First, no other "religion" is about a personal relationship with God; fellowship with the Creator; being His friend and brother. This is one of the unique promises of Christianity.
Eh.... "I am the Beloved and the Lover is my veil..." I don't see how it gets much more personal than that, it goes to that deep sexual knowledge that was part of mesopotamian civilization in experiences of the divine. A personal objectification of a figure can get pretty messy when one considers possible motivations as babbled by people like Freud.
I admire your persistence and actually share it to some extent if this bloody problem of exclusivity didn't rear its ugly head and was in severe contradiction with not only an understanding of my old self but the new self as well. I question this claim of exclusivity and the sort of personal relationship as only found in a Christian theology. I question it because I know it to be false from my encounters with peoples from all walks of life and from different cultures. It was easy for me to assure reality with such claims of exclusivity until I put everything that I wanted to be true and actually looked at the world around me to find that not only in myself but in others. And so, I really question the self-assurance and indignation or "justified anger". At the source, there is a fountain of love. My book may be better than your book but if that's true, it still doesn't signify that this means anything. It is still meaningless. And don't even start the standard arguments that it is the selfishness and assertions of man in his evil and sinful state that prompts him to reject the Word of God. Noble and may be accurate but me and not-me yell out in pain from hearing such divisive language. The products of faith are health, joy, love, temperance, pridence, and hope of the affirming dynamics. I certainly would love to say that your claim of ALL other religions not involving a personal relationship, but the thing is, I just made up linuxboyanity and it involves a personal relationship so I dunno, seems like you're in error, although I may be wrong.
Second, you don't dump cabbage to know God.
Yes you do. One has to, unless the major theologians and my interpretations are wrong. An act of grace requires a movement. Movement requires some shifting of cabbage and to achieve what you claim is an exclusive personal relationship, one needs to get rid of cabbage, lamentably only to have it be replaced by the "right" kinda stuff.
What cabbage dumping goes on occurs afterwards. I've known people who DID believe, but would not approach God because they didn't want to give up...(insert thought/idea/habit here).
I say again that holding a certain belief is useless. Holding the proposition A or ~A or having that preposition attitude does not imply a mental state. Outward behavior cannot speak for the internal state of a person. That is what it means to not judge. The counterargument to this is that we can experience others' internal states. And I say to you that this is beyond judgment. What does matter to me, and I think to MB, is what sort of state and change any sort of phenomenon causes. I cannot claim an apple and an orange are differerent because I suspect they are eventually made out of the same sort of stuff. Holding some preposition attitude is useless in itself. Faith without works is dead, in other words. Yet I contend that by this very same reasoning, a claim of exclusivity in beliefs is kinda useless. It certainly is needed in most cases considering that we understand in symbols and with language and that the relationship between language, propositional attitudes, and internal states is so close that it really is needed to make any sort of movement toward peace.
Of course you object that grace is an external force, not caused by acts, but a sort of gift that comes freely to those who ask. I respond that asking is still not necessary for gifts and that a thought or holding a belief really is nothing if the end result is so utterly equal that one cannot make a distinction prima fascie and sees it as one upon experiencing others, and hence being able to judge while not judging.
What they failed to realize, and I think that you do too, is that God doesn't require you to give up your "cabbage" to know Him. He will work all that out with you, on a personal basis, later.
It is certainly fitting with the idea of grace, but you are somehow in error, I think. The world is divided. Or as you may claim, it is in sin. It is mired in the worst sort of stuff that prevents us from reaching God. To reach whom you call God, getting rid of some of this is necessary, unless you take grace to be some sort of instant conversion experience. For most people, belief systems are required for growth and these must be changed or gotten rid of in order to come to some understanding. Of course you may object to this and say I still haven't gotten the point since I don't take into account the idea that it really is independent of us and that the Word/Logoi is "sealed on our hearts". To that I respond that this is still more of the same movement, the same sort of motions we go through to get glimpses of that. At some point, some cabbage must be given up since we are stuck in that system. You may claim that revelation is possible and that it really is sudden and I respond that if that's true, I'd sure like to know how it can be cause I know of many people who are hurtin and could use that help.
Life is not as simple and clearcut as one would like. The Good Book provides us with a guide and encourages us to learn of what the true source is but we are so much a part of worlds and connections that cabbage is in flux, and effort is required since we ultimately choose what we do.
I don't think you hold a very tenable position, even if defended from your own system of beliefs, let alone when one considers others.
Cheers !
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