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Simply put there is no way that you’re going to see monotheism or polytheism eliminated unless you annihilate the majority of the world’s population. Neither can you prove that the world would have been a more peaceful place without it - this life is ultimately about survival, it’s a dog eat dog world etc. and the children who bullied and harmed me at school weren’t religious they just enjoyed it.
Monotheism is a new invention in the history of human beings, so of course it is a possibility that it will go away again. Without monotheism you would not have several religious wars. You would not have horrors like monotheistic missionaries destroying other countries and cultures like they have done in Canada, many African countries and many other countries. If it was just a dog eat dog world humans would not be here at all by now. Cooperation is what works in nature and many people know that. Cooperation, however, is not possible if you have one side who wants to force another side into being like them. Which is what many monotheist do, because they have somehow brainwashed themselves into thinking that that has something to do with some "almighty" god's love. They literally try to make spiritual clones of themselves, which is the opposite of empathy. The children who bullied you, and me, at school probably needed to have a scapegoat to try to escape from themselves. What they surely needed was a lesson in empathy and love. Bullies bully because they are bullied, at home and elsewhere.
In the country where I live there are still priests in the Christian church who are allowed to not marry homosexual couples. Some also disagree that women should be allowed to be priests. Other priests directly work against having windmills if they are "too close" to the churches, and in this way they clearly show a preference for "protecting their faith" while polluting nature. I am happy to say though that the members get fewer and fewer as the years go by. I still wonder how many members there would be to begin with if it was not a state church, who many become members of, when they are baptized and, literally, have no say in that. But that desperate way of trying to indoctrinate has always been the Christian way. The book 'The Darkening Age: The Christian Destruction of the Classical World' by Catherine Nixey is highly recommended in that connection.
Or you could ask, what does the attack on Palmyra in 385 CE, as described by Nixey, have to do with the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, as recorded in the Gospels? On the one hand the appeal to live a modest, simple life in which people share what they have and need, in which they do not tell lies, have no need to own property or possessions, and in which they do not commit acts of violence and try to deter all who seek to do so. On the other hand, you have the creation of an institution with rules and regulations, prey to the corruptions of power. It might seem like a radical proposal that the core of the message Jesus offered is 'Love Each Other', because it appears to be the hardest thing for people to do.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mirgofino
It means that it is possible to be a monotheist, in this case, a Christian, and be opposed to precisely the history laid bare in Nixey's book, and the contemporary Christians who have a moral agenda that reads more like a political agenda in which their made-up laws masquerading as Christianity are imposed on others -it is as if Jesus never said a word. It seems rather harsh to then dismiss all Christians, in that example, for crimes that many would condemn.
As it stands, monotheism, indeed religion in general is in decline in Europe and North America, even in the USA. And even those so-called 'Evangelical Christians' who formed part of Trump's base, are not so sure about him now. They may have engineered retarded policies in the US as a whole or in some States, but there is not a lot evidence, for example, on Abortion, that it is what most of the citizens want. Hannah Arendt used to argue that Western Civilization had been shaped by Greco-Roman concepts of law and virtue, the late Roger Scruton and extremists in the US like Bill O'Reilly seek to replace that with 'Judeo-Christian' Civilization, for reasons that should be obvious. It is an important difference, but not one on which the US or anyone else has yet to make a definitive judgment.
As for the non-Monotheist Hindu extremists in India, I note Mirgofino has as yet to respond.
And, as I suggested in my first response to this thread, Discrimination precedes organized religion, but so far no discussion of that.
I don't think religion is the source of all intolerance. There seems to be a deep-rooted tendency in human nature to form into groups and mistrust those outside the group. Some have argued that this is genetically embedded because it was an essential survival strategy in the early days of mankind. That doesn't mean nothing can be done - civilisation has involved moving beyond the limitations of primitive man.
That said, religion has probably been the major source of intolerance through human history. Until recently, human culture was dominated by religion, and still is in some parts of the world. All religions essentially claim to be the sole source of divinely-given knowledge. By implication, those who don't accept this are inferior, if not downright evil.
It is possible for people to be religious and tolerant, but this seems to be a general tendency only where there are strong social pressures against intolerance. I'm not sure it's a coincidence that this occurs mainly in places where religion is no longer central.
I'll offer a guess. I think some of the same human tendencies that make people grasp at religious doctrines may also be at the root of discrimination. But that wouldn't mean religion causes discrimination. I don't practice a formal religion right now myself. Maybe religion assuages people's fear of death. Or provides a narrative for their life purpose that they'd otherwise have to fill in. But it fills a void because we'd rather have a story that is false than a void of uncertainty.
