Reply #85: I will, but it will probably raise more questions than it answers for you.

[Lerkfish]

also, your question is sufficiently open-ended so that I might be missing the point of it.

I will address my interpretation of your question. If i'm off from what you meant, I apologize in advance.

I could devote a lot more to this answer, but I'll go for brevity (I hope) rather than complete clarity and you can ask questions about specifics if you want.

1. I do not necessarily believe I have the only understanding, or the best understanding, or the most complete understanding. For one thing, doubt is a healthy and necessary part of faith, and for another, that would be impossible for me to accurately measure my own understanding since if there are deficits in my understanding, I might not be aware of them.

2. As I have gotten older, my understanding has changed based on what has happened in my life and essentially my perception or understanding of God has evolved (pun intended). so, with those caveats out of the way, here is what I personally believe (which does not necessarily mesh completely with my church's view)

A: God or the divine being. I believe God created everything. Everything that is, was created by God. So, therefore, if evolution is true, it only means to me that God created a system for animals to evolve, cool. I have personal reasons why I believe in God, but most of them are nontangible and nontransferable-- in other words they do not take the form of "proof", but rather faith, and that would likely not satisfy a non-theist. okay. I believe the essence of God is that he is huge fan of life and love. From him/her all life began, and the bible and life experience shows me that the greatest thing a human can do is love other humans, and the depth of that ability to love leads to a better self-actualization of our potential.
There is a great saying that God makes perfection by putting all our imperfections together. I really could go on and on about this, but I'm running out of time for a meeting, so I'll be more brief.

B: The meaning of meaning. I believe we were created for purpose, but that we don't always know our purpose. I feel that God CAN intersect with our lives and make things happen, but I don't feel he has to or is obligated to. Some people complain why God does/does not do such and such, and I think essentially WE have the ability and responsibility to create another Eden, not God. If Love were a priority instead of war, if we spend as much money, logistics, strategy and people on waging peace as we do now on war, imagine what that would be like.
Also, looking around, I see that God created us all in a vastly diverse way, with free will. When it says we are created in his image, I don't think that means a physical image since God is not a physical being as far as we know. I think that really means he created us with the WILL to create or destroy and the FREEDOM to decide which. Hopefully, at some point we develop the WISDOM to understand how our choices effect those around us. Therefore, I personally am happy that there are diverse paths to enlightenment taken by diverse people, I think that's a good thing. What I think is bad is when leaders attempt to bend wills of people to their choosing, in essence, robbing people of what makes them the most god-like: their ability to choose. This is why I'm a pacifist and vehemently against torture and hegemony. Wars and domination of others is the opposite of what God intended, I believe. I think its fine if people CHOOSE to gather together in common belief systems, but I think its WRONG to coerce them to do so or prevent them from doing so.

C: faith.

-- There are (in my view), three types of faith: Tinkerbell, conditional, and steadfast.
Tinkerbell faith are those who think that IF they believe strongly enough, things will be ok for them. I think this is an unhealthy basis for faith because it makes it seem dependent on the piety of the person as what God will or won't do, which I think is setting yourself up for failure or even dangerous outcomes. One example is the church that holds venomous snakes as "proof" of how pious they are. Also this type of faith mistakes common everyday occurences as divine intervention "I prayed for a good parking space". This kind of faith condemns people for whom bad things happen: "if you had been right with God, this wouldn't have happened to you". I don't believe that's how God wants us to feel when bad things happen.

Conditional faith is similar to tinkerbell faith, except that instead of occurences being dependent on the strength of one's faith, It bases faith on how occurences happen. i.e. "God, if you keep my wife alive, I will give all my money to charity" or it acts as if all the good things that happen to a person are like wages for being faithful. You've probably heard preachers say if you give money to them, you'll get rich. That's conditional faith as well, it implies that what happens and your faith are like a barter system with God, and I don't believe God bargains.

Steadfast faith is independent of outside circumstances or happenstance. The best example I have of that is when Shadrach, Meschach, and Abednego were getting ready to be thrown into the fiery furnace for not denouncing God and worshipping the king. What they said was: "you should know, king, that our God is capable of delivering us even from this furnace, yet even if he does not we will still worship him instead of you".
That was faith DESPITE surroundings or circumstances or outcomes. A person should have faith because they believe it is right to have faith. period. not because their life has been good,etc.

ok, that is likely more and yet less than you asked for, and I have to go to a meeting now.

I apologize that I did not achieve brevity! LOL!