Very interesting---all of this.

It makes me feel like I did when I was talking to Joseph Campbell--who I have almost always seen as an advocate of inclusiveness. In his delvings into just about every religion on this planet, he showed very often just how one religion might've/must've sprung from others. The lineage was obvious to him---and it was also a result of our mutual humanity and psyches being so similar. He illustrated that by showing how our myths were so alike even when we had no observable contact with the other group.

That said, he was sometimes accused of being antisemitic. Later in his life he owned up to this sad part of his being. Like Mel Gibson, he had got from his upbringing -- and his parents. This has always tempered my appreciation of Joseph Campbell.

When we had dinner with him at the Armstrong's place in Wilmette, Illinois, as I've said, I knew little about him. George and Gerry, two of my favorite people ever, just wanted us to meet. My wife is a Jehovah's Witness, something she became long after we married---mostly, I think, to answer unanswerable questions. Some people seem to need certainty--a set of unbreakable rules. (We agree to disagree.) But to the Witnesses, mythology and, as you said, other religions, are just wrong. I figured there would be some conflict there---sooo, what did old Art do? (Interesting you should ask ;-)

Since I wasn't terribly interested in things mythological either back then, I steered the conversation to the fact that Joe Campbell had been a big part of the John Steinbeck, Ed(Doc in Canery Row)Ricketts, Toby Street crowd in Monterey, California. I was really taken with Ed Ricketts and his/Doc's marine biology lab, the mystique of Steinbeck (whose works I love), the hobos who really were Mack and the boys on the real street that was Cannery Row. Campbell seemed put off and short by my questions. He didn't want to talk about that good era of his past at all. Then, somehow, it was necessary to talk about religion because that was what the conversation had come around to. I told Joe Campbell that I was a secular Jew because my mother had been a Jew. Since Hitler would've burnt me to a crisp because of my mom being Jewish, well, I guessed I will always be that---even though I am an atheist.

After that, Joseph Campbell got quieter and conversation went to folk music. After all, I was a folksinger and so were George and Gerry. After dinner, Joe remembered he had another person to meet somewhere. He arose, got his coat, we all shook hands, and he left.
No bad feelings. Just a little strange. It was a very nice dinner although I can't recall a single thing we ate that night.

After Bill Moyers programs with Joseph Campbell I learned to truly appreciate his work. It seemed much more inclusive than not. It was more of a live-and-let-live (agree to disagree) analytical discipline. Joe Campbell became a part of my own philosophical point of view. I never have thought of it as a religious way of seeing things. It was pretty scientific.

Another point:

Years later, I was reading a biogrphy of John Steinbeck and I found out that Joe Campbell had had an affair with Carol Steinbeck, and that dalliance had possibly led to the breakup of the Steinbeck's marriage !! Could be that was why Joe didn't want to talk about that era and those people. Who knows? But I did succeed, that night, in keeping my quite emotionally fragile spouse from having to put up with stuff that would challenge her needed dogmatic ways of seeing this world.

If you've ever wondered how James Carville and Mary Matlin can love each other in spite of their differences, take heart from our example. I offer it as a blueprint for Muslims, Jews, Christians, Blacks, Whites, Native-Americans, oriental folks---everybody.

And this is why the song I've recorded twice, "Master Of The Sheepfold", i so importan to me. For me, it is NOT about a story in the Bible--even though it actually might be about that. For me, it is about making room for all. INCLUSIVENESS !

Oh, the master guards the sheepfold bin,
And he wants to know is my sheep brung in,
And he's calling, calling, calling softly, softly calling,
For them all to come gatherin' in.

Art Thieme