this post was submitted on 10 Nov 2024
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Drag is worried about "no gods, no masters". It fucking slaps, it sounds great. There's a lot of emotion in it that's perfectly communicated.
But... Gods being oppressors is a very European view. Do you think Navajo are oppressed by Coyote? Do you think Yindjibarndi view the Rainbow Serpent as a tyrant? What about Maui, is he exacting tithes from the Maori like the Vatican do? Is Anansi hurting the Akan?
Odin and Zeus were pieces of shit, but the idea of gods as tyrants is a view almost exclusive to the areas of the world that had humans as tyrants; the old world. And not even all of it even, the Buddha never ruled over anyone.
Drag worries that "no gods no masters" is pushing an overwhelmingly white stereotype of religion and harming members of religions that don't have oppressive gods.
Well specifically in Stargate the "gods" were literal aliens that actually treated humans as sort of cattle to host their young, mine their ore, serve as their armies. All that said they do end up visiting places with NA indigenous people and they do actually have a good relationship with their "gods" which staying in line with the theme of the show were a different set of advanced aliens.
Yeah, and there's the Asgard, and Oma Desala. Stargate doesn't unilaterally dismiss the concept of good gods at all. Teal'c might have some baggage about respecting any kind of god, but the rest of the team only cares about the "no masters" part.
Drag should read more theory.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchist_symbolism#No_gods,_no_masters
The phrase is about hierarchy. Any metaphysical claim can be used to create a "power over" relationship. If a metaphysical belief causes an individual to behave differently a "power over" relationship has been established.
I sense Noble Savage and Orientalism in drags arguments. Why are "power over" relationships stemming from religion only a "white" person problem? Is drag familiar with the Rohingya and their oppressors?
But not every metaphysical claim is. There are plenty of metaphysical beings even in European mythology who aren't tyrants or even leaders of anyone. Jormungandr is terribly powerful, but he doesn't rule the world, he just eats it. He doesn't oppress anyone until Ragnarok. And it's not just because he's an animal. The Dryads aren't out here building empires, they just want to be left alone with their trees. Cú Chulainn is a supernaturally good warrior with the Hulk's superpowers, but he doesn't oppress anyone. In fact, when he kills Chulainn's dog, he offers to be the man's hound until he finds a new one. That's humility and respect for other people.
The gods were created by people. And people create gods that match what they see in life. Life is good and life is bad. Gods are good and gods are bad. Gods will be worse in a more oppressive culture, and gods will be better in a less hierarchical culture. There's no doubt that the culture of the people who enslaved the world is worse than the culture of their victims. It's not "noble savage" thinking to say that. It's not that people who don't have kings are better than "normal" people. People who don't have kings ARE normal people. Living in a feudalistic or capitalist society is weird and bad. Anarcho-communism is the way humans naturally live.
And besides, the Mayans gave the Europeans a run for their money in the "sucking and having authoritarian gods" department.
I see drags argument for benign Gods using various contexts. Drag seems to be knowledgable about religions. I am as unqualified to determine a benevolent or malevolent religion as I am a king. Thereby "no gods, no masters" captures my incompetence in knowing when to allow another power over me.
Another really interesting mythological figure is Sun Wukong, the Monkey King, from Journey To The West. He's kind of on the border between mythology and fiction. Like Superman. Sun Wukong is a leader and he is a tyrant, but he's a very unusual case of both.
The monkeys of Flower Fruit Mountain decided to make Sun Wukong their kong because he was the bravest monkey. They all collectively decided on a challenge that whoever did it would be king, and Sun Wukong did it. Being the Monkey King is a ceremonial title for the most part. Sun Wukong does try to teach the monkeys warfare a few times, and it never goes well, because the monkeys are inherently chaotic and therefore bad at following orders. They're not actually a society in the way that humans are, they're just pretending to be a kingdom for fun.
When Sun Wukong gets bored of being the Monkey King, he decides to go to heaven and demand a fancy royal title from the Jade Emperor. This does not go well, and Monkey ends up beating up all the gods until the Buddha finally puts him in his place. Monkey is explicitly doing violence on people with the goal of dominating them into granting him a royal title. But the thing is, Monkey is shallow and he only cares about getting a fancy name. He doesn't want any responsibility and the only power he wants is to be immortal and good at martial arts. (This is where most of Goku's personality comes from).
