Syntheism is a
new religious movement
A new religious movement (NRM), also known as alternative spirituality or a new religion, is a religious or spiritual group that has modern origins and is peripheral to its society's dominant religious culture. NRMs can be novel in origin or th ...
that is focused on how
atheists
Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there no d ...
and
pantheists
Pantheism is the belief that reality, the universe and the cosmos are identical with divinity and a supreme supernatural being or entity, pointing to the universe as being an immanent creator deity still expanding and creating, which has ex ...
can achieve the same feelings of community and awe experienced in traditional
theistic religions.
[.
] The Syntheist Movement sees itself as the practical realisation of a philosophical ambition for a new religion dating back as far as
Baruch Spinoza's
pantheism
Pantheism is the belief that reality, the universe and the cosmos are identical with divinity and a supreme supernatural being or entity, pointing to the universe as being an immanent creator deity still expanding and creating, which has ...
in the 17th century and, most directly, British-American philosopher
Alfred North Whitehead's pioneering work towards a
process theology in his books ''Religion in the Making'' in 1926 and ''
Process and Reality
''Process and Reality'' is a book by Alfred North Whitehead, in which the author propounds a philosophy of organism, also called process philosophy. The book, published in 1929, is a revision of the Gifford Lectures he gave in 1927–28.
Whi ...
'' in 1929.
Syntheism may also be viewed as a response to the lack of atheistic and pantheistic belief systems in Western cultures (outside of
Epicureanism), while being more abundant in Eastern cultures, for example as
Zen Buddhism
Zen ( zh, t=禪, p=Chán; ja, text= 禅, translit=zen; ko, text=선, translit=Seon; vi, text=Thiền) is a school of Mahayana Buddhism that originated in China during the Tang dynasty, known as the Chan School (''Chánzong'' 禪宗), an ...
,
Dzogchen Buddhism,
Advaita Vedanta Hinduism, and
Jainism
Jainism ( ), also known as Jain Dharma, is an Indian religion. Jainism traces its spiritual ideas and history through the succession of twenty-four tirthankaras (supreme preachers of ''Dharma''), with the first in the current time cycle bein ...
.
Etymology
Syntheism was coined from the
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
''syntheos'' (from syn- for ''with'' or ''creating with'' and -theos for ''god''). It implies that the proper approach to the concept of God is that humanity has created, creates or will eventually create
God
In monotheistic thought, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. Swinburne, R.G. "God" in Honderich, Ted. (ed)''The Oxford Companion to Philosophy'', Oxford University Press, 1995. God is typically ...
– as opposed to the traditional
monotheistic view that God created the world and humanity.
Besides the activism of The Syntheist Movement, a syntheistic approach to philosophy and religion has also been advocated by American philosopher
Ray Kurzweil
Raymond Kurzweil ( ; born February 12, 1948) is an American computer scientist, author, inventor, and futurist. He is involved in fields such as optical character recognition (OCR), text-to-speech synthesis, speech recognition technology, and e ...
in his concept of the forthcoming
Singularity. It is also supported by French philosopher
Quentin Meillassoux
Quentin Meillassoux (; ; born
26 October 1967) is a French philosopher. He teaches at the Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne.
Biography
Quentin Meillassoux is the son of the anthropologist Claude Meillassoux. He is a former student of ...
in his idea of "God is a concept far too important to leave to the religious" in his book ''After Finitude''.
Communities
Syntheism has an international
Facebook
Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Mosk ...
community with over 1,500 members. Its website hosts a blog, holy festival information, and links to media and other resources. A
Swedish
Swedish or ' may refer to:
Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically:
* Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland
** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...
community of over 700 members has held several local events.
Spiritual naturalism
Spiritual naturalism, or naturalistic spirituality combines a naturalist approach to spiritual ways of looking at the world. Spiritual naturalism may have first been proposed by Joris-Karl Huysmans in 1895 in his book ''En Route''.
Coming into ...
is considered to be an American version of Syntheism.
[.]
