To me, one doesn't neccessarily negate the other...they all seem to co-exist somehow. Or: they could, because why not, everything is possible. Or maybe: G-d possesses, creates all those different realms, and they can take whatever face? I need to think.
I agree on how many ideologies actually put different omnipotent "deity" while not changing the main premise -either/or. It can be very disheartening.
Thank you Chen! I'll argue for monotheism in another post. And I 100% agree, they do all co-exist somehow. My main point is that we don't serve religions, religions serve us, and I believe that their deep structure is to artfully disseminate tradition and to describe our psyches in ways that can be useful for us at different points of our lives.
This is interesting...but can I not assume you're also Jewish (in whatever way), and that these thoughts are mixed with others about the nature of religion and interaction with the world?
Thank you Mordechai! I am Jewish. I'll write a post about Jewishness at some point in this ... series. For me, Jewishness is predominantly about heritage and is a part of myself that goes beyond belief. In terms of religion and faith, Jewishness is part of a mosaic of different religious ideas, all of which shed light on some different part of the psyche, all of which have value in their different ways. - Sam
Thank you for this explanation. It makes me think. We are all diverse, individual, and multi-faceted. Like prisms catching light, we reflect the light but cannot create it. Whatever you call it (I call it "God", "The Holy Trinity"), I believe there is a loving and divine spirit that flows through us, in nature, and in the silence that inspires the artist to create. Your writing leads me to ask ,"Why am I not a pagan?" Your writing evokes this question. We shouldn't be afraid to look outside of our experiences to see the other and in the end, recognize ourselves.
Thank you Cathy! Really appreciate the note. Yes, "divinity" is a real thing and religion for the most part is just an assemblage of different ways to name it.
Agree with all and appreciate your reading of Popper. Perhaps we can begin to admit we humans are not monotheistic informed fixed multicultures but open weave fluid polycultures?
“I regard monotheism as the greatest disaster ever to befall the human race. I see no good in Judaism, Christianity, or Islam -- good people, yes, but any religion based on a single, well, frenzied and virulent god, is not as useful to the human race as, say, Confucianism, which is not a religion but an ethical and educational system.”--Gore Vidal
Pagans had an ideal of some unknowable ultimately unifying thing. They called it the Logos. Theoretical physicists might call it the Singularity. But, like the Buddhists, pagans also know no human thought is capable of understanding it in a way that could be accurately communicated by means of the spoken or written word.
Fighting wars and massacring entire populations over the meaning of words in books long dead people wrote centuries ago never made any sense to me.
It's an interesting question. Popper, whom I revere, rips Plato apart - and mostly because Plato lays out the primrose path that leads to St Augustine. I do try to be very respectful of religion but Augustinian Christianity is a tough one!
Augustine is one of my least favorite early Christians. After indulging in a life of ease, gluttony and sex, he found Jesus and then demanded that everyone else do the same with Augustine's version of the Gospels. Yah, he used Plato, because Plato was still respected by the Roman elites at the time, and tried to use Platonic Ideals to prove the existence of the Christian god.
He's also where we get a lot of our "history" of the Vandals, who were Arian Christians who thought the Trinity was bullshit. As it turned out, the Vandals didn't want to destroy Roman civilization, they just wanted to be on its pinnacle. Augustine died while the Vandals were besieging Hippo in North Africa, you know.
Many great inspirations here to discuss with my thirteen year old daughter who very sheepishly confessed to me that she believed in God. She was afraid I’d look down on her as stupid. Of course I would never do that. You make me think I’m pagan too, which comes as a relief growing up with parents who weaponized religion to fight each other and the world.
Yet an infinite God is precisely prismatic in the best pagan expressions without, however, being so diffuse that the human need for singular loving purpose is undermined.
Most pagan religions have monotheism somewhere at the core of them. Hinduism certainly has it in Brahma. I think the Greeks had it somewhere around the images of Fate or of Uranus. The manifold is meant always to be contained within a unity - and they are never entirely contradictory to one another.
Brahma is distinct from Brahman or Parabrahma. And Hinduism isn't remotely monotheistic, because each 'sect' — if you can call it that — has a radically different conception of what Parabrahma is.