Sun Wukong is tyrannical and he is technically a leader, but calling him an authoritarian tyrant is completely misleading. He's chaotic neutral. He only really wants to be the Monkey King so he can call himself the Monkey King. He doesn't want to oppress anybody. He's very different to characters like Zeus or Odin. He has a lot more in common with Loki or Dionysus, though with a focus on physical power as opposed to trickery or magic.
I agree. My patron deity as a pagan is a means of resistance. She’s a reminder that people like me predate the written word. The Sumerian creation story I know involves humans having labor negotiations with the gods.
Drag has a theory about why antitheists attack all gods, despite not having any logical arguments against gods like yours. Drag thinks it's because they're Christians. Cultural Christians. No belief in Jesus, but they still celebrate Christmas and Easter and think abortion and divorce are wrong and all the other Christian beliefs. Christians don't believe in any god but Deus, and white antitheists agree. They believe in Deus enough to make counterarguments, but they don't even dignify your god with that much respect. They're doing a Christianity.
I think Drag should ask more antitheists about their reasoning.
I am of the opinion that any willful ignorance of reality is dangerous, and most religions are organized and ritualized ignorance.
Most of them were just speculation when they were founded, and no one could fathom exactly how they were right or wrong. The difference is that now we can know better; we can fathom the depths of the universe and plot the edges of our ignorance.
This leads to a conflict between the intensly held beliefs of entite cultures and the systems we use to progress society. Thus the anti-intellectualism movement and conspiracy thinking, theocratic movements, and the willingness to deny truth.
I do not have the same issues with spiritual systems and religions that are willing to accept what we know about reality; but sadly those are in the vast minority. It's less about being against gods in general, and more about being against the tyrant gods and authoritarian organizations that are willing to sacrifice reality on the altar of control and power.
So go ahead and make rituals, worldviews, and sacred meaning, but don't let those cloud your vision of the world, and remember to love each other.
It sounds like you're not an antitheist. You're just an antheist - someone who thinks divinity and worship relationships are not inherently self justifying, and must instead justify themselves through good work. An antitheist opposes gods for being gods and wants them all disbelieved in. An antheist is suspicious of gods, but can be convinced to accept them if they're good people.
Drag recognises that the Patriarchy is a destructive and oppressive force built upon male supremacy, but drag doesn't oppose the existence of men because of it. Drag has met plenty of good men. So drag takes the time to learn whether a man is sexist before judging him. Drag supports men who engage in healthy and positive masculinity. Drag supports good male role models like Bob Ross, Carl Sagan, and Tim Walz.
Supporting good examples is just as important as opposing bad examples. Because you can't generally change whether someone is a man, or whether they're religious. But you can change how they engage with masculinity or worship.
I wouldn't describe myself as an anti-theist, I'm not against the idea itself, it's rather neat and might have been an important step in the development of human culture and thinking. I'm particularly interested in the old gods, like at gobekli tepe, or proto-devi and deva, or the bears and other beings that populate the oldest stories of the night sky. I might describe myself as a non-theist humanist: So long as it does good to the world, I don't care in particular.
If you take a definition of religion that places something above the demonstrable world --the sacred supernatural-- we run into the issue of the world being sacrificed to intangible ideas, which is bad. This idea of the world being pointless in the face of something that cannot be proven is pretty central to most sects of western religions, and the ability to move people for an idea unconnected to reality is a fantastic way to gain power over them.
It's this concept of unprovable authority that I find dangerous, and I think this is what is referred to with the theo in theism; the tyrant gods and political religious institutions of the west. It's a very rough definition which may or may not apply elsewhere, but it's probably what most english speakers are thinking about when you say god.
This is certainly what I'm thinking of when someones wants me to accept even the existence of a god: that they defy the limits of the world and thus deserve attention. The problem is that none of these beings have ever had any notable effect on the world, universally being spoken for by their followers.
