As a Christian I can see a few flaws in this argument.
Some are factual. For example, this paragraph:
'However, for the people who were believers and then no longer believe, all three religions are quite clear on how they should be treated. In the Torah, for example, such a person must be killed, with the first blow coming from their closest family members. In both Catholic and Protestant Christianity, the punishment for such a person was the same as those for witches: death by fire.'
The last sentence is bizarre, as it seems to suggest that codified into the religious beliefs of Christians is a legal insistence that apostates be burned. This is not true. Certainly some apostates *were* burned, mostly during the reformation/counter-reformation period (many were hanged too) but that was not due to a founding religious edict. There is nothing in the Gospels, for example, or any church creed that specified this. It was politics and war, not 'monotheism.'
More broadly, your attempt to paint monotheisms as uniquely intolerant doesn't hold up either. The reason so many Christians were killed - some burned, some eaten by beasts, some crucified, some beheaded; the list is long - by Roman authorities for the first 300 years of their existence was mostly because they refused to acknowledge the primacy of the Roman gods. They were, in other words, apostates from Roman paganism.
I recommend a book called 'The patient fermet of the early church' for more on this period. It demonstrates firstly the fury of many Romans at these strange apostates in their midst, and secondly the reason that the Christian faith grew despite this persecution for centuries - it was because Christian communities were acting with loving care to those around them, and helping all - pagan and Christian alike - when help was needed, like the Good Samaritans they were bidden to be. They didn't try to persaude, let alone force ,people to become Christian. They attracted them by their way of life. We could do with more of this again.
None of this is to deny the later persecutions and oppressions meted out by Christian authorities. But I don't agree that 'monotheism' is the reason for that, nor that 'monotheism' is any more insistent on 'one truth' than pantheism. The Romans executed those who failed to ascribe to the 'one truth' of their faith, and the Vikings weren't much better.
One final thought about the woke - is it not also the case that a defining feature of wokeness is a kind of moral relativism? It's true it sits badly with their general intolerance, but 'all lifestyles are equally valid' and the ongoing attack on all 'norms' seems to me to be a manifestation of the kind of 'plural truth' attitude you are praising here. But truth is not relative, especially on the cosmic level. A thing is true or it is not. There is no 'my truth.'
In that sense, though I take your general point about woke inquisitions, we could just as easily ally wokeness with this kind of neo-pagan fuzziness, I would say. Or perhaps we could say it is a combination of po-mo neo-pagan fluff and the worst kind of Abrhamahic intolerance, in which case we're in for a lot of fun...
I'm not sure whether you've come across it before, but this is a wonderful collection of apostasy in the form of a hundred-odd critiques of wokeness, etc., from various anarchist, autonomist and broadly left perspectives: https://fullopinionism.wordpress.com/
Rhyd, while I find myself in agreement with some of what you say, I think it's a little difficult to package it all neatly in a little dualistic box, which is what I feel you're trying to do.
Speaking from my own experience, it can be excruciatingly hard to cast aside formerly cherished beliefs and world views, because those things make up who we thought we were. It can leave us feeling orphaned, abandoned, left out in the cold, out in the desert, out in the wilderness, or whatever metaphor you want to use. In my own dreams, shoes always represented my spiritual path. And while I was priestessing public rituals and dancing myself into ecstatic trances, I had some fabulous dreamworld footwear - tall feathered boots, glittery shoes of all kinds, a real 7 of Cups vibe.
And then I cast it all aside, abandoned everything (even my name!) that had made me the person I thought I was, on the spiritual path I thought I was on, with the people I thought were my people. Bam, all gone. And for a long time, in my dreams I was barefoot and I absolutely self-identified as an apostate.
I believed in nothing, because in my mind it had to be all or nothing. It had to be dualistic. Either the universe was alive and animated and full of spirit or it was dead as a doornail. And I tried to believe it was dead as a doornail, because I could not conceive of something between what I had been and the concept of earth as dead. I wrote angry poetry castigating the gods, every last one of them. I felt betrayed, like I'd been a mark in some kind of spiritual sting.
But what I eventually came to understand is that I had rejected the structure, the hierarchy, the power dynamics, the gender dynamics, and not the nourishing (to me) belief that everything is alive, the trees are sentient, the hills are listening, and I am a part of it all. And in my dreams the shoes reappeared, but now they were practical boots, hiking boots, plain but strong. And that is where I sit today, no longer a part of Reclaiming, which had been my source of nourishment for so long, and in fact no longer a part of any organized religion/spiritual path or whatever you want to call it.
I will say that sitting in the middle also makes you a sitting duck sometimes. The old gang thinks you're a muggle, and you are way too scary for the suits. You don't really have a place to call home except your own soul. You get to make the rules, but you must also live with the consequences.
I am a witch, but not like I was. The world is not black and white, absolutely not dualistic. Because you reject one thing does not mean you must throw the whole package out. I get that you are no longer comfortable in that old skin and you are creating a new and more serviceable one. And that sometimes there's a real temptation to swing to the other side of the pendulum. Everything I once is believed is crap! And so forth. Just be kind to yourself and allow yourself to find a new balance.
I hope that is not too preachy. My point is that while reading your words, I sensed that this is where you are right now. If I'm wrong, no harm intended and feel free to ignore me.
