Egotheism

Last updated

Egotheism or autotheism is the deification or worship of the self. [1] [2] [3] Critics of Johann Gottlieb Fichte and Ralph Waldo Emerson used the terms to label their transcendental philosophy. [4] [5] [6] [7] Autolatry is another synonym which was used to label the ideology of Max Stirner. [8] [9] [10] [11]

Contents

Ancient religions

Several Egyptian kings declared themselves gods during their reign. [12] Identification of the atman (self) with Brahman is a tenet of some sects of Hinduism. In Jainism, one who extinguishes all of their karmas becomes a tirthankara with godlike knowledge and powers. [13] The proto protestant Adamites [14] believed in self deification. [15]

Modern religions

Early individuals who declared themselves to be gods include the English prophet John Robins and Danilo Filipov, who led a heterodox Quaker cult in Russia. [16] [17] Henry VIII was accused of autolatry after becoming a Protestant and establishing Anglicanism. [18] [19] [20] After he reconverted to Protestantism, Jean-Jacques Rousseau advocated civil religion which was accused of inspiring self worship amongst citizenry. [21] [22] [23] [24] [25]

Founder of North Korea Kim Il Sung instituted worship of himself amongst the citizens and it is considered the only country to deify its ruler with citizens bowing to his statues. [26] [27] [28] [29] After his death he was declared 'Eternal President' by the North Korean authorities. Contemporary figures who have professed themselves to be deities include Father Divine and Jim Jones. [30] Mormonism is a religion that teaches self-deification. [31]

See also

Related Research Articles

Agnosticism is the view or belief that the existence of God, of the divine or the supernatural is unknown or unknowable. Another definition provided is the view that "human reason is incapable of providing sufficient rational grounds to justify either the belief that God exists or the belief that God does not exist."

Monotheism is the belief that there is only one deity, an all-supreme being that is universally referred to as God. A distinction may be made between exclusive monotheism, in which the one God is a singular existence, and both inclusive and pluriform monotheism, in which multiple gods or godly forms are recognized, but each are postulated as extensions of the same God.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Theism</span> Belief in the existence of at least one deity; the opposite of atheism

Theism is broadly defined as the belief in the existence of at least one deity. In common parlance, or when contrasted with deism, the term often describes the classical conception of God that is found in monotheism — or gods found in polytheistic religions — a belief in God or in gods without the rejection of revelation as is characteristic of deism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hindu deities</span> Gods and goddesses in Hinduism

Hindu deities are the gods and goddesses in Hinduism. The terms and epithets for deities within the diverse traditions of Hinduism vary, and include Deva, Devi, Ishvara, Ishvari, Bhagavān and Bhagavati.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Religion in Japan</span> Religious practices in Japan

Religion in Japan is manifested primarily in Shinto and in Buddhism, the two main faiths, which Japanese people often practice simultaneously. According to estimates, as many as 80% of the populace follow Shinto rituals to some degree, worshiping ancestors and spirits at domestic altars and public shrines. An almost equally high number is reported as Buddhist. Syncretic combinations of both, known generally as shinbutsu-shūgō, are common; they represented Japan's dominant religion before the rise of State Shinto in the 19th century.

Civil religion, also referred to as a civic religion, is the implicit religious values of a nation, as expressed through public rituals, symbols, and ceremonies on sacred days and at sacred places. It is distinct from churches, although church officials and ceremonies are sometimes incorporated into the practice of civil religion. Countries described as having a civil religion include France, the former Soviet Union, and the United States. As a concept, it originated in French political thought and became a major topic for U.S. sociologists since its use by Robert Bellah in 1960.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Idolatry</span> Worship of an idol as though it were a god

Idolatry is the worship of a cult image or "idol" as though it were God. In Abrahamic religions idolatry connotes the worship of something or someone other than the Abrahamic God as if it were God. In these monotheistic religions, idolatry has been considered as the "worship of false gods" and is forbidden by texts such as the Ten Commandments. Other monotheistic religions may apply similar rules.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ethnic religion</span> Religion associated with a particular ethnic group

In religious studies, an ethnic religion is a religion or belief associated with a particular ethnic group. Ethnic religions are often distinguished from universal religions, such as Christianity or Islam, in which gaining converts is a primary objective and, therefore, are not limited in ethnic, national or racial scope.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Apotheosis</span> Glorification of a subject to divine level

Apotheosis, also called divinization or deification, is the glorification of a subject to divine levels and, commonly, the treatment of a human being, any other living thing, or an abstract idea in the likeness of a deity.

Nature worship also called naturism or physiolatry is any of a variety of religious, spiritual and devotional practices that focus on the worship of the nature spirits considered to be behind the natural phenomena visible throughout nature. A nature deity can be in charge of nature, a place, a biotope, the biosphere, the cosmos, or the universe. Nature worship is often considered the primitive source of modern religious beliefs and can be found in pantheism, panentheism, deism, polytheism, animism, Taoism, totemism, Hinduism, shamanism, some theism and paganism including Wicca. Common to most forms of nature worship is a spiritual focus on the individual's connection and influence on some aspects of the natural world and reverence towards it. Due to their admiration of nature, the works of Edmund Spenser, Anthony Ashley-Cooper and Carl Linnaeus were viewed as nature worship.

