firedragon
Veteran Member
That's soft polytheism.
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There is no such thing as "soft polytheism"
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What I find fascinating about this kind of subject matter is that people actually expect to convince each other out of their respective stances.
That just doesn't work. This is much too personal to be argued as if it conformed to some sort of cartesian or rigorous logic.
Or to put it in another way: this is a matter of aesthetics, not one of epistemology.
That just doesn't work. This is much too personal to be argued as if it conformed to some sort of cartesian or rigorous logic.
Or to put it in another way: this is a matter of aesthetics, not one of epistemology.
firedragon
Veteran Member
Brother. This is a mischaracterization of the matter in hand. Metaphysical debates about the nature of existence etc are fundamentally epistemological and metaphysical issues, not matters of aesthetics. Aesthetics deals with questions of beauty, art, and taste, which are subjective and experiential, while epistemology concerns the nature and scope of knowledge.
Epistemology and metaphysics look to answer objective questions about what exists and how we can know it. Classifying these discussions as aesthetic reduces them to subjective preferences, which undermines the goal of seeking truth and understanding through reasoned debate.
mikkel_the_dane
My own religion
You don't control the goal of other humans as how they understand the world and want to live in it.
Stay out of the water!
Oh, I just don't waste any time whatsoever trying to lend credence to that perspective that you are selling. I acknowledge that as the wasteful and often destructive activity that it always was.
That is how it is.
Best of luck.
firedragon
Veteran Member
Great. So "it's a waste of time" is your argument. But you engaged and made a post which was not originally "a waste of time". Now it suddenly became one.
Excellent. Cheers.
Friend, one is mono, not poly.
If the human who feels the gods are facets of one god is worshiping multiple gods (aka, the facets) how is that monotheism, precisely? Do you really think that the typical monotheist would look at that and go "hey, one of us!"
I'm late to the discussion, and feel no need to argue about terminology. The more I go along, the more I tire of labels.
However, sometimes they're useful in casual conversation. I call myself polytheistic, because that is where my focus is. On many deities.
I believe they may all come from a single source, but I hesitate to refer to that as a deity.
I'm not sure if that's hard or soft polytheism, and I guess it doesn't matter. I seldom run across anyone to talk about it with, so it seems irrelevant.
However, sometimes they're useful in casual conversation. I call myself polytheistic, because that is where my focus is. On many deities.
I believe they may all come from a single source, but I hesitate to refer to that as a deity.
I'm not sure if that's hard or soft polytheism, and I guess it doesn't matter. I seldom run across anyone to talk about it with, so it seems irrelevant.
firedragon
Veteran Member
Absolutely.
But your description is the definition of soft polytheism. Why not understand what the term means first and compare with your description?
Your definition is exactly one of the way scholars in the subject define soft polytheism.
I thought I had done this for you in post #6.
Most of us have no need of listening to some mythic founder.
If I'm worshipping and calling on multiple psychological archetypes (not saying I do) in worship, prayer and ritual. Is it truly atheism? Or are you just trying to write it off?
See, there is worship of things greater than oneself involved, and there are multiple psychological entities involved. That's a form of Polytheism imo.
firedragon
Veteran Member
Try and follow the following definition. This is not mine. It's from a scholar in the field called Kraemer.
soft polytheism: The belief that there is more than one god, but that the gods are in some way aspects of a single (or dual) Deity. Soft polytheist positions may include the following: 1) the gods are all aspects of one God/dess, who has both immanent and
transcendent aspects (as in panentheism); 2) the goddesses are all aspects of one Goddess and the gods are all aspects of one God (also called duotheism);
Does the world have only one ocean?
I view this theological nitpicking as irrelevant, especially as a Pagan. Paganism is about acts of worship and sacrifice/offerings, and maintaining good relations with the Gods and Ancestors, so they may bless us. How you exactly choose to view it is your personal business as there's no Pagan dogmas or creeds. Bickering over theology and having endless labels is an Abrahamic thing. Pagans didn't even have specific words for their religion, and you still find this in non-Abrahamic cultures like Japan.
It has some relevance to academics where having more clearly delineated terms is important for establishing the boundaries of one's research and communicating more clearly. For actual practitioners, though, yeah... I have a hard time seeing the relevance. Except for gatekeepers and the contemporary Pagan movement has had its issues with that.
Yep. It is indeed a waste of time to try to tread god-concepts as if they were entities with epistemological solidity.
They are a very ill fit to that sort of expectation. But much worse still is that people tend to create great harm while engaged in the attempt to fulfill those expectations.
Oh, no. I was wasting time as well.
But it may conceivably happen that someone might be awakened into insight about this matter slightly faster and more easily due to my words. In that respect, no, it may not be a waste.
Besides, I was also warning the likes of you about the dangers.
Because there is one god haha. Again, if we follow this logic something like Kabbalah is polytheism. I also don't think Kabbalah is polytheism just because other monotheists don't like it.
Seems it would be called polytheistic monism.
Are they gods, or psychological?
If there's ultimately only one god...
Pantheism is its own thing.
Its a more modern take, but id say it's more than one god so polytheism. What is "soft" about it?
Paganism and polytheism are different topics imo.
It's also important to preserve polytheism in the face of colonialism instead of twisting it to be monotheism with more steps