[ExI] religious non-binary

[Dan TheBookMan]

On Wed, Oct 21, 2020 at 3:10 AM spike jones via extropy-chat
<extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
> We have gender non-binaries, so it stands to reason religion should have
> that too:
>
> https://babylonbee.com/news/people-demand-third-party-choice-instead-of-just
> -god-or-satan
>
> Sheesh it is OK to lighten up a bit once in a while.

Kidding aside, religious beliefs and, even more so, the actual
religious practices tend to be far more 'non-binary' and some are even
non-exclusivist. Think of people who consider themselves Buddhists and
Confucians and Taoists all together -- not one or the other. And
inclusivism is the rule in many strains of Hinduism as it was in many
polytheistic religions of old. Ancient Greeks and Romans had no
problem adding a new god to their pantheon or a new set of devotions
to their practices. (And take a look at the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom,
which kind of was a melting pot for Greek, Zorastrian, Hindu, and
Buddhist belief systems.)

It's only with exclusivist faiths that there's a problem with this.
And like I said in my opening, even members of those faiths tend to
know their catechism but practice something at variance with it. In
early Christianity -- well, in the forms that lasted -- the big
problem was getting polytheists to not keep worshiping the full
pantheon in addition to the Christian god or, later, the Christian
triune god. Even now, Christians will do astrology, read tarot cards,
and engage in all kinds of activities that are at variance with
exclusivity. And, yeah, they might profess sincerely their
exclusivity, but then there's their actual actions. (There's even a
label for this: theological incorrectness.)

If anything, non-binary religious practice is messy and more like
non-binary gender than the neat and clear distinctions people seem to
think are there.

Regards,

Dan
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