There are no known official statistics of religions in North Korea. Officially, North Korea is an atheist state, although its constitution guarantees free exercise of religion, provided that religious practice does not introduce foreign forces, harm the state, or harm the existing social order. Based on estimates from the late 1990s and the 2000s, North Korea is mostly irreligious, with the main religions being Shamanism and Chondoism. There are small communities of Buddhists and Christians. Chondoism is represented in politics by the Party of the Young Friends of the Heavenly Way, and is regarded by the government as Korea's "national religion" because of its identity as a minjung (popular) and "revolutionary anti-imperialist" movement.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">God</span> Principal object of faith in monotheism

In monotheistic thought, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. In polytheistic thought, a god is "a spirit or being believed to control some part of the universe or life and often worshipped for doing so, or something that represents this spirit or being". Belief in the existence of at least one god is called theism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">God in Hinduism</span> Hindu conception of God

In Hinduism, the concept of God varies in its diverse religio-philosophical traditions. Hinduism comprises a wide range of beliefs about God and divinity, such as henotheism, monotheism, polytheism, panentheism, pantheism, pandeism, monism, agnosticism, atheism, and nontheism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">East Asian religions</span> Subset of the Eastern religions

In the study of comparative religion, the East Asian religions or Taoic religions, form a subset of the Eastern religions. This group includes Chinese religion overall, which further includes Ancestral Worship, Chinese folk religion, Confucianism, Taoism and popular salvationist organisations, as well as elements drawn from Mahayana Buddhism that form the core of Chinese and East Asian Buddhism at large. The group also includes Japanese Shinto, Tenrikyo, and Korean Muism, all of which combine Shamanistic elements and indigenous ancestral worship with various influences from Chinese religions. Chinese salvationist religions have influenced the rise of Japanese new religions such Tenriism and Korean Jeungsanism; as these new religious movements draw upon indigenous traditions but are heavily influenced by Chinese philosophy and theology.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Polytheism</span> Worship of or belief in multiple deities

Polytheism is the belief and worship in multiple deities or Spirits, which are usually assembled into a pantheon of gods and goddesses, along with their own religious sects and rituals. Polytheism is a type of theism. Within theism, it contrasts with monotheism, the belief in a singular God who is, in most cases, transcendent. In religions that accept polytheism, the different gods and goddesses may be representations of forces of nature or ancestral principles; they can be viewed either as autonomous or as aspects or emanations of a creator deity or transcendental absolute principle, which manifests immanently in nature. Polytheists do not always worship all the gods equally; they can be henotheists, specializing in the worship of one particular deity, or kathenotheists, worshiping different deities at different times.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vishvakarma Puja</span> Hindu observance

Vishvakarma Puja, also rendered Vishvakarma Jayanti, is a Hindu observance dedicated to Vishvakarma, the architect of the gods.

In religious studies and folkloristics, folk religion, popular religion, traditional religion or vernacular religion comprises various forms and expressions of religion that are distinct from the official doctrines and practices of organized religion. The precise definition of folk religion varies among scholars. Sometimes also termed popular belief, it consists of ethnic or regional religious customs under the umbrella of a religion, but outside official doctrine and practices.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Deity</span> Supernatural being

A deity or god is a supernatural being considered to be sacred and worthy of worship. The Oxford Dictionary of English defines deity as a god or goddess, or anything revered as divine. C. Scott Littleton defines a deity as "a being with powers greater than those of ordinary humans, but who interacts with humans, positively or negatively, in ways that carry humans to new levels of consciousness, beyond the grounded preoccupations of ordinary life".

Kotoshironushi (事代主神), also known as Yae Kotoshironushi no kami (八重言代主神), is a Shinto kami.

Religious syncretism is the blending of religious belief systems into a new system, or the incorporation of other beliefs into an existing religious tradition.

