Would Polytheism Be Better For Us ?

[Josquin des Prez]

You confuse a moral justification with the amoral course of history. The creation of states is never an exercise in justice.

My rant isn't against the alleged immorality of the creation of Israel, but the fact it is only Europeans and Europeans alone that have to bear the scorn of the "amoral course of history".

And if the people of these states at some point decide to create a single state with rights for all and no ethnic or religious language written into their constitution I'd be pleased. That seems rather utopian at this stage.

No, no and no. One Israel, one Palestine, each run by a single ethnic and cultural paradigm, each able to fulfill it's own unique destiny. It isn't merely utopian, it is suicidal. No nation or civilization on earth has survived or thrived under "diversity". One body, one mind. One culture, one destiny. That is the core of my "ideology". The hatefulness of it all...

[Josquin des Prez]

freedom of belief

Except when it comes to people like me. An oddly selective conception of freedom that. You are free to question all dogma, except for our dogma.

[snyprrr]

I skipped here to the last page...oh, not talking polytheism anymore (which I was only going to say, seems "redundant")?

Poor Josquin always seems to be fighting alone here (I haven't read the thread yet). I have "painful questions" to ask sometimes, but I suppose I also struggle with cowardice...not wanting to ruffle the gentry. I suppose a name change and a visit to a more politically oriented forum...

red meat like bait hangs before me...or, is that "enough" rope?

[greg]

Let's all form a cult and just believe in belief.

[Lethevich]

Let's all form a cult and just believe in belief.

I believe Theosopy got there first...

[Wanderer]

An interesting thing to note (and something I don't see mentioned at all) is the recurring motif of the original poster starting a new (mostly ridiculous and inflammatory) thread such as this only to disappear in the shadows reveling in the disturbance it might cause. I think it would be interesting to see what would happen if everyone stopped answering altogether to the initial inanities; would he be forced to answer his own questions? 

Personally, I'm going to effect this tactic more rigorously from now on.

[The new erato]

I can sign on for poly-tea-ism.

On a beautiful sring day like this I'd rather go for poly-tee-ism.

Which is the proper way to respond to inflammatury threads like this. Wanderers observations are well taken.

[Homo Aestheticus]

Wanderer,

I have wanted to reply to several members here DAYS ago but I've been so incredibly busy at work all this week.

Even this post of mine is being sent from my Blackberry as you can see from the top left.

Later this afternoon I will have more time since it's my day off.

[The new erato]

You are back! And probably still unrepentant!

[karlhenning]

. . . but I've been so incredibly busy at work all this week.

Excellent!

[Wilhelm Richard]

    What's wrong with attacking beliefs? This is very curious. My position is really simple. I advocate a classic liberal position which has always been based on a freedom of belief that is incomprehensible without an underlying rationale that most beliefs are not true, but that people ought to be free to hold them. Believers, OTOH, always insist in one way or another that people should believe the one true bullshit and tolerate freedom of thought only for as long as they might prosper under it, until the blessed day when freedom is abolished forever. You think that what's wrong with the world is that everyone has their own idiotic belief instead of your idiotic one. I think what's wrong with the world is that no matter which of the idiot systems prevails people who think like you will be in the majority, so all the rest of us can do is to try and sell you on the idea that we would all be better off for now if eveyone had rights. This actually works, even for the majority who often think the right to believe makes the beliefs right.

I thought we may have reached a compromise, but I do not believe that is the case. 

When the Christian attacks the beliefs of the atheist, he is an ignoramus, but when the atheist attacks the beliefs of the Christian, he is an intellectual.  So you don't think that after this has gone on for a little while, the Christian just might become a little defensive and, because the tenants of his religion (thanks to Ol' King James) or fairly clear to him, make them known to those who criticize? (this is not inviting to hold up and attack the various semantical differences relating to Christianity as a whole).  If you do not want to be attacked, do not invite the battle.  I, for one (like many I know), do not make it my life's goal to press my religion upon others.  Put when we are challenged, we will not take the abuse for long.

[Wilhelm Richard]

"Would Polytheism Be Better For Us?"

Obviously not...I think it is very clear that it would only confuse the issue. 

[Florestan]

If you do not want to be attacked, do not invite the battle.  I, for one (like many I know), do not make it my life's goal to press my religion upon others.  Put when we are challenged, we will not take the abuse for long.

Amen, brother!

[Bulldog]

When the Christian attacks the beliefs of the atheist, he is an ignoramus, but when the atheist attacks the beliefs of the Christian, he is an intellectual. 

I feel that attacks from either side are inappropriate and give off a stench of intolerance.  It is funny how each side feels that the other side dumps on them.  Just stop the attacks, follow your own beliefs and show a little respect for others.

As for our OP working hard in recent weeks, that's great.  It likely stops him from his usual regimen of thinking far too much about very little.

[greg]

I believe Theosopy got there first...

