Having been born into a highly secular society and raised in an irreligious and agnostic family background, I have been an atheistic materialist and naturalist for most of my life until my late thirties, and was only interested in nature and natural sciences. Between 2004-2006 I developed a stronger popular science interest in modern physics (cosmology, relativity theory, and quantum mechanics), and read the bestselling books by David Deutsch, Brian Greene, John Gribbin, Richard Feyman, and Michio Kaku, as well as later by others such as Sean Carroll. I soon came to realize fundamental philosophical problems concerning time, causality, laws of nature, and the effectiveness of mathematics. I also realized the hard problem of consciousness, the problem of reason (incl. intentionality / aboutness), the problem of universals, the standard problem of free will, and the problem of objective morality, as well as the ultimate question "why is there anything rather than nothing". This led to a spiritual journey beginning in 2006 and spanning about 15 years in search for a coherent world view, which implied the exploration of very different philosophical and metaphysical approaches like ontic structural realism and mathematical monism (Pythagorean Illuminism and its ripoff Hyperianism, Max Tegmark, Gary Drescher), pantheistic neopaganism (panpsychism, hylozooism, animism), Eastern philosophies like Daoism and Shintoism, non-dualism (Advaita Vedanta) and neoperennial integral thought (Ken Wilber), Whiteheadian panentheistic process thought, Bergsonian and Nietzschean flux, quantum idealism (Amit Goswami, Johanan Raatz and Michael Jones from Inspiring Philosophy, Bernardo Kastrup), Neoplatonism with objective idealism (Timothy Sprigge, John Leslie), and classical theism. All these views turned out to be incoherent, incomplete and unacceptable. A also thoroughly evaluated the pro and con arguments for Christianity, esp. Roman Catholic (esp. Thomism) and Reformed theology, as well as Biblical exegesis and ANE history (just for the record: no, I was not converted by my wife, who rather was a kind of Cafeteria Catholic and "Chreaster").

Ultimately, I decided for a rationalist metaphysics based on Neoplatonism and Pythagorean Idealism, which arguably is compatible with a sophisticated interpretation of Christianity (e.g., sensu Teilhard de Chardin, Frank Tipler, and Richard Rohr), as well as the more esoteric traditions of many religions in the spirit of perennialism, gnosticism, and hermeticism. I am convinced that such an idealism has stronger philosophical support than dualistic classical theism. I am a rationalist and consider a strong principle of sufficient reason, Ockham's razor (parsimony), the laws of logic and mathematics is our only reliable guide to true knowledge.

[That said: I recently had some very personal experiences that may point towards a more Biblical supernaturalist world view, but I am still grappling with their proper interpretation and are not yet sure what to really make of it, also because I generally tend to reject fundamentalist and literalist religion as refuted by irresolvable scriptural problems and fatal issues like the problem of evil, esp. animal suffering.]

My "conversion" from atheistic naturalism and materialism  to an idealist world view did not involve any faith in holy scriptures, but was exclusively based on reason and a careful critical evaluation of empirical evidence and philosophical arguments. However, I am also convinced that even without sophisticated arguments we can simply know as a properly basic belief that materialism is wrong and a universal mind exists as ground of all being.

I strongly reject the modern surrogate religion of atheistic naturalism (esp. "New Atheism"), eliminative materialism, functionalist physicalism, mechanistic determinism, and reductionistic scientism as incoherent, irrational, empirically refuted, and thus absurd dogmatic faith, which is mostly based on sloppy argumentation and shallow philosophy (esp. among internet infidels), and ultimately implies detrimental nihilism.

Political position:

I  endorse equality of opportunity but not equality of outcome. I endorse a kind of social free market capitalism as best system for sustainable human flourishing, which combines green growth with universal health care, universal education, and a citizen's dividend (universal / unconditional basic income aka UBI). I support an e-democratic and technocratic meritocracy as government, a 100% inheritance tax (with reasonable exceptions), a land value tax (Georgism / Geoism), and Pigovian taxes on pollutants and unsustainable use of natural resources. Concerning environmental issues, I endorse a positive anthropocene and promethean "bright green" environmentalism (ecomodernism, cornucopian techno-optimism) and eco-capitalism (blue greens). This includes the general expansion of nuclear energy (esp. modern reactor designs for production of red hydrogen) in addition to 100% renewable energies (with smart grid, sector coupling, and green hydrogen), deep seafloor mining for rare minerals (asteroid mining in the future), massive geoengineering (esp. enhanced weathering with basalt), and negative emission technologies (BECCS and DACCS) to fight and reverse climate change, a major transition from self-owned ICE cars to on-demand self-driving EVs (TaaS), as well as a second green revolution with fully embracing GMOs, cellular agriculture (incl. lab-grown meat and precision fermentation dairy), and industrial vertical farming as solution to feeding 9-11 billion people in 2100. A climate goal to limit global warming below 2°C or even 1.5°C is totally unrealistic. It may be desirable but it is not going to happen. We will certainly also not get a runaway global warming of 5°C or above. We will have to accept a warming of 2.5-3°C by 2100 and adapt. This is bad, but not the end of the world. I strongly oppose climate alarmists, who scare young people into irrational fear of imminent human extinction. Generally, environmentalists have to abandon the delusional notion of preserving pristine wilderness and all of biodiversity, and instead embrace the pragmatic future of nature as a well-tended "garden" for human enjoyment and recreation.

I reject the transhumanist delusional belief in AGI and a technological singularity, which represents a kind of secular surrogate religion with the crazy hope that we can reach physical immortality by uploading our minds into a digital paradise (“rapture for the nerds”). This transhumanist hubris is based on incoherent views of consciousness (functionalism and computationalism), an invalid extrapolation of exponential trends, as well as the thinkism fallacy.

I love Western civilization and hate liberal leftism, wokesism, political correctness, cancel culture, SJWs, critical race theory, and crazy gender ideology and other forms of degenerate human stupidity. I especially despise ecosocialist luddite hippies and prophets of doom and collapse, who dream of degrowth or even returning to the caves to save "mother Earth" from evil humanity. Gaia theory is romantic nonsense and the harsh truth is rather Peter Ward's Medea hypothesis: fallen nature not only wants to sterilize Earth with mass extinctions, but wants 5 of 7 children dead before the age of 5, it wants you to be dead by the age of 50, and in the meantime it wants you to be mostly hungry, frightened, sick, and full of parasites. Anything better than that is thanks to modern science, technology, and evidence based medicine. I also concur with late Hans Rosling's brilliant statement that "humans never lived in harmony with nature, but died in harmony with nature". Radical environmentalists with their anti-human and anti-civilizational attitudes are as dangerous for the future of humanity as climate change denialists and stupid anti-vaxxers.