clarifying the mess

I am trying to promote healthy relations between the various approaches to spirituality in the people close to me. This is largely for my own benefit, but for everyone else’s just as much. I feel that we will only be close to an understanding of the nature of reality when we can take off the blinders and recognize another person’s perspective as another piece of the puzzle.
Antagonism and combativeness are not in my opinion very efficient ways to communicate, though they can be fun and entertaining. I find it much more constructive when we can focus on the reasoning behind our individual approaches to spirituality without getting caught up in why everyone else is wrong. This sometimes requires that we make distinctions, compare and contrast systems and separate traditions or denominations within a system, but I do not feel such comparisons necessarily imply value judgments.
We are not here to make conversions. Every contributor to this conversation is a strong minded individual who is well established in the reasoning behind their particular beliefs. I am interested in what those reasons are, and the experiences and thoughts that led to them, not in ripping people down for what they believe or the way they believe it.
I think it is a bit unfair to hold one person accountable for the crimes that have been perpetuated in the name of their particular religion, and to equate this abuse with the religion itself.
It would also be helpful if we were not too easily offended by the ignorance or lack of understanding of another, or too ready to jump on semantics or unintentional phraseological inaccuracies, ignoring the core essence of what is being said. I would like to see intelligent dialogue, not clever attack and defense. We are all adults, deserving of equal respect and capable of giving it also.
I am especially interested in enhancing understanding between the magick based and Christian based camps, for obvious reasons. Neither one really understands what the other is about. Is this because we have not cared to listen? I have to listen now, and I have to speak with deeply thoughtful care to one who is listening intently to me.
I would not tolerate him attacking any of you for your particular beliefs, not that he ever would, and so I ask that everyone speak with love for the subject, not distain for the other contributors. I don’t know how to make it any more clear than that. If certain individuals are unable to see the difference between this and censorship, they will be deprived of a learning experience as well as the opportunity to teach.
I insist on this because he has already made a bigger effort to understand my spirituality than I expected. I have met lots of decent Christians, but few who were willing to come down from the pulpit long enough to try to understand me. He had his own preconceptions about paganism, which I have challenged and largely succeeded in clearing up, while at the same time re examining many of my own Ideas and revising certain things. He has come to embody the best aspects of Christianity for me, the greatest of which is Love. He has not made the least effort to convert me, and has shown great respect for my beliefs, even going so far as to create for me the most beautiful gift of magical artwork i have recieved. I am learning a great deal from this man who is not unwilling to learn from me, who is my Priest and counterpart as no trained magician ever was, and is fully deserving of inclusion in the circle of the Wise.
What I am saying is I have chosen. Get used to him.
It is worth noting that so far not one of his Xian friends has taken issue with me for my religion, or with him for dating a witch.
I have begun to make a point of separating my feelings about Christ from my feelings about Christianity, my feelings about Christianity from my feelings about the church, and thanks to increasingly in depth conversations with my Priest I have also begun to make the distinction between the church as an institution and the church as a spiritual community. Then we go one more step and address the individual members of that community as themselves alone. Examine that idea, you guys.
Because so many modern manifestations of magickal traditions are marketed as being alternative to establishment religions, the negative aspects of those religions, their leaders and institutions, tend to be emphasized, possibly to the point of exaggeration. If we fail then to research these traditions with the same objective willingness to learn that we show our own it becomes very easy to vilify them as oppressive. The church turned our gods into devils for the same reasons and now we are doing it to them. Once upon a time the religious systems we borrow so freely from WERE the establishment, and they got toppled.
Can anyone else see this endless cycle for the laughable hubris that it is?
Something that has always appealed to me about the magickal paths is that, while they are exclusive unto themselves they do not deny the validity of other paths. That does not stop many practitioners from being as narrow minded and ignorant as the establishment guys we all poke such fun at, but ideally we should be striving to learn what we can from any and all sources. I am a big fan of appropriating and incorporating whatever tidbits of other religious practices please me, much to the chagrin of strict purists, not naming any names. I believe that it is all one. I believe such lofty Ideas as "world peace" will only be possible when people quit being so fucking tribal and realize that we are all part of this, we are co creating this, it is all from one source. In recognition of this, the central truth of my personal belief system, I freely share magickal "secrets" with whomever I think can use them to enhance their happiness and expand their awareness. I often use words like "art", "affirmations", "psychology", "nurealizm", etc., because of the stigmas that have become attached to magick and psychism, either through fear of its power or contempt for what is viewed as superstition. The things I teach are effective, not because of the names they are called by, but because of the changes they produce in the psyche and the corresponding positive changes that are then created in the world as a result. I am a good priestess, but I preach in the names of wholeness of being, totality of awareness, and general, self evident (to me) good sense.
An awful lot of stupidity and bigotry gets to parade around calling itself religion or philosophy. Everybody up on a high horse thinking they have found the "one truth", dismissing all others, showing nothing but a blind ignorance of the ideologies they arrogantly sweep aside or demonize in favor of their own. It has been pissing me off my whole entire life and that is why I am increasingly such a rabid advocate of universal inclusion.
We will never see the whole picture if we keep tossing out pieces of the puzzle.