In my experience racists and other bigots are either fearful or angry and want a scapegoat. They distrust outsiders and associate them with any misfortune they have. They want to believe the worst myths about groups of people and they reason with confirmation bias. And people's nervous systems accommodate this kind of reasoning because the human stress response system is extremely powerful. People are not necessarily designed to be objective so much as fearful, because being fearful can be useful. It causes people to avoid imaginary threats and real threats as well. It's just not useful for reasoning or creating social harmony. Is it any wonder that racists rarely just say they dislike a group of people without providing a reason and will usually provide some fantastic threat they face from the group?
Originally it would have been a way to explain elements of the natural world that people had no explanation for. Science should have made that redundant.Quote:
Originally Posted by broncofan
It was also useful for the powers that be to justify their own authority and impose social order. Democracy and legal institutions should have made that redundant as well.
Apart from that it seems to be mostly to do with providing a story about what happens after death.
For this I suggest Rene Girard, Violence and the Sacred, in which he tries to unpack this parcel of violence which displaces rage and anger onto a person, or people, if no alternative exists -he thus interprets Cain and Abel as a farmer without a flock expressing his rage on his own brother, who, as a herder, can sacrifice an animal. He also argues Freud was wrong about the Oedipus Myth concerning a son's love for his mother and seeking to replace his father, as the son desiring the father's allure- he envies the ability to attract and wants it for himself.Quote:
Originally Posted by broncofan
With these ideas of possession as power, or 'mimetic desire' as he calls it, two people who desire the same thing can either learn how to share it, or fight for it: be it the woman, the man, the land. Any threat from outside appears not just to be real, but also the cause of whatever misfortune exists, the irony being that Oedipus solves the riddle that cures the plague, but is eventually cast out and blinded, because originally he was one of them, having been cast out as a child because of his club foot, taken as a bad omen.
Thus in Christian history there is the paradox that Jesus was raised as a Jew, but whose followers created a different religion which in time cursed the Jews for the Crucifixion, and other misfortunes, even though the Crucifixion is one level a positive event, or was intended to be: Jesus saying let this be the last example of one man killing another, but hey, even then I promise you eternal life and bliss in heaven.
This emotional appeal and its packages of sacrifice and redemption may have more appeal to the masses, than the more intellectual arguments of the Greeks and Romans, with their frankly secular ideas about politics, citizenship and democracy. It also allows them their own scapegoats -those who attacked Greece, lacking their political culture, were demonized as 'Barbarians', which is one word used to describe the violence of HAMAS last week, even though in terms of values, Judaism is closer to Islam than Islam is to Christianity.
If people are ruled by their emotions, and emotions are at full blast right now in that land, violence is the consequence, and we are back with Hobbes, and the alternatives to violence -but in the same State of Government that, having given up on the most obvious: negotiations intended to reach a solution for all, condemns all to the very violence it claims it seeks to avoid.
Faith trumps reason, chaos rather than order. Violence rather than peace. Replacing the Greco-Roman concepts of law and order for the Judeo-Christian myth is embedded in this, with a range of policies that ban abortion, same-sex marriage, state regulation, and so on, as if these contemporary issues could be shaped by Bronze Age priorities.
So even if Discrimination has its roots in the way people shape their social orders, there are ways of dealing with jealousy, sacrifice, the distribution of goods and services, and that most elusive of concepts: happiness.
René Girard - Wikipedia
I could add that Frank Snowden in his various writings about Cholera in Italy, notes that in the 19th century in southern Italy, the slang term for Cholera was 'Lo Zingaro' (the Gypsy). Take it from there.
Thank you for your different contributions and perspectives here. Religion is a very nuanced and complex theme, and I actually have a lot of good things to say about polytheistic religions because they never tend to come up with this idea of some almighty authority (god) that anyone should just follow. Instead they mirror the absolute necessity of diversity in nature, which is not weird, since they are, often, nature-based. Nature, involving everyone and everything on this planet at least, dies without diversity.
Religion in some cases has also, literally, been part of a necessary uprising, as for instance among slaves who ended up using a specific form of vodou to rebel against their "masters", and, thankfully, succeeding with this.
I do not think I wiil add more here but it is a topic I will continue to explore, as I have done a lot in my life. Because I have wondered what was behind some peoples' clear manipulative ways when they met me. What I am even more skeptic about when it comes to monotheists are monotheists in the closet, who act the same way, being on a mission, but with a hidden agenda. If you are, for instance, Christian, at least have the decency to tell other people that, instead of lying.
Have a good day.