Polytheism hits the LA Times
November 3, 2007
I don’t know how I missed Mary Lefkowitz’s editorial on Polytheism in the LA Times, but it’s an interesting read here as we listen to all the “Christian Nation” hollering. It’s a bit scattershot, but Lefkowitz makes a pretty good pass at discussing some of the advantages of polytheism over a monotheistic world view. I particularly like her attempt at a definition of “god,” which — once you get out of monotheism — becomes a very slippery concept:
The Greek gods weren’t mere representations of forces in nature but independent beings with transcendent powers who controlled the world and everything in it. Some of the gods were strictly local, such as the deities of rivers and forests. Others were universal, such as Zeus, his siblings and his children.
But they never were “omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent” — the three keystones to monotheistic faith that make the concept of a god logically incoherent and necessitate a whole mess of explainin’. So while this makes gods easier to conceptualize in one sense, it makes them much more difficult to define in the specific sense. Which is fine by me — a little vagueness is to be expected when talking about things you don’t have perfect knowledge of. And since that describes everything, assertion of perfect knowledge ought to ring a church full of warning bells.
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November 3rd, 2007 at 12:38 pm
You left out the other big attribute of the Christian god: perfect benevolence. God is supposedly completely good, and it’s the combination of omniscience, omnipotence, and complete benevolence that leads to the sticky problem of pain — the main reason I abandoned Christianity myself. The funny thing about that benevolence, though, is that it’s so selective because, as you’ve pointed out, Christianity has become so politicized. God’s complete benevolence doesn’t extend to anyone any given denomination or sect doesn’t like — chief among them, those who don’t share the same sexual mores.
If I were to ever become a believer again, I think I too would be drawn to some sort of non-monotheistic sort.
November 6th, 2007 at 6:58 am
Oh, yes, the perfect benevolence thing. I know the answer to this one: God only can only do good because God defines what is good. Like Nixon and Bush’s activities being by-definition legal, if God does it it, then it is by definition good. Note that this doesn’t represent a limitation on God’s power — it’s that good can only be determined in terms of God’s will. So if God causes pain and suffering, then it’s for a good we just don’t understand.
Now that might make God seem a little more like Charlie X than God, but that’s just because you lack faith.
One of the reasons I’m drawn to polytheism is I don’t have to pretend that suffering is somehow just or good, but is in fact just another part of existence.