"Infants laughing or crying is not becuase of memories of past lives."
The mixing of religious and non-religious beliefs in an individual.
Polytheism
Polytheism is the belief of multiple deities also usually assembled into a pantheon of gods and goddesses, along with their own mythologies and rituals.
Polytheism was the typical form of religion during the Bronze Age and Iron Age, up to the Axial Age and the gradual development of monotheism or pantheism, and atheism. It is well documented in historical religions of Classical Antiquity, especially Greek polytheism and Roman polytheism, and after the decline of classical polytheism in tribal religions such as Germanic polytheism or Slavic polytheism. It continues into the modern period in traditions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Shintoism, Chinese folk religion, etc., and it has been revived in currents of Neopaganism in the post-Christian West.
Polytheism is a type of theism. Within theism, it contrasts with monotheism, the belief in a singular God. Polytheists do not always worship all the gods equally, but can be Henotheists, specializing in the worship of one particular deity. Other polytheists can be Kathenotheists, worshipping different deities at different times.
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Yasha Hartberg on -
I wonder if this should be further refined. For instance, I have encountered polytheists who acknowledge many deities, but only those within their own pantheon, and other polytheists who acknowledge the existence of deities outside their own pantheons.
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Permalink Reply by Kernel John on -
Great description of a belief and its relation to associated beliefs.
Great Contribution IMHO.
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Permalink Reply by Sidian M.S. Jones on -
This is a concern we've had as well...basically, what happens when one belief seems to have multiple incarnations?
The way I figure we'll solve this is to simply allow those multiple incarnations. So for instance you might go ahead and post another version of polytheism which is fine. In the end we will just need to make sure they are mapped well in the Belief Genome and titled descriptively.
Yasha Hartberg said:I wonder if this should be further refined. For instance, I have encountered polytheists who acknowledge many deities, but only those within their own pantheon, and other polytheists who acknowledge the existence of deities outside their own pantheons.
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Permalink Reply by Yasha Hartberg on
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I'm not at all surprised. This is an incredibly ambitious project and developing the methodology is going to take time. It would make the work easier if there were a way to split existing belief modules in a way that they are automatically connected to one another in some way, perhaps in a hierarchical fashion, rather than having to set up separate threads for each. For instance, based on this discussion I would recommend two belief modules, one for an ecumenical polytheism that recognizes the existence of deities outside a particular pantheon and and exclusive polytheism that denies the existence of outside deities. However, that would in some ways orphan this belief module, which strikes me as a shame since it is well developed.
Sidian M.S. Jones said:This is a concern we've had as well...basically, what happens when one belief seems to have multiple incarnations?
The way I figure we'll solve this is to simply allow those multiple incarnations. So for instance you might go ahead and post another version of polytheism which is fine. In the end we will just need to make sure they are mapped well in the Belief Genome and titled descriptively.
Yasha Hartberg said:I wonder if this should be further refined. For instance, I have encountered polytheists who acknowledge many deities, but only those within their own pantheon, and other polytheists who acknowledge the existence of deities outside their own pantheons.
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Permalink Reply by Sidian M.S. Jones on
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Yasha, that's exactly the sort of thing I'd like to do as well. In fact that feature alone would make a tremendously awesome difference. Trust me, I'm workin' on it!
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Permalink Reply by Yasha Hartberg on
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Of that I have no doubt. I've done some work setting up relational databases so I have an idea of the magnitude of at least some of the tasks you have in front of you. Unfortunately, my skill set in that regard is extremely limited and, in any event, doesn't seem terribly applicable. I'm afraid I don't have much I can offer the project on that particular front.
Sidian M.S. Jones said:Yasha, that's exactly the sort of thing I'd like to do as well. In fact that feature alone would make a tremendously awesome difference. Trust me, I'm workin' on it!
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Permalink Reply by Sidian M.S. Jones on
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That's too bad, but I appreciate the thought.
What I'm thinking might be our solution is MediaWiki but I'm not sure.
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Permalink Reply by Yasha Hartberg on
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A wiki seemed like an obvious choice to me as well. It gives you considerably more flexibility than what you have here. Of course, they come with their own special joys. I used to use a wiki for several classes I taught and it worked well for building a knowledge base for my students. Thankfully, though, I had someone else to deal with the headaches of the technical mechanics of keeping the system running. I never did see under the hood so to speak with that project.
Sidian M.S. Jones said:That's too bad, but I appreciate the thought.
What I'm thinking might be our solution is MediaWiki but I'm not sure.
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Permalink Reply by Kernel John on
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For me the idea at this stage is to learn from the experience of doing what we're currently doing. This current technology is obviously insufficient in many ways however if we had resources to develop an adequate platform for developing said Belief Module data base, the structure would be the first order of business. Is it safe to assume that foundation beliefs support high beliefs and higher beliefs even higher ones . . . this is not unlike the way and organization describes tasks (which is a form of goal) which describe sets of plans (which is a form of goal) which supports objectives (which is a form of goal) which supports goals which support a corporate mission (which is a form of goal). In other words:
Task is to plan as plan is to objectives as objectives are to goals as goals are to the highest goal called mission. I believe this is called a recursive relationship and is seems to have certain fractal qualities.
Here's something I mentioned a couple of days ago . . . .
Trying to come up with a pre-establsihed taxonomy is problematic. If pre-established, 3 or 4 categories might help:
1/ Ethics/Laws: Love they Neighbour; Don't eat meat
2/ Cosmology: Eternity; Creation; Nature of Soul, Reincarnation
3/ Founders: God; Jesus; Buddha
(just a thought). . . .
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Permalink Reply by Sidian M.S. Jones on
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I very much agree Kernel, especially regarding the task to plan to objective, etc sort of structure. The reason I think this will work is because of Prerequisite Belief Modules. For example, you can't believe in Salvation Through Christ if you don't first believe in Christ.
And while I agree it would be really nice right now to get some categorization around these current BM's, I foresee many problems with those categories already. For instance, many founders talk about ethics.
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Permalink Reply by Yasha Hartberg on
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This is another area where a wiki would be helpful. When I set up wikis for my students, I'd find that for some subjects a structure would emerge organically from the give and take between contributors. Other topics, though, would require some seeding to get off the ground. Once seeded, they could take off and diverge in surprising ways; they just needed some sort of catalyst to begin.
Sidian M.S. Jones said:I very much agree Kernel, especially regarding the task to plan to objective, etc sort of structure. The reason I think this will work is because of Prerequisite Belief Modules. For example, you can't believe in Salvation Through Christ if you don't first believe in Christ.
And while I agree it would be really nice right now to get some categorization around these current BM's, I foresee many problems with those categories already. For instance, many founders talk about ethics.
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Permalink Reply by Samuel the Lamanite on -
Interesting discussion. I'm working on a belief module on the Mormon doctrine of "plurality of Gods." You all might find that one an enjoyable read.
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