Continued Observations on the Egonovism of American Society and Dialogs with Egonovists

Continued Observations on the Egonovism of American Society and Dialogs with Egonovists (Click for full article)

Excerpt:

I had previous introduced the term egonovism to the lexicon of the internet in 2010. The term describes how Americans define their religious beliefs based not on the teachings of priests or pastors, and not even on centuries old scripture, but rather from a combination of the self (ego), and society.

The term spread far and fast; the essay was republished thousands of times, and even renowned author Anne Rice stated that she felt kinship with the term. For her comments I thank her.

Egonovism is not necessarily negative. It is, as argued, the most predominate religion in America today, and has only grown in the past three years. The term not only describes the average American, but the American president, Barack Obama, numerous politicians, business leaders, and seemingly the new Pope, Francis as well. Their egonovist positions are so obvious that some believe them to be secret atheists. (I am sure the idea of an atheist pope delights some.)

Exodus to Egonovism

Strict adherence to the canonical teachings of religion, be it Christianity, Judaism, Islam, or any ancient structured belief, is more and more incompatible with existence in our society, which is produced from our wants.

We have created government to supply the deficit of moral consciousness among ourselves, (to keep in check criminal acts when morals fail, to provide for the needy when charity fails), but as proprietors of society, the first duty we have is to each other, because our natural instinct demands duty to the self and self-interests. We cannot acquire wealth, maintain health, or socialize, without society, and without society, our self-interests, be them biological needs or fanciful desires, could not be filled.

It is because of both societal needs and the needs of our own egos that we Americans have, as a country, so embraced egonovism; for the first reason, because fundamentalist religious beliefs are incompatible with society and the self; and for the second reason, because the vast majority of us require a component of spirituality for self-fulfillment. It is for this purpose that we, unintentionally, created egonovism to serve both the self and society.

The Incompatibility of Fundamentalist Religion and Society

Fundamentalist religious beliefs are too abrasive for society, therefore we protect society from them. In the Christian and Jewish scriptures God commands that if a man sleeps with a married woman who is not his wife, or if a woman who is married sleeps with a man who is not her husband, that both shall be put to death. In Islamic law, adultery is one of the three justifications given for killing a person. (This would have meant that it was someone’s duty to murder the forty-second president of the United States of America.) Killing is not acceptable in our society and legalizing it would cause a systemic breakdown.

Moreover, in the aforementioned example, the act of following the laws of God would be detrimental to the self. Because – fortunately – society does not allow for people to be killed, the act of killing carries with it harsh punishments that prevents the self from obtaining necessary needs, and would surely remove freedom.

In order for the desires of the individual to be fulfilled, they must first be accepted into society. Old, outdated beliefs concerning science, for example, make that impossible. Not only is the outright rejection of certain scientific facts, such as evolution, becoming more and more of a social stigma every day, thereby creating obstacles for relationships of both friends and of romance.

The Incompatibility of Fundamentalist Religion and Individual Fulfillment

Spiritual fulfillment is but one aspect of the natural human desire for self-actualization. Each person determines individually what factors will lead to a satisfying life. These factors may include a career field, such as geology, which is incompatible with the fundamentalist belief in a young Earth, and may lead to, a financial loss and a lack of intellectual fulfillment.

The fundamentalist belief may include ideas of male superiority, which may cause incompatibility with finding a spouse and having children; they may call for the stoning of a neighbor, which would deprive the self of freedom and also other natural rights.

Some embrace atheism and renounce religious spiritualism altogether, choosing to instead embrace their mortality and find deeper “spiritual” meaning in the wonders of the entire universe.

The ego’s desire for spiritual fulfillment is so strong in most people, however, that they need the parts of religion that they view as being positive. This almost always includes the idea of what I call Western karma, in which positive karma, unlike its Brahmanism origin, is earned and paid for in this life and negative karma is earned and dealt out in this life as well. In other words, a watchful higher power rewards good deeds and punishes those who commit bad deeds.