Interesting essay. I call myself a "woo-adjacent atheist"....so this conception of paganism feels right.
I suspect my few years of Tai Chi training opening me up to Daoism may have something to do with it. And most likely my youth as a hard core conservative Christian too—I might no longer believe in GOD, but I can't fully escape the concept of divinity since that has been burned too deeply into my conception of the world.
Haha! I may be a "woo-adjacent atheist" as well. I like that phrase a lot. I know a lot less than I would like about Taoism. Seems very, very interesting.
It's a constant, dynamic inner contradiction: human beings contain multitudes, yet long to be part of an eternal, unified One – "e pluribus unum." Or they're part of a monolithic society, and yearn for pluralism.
I come from a Catholic country, where a much less sophisticated, "cheaper" brand of Paganism never really waned, so we have patron saints for every city, occupations, and activities. And superstitions, idol worship, "genii loci", and so on, but all in the name of the one and only God. It's like the Vatican had cleverly thought, "If you can't beat them, join them."
Yeah, that's been really interesting to me, how paganism lived on for a long time within the Catholic Church. In Mexico, I liked hearing about how one of the hallucinatory root medicines became "San Pedro" because when the missionaries described the wonders of St Peter that seemed to match with the ecstatic experiences from the medicine rituals. Cheers!
Always interesting to hear other perspectives. But the liberating thing about monotheism you see is this:
a) God is beyond nature.
b) Humans are in the image of God.
c) Ergo humans are not bound by their natural limitations .
If humans are part of nature, then we must logically admit that modern human construction is part of nature too. So are humans part of nature or destroying nature?
Well, that's one way of describing....everything?
Lol thanks!
That's very interesting
To me, one doesn't neccessarily negate the other...they all seem to co-exist somehow. Or: they could, because why not, everything is possible. Or maybe: G-d possesses, creates all those different realms, and they can take whatever face? I need to think.
I agree on how many ideologies actually put different omnipotent "deity" while not changing the main premise -either/or. It can be very disheartening.
Thank you for this post
Thank you Chen! I'll argue for monotheism in another post. And I 100% agree, they do all co-exist somehow. My main point is that we don't serve religions, religions serve us, and I believe that their deep structure is to artfully disseminate tradition and to describe our psyches in ways that can be useful for us at different points of our lives.
This is interesting...but can I not assume you're also Jewish (in whatever way), and that these thoughts are mixed with others about the nature of religion and interaction with the world?
Thank you Mordechai! I am Jewish. I'll write a post about Jewishness at some point in this ... series. For me, Jewishness is predominantly about heritage and is a part of myself that goes beyond belief. In terms of religion and faith, Jewishness is part of a mosaic of different religious ideas, all of which shed light on some different part of the psyche, all of which have value in their different ways. - Sam
Thank you for this explanation. It makes me think. We are all diverse, individual, and multi-faceted. Like prisms catching light, we reflect the light but cannot create it. Whatever you call it (I call it "God", "The Holy Trinity"), I believe there is a loving and divine spirit that flows through us, in nature, and in the silence that inspires the artist to create. Your writing leads me to ask ,"Why am I not a pagan?" Your writing evokes this question. We shouldn't be afraid to look outside of our experiences to see the other and in the end, recognize ourselves.
Thank you Cathy! Really appreciate the note. Yes, "divinity" is a real thing and religion for the most part is just an assemblage of different ways to name it.
As a companion piece to this, let me recommend the following superb essay
https://www.firstthings.com/article/2023/10/we-are-repaganizing
Very interesting piece thank you. Perry is a more substantive thinker than I think I realized.
Agree with all and appreciate your reading of Popper. Perhaps we can begin to admit we humans are not monotheistic informed fixed multicultures but open weave fluid polycultures?
I think it's time to admit that lol!
I too became a pagan thanks to Karl Popper’s giant earlobes.
I was thinking about that too! They are amazing elfin.
“I regard monotheism as the greatest disaster ever to befall the human race. I see no good in Judaism, Christianity, or Islam -- good people, yes, but any religion based on a single, well, frenzied and virulent god, is not as useful to the human race as, say, Confucianism, which is not a religion but an ethical and educational system.”--Gore Vidal
Pagans had an ideal of some unknowable ultimately unifying thing. They called it the Logos. Theoretical physicists might call it the Singularity. But, like the Buddhists, pagans also know no human thought is capable of understanding it in a way that could be accurately communicated by means of the spoken or written word.
