Anti-monotheism as a religion

[Jim]

(update)
Now I’m calling the religion I’m discussing here “faith in science.” It’s any kind of faith in anything that anyone calls “science.”
(previous update)
Now I’m calling the religion I’m discussing “science worship.” It’s a religion that has grown up around science, substituting “science” in the place of “God.”
(previous update)
Currently I’m calling the religion I’m discussing here “scientianity.” It means everything that anyone calls “science” or “scientific.” Suggestions for a better name are welcome.
(end updates)

I have a new view of anti-monotheistic identity factions, including identity atheism, as denominations of a religion that substitutes the word “science” in the place of “God,” factional versions of history in the place of religious lore, reports of academic research in the place of scriptures, and academic and professional institutions in the place of religious ones. It has all the worst features that are associated with other religions. For example, some of its believers have blind faith in whatever their trusted sources call “science,” without any independent research or critical examination; and contempt for anyone who doesn’t.

Now I’ll be considering, if Antimonotheism has all the worst features that are associated with other religions, does it also have all the best?

 

[LuisDantas]

Please tell me more about what you mean by an identity faction.

 

[LuisDantas]

Now I’ll be considering, if Antimonotheism has all the worst features that are associated with other religions, does it also have all the best?

No, and I don't think the question makes much sense even in the hypothetical.

It seems to me that you are mixing two entirely different subjects here, which only connect at all because they happened to be associated with the word "religion" at different moments for very different reasons.

 

[Quintessence]

Funny. I thought this was going to be about polytheism, which is inherently incompatible with monotheism and thus could be described as anti-monotheistic. Not how I'd personally frame it, given polytheists are generally very chill about the presence of other theisms. Unfortunately, monotheism has been wielded as a weapon against polytheistic cultures and individuals... and some folks have some axes to grind because of that.

What you're talking about already has a word for it - scientism. Can we use that word? I suppose i can't make you... haha. Anti-monotheism is something else. Scientism isn't just against monotheism. It's fairly indiscriminate in being opposed to theisms, even where those theisms don't actually conflict with or are at odds with sciences.

 

[LuisDantas]

I have a new view of anti-monotheistic identity factions, including identity atheism,

Opposition to monotheism has many reasons and forms. It is reckless to group them together, and odds are that it will lead you into mistaken conclusions.

as denominations of a religion that substitutes the word “science” in the place of “God,”

That which you talk about here seems to be scientism, a particularly pernicious form of pseudo-science in denial of itself. One of the most definite examples is Kardecist Spiritism, very popular here in Brazil.

I don't think that qualifies as religion proper, personally. Religion is not supposed to be inherently misguided and disfunctional.

And scientism is certainly not science, much as it wants to be. As a matter of fact, it is originated by the failure to understand the idea of science.

factional versions of history in the place of religious lore, reports of academic research in the place of scriptures, and academic and professional institutions in the place of religious ones.

Yep. it is scientism that you are talking about, alright. Although much of its icons is of lesser quality than what you are describing.

It has all the worst features that are associated with other religions.

I don't think it will serve you well to take as a premise that "religion" works as a general descriptor, personally. There are very worthwhile doctrines out there, and there is ritualized, destructive insanity, even entering clearly criminal territory. It serves no one particularly well to treat them all as proper examples of an abstract "religion" category.

For example, some of its believers have blind faith in whatever their trusted sources call “science,” without any independent research or critical examination; and contempt for anyone who doesn’t.

You may be mixing uninformed, deluded scientism (which is quite common) with misunderstood or poorly understood science proper (which is also very common, but quite a different beast).

 

[Jim]

Please tell me more about what you mean by an identity faction.

What I’m thinking of are feminist and gender factions, and identity atheism. There might be others.

 

[LuisDantas]

What I’m thinking of are feminist and gender factions, and identity atheism. There might be others.

Sorry, that does not clarify matters to me.

 

[LuisDantas]

What you're talking about already has a word for it - scientism. Can we use that word? I suppose i can't make you... haha. Anti-monotheism is something else. Scientism isn't just against monotheism. It's fairly indiscriminate in being opposed to theisms, even where those theisms don't actually conflict with or are at odds with sciences.

