Religion: Different Types and Flimsy Distinctions

March 30, 2023

What truly defines a religion? Most people in response would say something along the lines of “The organized belief of a governing set of principles united through the worship of some deity or divine power.” I would argue that this definition largely fails, but more on that later. First, let us break down religion as defined above into primary categories: Monotheism, Polytheism, and Dualism.

Monotheism, the belief in a singular God, is the most familiar of these three branches for your average western audience. Monotheism, however, is far from the historical norm. Christianity only became dominant around 313 AD when Emperor Constantine openly accepted the religion- 10 years later it would become the official religion of Rome. Polytheism differs from monotheistic religions in that rather than one all-knowing God, there are numerous gods that typically represent experienced aspects of the world. These religions are often tied more to nature, and interestingly enough, the gods in polytheistic religions are often seen as powerful but failable, unlike God in most monotheistic ones. Finally, dualistic religions are broadly based on the idea that the world has two primary forces: Good and Evil. Because of this, dualistic religions have an easy time answering the question “why is there evil in the world?” whereas Monotheistic religions like Christianity often have to fumble for an explanation of why a perfect God would allow such imperfection. Conversely, monotheistic religions have an easy time explaining why the universe has certain intrinsic laws like gravity as one God created them, however, dualistic religions often struggle here. If in the beginning there were two governing forces always in opposition, who made the rules of the universe?

Now that we have these main distinctions of the three branches of religion, I urge you to completely forget them. The number of divine forces in a given religion is a poor method of distinction. Indeed, once Constantine had allowed Christianity to become the official religion of Rome, saints simply took the place of numerous gods. There is little difference between the two- people continued to pray and worship saints as they would have deities, and saints patronized cities much in the same way Roman gods did. Monotheism differs from Polytheism and Dualism not because of the number of divine forces, but rather what these forces care about. Monotheistic religions typically hold that God holds an interest in human well-being. “Jesus died for our sins.” From an evolutionary perspective, this is naive. Humankind, homo sapiens, is not naturally the ruler of the Earth as it may seem. Evidence increasingly shows that for the vast majority of our existence, Homo sapiens was much closer to the middle of the food chain than the top. We equate evolutionary success with dominant intellect because our creativity and cognition allowed us to develop technology that artificially places us at the pinnacle of the species hierarchy, at least according to us. By means of force, certainly, if there was to be a battle to the death of all species Homo sapiens would emerge unscathed protected by metal and bullets. But is this what defines a species' success? Homo erectus, widely agreed to be a human ancestor, walked the earth for over 1.5 million years. In comparison, we have been here for a mere fifth of that time. With self-induced climate change a growing threat to our very survival, we will be lucky if we are around even close to as long as H. erectus was. Perhaps then, they are the more successful species. But back to the point. Monotheistic religions largely ignore this- instead having a God uniquely interested in Homo sapiens alone. Of course, most were created prior to our knowledge of evolution, but other religions do not have this seeming flaw. Polytheistic religions, while consisting of numerous Gods interested in human wellbeing, almost always have some meta-governing principle that is fully disinterested. In ancient Rome and Greece, this force is the Fates. Humans spent fortunes sacrificing to Demeter for healthy crops or to Aries for success in war, yet never spared a drachma on sacrifice to the Fates. Indeed even the Gods were not immune to the Fates’ power. In other polytheistic religions, all gods were created or born from one superior god, to whom they are subordinate. This supreme God cares not to distinguish between ants and humans. In dualistic religions too, a similar trend can be seen. While connected to humans, the ongoing battle between good and evil does not care about humans. It is simply a universal balance that must be maintained. I am not personally religious, but at least to me, this disinterested power seems far more logical than one which cares for one species above all else.

I urge you to forget a second aspect of religion: the necessity of divine power. In fact, you may not realize it but you are not fully tied to the idea that religion must have a divine decree. Buddhists do not believe in any kind of deity or god, Buddha was simply a normal person named Siddhartha Gautama, who realized that wanting was the root of all unhappiness, and so in ridding his mind of wanting he became Buddha, the enlightened one. So Buddhism has no god, yet we all recognize it as a religion. Religion is simply a set of principles that a group of people lives by. Nationalism may be easy to accept as a religious system of belief, however, I would argue that both capitalism and communism may be considered religions. Many Americans have far more faith in the power of the free market than in the power of God. In practice, the distinction between Christianity and Capitalism is hardly significant. The distinction is similar to that between SciFi and Fantasy. They feel different to us, but really both have completely unrealistic elements, one just seems more science-y. Orson Scott Card puts its well: “Science Fiction has rivets, fantasy has trees.” Similarly: “Christianity has priests, Capitalism has economists.” The distinction is arbitrary.