Would Polytheism Be Better For Us ?

[Homo Aestheticus]

First let me say that I had a Roman Catholic upbringing, having been baptized as an infant and receiving Holy Communion at the age of 8 but in my late teens I could no longer take the Judao-Christian worldview seriously.... I cannot reconcile the idea of an omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent and omnibenevolent God with the various perversions of the subconscious mind, strange personality characteristics, wide inequality of cognitive abilities... not to mention the existence of earthquakes and filariasis.

On the other hand I can't reject belief in supernatural beings and do find the idea of polytheism to be rational... At least a better overall reflection of the real world.

I recently came across this interesting piece and found a lot to agree with:

http://www.ethnikoi.org/lefkowitz.htm

Here are some of her statements:

1. The poison is  not  religion; it's monotheism.

2. The Greeks and Romans did not share the narrow view of the ancient Hebrews that a divinity could only be masculine. Like many other ancient peoples in the eastern Mediterranean, the Greeks recognized female divinities.

3. Humans were free to speculate about the character and intentions of the gods. By allowing them to ask hard questions, Greek theology encouraged them to learn, to seek all the possible causes of events. Philosophy -- that characteristically Greek invention -- had its roots in such theological inquiry. As did science.

4. In the monotheistic traditions, in which God is omnipresent and always good, mortals must take the blame for whatever goes wrong, even though God permits evil to exist in the world he created.

5. The god of the Hebrews created the Earth for the benefit of humankind. But as the Greeks saw it, the gods made life hard for humans, didn't seek to improve the human condition and allowed people to suffer and die. There was no hope of redemption, no promise of a happy life or rewards after death.

6. The existence of many different gods also offers a  more  plausible account than monotheism of the presence of evil and confusion in the world. A mortal may have had the support of one god but incur the enmity of another, who could attack when the patron god was away.

7. Greek theology openly discourages blind confidence based on unrealistic hopes that everything will work out in the end.

*******

Do you agree with some of these viewpoints and/or see advantages to them ?

[Guido]

Why believe in the supernatural at all?

[Homo Aestheticus]

Guido,

I don't know....I just find the teleological argument very convincing and I don't care what the scientists and intellectuals have to say about it.

[greg]

uhhh...... no comment. I'm with Guido on this one.

[Diletante]

I don't know.

You don't know.

No one knows.

(I'm an Agnostic, you see... )

[The new erato]

I firmly believe Atheism would be better for us.

[Lethevich]

Hehe, "all gods are right" seems even more perverse to me than "all the other gods are wrong".

[david johnson]

polytheism is as silly as atheism.
monotheism is the way.

God bless,
dj

[71 dB]

Atheism for me.  0:)

I don't know....I just find the teleological argument very convincing and I don't care what the scientists and intellectuals have to say about it.

It's sad to hear someone talk like that. 

[Renfield]

In terms of better as 'efficient', you would probably go for something like Islam: simple and to the point.

In terms of better as 'conducive to the quality of human life', I don't think playing around with the number of supreme beings after settling the existential debate ('is there one?') would do much. Unless you turn to pantheism, which seems closer to what Lefkowitz is advocating: in which case you're back to where you started. Only there's now a fancy epiphenomenal metaphysics to contend with, too.

[david johnson]

'Atheism for me. 

Quote from: The Unrepentant Pelleastrian on April 25, 2009, 06:20:19 PM
I don't know....I just find the teleological argument very convincing and I don't care what the scientists and intellectuals have to say about it.

It's sad to hear someone talk like that.'

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and equally sad to hear the non-believers echo such sentiments toward believers.

dj

[Guido]

Guido,

I don't know....I just find the teleological argument very convincing...

Really? Wow.

[71 dB]

and equally sad to hear the non-believers echo such sentiments toward believers.

dj

Really? How should I react when someone say it's ok to ignore what scientists and intellectuals say?

[Homo Aestheticus]

It's sad to hear someone talk like that. 

71db and Guido,

Look, all I'm saying is that it is easier for me to accept the possibility of supernatural beings behind the creation of the universe rather than nothing.