Fighting wars and massacring entire populations over the meaning of words in books long dead people wrote centuries ago never made any sense to me.
It's an interesting question. Popper, whom I revere, rips Plato apart - and mostly because Plato lays out the primrose path that leads to St Augustine. I do try to be very respectful of religion but Augustinian Christianity is a tough one!
Augustine is one of my least favorite early Christians. After indulging in a life of ease, gluttony and sex, he found Jesus and then demanded that everyone else do the same with Augustine's version of the Gospels. Yah, he used Plato, because Plato was still respected by the Roman elites at the time, and tried to use Platonic Ideals to prove the existence of the Christian god.
He's also where we get a lot of our "history" of the Vandals, who were Arian Christians who thought the Trinity was bullshit. As it turned out, the Vandals didn't want to destroy Roman civilization, they just wanted to be on its pinnacle. Augustine died while the Vandals were besieging Hippo in North Africa, you know.
Many great inspirations here to discuss with my thirteen year old daughter who very sheepishly confessed to me that she believed in God. She was afraid I’d look down on her as stupid. Of course I would never do that. You make me think I’m pagan too, which comes as a relief growing up with parents who weaponized religion to fight each other and the world.
Haha nice! Good to meet a fellow pagan lol!
Yet an infinite God is precisely prismatic in the best pagan expressions without, however, being so diffuse that the human need for singular loving purpose is undermined.
Most pagan religions have monotheism somewhere at the core of them. Hinduism certainly has it in Brahma. I think the Greeks had it somewhere around the images of Fate or of Uranus. The manifold is meant always to be contained within a unity - and they are never entirely contradictory to one another.
For sure, Sam, but there is fundamental contradiction if there are rival deities, and no ultimate resolution.
Brahma is distinct from Brahman or Parabrahma. And Hinduism isn't remotely monotheistic, because each 'sect' — if you can call it that — has a radically different conception of what Parabrahma is.
My intent isn't to begin an argument or a discussion. The divine, in any of her forms, is better experienced than dissected and analysed. Cheers.
Interesting essay. I call myself a "woo-adjacent atheist"....so this conception of paganism feels right.
I suspect my few years of Tai Chi training opening me up to Daoism may have something to do with it. And most likely my youth as a hard core conservative Christian too—I might no longer believe in GOD, but I can't fully escape the concept of divinity since that has been burned too deeply into my conception of the world.
Haha! I may be a "woo-adjacent atheist" as well. I like that phrase a lot. I know a lot less than I would like about Taoism. Seems very, very interesting.
It's a constant, dynamic inner contradiction: human beings contain multitudes, yet long to be part of an eternal, unified One – "e pluribus unum." Or they're part of a monolithic society, and yearn for pluralism.
I come from a Catholic country, where a much less sophisticated, "cheaper" brand of Paganism never really waned, so we have patron saints for every city, occupations, and activities. And superstitions, idol worship, "genii loci", and so on, but all in the name of the one and only God. It's like the Vatican had cleverly thought, "If you can't beat them, join them."
Yeah, that's been really interesting to me, how paganism lived on for a long time within the Catholic Church. In Mexico, I liked hearing about how one of the hallucinatory root medicines became "San Pedro" because when the missionaries described the wonders of St Peter that seemed to match with the ecstatic experiences from the medicine rituals. Cheers!
Always interesting to hear other perspectives. But the liberating thing about monotheism you see is this:
a) God is beyond nature.
b) Humans are in the image of God.
c) Ergo humans are not bound by their natural limitations .
If humans are part of nature, then we must logically admit that modern human construction is part of nature too. So are humans part of nature or destroying nature?
This was my essay on this topic if you're interested:
https://open.substack.com/pub/danielclarkeserret/p/climate-change-revenge-of-the-monotheists?r=2bk821&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true
In his Maxims Goethe wrote
Investigating nature
We are pantheists
Writing poetry, polytheists
Morally, monotheists
Isn't that pretty much what Emerson was saying?
What a great read.