In the ancient worldview there is little doubt, the earth was thought to be the center of the universe and man was the crown (purpose) of creation. Galileo displaced the earth from the center of the universe and Darwin displaced man from the crown of creation. Religious orthodoxy in the West anyway has been struggling to adapt every since. In addition the Christian triad of creation, fall, redemption and the history of the universe as some kind of cosmic play with a beginning, a middle and an end has been brought into question by our current notions of the immensity of space, the vast times involved in cosmic and biological evolution and the disastrous incidents of mass extinction in the planets history. Overall the traditional or orthodox view is not tenable or compatible with a scientific view of the world. What to do?
Religion or spirituality IMO is intrinsic to the existential angst of being a self reflective, self aware creature that can clearly see its own death coming. Religion always has been, always will be a feature of the human condition and an effort to give meaning and significance to our lives and to support our perceived values and ideals. (Secular humanism or atheism just does not do the job for most of us).
We modify our religious views; we change our interpretation of scripture. In an effort to avoid cognitive dissonance we try to bring our spiritual intuitions into alignment with our scientific view of the world. In the process we try to retain those aspects of our religion which have value or practical utility for us.
Now do not get me wrong, I do not think religion is an entirely human construction. I think religions strive after spiritual truth as science strives after material "truth" and perhaps over time we more closely approximate spiritual truth.
I just do not think the supernatural theism of orthodox teaching is a tenable concept (it is not compatible with a scientific worldview). There may be a God in the universe who acts and who cares. God just does not act by special creation and does not contravene the laws of nature to save the favored few.
The best current concept of God (for me, coming as I do from a scientific education and a Western religious tradition) is the god of process theology (Whitehead, Hartshorne). This is a concept of a god who struggles against the forces of chaos to bring order, complexity, life, experience, aesthetic and moral values into existence. This is god who suffers and takes in all the experience of his creation and who patiently, persistently and loving (with attention to the tender elements) has produced the wondrous universe in which we live. The universe is alive and enchanted to the core. I do not accept the vision of the universe as primarily an inert, lifeless dead machine in which life and mind are accidental chance happenings.
Ultimate reality for me is an emanation of the divine a manifestation of spirit. This is the terminology I would use to describe Christ and the spiritual geniuses of all the enduring great religious traditions.