You could argue for less-than-supernatural gods, like kings or pharoahs, or particularly respected people, or even certain animals, plants, or locations. In these instances, their effects can be directly investigated, and if any effects beyond those given by politics and popularity be found I would have no problem accepting them. I accept that we live in a shared reality, and thus I also accept anything that comports with it.
The opposite is also true; I'll reject anything that doesn't comport with reality. I consider anything that can make one ignore parts of reality to be dangerous and likely to cause harm, so I find myself at odds with most religions and directly against the idea of most gods, western or otherwise. It doesn't matter how good the acts of a being are, I will not hold them as more than what is evident. A system of belief on the other hand, I might accept, if it doesn't hold itself superior to reality or the world.
I can't find any reference to antheist, but by your definition I am not one. I'm not anti-theist by your definition either. My belief is not guided by the supposed goodness of a being, simply their existence. It would be more accurate to call me an anti-delusionism-ist: against the practice of denying reality. That's quite clunky though, and stops being true if a god is found to exist, although a lot of definitions and beliefs would change rapidly in that situation. Thus non-theist: I don't care as long as you're not hurting anyone.
Oh, you don't need religion for that. Most of the world already worships The Economy and would rather destroy all life on earth than hurt The Economy.
Why though? There are so many counterexamples to both of those. Most western religions don't say that gods defy the limits of the world in any way. Thor doesn't defy the limits of the world when he summons lightning with Mjolnir, for example. In fact, Thor has to wear special bracers that protect him from the hammer's power. Prometheus still has to follow the commands of his king even though he's a god, and when he doesn't, he gets chained up and eaten by vultures. Even Jesus needs to sacrifice himself on the cross in order to satisfy the Old Laws and get everyone into heaven. None of these gods exist outside the world, they're all bound to its rules. It's just that when you have a magic hammer, the rules are a little more permissive. Just like the rules for humans have been more permissive ever since humans figured out antibiotics and aircraft. The gods, in nearly all religions, are just powerful people or creatures. And often they're not even powerful. Shinto has 8 million Kami. And while Kami aren't exactly what most people think of when they say "god", we're talking about divine beings in general, right? Some Kami are just... the spirit of this one river here. The worst thing they can possibly do to you is give you turbulence when you cross the river in your boat. Or maybe make too much silt deposit in the soil on the banks of the river and spoil the farmland over a few generations. If your family has been farming that riverbank for generations, you should definitely cultivate a good relationship with the river god. Otherwise, it doesn't matter. That Kami has no more power than Village Idiot Tetsu who accidentally dropped a bag of salt on your land while he was taking a shortcut back from the market. You should also be polite to Tetsu, because he's your neighbour and it's the right thing to do. Tetsu is just a guy and the river kami is also just a guy, who happens to be nonhuman.
Drag forgot what drag's point was.
Oh don't worry, I have have issues with that too.
If you believe Thor is the cause of lightning, you might be more willing to ignore meteorology. If you believe the Aesir are actually divine and walk between the worlds, you might be more willing to believe that some people are descendants of them and thus superior.
If you believe that blood sacrifices hold power, you might think that some people are performing them when they aren't, or even perform them yourself.
If you believe the world will end, you might not be so concerned with maintaining it or even living in it.
My point is that making a habit of denying reality makes it easier to deny reality in the future, and even if one denial of reality is innocuous, later denials may not be. Bigots love to use religion to push racist, discriminatory, and abusive ideas, and the best way to defend against those ideas is to see how they align with reality. We can't identify harmful acts if we can't agree on the effect of an act, can we?
Anyway, the original topic was putting words in anti-theist's mouths. There's not even a generally accepted definition of anti-theism, with some being against organized religions, and others against monotheism specifically. To paint them all as opposite-christians is using a Zamboni as a brush.
Oh absolutely. My wife and I call them as Christian atheists. As the saying goes the god they don’t believe in is Jehova.
And the thing is, I’m trying not to be overly Christian in my paganism, but the anarchist philosophy that I hold dear, while the absolute antithesis of the Christianity of my nation, is close enough to the teachings of a certain rabbi from the early Roman Empire. But by approaching syncretically I don’t have to look at other religion as devoid of truth. Instead I see truth where I find it and keep the truth that helps.