[Megan]

That's how I see us all in relation to the issues you brought up, Ethereal. And I think we're about to crack it. We've been crunching for a long time now.

I see Christ as a Great Soul who identified with humankind, with compassion and without judgment, and took in all human souls and the cosmos in which we are embedded.

As we look to him, we are assimilated to his likeness in that we become capable of identifying with the whole human race and the cosmos in which we are embedded, in the way which he did.

This is the "growing up into him who is our head," the Bible speaks of, I think. One hardly has to be a Fundamentalist to appreciate this. As has been said of him, "If Jesus doesn't exist, we shall have to invent him."

There is a whole information aspect to this (the universe as quantum computer), and an eschatological aspect as well (evolution culminating in eschaton), I believe.

I also have a sense that these intuitions are universal, and not just "Christian."

And Ethereal, I think what you said about "feeling our collective suffering" is absolutely KEY to this understanding.