Revelations indeed

[branchandroot]

You know how some authors, especially fantasy authors doing the whole spiritual-magic gig, will bring forward the "all gods are really one god, because uber-god is Goodness/Light/Love/Insert-virtue-here" trope? (Eg. Katherine Kurtz and Mercedes Lackey.) You know what that really reminds me of? That deeply horrifying short story Barbara Hambly wrote for Gaiman's Sandman anthology, "Each Damp Thing". There's just something intensely cannibalistic about the sentiment, especially in the mouth of a member of a culturally imperialist group. It's like syncretism turned inside out--not preserving individual practices, but taking away their weight until they can be waved off as surface trappings.

I've seen the principle argued persuasively in actual theology, notably some branches of Judaism. But the Western literary expression of it generally seems to be all about appropriation and how reincarnation can magically erase ethnic, cultural, and religious boundaries, totally ignoring the implications of actual lived experience and memory in each life.

Comments

[adalger]

You give me plot bunnies. Worser and more plentiful than the dust bunnies under my bed, you give me plot bunnies under the dark disused furniture and lurking in the unfrequented, abandoned corners of my mind.

Stand by, signal is garble.d {squawk} -stop-

[opusculus]

Yes, this. I've always kind of hated the way it just waves over the fact that there's often many, very real differences and it's not just a magic cure-all for disagreements over religion. And the way this uber-god always feels a lot more vaguely Christian than any other religion to me never stops bugging me.

[chronolith]

Bypassing the serious discussion of theology because I can't talk about it long and still stay gruntled: i really do want to read a story about cannablistic gods and the only reason the West has one god is because he ran around eating all the others.

[staranise]

Yes, thank you.

It's always two poles, tugging in opposite directions--on one hand, it would be nice if we could all get along; on the other, we are all different and differences matter, and you cannot erase human diversity no matter how you try.

[dragonscrawl]

The other thing that bothers me a bit about the "all gods really one god" thing is that I feel like there would always end up being some underlying discord. For example, someone who believed in Religion X could seem outwardly tolerant but inwardly believe that Religion Y was the worst thing ever, all gods really one god or not. I think I've come across shades of it a time or two, but not really anything outright.