Actually, in the form that it takes in Kardecism, it has a very ambiguous relationship with the ideas of both theism and science.

In a nutshell, it wants to claim strong connection with both (as well as with an abstract "art" and "philosophy") while refusing to learn of science and having little actual use for theism.

It is a very dogmatic and defensive doctrine, dripping wishful thinking, that has been criticized for having a nominal monotheism that it refuses to use.

More specifically, its God-idea has little role beyond serving as an explanation for the origin of existence proper. Everything else in its doctrine is based on the idea of individual souls that are predestined to "evolve" into eventual divinity, some faster than others.

Not a very deep nor very sane doctrine, but a popular one nevertheless.

 

[Jim]

@Quintessence @LuisDantas - I’m not familiar enough wIth what people mean by “scientism,” to agree or disagree with you about that. In relation to what I’m calling “Antimonotheism,” scientism might correspond to what people call “fundamentalism” in other religions.

 

[LuisDantas]

@Quintessence @LuisDantas - I’m not familiar enough wIth what people mean by “scientism,” to agree or disagree with you about that. In relation to what I’m calling “Antimonotheism,” scientism might correspond to what people call “fundamentalism” in other religions.

I advise you to learn of the term. It is bound to clarify a lot of what you mean and to help differentiate it from legitimate (i.e. sane) divergence from monotheism.

 

[Sanzbir]

Sorry, that does not clarify matters to me.

I think he's talking about identity politics and/or tribalism.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

I have a new view of anti-monotheistic identity factions, including identity atheism, as denominations of a religion that substitutes the word “science” in the place of “God,” factional versions of history in the place of religious lore, reports of academic research in the place of scriptures, and academic and professional institutions in the place of religious ones.

I have the old view that if you reject a god or gods, you don't have a religion. I notice that you slipped a bit here, and seem to make the distinction between religion and other sources of history and scholarship.

It is also not a religion to consider the Abrahamic religions a net burden on society (antitheism)

It has all the worst features that are associated with other religions. For example, some of its believers have blind faith in whatever their trusted sources call “science,” without any independent research or critical examination; and contempt for anyone who doesn’t.

Secular humanism is the most successful and complete world view to date. Look at the United States and compare the liberal, atheist secular humanists to the Christians there voting for the likes of Donald Trump and Roy Moore, or marching in Christian white supremacist rallies.

Then you have the Catholic Church and its scandals.

Or look to the Middle East for another example of organized, Abrahamic monotheism.

Secular humanism has remade the world for the better by rejecting faith and superstition, and substituting reason, skepticism, empiricism, and rational ethics. These changes brought us two of man's proudest achievements: science, and the modern liberal, democratic secular state with guaranteed personal rights and freedoms.

A person can easily learn to live without religions, faith, or god beliefs, but must begin relatively early in life. By the last third of life, people are generally to invested in their faith based belief, and abandoning it at that point would be disorienting at multiple levels, making it just about impossible for most people.

If he (or she) does, he will be rewarded with a more authentic life, one in which he is an autonomous agent that has abandoned magical thinking, has defined his own purpose, and does good for goodness sake rather than for a reward. The atheist doesn't have to live with threats of hell or believing that he is sin-riddled from birth. What does religion have to offer such a person?

Incidentally, nobody I know has blind faith in science. We all have the evidence of its stellar success, meaning that its fundamental principles are valid. And we have the evidence that the religious alternative really has nothing to offer the world. It had millennia to accomplish the same things, but of course, never did or could.

Consider creationism versus Darwin's theory. Where Darwin's theory unifies a mountain of evidence from divergent sources, accurately makes predictions about what can and cannot be found in nature, provides a rational mechanism for evolution consistent with the known actions of nature, accounts for both the commonality of all life as well as biodiversity, and has had practical applications that have improved the human condition, creationism can do none of those things.

That's how we know that science is fertile and religion sterile.

