thoughts on theism

i was reading a discussion of atheism vs theism the other day, and a point was made. i'll rephrase it slightly:

take a given theist (e.g. a jew, muslim, or christian) and you've got a person who has rejected N other theist creeds in favor of their own.

an atheist has rejected those same N theist creeds, plus one other.

the problem with dogmatic theism is, of course, the question of which one is right? the jew will tell you the muslim and the christian are wrong, the muslim will tell you the jew and the christian are wrong, and the christian will tell you that the muslim, the jew, and most other christians (e.g. catholics, eastern orthodox, yemeni christians) are wrong.

the atheist embraces all these views and classifies everyone as wrong.

how difficult should it be for a dogmatic theist, who already rejects N competing dogmatic theisms, to appreciate the POV of an atheist, who rejects those very same N, plus one (out of a very large N+1) other?

dogmatic theists, imho, miss an important point: other dogmatic theists are just as convinced of their own correctness -- and since both are convinced solely on the basis of faith, there is no rational reason to choose one over the other (e.g., islam over christianity) (this is a simplification that ignores whether "one over the other" can take into account the repugnancy of a given choice's proscriptions and prescriptions). to put it less nicely, why choose one fairy tale over another?

there's an answer, of course, and of course, it comes from crowley. choose what works.

the yogis (the real ones, the spiritual scientist ones, not your local "yoga mat" toting spandix wearing yoga bunnies) seek union with the cosmic consciousness.

crowley sought "knowledge and conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel".

the kabbalists sought direct experience of the godhead (aka gnosis, which is, of course, what i was referring to in the previous two examples).

if you'd like to "feel the presence of god", take a trip down to your local black gospel church.

these are four very different religious dogmas, and yet they all feature a remarkably similar spiritual experience. surely there is a mechanism at work behind them all? that mechanism is the root (if not the aim) of many such dogmatic religions (theist or not). most dogmatic theists are so preoccupied arguing over how many angels can dance on the head of a pin (or whether homosexuals should be tolerated in society) that they fail to become curious about why spiritual experience is a universal human trait, achievable within their own religious framework, but also perfectly achievable outside of it.

crowley did not believe literally in his "Holy Guardian Angel." He chose the title specifically because he thought the concept to be ridiculous. he chose the title to emphasize that the mechanism is more important than the name. the mechanism is more important than the system built atop the mechanism.

religious symbolism is symbolism -- codifications of extra-verbal experiences and pointers to others who wish to follow down the path.

along the way, much dogma has accumulated on how to prepare oneself for such experiences (purity laws, taboos, law (e.g. talmud, shar'ia, etc.)) and how, simply, while we've got your ear, to be nice to one another.

but moses, and jesus, and mohammed (and the buddha, while we're at it), out there in the desert all alone, saw something, and if we listen carefully to what they each have to tell us, we can find the way as well.

all roads lead to rome, but some are shorter than others. some are fraught with peril. why take the hard ones when the easy ones are so well marked?

and why pretend that yours is the only road when you can so plainly see the hundreds of others, leading the same place as yours?

and finally, why blindly accept the nature of your road? is it not better to examine your road and see how it is constructed? to compare it to other roads? otherwise, how will you know if your road is the one you should be on?