Meta-theology

Religious pluralism is an enduring fact. There never has been, is not and, IMHO, cannot ever be a single religion for the whole race of homo sapiens.

Trying to prove that one faith is true while all the others are false is an important part of real belief, but in terms of outcome is only ever partially successful. Yet, a lackadaisical attitude masquerading as "tolerance" surely signs a belief to a small segment.

Culture and religion are bonded together. I cannot think of a successful culture which was not bonded by a sacred myth. And culture cannot be significantly detached from kinship. Funny how the same people who are always going on about organic this and holistic that deny absolutely that something like Western culture has anything to do with the race of the people who have created it...unless of course they are condemning it. Then it's clear: Western = White. And male.

At one point, there was in fact "only one race, the human race," as silly liberals sometimes shout when they get uncomfortable. But that was many long ages ago. And apparently the restlessness in (some) humans that made for distinct tribes made for the eventual diversification of humanity into notably different races and other kin-based groups.

If you really like diversity, then you accept this fact. Not only accept it, but protect and promote it.
And that is the direct opposite of the destruction-through-homogenization strategy that our masters have ordained for the Sons of Europa.

I don't finally subscribe to the Perennialist notion of "deep unity" in world religions, although there is a lot of insight there. And I certainly don't think that "all religious teach the same thing in different ways." Buddhism and Islam? Christianity and Jainism? Come on.

I do interpret the language of ultimacy and finality in religion not as a "literal" truth but as the natural expression of valuation that people give to the myths by which they live and move and have their being. No small value. That is a problem for a more consciously mythic faith which is not interested in having apologetic debates to "prove" that the Ancestor, the Warrior and the Sage are the real God, as opposed to Allah or The Trinity or the Sikh Waheguru.

In a post-Christian world, where for 1000 years, the truth of religion has been asserted to be as factual as the truth of (unnamed) gravity or basic math, how does one become enmeshed into a mythic life that does not so "literally" assert itself?

One of the remnants of this cultural bias is the use of the word "literal." It mean, "as written," which, I suspect, comes from the identification of the written words of Scripture with factuality. So now a thing is "literally" true precisely if it is not written, but experienced as undeniably factual and measurable.

To say  nothing of the endless popular use of "literal" to mean its exact opposite, "metaphorical," as in "Dude, I was literally blown away by that song."

How can a sacred path be mythic and real even if it is not "literal?" How can it be engaging if people say that it is "just poetry?"

---