obey God or mommy will kill you

[mellowtigger]

"According to a statement of facts, the cult members stopped feeding the boy when he refused to say "Amen" after a meal. After Javon died, Ramkissoon sat next to his decomposing body and prayed for his resurrection."
- http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090331/ap_on_re_us/child_slain_cult

Stuff like this makes me wish that all of humanity would just grow up and go atheist.  More than one autistic child has died while being "exorcised" of his demon.  I'm tired of all so-called omniscient and omnipotent deities.  I like it better when deities have frailties that force humans to rely on their own abilities to survive instead of just giving up all of their authority to a better-qualified imaginary friend.

Monotheism is not my friend today.  It's a cult only when it happens to somebody else's denomination.

mod +1: Urge to go walk into the forest and not come back.

Comments

[khrysso.livejournal.com]

I'm inclined to think of monotheism as the most dangerous force in the world today.

[dangerdhotrod.livejournal.com]

By Crom, I agree!

[feygelegoy.com (from livejournal.com)]

Are you supporting atheism? Or just saying all monotheists hold the same dogmas, and that you shouldn't judge people unfairly and stereotypically — except for several religion, where you shouldn't give a damn what they think as individuals?

[mellowtigger]

Um, yes?

If it were a little more clear that any One True God really did have different rulesets for different individuals, then people would have some authority to look after themselves rather than forcing their Rulebook onto other people. When believers in a One True God find irreconcilable differences of opinion, they just splinter into a different sect ("cult" if you're in the other sect). I have a hard time calling that polytheism, since they still claim to have the same deity. So we just wind up with lots of One True Gods running around, each with their believers insisting that there is only one proscribed Rulebook with its methodology to be followed.

Ideologues are a little bit different among polytheists. It is true that some polytheists have their One True Methodology, but as I've seen it happen it is limited to claims of historic accuracy. Where evidence is muddled or contested, there are many loud arguments about what is the Right Methodology. It's still haughty and annoying, but I've never seen it escalate to reach such import that the fate of humanity (via divine punishment for wrong action) hangs in the balance.

The only monotheistic sect (even including the Primitive Baptists of my childhood) that seems to recognize the multitude of Rulebooks for their One True God is the Quakers/Friends. Their meetings are rather refreshing as they wait for new insights and as they reach statements of consensus that apply only to that collection of people on that one date. New people and new days bring new revelations. If they could just give up the claim to Christianity, I think that their methodology would be as useful and self-affirming as Buddhism.

[feygelegoy.com (from livejournal.com)]

But this doesn't quite fit with my experience. I grew up in an Evangelical church, and the attitude you describe was definitely an accurate picture of their beliefs. However, in my twenties and thirties, I've come across many streams of religious thought, and the one "uniting" theme of sorts is a difference of opinion on what's "good and evil", who's "good and evil", etc. Go into an MCC church, a Reconstructionist shul, a Unitarian Universalist meeting, etc., and you don't hear rants about the "unbeliever" needing to convert to the "One True" montotheism. Or am I missing something?

In fact, among many of the religious sects I've come across, it's almost a cliche to believe or state, "There are various paths to the divine," not, "God is a male human with feeling, and you must appease him through worship according to our tradition."

I can understand that you probably have anecdotal evidence to state that monotheists as a group oppress each other and anyone who disagrees, and polytheists are somehow free of religious bias. On the other hand, my own personal experience is that there is an open-minded minority among monotheists, depending in part on how dogmatic they allow themselves to be, and what philosophies they accept. We're obviously judging based on different population samples.

What I'd like to hear is what makes you believe that out of all philosophical variants of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam in existence today, the Quaker variant of Christianity is "the only monotheistic sect" that tolerates other religious viewpoints? Do you think that Reform and Reconstructionist Judaism, for example, condemn other religions? Or are Unitarian Universalists are bigots, condemning others to hell?

To address another point, I do agree that atheism usually sounds more sane and realistic to me than any religious tradition. Though there are quite a few "fundamentalist" atheists out there, too...