[Homo Aestheticus]

Polytheism is as silly as atheism.

Why ?

Monotheism is the way.

Does the deathgrip that monotheism has had on Western culture for so many centuries not bother you ?

[drogulus]

In terms of better as 'efficient', you would probably go for something like Islam: simple and to the point.

In terms of better as 'conducive to the quality of human life', I don't think playing around with the number of supreme beings after settling the existential debate ('is there one?') would do much. Unless you turn to pantheism, which seems closer to what Lefkowitz is advocating: in which case you're back to where you started. Only there's now a fancy epiphenomenal metaphysics to contend with, too.

    I agree with you. "Conducive to the quality of life" is not a truth condition unless you make knowing the truth in itself a quality of life measure, which is a minority position in any era, I would think.

    If you want religion on the grounds that it's good for you stick with what you have and make it better. Just don't imagine that anything is made true that way. This is a common misconception among intelligent people, and I have to admit that I'm befuddled by it. Why is this mistake so easy to make? Eric thinks that polytheism might be better for him, so that makes it somehow more true, and then when Catholicism beckons to him a few years from now no doubt its "truth" will glow brighter, and then more feebly when the Crisis of Faith^TM arrives. Could it possibly be that something other than the truth is the variable here? I think this shows the wisdom of decoupling ideas of truth from ideas of usefulness and letting truth conditions stand on their own. That truth will be defined pragmatically remains the case, but by criteria chosen for the purpose.

[Guido]

    I agree with you. "Conducive to the quality of life" is not a truth condition unless you make knowing the truth in itself a quality of life measure, which is a minority position in any era, I would think.

    If you want religion on the grounds that it's good for you stick with what you have and make it better. Just don't imagine that anything is made true that way. This is a common misconception among intelligent people, and I have to admit that I'm befuddled by it. Why is this mistake so easy to make? Eric thinks that polytheism might be better for him, so that makes it somehow more true, and then when Catholicism beckons to him a few years from now no doubt its "truth" will glow brighter, and then more feebly when the Crisis of Faith^TM arrives. Could it possibly be that something other than the truth is the variable here? I think this shows the wisdom of decoupling ideas of truth from ideas of usefulness and letting truth conditions stand on their own. That truth will be defined pragmatically remains the case, but by criteria chosen for the purpose.

This intrigues me too because, as you say, it is such a common mistake.

[Homo Aestheticus]

Eric thinks that polytheism might be better for him, so that makes it somehow more true, and then when Catholicism beckons to him a few years from now no doubt its "truth" will glow brighter, and then more feebly when the Crisis of Faith^TM arrives.

Well I can assure you that Catholicism will never beckon to me. It never really did actually. I simply had some of its rituals performed on me as a boy....that's it.

[drogulus]

     Eric, do you think that if a religion appeals to you it's more likely to be true? I think this would be the case only if the truth of it could be judged independently of what you like about it. It's like folk medicine where you take a potion which relieves your symptoms and then ask the shaman how/why it works and get some "metaphysical" reply. Religion is in that sense folk belief. Does it work? To some extent, it does, especially as a powerful tool of social organization, at times a rival to the nation state. Like the nation state ideologies have grown up to defend and promote it, and not everything stated on behalf of these institutions is necessarily false. I think it's a good idea to examine these package deals closely and try to separate out what can stand on its own.

Well I can assure you that Catholicism will never beckon to me. It never really did actually. I simply had some of its rituals performed on me as a boy....that's it.

     Are you sure? I would say you are a person with a very strong attraction to various forms of absolutism. Some people go shopping for one truth after another, all of them absolutely 100% guaranteed. I think it's the guarantee that is attractive, not so much what is being guaranteed, which is always a little fuzzy if it's discernible at all.

[71 dB]

71db and Guido,

Look, all I'm saying is that it is easier for me to accept the possibility of supernatural beings behind the creation of the universe rather than nothing.

It's not supernatural beings vs. nothing. Scientists seek for an explanation instead of nothing.