Forgive me, but contemplating God's crotch has never interested me much... "He", is traditional; "She" is to loaded and "It" is impersonal.
germlouks2 (you've got to school me on that name), you wont like where I go with this, but a far reaching, all encompassing merely 'Spiritual' outlook is not the direction you need to go. The central, catalyst to the belief that ALL is God, is that I am God....(the Original Sin) A "Higher Power" is HIGHER than us. We are sentient. We are inteligent. We have preferences and concerns. So, so must IT. The mind of God can be no less than your own, or the most you can become is a deep, complex Athiest with nothing to deify but the self. Certainly God's mind transcends mere "beingness", but it is more than, not less.
Which directly addresses one of your points: This is specifically, intentionally not a subjective belief. It is designed precisely to destroy that subjectivity. You are IT's object. You are IT's creature. You are your own only by IT's grace... I once heard an analogy as to why Christianity is not a religion at all- If religion is seen as our efforts and cerimony, theory and prayers to reach God, Christianity is all about God's effort to reach us. We are the ones in rebellion. We have it backwards...
The principles/"beliefs"/way of life part is where it gets sticky. But the gist of Christianity, God's forgiveness through Christ, and what it means to live as a good person, "first do no harm", is comprehended by a six year old, and fills secret archives to confound the wisest, dirt old theologan. That is a life long search...
I'll shut up now (here anyway)
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