Were I in a more whimsical mood right now, I might be tempted to pull out the infamous Emerson quote about "consistency being the bugaboo of small minds", but I'm sure Leah would be kind enough to do so for me. The answer is, no, I'm not being inconsistent. My position on this has, however, been misunderstood, which mystifies me, given the very simple level on which it was expressed.

The essay that has been referred to, when I've heard such commentary, has been one entitled "Creating your own religion in the comfort of your own home". In it, I speak on behalf of praying in a speculative frame of mind and seeing who answers, as I put it there. "So, what's the difference between what you are advocating and what Leah is advocating?", some will ask. The answer is the frame of mind one is in as one tries the experiment.

A Metaphysical Empiricist will, as he addresses those first prayers to a prospective patron deity, strive to do so without expectation. He does so with passion as far as he can, but that passion is for the concept of the diety, not the deity itself. One invests hope in the possibility that this being who one has heard such interesting things about will be real, will hear one, and will respond favorably. One does not, however, mistake this passion for knowledge. Having done so, one then watches the events that unfold with open eyes to see if one's hopes have been realized. Leah, by contrast, would have one decide in advance that the belief one ponders is true and of relevance to one's life, and then, having thus biased oneself as an observer, judge one's subsequent experiences. This is far from the attitude of the Metaphysical Empiricist who, as the cliche goes, will hope for the best but expect the worst (looking until the days come when he persists in being pleasantly surprised, anomolously often). His outlook is that of one who searches, perhaps confident that he will ultimately find what he is looking for, but never assuming that it will be in the place he is looking at that very moment.

"Yes", some might respond, "but isn't it also true that you have granted that a deity is properly specified, not by some arbitrary label, but by what can be said about him? So, wouldn't one have to adopt a few assumptions about the deity as one tried one's initial prayers? If so, why would the deity be offended by the worshipper doing as he must, if he is to address the deity at all?" Yes, it is true, that I have spoken of the need to refer to deities in that fashion. However, the fact that a deity has answered one in the past becomes part of what one can say about him, and that past makes that label far more than a meaningless string of sounds for the worshipper, in terms of his personal relationship with the deity. That fact changes the significance of the proposed act.

To put this in a real life context, suppose I go down into the lobby, right now, and tell somebody "you know, that guy Monk is a real jerk". Nobody would have any right to be offended, though more than a few would have the right to be confused, because nobody I know is named or even nicknamed "Monk" (*). I would have uttered a nonsensical sentence, even though its structure creates the illusion that it carries a meaning. However, suppose that I start taking to calling one of my neighbors Monk, for some odd reason, and then, a few months later, I utter that same sentence. It surely wouldn't be meaningless any more. My neighbor would have good reason to take offense.

The word "Wesir", by itself, has absolutely no meaning at all in the context of the early 21st century United States. Given how many Occultist groups have referred to so many different conceptions of deity under that name or the Greek form "Osiris", one of the deities who has been called by that name may well wonder who is being called upon when that name is uttered without thought. However, if one establishes a bond with that deity and always calls him "Wesir", that name now has a meaning in the context of one's personal utterances. Should one insult him by denying his personhood then he, like my hypothetical neighbor "Monk", will have ample reason to be angry.

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(*) No connection to the Tony Shaloub character by that name, as I had not heard of that show, yet, at the time I was writing this. I guess I could rename our hypothetical character, but I'm just not feeling that motivated during this slight revision (Thursday, July 5, 2012 at 10:37 pm)