While I am going to use this post to describe to the best of my ability, what I believe Omnism to be, and what it means to be an Omnist. The fact remains that I am a human being and we have flaws, so there are bound to be loose threads in a lot of my posts. As I mentioned in my Foreword, I am simple describing my thought process through what we call life, and summing it up as clear as I can. This is how I, as am Omnist can explain my philosophy of my belief.
Omnism is the affirmation that all faiths, beliefs and religions are recognised and respected. This includes their gods or lack thereof. A person who does not claim any one religion, practice or belief, but finds truth in them all is considered an Omnist. A person who describes themselves as 'spiritual', but not 'religious' is probably and Omnist, without even knowing the name.
Many ideologies which claimed to have stemmed from one major branch, have in fact forked out into many schools of thought. Take the Abrahamic religions for example. Abraham is mentioned in The Quran, The Bible, and the Torah. The Jewish tradition claims to be descended from him through his son Isaac, then his son Jacob. Christianity split from Judaism in the 1st century CE, and Islam was founded by Muhammad in the 7th century CE, both spreading widely across the land. This proves, that despite all originating from the same monotheism, several changes occurred over the centuries, and many differences and fundamentals were skewed to their own agendas and way of living. Just as it happened with dividing tribes of Animist cultures eventually drifting apart. The same is with any ideology or thought process. Even people of science differ in many agreed instances. Eg, String theory vs Loop theory, among many others. Omnism is no different than any of these practises.
There is no one type of Omnist with a strict law they must follow. Rather, each Omnist is individual, and in practice, can disagree with every other Omnist they come into contact with. In fact, I belive it is inevitable that all Omnists will disagree on one level or another.
Omnism is more of a theoretical and philosophical belief system, rather than a strict code to live by. As humans, our perspective of religion reflects our collective times and our experiences, this is what I as an Omnist am trying to avoid. By seeing into the self mind and the self experiences, and putting yourself in the shoes of individuals that sometimes lived thousands of years ago. Taking these insights and experiences into account, and applying them to our own individual lives.
Regardless of the origins of these ideologies, be it divine intervention, prophets, psychedelics, or the unknown, there is no argument that these creeds and morals have bettered hundreds of thousands of lives over the globe. We will get into the negatives a bit later.
As spiritual human, I am trying to gather all of the information of any experience with spirituality, and attempting to work out what we, as a collective can and cannot truly know. There is a branch of philosophy called empiricism that states that you cannot truly trust anything you must find all the possible answers at disposal from what your own given senses tell you, and make an intuitive judgment based on those facts. Crime scene detectives do the same thing. They must get all points of view to build a clearer picture of what it means. Sure, they may be able to find the culprit with only one of the clues, but more clues will still fit, and gain more insight into the bigger picture.
This is where atheist and agnostic arguments come into the conversation, and they have merit here. What evidence has there been for any theistic practice throughout history that their deity can be even slightly proven? But then you must argue, why are there so many cases of there being a higher divine power. In an overwhelming majority of cultures throughout the ages, the mass of the people have insisted there to have been a creator. Most agnostics agree that we can never know if there is one or not. Atheists can make fair claims that the masses have been indoctrinated in a specific culture and manipulated into worshipping, sometimes under threat of death. Which is why in this day and age, without a threat of death, or ostracisation in many countries, atheist numbers are rising.
Regardless of the argument, I hope we can all agree that there is a reason, cause, and sometimes if used correctly, lasting peace that can come from many of these practices, and if taken literally, every religion can cause harm to modern cultures.
Multiple Faces
Think about sitting down, and reading a book, or watching a movie. Sometimes the main character is fictional, sometimes clearly made up, or based on true events. You will go through a journey with them, learning about their trials and tribulations. But after they finish the journey with the protagonist, an audience member will have a strange change come over them. One movie, or one book, and one can be enthralled by this characters life, and want to copy every aspect of their persona. Want to walk like they do, and talk like they do, even dress like they do. This can sometimes show as the call of the Ubermench, which appears in the role of Tyler Durden in Fight Club; or a peaceful practitioner of faith, such as Yoda; even perhaps, a relaxed man in Beverly Hills following his own code of Dudeism.
Regardless, most of the aspects of their lives that we seem to want to mimic, will fade just as quickly as they appeared, but some quirks and ways of their life will remain with us, consciously or subconsciously. As we watch a new movie however, or read a new book, we find new characters, new idols, new icons that we will aspire to be like.
Humans have a fascinating ability to mimic positive and welcomed behaviour, especially those that are rewarded. This reinforces these ideas on a subconscious level, much like a Pavlovian response. One will then pick more traits up from other books and movies, and build a picture of what they would like to act like as a person.
Some people clearly have modelled their life after a character they have read about or watched. There is nothing wrong with them doing this. However, modelling yourself from one character can have troubling affects, and sometimes be unhealthy, as your life is not the same as the subject's, you are built through different past experiences. What makes you tick, doesn't make them tick. But suppose you could read and watch every single movie and book, and draw bits and pieces from these texts and apply them to your life. Through your own experiences, you can start to build the puzzle of your personality. This is how I personally see religions and ideologies, as a guide how to live your life to be a better person. There is sometimes much history behind these texts, and If they are to be taken literally, it can have some worrying and dangerous affects. These people did live hundreds, to thousands of years ago after all.
Yes, people will argue that Omnists pick and choose what's good and what is not, but have humans not been doing that for thousands, if not millions of years?
Religion or Philosophy?
This is the most import distinction to make. In my opinion, it is a philosophy of religion, but not a religion itself.
My goal with this text is to raise awareness and acceptance to everyone in the world, regardless of their creed. They are all of peace. We are of peace. Debate is not needed over verses or what certain metaphors could be. It is your interpretation, and yours alone. If it brings you peace and love to humanity, then it has worked. Use what works for you. The creator, or lack thereof, gave you an ability of free thought, and a rational mind, to go hand in hand.
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