Notable works
When Swedish cyberphilosophers
Alexander Bard
Alexander Bengt Magnus Bard (born 17 March 1961) is a Swedish musician, author, lecturer, artist, songwriter, music producer, TV personality, religious and political activist, and one of the founders of the Syntheist religious movement alongside ...
and
Jan Söderqvist
Jan Söderqvist (born 1961) is an author, lecturer, writer and consultant, and among other things also working as a literary and film critic for the Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet.
Söderqvist has written three books on the Internet revolut ...
published their syntheist manifest
''Syntheism - Creating God in the Internet Age''in October 2014, it became the first book to actively use the term Syntheism in its title. Bard & Söderqvist frequently quote
Stuart Kauffman
Stuart Alan Kauffman (born September 28, 1939) is an American medical doctor, theoretical biologist, and complex systems researcher who studies the origin of life on Earth. He was a professor at the University of Chicago, University of Pennsylv ...
,
Sam Harris
Samuel Benjamin Harris (born April 9, 1967) is an American philosopher, neuroscientist, author, and podcast host. His work touches on a range of topics, including rationality, religion, ethics, free will, neuroscience, meditation, psychedelics ...
,
Robert Corrington and
Simon Critchley
Simon Critchley (born 27 February 1960) is an English philosopher and the Hans Jonas Professor of Philosophy at the New School for Social Research in New York, USA.
Challenging the ancient tradition that philosophy begins in wonder, Critchle ...
in the book, but also find inspiration for a syntheist worldview from a variety of contemporary phenomena such as
digitalisation,
globalisation,
participatory culture
Participatory culture, an opposing concept to consumer culture, is a culture in which private individuals (the public) do not act as consumers only, but also as contributors or producers ( prosumers). The term is most often applied to the produc ...
,
psychedelic practices,
quantum physics and the science of
cosmology
Cosmology () is a branch of physics and metaphysics dealing with the nature of the universe. The term ''cosmology'' was first used in English in 1656 in Thomas Blount's ''Glossographia'', and in 1731 taken up in Latin by German philosopher ...
.
[.]
Beliefs
Syntheism is the belief that the classic division between theism and atheism in
theology
Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine and, more broadly, of religious belief. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing the ...
has become redundant and must be overcome to fulfill contemporary and future spiritual needs. This requires the acknowledgement that all metaphysical beliefs center on a divinity or focal point which is man-made. Therefore, all current and future religious beliefs are created by humans, as well as systems such as
Individualism
Individualism is the moral stance, political philosophy, ideology and social outlook that emphasizes the intrinsic worth of the individual. Individualists promote the exercise of one's goals and desires and to value independence and self-reli ...
developed by philosophers like
René Descartes
René Descartes ( or ; ; Latinized: Renatus Cartesius; 31 March 1596 – 11 February 1650) was a French philosopher, scientist, and mathematician, widely considered a seminal figure in the emergence of modern philosophy and science. Ma ...
and
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant (, , ; 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German philosopher and one of the central Enlightenment thinkers. Born in Königsberg, Kant's comprehensive and systematic works in epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, and ...
).
Despite being human creations, what is important is that these beliefs strengthen, and not contradict, science. They must therefore be developed within a
monist worldview (the conviction that there is one world and one world only, and that everything within this one world can affect everything else). In a more poetic vein, Bataille describes his atheology as “the art of non-knowledge”. He rather advocates a syntheist religion without a core set of beliefs.
Participatory festivals with
utopian
A utopia ( ) typically describes an imaginary community or society that possesses highly desirable or nearly perfect qualities for its members. It was coined by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book ''Utopia'', describing a fictional island society ...
themes such as
Burning Man are considered examples of syntheistic practice.
Criticisms
Lack of central leadership and core beliefs have led some scholars, such as Dr. Stephen O'Leary, to believe Syntheism will fail. The idea has also been criticised for a potential lack of mystery.
References
External links
*{{Commonscatinline
Nontheism
Pantheism
Religious organizations established in 2012
Transtheism
Religious naturalism
Religion in Sweden