Most of the time when people say they have an unpopular opinion, it turns out it’s actually pretty popular.
Do you have some that’s really unpopular and most likely will get you downvoted?
Most of the time when people say they have an unpopular opinion, it turns out it’s actually pretty popular.
Do you have some that’s really unpopular and most likely will get you downvoted?
Here’s the problem with your argument.
If you had this stuff shoved down your throat as a kid, it’s still there - no matter what you choose to believe in your adult life. It’s very easy to decide what you believe when you’re relaxing on your sofa… but that might not matter when you undergo events that are psychologically traumatic. It’s called a regressive state - a term I actually picked up reading the torture manuals the CIA used to train it’s death squads in Latin America. There’s a very good reason you have people from these “prosperity gospel” scams hanging around drug rehab centers and mental asylums - it’s just so much easier getting their claws into people when they’ve undergone such traumas and are vulnerable. I’ve lived long enough to have experienced it myself and watched others experience it - it’s not pretty. It’s scary, because it implies that we are not as much in control of our own psyches as we’d like to think we are, and that’s perfectly understandable.
I’ve been musing on this a bit. Like, what is it REALLY like in someone’s head, spiritually, if they literally grow up with a non-monotheistic religion?
I read a lot of books, esp. sci-fi and fantasy which are prone to messing around with all sorts of things including religion, but I haven’t actually read a good one that really “demonstrated” what having a polytheistic or animist spirituality is like.
Maybe taking a look into eastern asian cultures would be close enough? A good portion of their mythos treat gods as powerful beings that can fall from grace and be defeated. Also, in Chinese Taoism, humans responsible for great deeds can ascend into godhood
Most of India might also provide a very good look into how people who grew into a polytheistic society act and think about their own spirituality. Japanese Shintoism might be the closest look into an “easily accessible” animist look