 

[Holdasown]

Funny. I thought this was going to be about polytheism, which is inherently incompatible with monotheism and thus could be described as anti-monotheistic. Not how I'd personally frame it, given polytheists are generally very chill about the presence of other theisms. Unfortunately, monotheism has been wielded as a weapon against polytheistic cultures and individuals... and some folks have some axes to grind because of that.

What you're talking about already has a word for it - scientism. Can we use that word? I suppose i can't make you... haha. Anti-monotheism is something else. Scientism isn't just against monotheism. It's fairly indiscriminate in being opposed to theisms, even where those theisms don't actually conflict with or are at odds with sciences.

Why would polytheists care if someone is monotheist?

 

[LuisDantas]

Why would polytheists care if someone is monotheist?

One reason is the same that is decisive for many anti-theists: monotheism has a knack to entitle itself into a "truth" to be imposed on others.

 

[Jim]

Sorry, that does not clarify matters to me.

I might have a lot of work to do, to clarify it even for myself. The idea came to me when I was thinking about some of the psychological and social dynamics of identity atheism. That’s my name for a kind of identity that’s formally defined as not having any belief in any god or gods, which flies banners of science, skepticism and free thinking, but which only uses them as excuses and camouflage for continually maligning monotheistic religions and their followers, and raking up muck about them.

 

[GoodbyeDave]

Why would polytheists care if someone is monotheist?

Because of their track record for persecution. As a heathen, you are surely aware of Olaf Tryggvason? Even today, Christians try to force their beliefs on others via the law. Muslims still use violence to do it. Orthodox Jews in Israel just try to force their beliefs on Reform Jews, etc. Presumably they'll come for non-Jews later.

 

[LuisDantas]

I might have a lot of work to do, to clarify it even for myself. The idea came to me when I was thinking about some of the psychological and social dynamics of identity atheism. That’s my name for a kind of identity that’s formally defined as not having any belief in any god or gods, which flies banners of science, skepticism and free thinking, but which only uses them as excuses and camouflage for continually maligning monotheistic religions and their followers, and raking up muck about them.

Thanks.

That is a rather exotic and, I suspect, overall very rare brand of person.

Perhaps altogether nonextant.


At first glance the elements that you describe seem to be fairly coherent:

1) Atheism
2) Antidogmatism
3) Active opposition to monotheism


But there is that catchy part about "only" using antidogmatism as an "excuse for malignation".


That really goes against the grain of the main part of your description.

 

[Aupmanyav]

What you're talking about already has a word for it - scientism.

I think the two things are different, Quintessence. Scientism is generally taken as blind faith in science, generally those who do not know science well. Anti-monotheism, has a grudge against Monotheistic claims (sons, prophets, manifestations, mahdis and messengers), but would not mind pagan religions, which do not make such claims, and quietly follow their beliefs. As Luis said "monotheism has a knack to entitle itself into a "truth" to be imposed on others.' Some people are rankled by that (I belong to this category).

 

[Quintessence]

I think the two things are different, Quintessence. Scientism is generally taken as blind faith in science. Anti-monotheism, has a grudge against Monotheistic claims (sons, prophets, manifestations, mahdis and messengers), but would not mind pagan religions, which do not make such claims, and quietly follow their beliefs. As Luis said "monotheism has a knack to entitle itself into a "truth" to be imposed on others.' Some people are rankled by that (I belong to this category).

Oh, I agree they're different... I'm pointing out that what the OP is talking about sounds much more like scientism to me than anti-monotheism.

 

[Holdasown]

Because of their track record for persecution. As a heathen, you are surely aware of Olaf Tryggvason? Even today, Christians try to force their beliefs on others via the law. Muslims still use violence to do it. Orthodox Jews in Israel just try to force their beliefs on Reform Jews, etc. Presumably they'll come for non-Jews later.

I personally, in my interactions, have experience nothing more than the "you're going to hell" via mostly Baptists and some other Fundamentalist. If they say anything, to be it as far as monotheist. Most ask a few questions and move on. Today's Fundamentalist might try to get laws but the Constitution often prevails. I have not experienced any outright hatred when interacting with others. Nor have I felt or been restricted in my practice.