they pass on.
And I find that the more I define myself by a higher purpose, the less I tend to cling to the physical and material, the less I suffer.
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