POLYRELIGION

Given my broad definition of religion as any ideological belief that people subscribe to, whether it be secular or theistic, one can talk in terms of polyreligion.  By this definition one can speculate that any cognitive human being is polyreligious.  We all have a number of ideological beliefs that we subscribe to and share with others.

The diversity of our individual beliefs means that we do not share all the beliefs we hold as individuals with the same people; that while one might belong to a particular theistic religion, one might belong belong to a different political party (a secular religion), or an organization that promotes a particular idea that one believes in.  The fact is one might belong to a branch of a branch of a theistic religion and hold differing beliefs within a political party, that is broadly defined a left-leaning, right-leaning, or centrist.  Each of these, in turn, can be broken into smaller ideological beliefs that we share with others in ever shrinking numbers as the more branched out they become.

RELIGIOUS SINGULARITY

What I find intriguing in this polyreligious view is that from the diversity of our ideological beliefs emerge identifiable core beliefs that give shape and substance to the religious groups we belong to - an identity to both the religious community and the individuals who belong to them; even if there is a diverse understanding within such communities as to what those core ideological beliefs mean.  If asked, individuals within that community should be able to identify its core beliefs, and if pressed further, identify a singular belief essential to that identity.

It would be interesting to find out if such a reduction process would lead to identifying essential core human beliefs, shared by most. Of course, beliefs, in themselves, cannot define an absolute "What is" or perceive an absolute reality.  At best, they can only define how we see "What is" and how we perceive reality.

Religious singularity is not about coming to a point at which everyone believes the same thing. That would be unimaginable and an impossibility with nearly eight billion people, each having innumerable ideological beliefs, some of which we are unaware that we possess until prodded into our awareness by some event or personal experience.

BELIEFS

Beliefs - We all have them. The fact is we can't function without them.  They serve as a guidance system, like GPS, orienting us to and helping us navigate the world we live in.  Beliefs allow us to work collectively towards meeting common goals and needs.

All humans are believers.

The absurd statement, "I have no beliefs," is actually a belief about something -  beliefs.  We can't avoid believing something. Nothingness paradoxically exists as a something that is nothing - a cognitive construct to distinguish the somethingness of existence.
 
The cognitive awareness of something led to the intuited awareness of nothing. The intuited awareness of nothing in the face of experiencing something led to the intuition of a cause, which ultimately led to theism as the first ordering of our collective human experiences into the conceptual components we call beliefs.   Humanity's whole system of thought processes is based on beliefs. Beliefs about somethingness, nothingness, and their causes expanded exponentially.

The concept of nothing is actually similar to the concept of God; in that, at the very least both conceptually exist, both cannot be disproven, both can be intuited, and both can be expressed in terms of thought and feeling.

I have many beliefs that are ideological (secular and theistic) and non-ideological (subject to quick change, depending on environmental shifts).  My claim to agnosticism is based on a reluctance to assign absolute certitude to any of the ideological beliefs I have.

Does this mean that such ideological beliefs have no impact on me?

On the contrary, they have shaped how I see the world around me, and, to a lesser degree, how others see me.  If they didn't impact and shape me, I wouldn't be blogging.

What one can deduce by looking at the far past is that ideological beliefs were not differentiated from non-ideological beliefs.  Beliefs were beliefs and weren't discussed as such.  In fact, beliefs were treated as facts.  They explained cause and effect on a cosmic scale.

Perhaps the most primitive theistic beliefs provide a window into religious development.  Generally speaking, what is defined as primitive religion today demonstrates a unitive view of  life on this planet.  Everything is seen as coming from the same creative spiritual force or source unbound by the confines of earth; something that resides in the vastness of the skies above or the depths below that expresses itself through the forces of nature.

As civilization advanced and people began to form communities around these theistic beliefs within a defined geographical area, beliefs became increasingly diverse and the religions that gave shape to them became more complex resulting in polytheism.  The functions of life and death, planting and harvesting vegetation, events such as peace and war were idealized and personified into gods and goddesses. This process of idealization and personification allowed people to observe such mysterious functions as life and death or war and peace objectively in the form of myths.

Perhaps the most significant human development, apart from the ability to speak to one another and verbally express our thoughts, was the ability to write them down, to examine them as concrete concepts. Whereas language expanded theistic religion exponentially to create polytheism, writing narrowed polytheism and quickly led to monotheistic views, as differentiation occurred between our understanding of the mundane and the mysterious.  Gods might have existed, but increasingly there was acceptance of a transcending god by which all other gods came into being and was seen as the ultimate creative source of the entire universe.

Writing led to philosophy and theology.  We were not only figuring out the big questions, but figuring out how things worked on a human eye level that did not rely on a god or goddess to explain something's function.  Writing allowed us to identify our beliefs and examine their validity.   Ironically, as theism narrowed religion, as a whole, religion expanded. 

POLYREGLION

It is an ideological belief of mine that theism has been contracting for over three millennia.  I theorize that polytheism was at it highest level before written language was used to record our beliefs.  It is during what Karl Jaspers described as the Axial Period that we can observe a religious metamorphosis; religion dividing into two distinct manifestations, secularism and theism.

Events that narrowed theism also gave rise to secularism. Conquest of one kingdom over another led to empires and the need for statecraft.  For example, the seeds of democracy were embedded in theism early on; in divine, heavenly councils, in priesthood and priestcraft, in discerning the will of the gods.  Kings and emperors needed and depended on wise counsel and trusted lieutenants to govern their vast empires.  Statecraft increasingly became a process of discerning the needs of the empire or the kingdom by a meeting of the minds of the king's council to determine the king's will or what the king's mind would accept  While voting, in the sense we understand it today, was not binding on a ruler, reaching a consensus was valued by most wise kings who could do the math.

The city-states of Greece developed the concept of democracy, especially, in Athens where for a short period of time the will of the people ruled.  Pure democracy, even on a small scale, proved to be fraught with problems as it could be easily manipulated (subject to populism) and become as tyrannical as any king. Plato's "Republic" becomes the first secular work that attempted to systematically define statecraft that could be studied.  Philosophy, as a whole, became a way of looking at and living life objectively.  Philosophy began to order our perceptions of life by examining "What Is."

Of course, this wasn't merely a Western development. The Axial Age was an identifiable global event.  Buddhism, Confucianism, Hinduism, Judaism all became identifiable religions at this time as they began to examine the "What Is" of our existence.  Philosophy allowed us to become objective about rather than subjective to our theistic ideologies.  It gave rise to the realm of metaphysics, an objective approach to understanding what it is to be.  Philosophy also gave rise to theology, the "What is" of God and our relationship to God?"

Philosophy led to the scientific method that explored the "What is" of things; identifying what they are and how they function.  It led to identifying the realm of politics, economics, and ethics that gave rise to the study of human relationships with oneself, others, and the world in general. In its early manifestations, philosophy in the West gave rise to Stoicism, Pythagorism, Cynicism, Epicureanism etc. Today we have Globalism, Humanism, Relativism Scientism, etc. of various types.

One can conclude that everything I'm saying boils down to some form of philosophy.  In essence, that is correct.  My insistence on identifying all such ideological beliefs as religions is simply due to the fact that we humans clump around these beliefs; that we not only identify with them, but that they identify us as individuals and as communities of believers.  In that regard, they are religions.

In that regard, we are all polyreligious.

Until next time, stay faithful.