References

  1. ↑ "Egotheism definition and meaning | Collins English Dictionary".
  2. ↑ "Definition of AUTOTHEISM".
  3. ↑ "Autolatry definition and meaning | Collins English Dictionary".
  4. ↑ Versluis, Arthur (September 16, 1993). American Transcendentalism and Asian Religions. Oxford University Press. ISBN   978-0-19-536037-0 – via Google Books.
  5. ↑ "The Contemporary Review". A. Strahan. October 2, 1868 – via Google Books.
  6. ↑ Hurth, Elisabeth (August 30, 2007). Between Faith and Unbelief: American Transcendentalists and the Challenge of Atheism. BRILL. ISBN   9789047421269 – via Google Books.
  7. ↑ Woodress, James Leslie (October 3, 2004). "American Literary Scholarship". Duke University Press – via Google Books.
  8. ↑ Murray, James Augustus Henry (1888). "A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles".
  9. ↑ "Lippincott's Monthly Magazine". 1868.
  10. ↑ Janet, Paul (October 5, 1866). "The Materialism of the Present Day: A Critique of Dr. Büchner's System". H. Baillière – via Google Books.
  11. ↑ Methodist Episcopal Church (1865). The Methodist Quarterly Review. American periodical series, 1800-1850. G. Lane and P.P. Sanford. p. 32. Retrieved 2023-02-19.
  12. ↑ Sabbahy, Lisa K. (April 24, 2019). All Things Ancient Egypt: An Encyclopedia of the Ancient Egyptian World [2 volumes]. ABC-CLIO. ISBN   9781440855139 – via Google Books.
  13. ↑ Orr, Norman (January 29, 2021). Embracing Biological Humanism: Abandoning the Idea of God. Archway Publishing. ISBN   9781480898684 – via Google Books.
  14. ↑ Smith, V.S. (2008). Clean: A History of Personal Hygiene and Purity. Clean: A History of Personal Hygiene and Purity. Oxford University Press. p. 271. ISBN   978-0-19-953208-7 . Retrieved 2023-06-11.
  15. ↑ Tricoire, D.; Laborie, L. (2022). Apocalypse Now: Connected Histories of Eschatological Movements from Moscow to Cusco, 15th-18th Centuries. Routledge Studies in Early Modern Religious Dissents and Radicalism. Taylor & Francis. p. 50. ISBN   978-1-000-62499-1 . Retrieved 2023-06-11.
  16. ↑ Delany, P. (2015). British Autobiography in the Seventeenth Century. Routledge Library Editions: Autobiography. Taylor & Francis. p. 94. ISBN   978-1-317-37621-7 . Retrieved 2023-01-17.
  17. ↑ de Lazari, A. (1999). Идеи в России. Idee w Rosji (in Russian). Semper. ISBN   978-83-907031-8-3 . Retrieved 2023-01-17.
  18. ↑ Routledge Library Editions: Historiography. Routledge Library Editions: Historiography. Taylor & Francis. 2021. p. 17-PA186. ISBN   978-1-317-26808-6 . Retrieved 2023-02-19.
  19. ↑ Oman, C.W.C. (2018). Revival: The Sixteenth Century (1936). Routledge Revivals. Taylor & Francis. p. 106. ISBN   978-1-351-34170-7 . Retrieved 2023-02-19.
  20. ↑ Sangster, A. (2019). The Roots of Nationalism in European History. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. p. 94. ISBN   978-1-5275-3688-3 . Retrieved 2023-03-06.
  21. ↑ Mosse, G.L.; de Grazia, V. (2023). The Nationalization of the Masses: Political Symbolism and Mass Movements in Germany from the Napoleonic Wars Through the Third Reich. The Collected Works of George L. Mosse. University of Wisconsin Press. p. 3. ISBN   978-0-299-34204-3 . Retrieved 2023-02-26.
  22. ↑ Griffin, R.; Feldman, M. (2004). Fascism: The nature of fascism. Critical concepts in political science. Routledge. p. 145. ISBN   978-0-415-29016-6 . Retrieved 2023-02-26.
  23. ↑ Kecmanovic, D. (2013). The Mass Psychology of Ethnonationalism. Path in Psychology. Springer US. p. 202. ISBN   978-1-4899-0188-0 . Retrieved 2023-02-26.
  24. ↑ University of Prince Edward Island (1978). Canadian Review of Studies in Nationalism: Revue Canadienne Des Études Sur Le Nationalisme (in French). University of Prince Edward Island. Retrieved 2023-02-26.
  25. ↑ Anderson, A.; Valente, J. (2002). Disciplinarity at the Fin de Siècle. Princeton University Press. p. 170. ISBN   978-0-691-08962-1 . Retrieved 2023-03-06.
  26. ↑ He, K.; Feng, H. (2013). Prospect Theory and Foreign Policy Analysis in the Asia Pacific: Rational Leaders and Risky Behavior. Foreign Policy Analysis. Taylor & Francis. p. 62. ISBN   978-1-135-13119-7 . Retrieved 2023-02-12.
  27. ↑ Floru, JP (2017). The Sun Tyrant: A Nightmare Called North Korea. Biteback Publishing. p. 7. ISBN   978-1-78590-288-8 . Retrieved 2023-02-13.
  28. ↑ Vantage Point. Naewoe Press. 1982. Retrieved 2023-02-13.
  29. ↑ Yeo, A.; Chubb, D. (2018). North Korean Human Rights: Activists and Networks. Cambridge University Press. p. 262. ISBN   978-1-108-69284-7 . Retrieved 2023-08-06.
  30. ↑ "10 Real People Who Became Gods". September 2, 2016.
  31. ↑ Hewitt, Hugh (March 12, 2007). A Mormon in the White House?: 10 Things Every Conservative Should Know About Mitt Romney. Simon and Schuster. ISBN   9781596980488 – via Google Books.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.