As a Christian I can see a few flaws in this argument.
Some are factual. For example, this paragraph:
'However, for the people who were believers and then no longer believe, all three religions are quite clear on how they should be treated. In the Torah, for example, such a person must be killed, with the first blow coming from their closest family members. In both Catholic and Protestant Christianity, the punishment for such a person was the same as those for witches: death by fire.'
The last sentence is bizarre, as it seems to suggest that codified into the religious beliefs of Christians is a legal insistence that apostates be burned. This is not true. Certainly some apostates *were* burned, mostly during the reformation/counter-reformation period (many were hanged too) but that was not due to a founding religious edict. There is nothing in the Gospels, for example, or any church creed that specified this. It was politics and war, not 'monotheism.'
More broadly, your attempt to paint monotheisms as uniquely intolerant doesn't hold up either. The reason so many Christians were killed - some burned, some eaten by beasts, some crucified, some beheaded; the list is long - by Roman authorities for the first 300 years of their existence was mostly because they refused to acknowledge the primacy of the Roman gods. They were, in other words, apostates from Roman paganism.
I recommend a book called 'The patient fermet of the early church' for more on this period. It demonstrates firstly the fury of many Romans at these strange apostates in their midst, and secondly the reason that the Christian faith grew despite this persecution for centuries - it was because Christian communities were acting with loving care to those around them, and helping all - pagan and Christian alike - when help was needed, like the Good Samaritans they were bidden to be. They didn't try to persaude, let alone force ,people to become Christian. They attracted them by their way of life. We could do with more of this again.
None of this is to deny the later persecutions and oppressions meted out by Christian authorities. But I don't agree that 'monotheism' is the reason for that, nor that 'monotheism' is any more insistent on 'one truth' than pantheism. The Romans executed those who failed to ascribe to the 'one truth' of their faith, and the Vikings weren't much better.
One final thought about the woke - is it not also the case that a defining feature of wokeness is a kind of moral relativism? It's true it sits badly with their general intolerance, but 'all lifestyles are equally valid' and the ongoing attack on all 'norms' seems to me to be a manifestation of the kind of 'plural truth' attitude you are praising here. But truth is not relative, especially on the cosmic level. A thing is true or it is not. There is no 'my truth.'
In that sense, though I take your general point about woke inquisitions, we could just as easily ally wokeness with this kind of neo-pagan fuzziness, I would say. Or perhaps we could say it is a combination of po-mo neo-pagan fluff and the worst kind of Abrhamahic intolerance, in which case we're in for a lot of fun...
I'm not sure whether you've come across it before, but this is a wonderful collection of apostasy in the form of a hundred-odd critiques of wokeness, etc., from various anarchist, autonomist and broadly left perspectives: https://fullopinionism.wordpress.com/
Rhyd, while I find myself in agreement with some of what you say, I think it's a little difficult to package it all neatly in a little dualistic box, which is what I feel you're trying to do.
Speaking from my own experience, it can be excruciatingly hard to cast aside formerly cherished beliefs and world views, because those things make up who we thought we were. It can leave us feeling orphaned, abandoned, left out in the cold, out in the desert, out in the wilderness, or whatever metaphor you want to use. In my own dreams, shoes always represented my spiritual path. And while I was priestessing public rituals and dancing myself into ecstatic trances, I had some fabulous dreamworld footwear - tall feathered boots, glittery shoes of all kinds, a real 7 of Cups vibe.
And then I cast it all aside, abandoned everything (even my name!) that had made me the person I thought I was, on the spiritual path I thought I was on, with the people I thought were my people. Bam, all gone. And for a long time, in my dreams I was barefoot and I absolutely self-identified as an apostate.
I believed in nothing, because in my mind it had to be all or nothing. It had to be dualistic. Either the universe was alive and animated and full of spirit or it was dead as a doornail. And I tried to believe it was dead as a doornail, because I could not conceive of something between what I had been and the concept of earth as dead. I wrote angry poetry castigating the gods, every last one of them. I felt betrayed, like I'd been a mark in some kind of spiritual sting.
But what I eventually came to understand is that I had rejected the structure, the hierarchy, the power dynamics, the gender dynamics, and not the nourishing (to me) belief that everything is alive, the trees are sentient, the hills are listening, and I am a part of it all. And in my dreams the shoes reappeared, but now they were practical boots, hiking boots, plain but strong. And that is where I sit today, no longer a part of Reclaiming, which had been my source of nourishment for so long, and in fact no longer a part of any organized religion/spiritual path or whatever you want to call it.
I will say that sitting in the middle also makes you a sitting duck sometimes. The old gang thinks you're a muggle, and you are way too scary for the suits. You don't really have a place to call home except your own soul. You get to make the rules, but you must also live with the consequences.
I am a witch, but not like I was. The world is not black and white, absolutely not dualistic. Because you reject one thing does not mean you must throw the whole package out. I get that you are no longer comfortable in that old skin and you are creating a new and more serviceable one. And that sometimes there's a real temptation to swing to the other side of the pendulum. Everything I once is believed is crap! And so forth. Just be kind to yourself and allow yourself to find a new balance.
I hope that is not too preachy. My point is that while reading your words, I sensed that this is where you are right now. If I'm wrong, no harm intended and feel free to ignore me.