Excellent!

lol @ both

[Homo Aestheticus]

Guido,

Why believe in the supernatural at all?

Here is a concise argument for the existence of a supreme being(s) that I've read on this forum. It was written by Al Moritz:

"Something must be the ultimate explanation that is the basis for everything else. In the case of the theist it is God, in the case of the atheist it has to be eternal matter (that a naturalistic "creation out of nothing" is absurd I have explained elsewhere). The problem with eternal matter is that, in order to be not just eternal but also eternally functional, it has to have miraculous properties that we know ordinary matter does not possess (e.g. not obeying the second law of thermodynamics). So if the atheist proclaims that his views (in fact, beliefs) are more "scientific" than the theist position, I have to laugh. Whatever way you twist and turn things, the atheist has to assume new, unobserved and unobservable properties of matter, which makes his position anything but scientific, rather, a modern fairy tale. That this fairy tale is materialistic, and dressed up in (pseudo-) scientific language, does not in any way help to make it "scientific".

[Homo Aestheticus]

I think that polytheism is perfect for you.  If a particular god doesn't tickle your fancy at some point in time, you can look to alternative deities and become entirely confused. 

Don,

You and many others here are misconstruing my original post... Also Karl, this is not an "anti-Christianity" thread.

All I'm saying is that as far as the problem of evil is concerned I find the polytheistic 'explanation' much more reasonable than the omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent Judao-Christian God...which is just narrow-minded and not very natural.

As Lefkowitz writes:

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.

****

Why makes this absurd but monotheism 'correct' ?

[Homo Aestheticus]

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.

Precisely... Now here is my question:

How is it that a fully grown and rational human being can take the doctrines and rituals of organized religion so seriously ?  Don't they understand that their religious books were written by flawed humans over many centuries ? Why can't they simply put their faith in reason and weigh all options ?  Why do they find the Judao-Christian God so compelling  ?  And why aren't Plato and Aristotle 'comforting' enough for them ?

Why can't they simply say: "I don't know"... in response to most of life's basic questions ?

Have they never glanced at a history of philosophy book and come away with some appreciation of the complicatedness of so many issues ?

These people truly dumbfound me sometimes.

[Homo Aestheticus]

Ernie,

So what is deluded about a nationalist movement that succeeded in creating the state that was its goal?

Why did the Jews have the right to displace certain people and create their own state in 1948 ?

All they had to do was hold up their religious book which claims that they are special in the eyes of God and that God is also a type of real-estate broker.  Aren't those the bottom-line reasons ?

Does that sound right to you ?  This is why I find the whole matter very depressing.

[Homo Aestheticus]

Thomas,

Through sarcasm, I was attempting to express how foolish a move to polytheism would be.

Although I am generally not a fan of their political/cultural views, Kirsch and Vidal makes some good observations here:

Nothing in human nature suggests the inevitability of the notion that there is only one god. On the contrary, men and women in every age and throughout the world have offered worship to literally thousands of gods, goddesses and godlings, male and female alike, and they still do. Only very late in the development of Homo religiosus did monotheism - "one-god-ism" - first emerge, and whenever some visionary king or prophet sought to impose the worship of one deity to the exclusion of all others, he would discover that ordinary people so cherished their many beguiling gods and goddesses that the very idea of monotheism was appalling. That is why the very first recorded experiment in monotheism was an abject failure, and polytheism has survived every effort to destroy it.

But, fatefully, monotheism turned out to inspire a ferocity and even a fanaticism that are mostly absent from polytheism. At the heart of polytheism is an open-minded and easygoing approach to religious belief and practice, a willingness to entertain the idea that there are many gods and many ways to worship them. At the heart of monotheism, by contrast, is the sure conviction that only a single god exists, a tendency to regard one's own rituals and practices as the only proper way to worship the one true god. The conflict between these two fundamental values is what I call the war of God against the gods - it is a war that has been fought with heart-shaking cruelty over the last thirty centuries, and it is a war that is still being fought today.

The great unmentionable evil at the center of our culture is monotheism. From a barbaric Bronze Age text known as the Old Testament, three anti-human religions have evolved --Judaism, Christianity, Islam. These are sky-god religions. They are, literally, patriarchal --God is the omnipotent father-- hence the loathing of women for 2,000 years in those countries afflicted by the sky-god and his earthly male delegates. The sky-god is a jealous god, of course. He requires total obedience from everyone on earth, as he is in place not for just one tribe but for all creation. Those who would reject him must be converted or killed for their own good. Ultimately, totalitarianism is the only sort of politics that can truly serve the sky-god's purpose. Any movement of a liberal nature endangers his authority and that of his delegates on earth. One God, one King, one Pope, one master in the factory, one father-leader in the family home.

http://www.enotalone.com/article/6760.html

http://www.isebrand.com/Gore_Vidal_Monotheism_1992.htm