New Religion: Transtheistic

The prefix "trans-" meaning beyond. Not apart from, not opposite of. In and of and including and also beyond.

This is way better than atheism. (There are many good atheists, humanists... but as a flagship word, I feel like any definition that by nature only negates something else... is misleading at best. Perhaps creates a culture of antipathy - battling theism - instead of taking what is good about theism and AUGMENTING it - adding to it.)

Monotheism... mysticism becomes necessary. Because "ONE GOD" really just doesn't make that much sense, if you think about it. Makes about as much sense as ONE UNIVERSE and the Hubble Telescope is gonna have to travel light years before it can put that into any substantial perspective, locally. (Something that big.... What does it even mean)

Well. Universalism is a noble goal... but way harder than it sounds. Saying that we can just "put aside our differences" and live exclusively in that world which is shared between us. Would be wonderful!! If we could just do that, there would be no end to the beauty and harmony and living-together-ness that would be possible.

But can we look candidly at what might be lost? I wouldn't want to take a foreigner away from their home, their native understanding, essentially the culture and humanity and life that fills them with meaning.  (But maybe I could share just one or two little things with these others, and hold onto them... I imagine the same courtesy would be comforting to me as a foreigner in someone else's home-land...)

Say that I went into a cave, with many labyrinthine passages. There was art on the cave walls, the smell of food being prepared, and music being played... but I didn't recognize any of it, at all.  It was (if this is possible) entirely foreign and strange. So now I am looking for something familiar, trying to find my way even though it is (somehow) "completely counter-intuitive?!" Maybe even triggering. This culture. This culture shock. It may be so different that it doesn't just miss-out-on the things I call familiar, sacred, home... perhaps there is an upside-down cross. Maybe the word "the" sounds like a swear word ... and they say it every few seconds because it is a fundamental piece of their (entirely different!  Innocent of any intentional antipathy) their "weird-ass culture" (from my perspective)

But then... they talk and talk and they erupt into laughter. And I start laughing, too. Just because the nature of it is "we both understand laughter!!" (Mind you, this may not be culturally um universal? But in this MOMENT it is shared. And therefore, the most universal thing available.)  So now.  There is one little thing that holds us together.  Can you see how that might be a small space to share, but it would be necessary to like, stay there?  As long as we were forced to call each other's home our home as well.

So I guess to get stupid analytical again, the thing I am describing is "relative universalism" (as opposed to absolute, right) meaning we don't hold absolutely everything in common, but what little we have in common is relatively all-that-is-important. That is what we share.  As far as WE are concerned, that is what we care about.  Or until we learn what is learnable about our differences.

I think "TransTheism" might be along these lines. Is there ONE supreme God? Sure why not. But if this god has characteristics, could it not be easily grasped that the sub-gods are some form of godhood themselves. It seems almost automatic... as soon as you elevate an ideal, the strategies necessary to arrive at that ideal - they HAVE TO be promoted higher as well. Nothing else would make sense.  For example, if the day for God is Sunday, the day of Sunday is sort of "a God" too.  See how that works?  

So then... what separates the altar from the pews, the priest from the congregation, is what makes organized religion ... a bit weird. Maybe even profane. But by that token, what unites them there, is what makes the common belief (espoused with both empathy and undeniable BIAS, and interpreted likewise - cuz the ideal is matter-of-facto not always attainable) kinda holy.

So just to simplify and recap. There are many gods. So many, and so varied, that "polytheism" doesn't begin to describe this way of thinking/existing.  (Anthropologically we used to have "animism" - the tree spirit, the rock spirit, the sky spirit.  But you can see how having sub-Gods is different from having a bunch of all-powerful God-superiors.  Our poor ancestors.)

But if it comes down to "my God or your God" ... shared Universalism (as in, we're still under the same stars, aren't we?) is possible. In this world, it would be better for us to construct a new, common God. (And perhaps still hold our unique and exclusive gods to ourselves... our distant religious worlds: valid if they can oh yes, COEXIST. Good word.)

Coexist, and share.

 

TransTheism.