What is a theism? Any transcendence of the One over the many. This is why humanism, patriarchy, monarchies, companies governed by managers and CEOs, racisms, nationalisms, and so on are as much theisms as Christianity, Islam, Judaism, or any other monotheistic religion. Wherever there is a sovereign or a father there is a theism. Or as Deleuze and Guattari put it,” [W]erever there is transcendence, vertical Being, imperial State in the sky or on earth, there is religion and there is Philosophy only where there is immanence… only friends can set out a plane of immanence as a ground from which idols have been cleared” (Quoted in LeRon Shultz, Iconoclastic Theology, .pdf, 1). It matters not if that theism is secular, without anything divine or supernatural. It is no less a religion for all that (as Compte well saw in his humanism). It is for this reason that atheism is a synonym for anarchism. Atheology targets this structure wwherever it might occur.
March 26, 2014
April 9, 2014 at 4:03 am
I’m enjoying your site. I’m not an academic, but have read philosophy all my life. I enjoyed your books, especially Democracy of Objects which is a position I came to from another direction – politics. It seems hard to me to establish priviledge when we are all on the same plane ontologically. The result is democracy. Of course there is the might makes right issue, etc, but in principle, it would be hard to ground a hierarchy if one accepted a flat ontology. No one need apologize for their existence which has LGBT implications among others.
I realize I am off topic with respect to theism, but I find your thoughts right on with regard to theism. Are we still waiting for an ‘Atheogy of the Non-god?’