astreus
While I think that’s interesting point, two things:
Destroyed swaths of people is dubious. Cultures, yes, men, yes, but peoples, no (hence the slaves but also why those lands were still administered by high ranking officials).
Essentially, I feel it’s whataboutism. There’s very good reason why it’s said the Philippines was conquered by friars, the Crusades weren’t caused by resources, and the age of Empire and the Atlantic slave trade were both back by the concept of monotheistic “other”.
Just because other ideologies (and theologies) have negative kernels, it does not excuse the vast negative issues the have directly born out of monotheistic religion as an aspect of otherhood and a sense of colonisation or superiority. That does not make them the sole source (the concept of land ownership, for example, is a non-theistic ideology that is used to cause group division and destruction). We could also talk about Manifest Destiny, as a non-religious movement (though it did have large religious support), but it’s not what I am talking about
Monotheism as it has manifested on the world stage has come with colonisation, destruction of old ideas, and entitled due to the other people being sinful heathens. It is a useful tool for the powerful (which is why we see the royal conversions in Europe, leading to internalised oppression of polytheistic beliefs). It is worth questioning.
You are conflating my criticism of monotheism with a direct criticism of Judaism. I am saying the core value of monotheism (i.e. there is one god and its the one I picked) has created a colonial mindset in all monotheistic religion. You’re saying “I did it again”, but I’m doing it for all. I mean the Arab conquests soon after Muhhamad’s death is the same as well.
Monotheism, as an ideology, has stolen a lot from us in terms of ways of thinking, belief, and added division in its stead. This continues to be true in major geopolitical states including America, Israel, Iran, and many, many more countries.
Not really? There is an in-group (Jews) and an out-group (non-Jews, or Gentiles). The same applies for all monotheistic religions in a way that doesn’t gel with the fabric of polytheism. These concepts, over centuries and through different forms (especially Christianity for the “West”) were used to subjugate people by creating these in-groups and out-groups (to the point that the earliest use of the star of David to highlight the Jewish population I know of was done in England by Simon De Montfort (though I’m not an expert)).
That legacy still exists today and the institutions of wealth and (especially in places like the UK & Iran) governance. It’s a legacy of us vs them and colonialism that needs to be examined.
I’m saying the entire structure of monotheism has created a system of colonial thought and destruction across much of the world. Even the good theists I have met (and I have met many) will think less of or sorry for someone in the out group.
It’s not Judaism, it’s not Islam, it’s not Christianity: it is the colonial ideology embedded in these ideologies that I’m saying are a negative force on the planet.
I was replying directly to the comment above, not so much the context. You are right to point that out.
hatred and contempt
This is a problem. Anything coming from hatred is not coming from a good place.
However, I do have a problem with what monotheism did to the world as a colonising force.
We have depictions of full genocide in the Torah due to a chosen people doctrine (remember, at this time gendercide was nearly the exclusive form of genocide). We had Christians take this after Constantine to take a proselytising mission and turn it into an imperial casus belli. We saw the same with the formation and expansion that lead to the Golden Age of Islam.
While religious tolerance and practices have an increased amount of personal choice now in the “Western” world, that does not mean that the institution that they inherent aren’t any more colonial now then they were then. They are ideas that replaced other ideas, often through a theology of “god strengthens my arm and weakens the heathens, so might makes right”.
It’s not hatred for any set belief, but the “In” and “Out” groups created by “chosen people” dynamics that are inherent within monotheistic religion. They have always been used to perpetuate division among the “foreign”, wealth for an elite, and loyalty from the masses.
[Edited to clarify the last paragraph]
That’s pretty much this labour summed up!
I welcome Conservative Policy but I believe we need to go further! After all, have enough grannies frozen to death?
EDIT: Since reading about this, I’ve changed my mind. Finding better ways to means test a relatively wealthy generation is not a bad idea.
How true is this or are we doing the same thing “generation killed industry/way of doing things” that the boomer media is so fond of?
