Man & god
"Being reveals itself as 'War' in the West ... because it is nourished by the extreme monotheism of Christianity, an Old Testament warrior God, Jaweh, tacked onto a New Testament without War ("Turn the other cheek, and give your enemy your cloak").
"'... We must conclude that [god-the-father] religion is war's sinister grandfather...' Especially ... MONOTHESTIC religion, [and] especially ... Islam, Judaism and Christianity, whose myths, origins and even sacred geography are largely shared or related.... Can anyone point to any wars which have occurred ... between POLYTHESTIC believers? Shintos against Hindus? Taosists against Buddhists?"
Go HERE to read more of this review of A Terrible Love of War by renowned lecturer, teacher, and psychologist James Hillman. (Many good points made in this review -- but the writer could have used an editor!)
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Thnx to jwarletta for the photo.
Are you reading my mind? I was thinking about all of the problems monotheism has wrought all afternoon. Monotheism begat fundamentalism, the advent of which always spells the doom of a great civilization. The idea that there is only one valid idea is dangerous, because it creates a closed, fixed system that cannot adapt to changes in society, environment, or need.
ReplyDeleteWe all need to be able to concede that we might just be wrong about everything. Without that, there's no room for growth, or for stabilization. People with no doubt will commit atrocities and call it righteousness.
Michel de Montaigne: "It is rating our conjectures too highly to roast people alive for them"
And polytheism doesn't do this? I don't believe in "roasting" people because they are delusions, just medicating them if they are a disruption to many others. Wern't the Romans and Greeks polytheists (certainly not less delusional then their monotheist counterparts)?
ReplyDeleteI do not believe that a matriarch is going to be any different in overall effect then patriarch. Women are just as power hungry and delusional as men. If fact all men are women plus testosterone. Evil is not the result of testosterone or maleness hormones or even maleness thought- it is the result of sadistic brains which can be female or male.
If people want real progress, they ought to reject supernatural framework and worshipful behavior. This means dont use words like spiritual or god and stop doing rituals associated with these words.
How fit are people who depend on false perceptions of reality to survive? Oh, there is a drought everybody. Better pray to the great spirit in the sky. Theres a bad person, better teach them the learnings of the great spirit in the sky.
"People are biologically programmed to need religion of one kind or another. (BTW, "thea"=Goddess, "theo"=god)" This exists because religious leaders for literally thousands of years. The selection pressure comes from one or both of these phenomenon: 1-The leader kills all those who do not submit to their story 2-Anyone who is not helped by the placebo of the story dies because that is the only medicine available.
By the way, it is inaccurate to use the term god along with the term naturally as all forms of the term god are supernatural. If you try to naturalize god, than you reduce god to an entity who exists within the same parameters as we do which will not subscribe generally worshipful behavior.
If I create a universe, does that make me a god? If I create consciousness, does that make me a god?
Just remember, the father god concept was designed to give men power over women. A mother god concept will generate the same effect. Maybe people should try their best to be skeptical, empirical/objective, and reasonable.
So are we proposing the matriarch (female god(s)) because it is objectively accurate description of reality or because some people think that it will have a favorable (placebo) psychological effect on the population?