If not karma, then there is a sense that there is a reward or punishment from a higher power after death. This leads to what is perhaps the most important factor of the ego’s spiritual fulfillment: life after death.

To be allowed to come to harm significantly damages the ego; nothing is more damaging than death, the cessation of being. Many egonovists don’t even embrace the concepts of Heaven and Hell, but have a strong belief in an afterlife where their unique consciousness lives on and remains in an intact form, and can travel to meet the unearthly consciousness of those who have since passed, and watch over their beloved living. A remarkable dream, indeed.

Discussions with Egonovists

More and more, proprietors of politics and media are becoming more accepting of things either forbidden by canonical religious law, or discouraged by it, such as homosexual marriage and adoption, or climate change, or biological evolution.

More and more, egonovists, though they generally retain the title of the religion they were born into, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, et cetera, more and more disregard orders from their God to believe their religious canon literally, and disregard orders to commit murder, and choose instead come to peace with others and to seek harmony in society.

“I don’t understand why some Christians think that science and religion are incompatible,” says Mark, 24, of Mississippi. “Sure the Bible says God created the Earth in six days, but those are six stages of constriction, and we don’t know what a day is to God… how could we Comprehend?”

Joyce, 30 from New Mexico, agrees. “Look, I believe in Jesus. His love is very important in my life. It’s something that I can just feel. But I am a scientist… a geologist. To me the whole universe is His creation, His true gospel, and science is our way of understanding Him. If He can create all of this wonder, the He could have used the Big Bang and Evolution as his tools.”

It’s not just the incompatibilities with science that have encouraged people to move towards egonovist behavior.

“I am from Saudi Arabia,” says Faird, a 45 year old loan officer now living in Texas. “But now I live in America. I believe in God, and the prophet Muhammad. To my family the prophet Jesus is very important to us as well. But I don’t always get to pray five times a day. Some days it’s three time. My wife doesn’t wear a niqab. You know, that’s the full body coverings. She does wear a hijab, you know, that’s the head scarf. That’s her choice. Our daughters, though, are different. They are religious but they dress like an American teenage girl.”

“I’m from a strict Mormon family,” Amy tells us. She’s a 20 year old college senior at UC Berkley. “I had to change my ways of thinking when I moved out from SLC to go to college. I had never even met a gay person, I thought homosexuality was an abomination. Now I have like five gay friends. And then, like, I thought if I can change my mind about that, I can change my mind about other things. I really did a lot of reevaluating of my beliefs, but I will always believe in God.”

“I’ve always considered myself to be an agnostic,” says Christmas, 37 of Sedona, Arizona. “I am very spiritual about the earth, nature, and the universe… I think there’s “something” out there, but I don’t know what. Sometimes I pray to it. But I don’t believe in religion.”

Egonovism, Atheism, Agnosticism, and Traditional Religion

It’s important to understand that egonovists are not atheists. An atheist has a belief that either God definitely does not exist, or, as most atheists, that God more likely than not does not exists. Many agnostics fall into the latter category of atheism, and do not correctly self-identify. Because of apparent confusion over what agnosticism is, which is the belief that it cannot be known whether or not God is real, many egonovists, like our friend Christmas, incorrectly self-identify as well.

Egonovists are believers in God, but in a God that is a joint creation between their own idea of morality, their own spiritual needs, and society’s idea of morality and acceptable behavior.

Even though our friend Joyce will continue to call herself a Christian, and Faird and his family still go to Mosque and partially practice their Islamic faith, they are not really Christian or Muslim. The mere fact that they took a conscience step to demystify their religion and to purposefully ignore certain rules, makes them squarely an egonovist. Yes, Amy still considers herself to be Mormon, but she does not have the same beliefs as the next Mormon. That’s what makes an organized religion, that everyone has the same canon, the same rules, the same beliefs, the same God and sane concept of God.

Still, the participants in our discussion were chosen because they did have experience in the organized side of their religion before abandoning it for egonovism. Most egonovists, as my last look into egonovism revealed, were never indoctrinated in the first place. They were merely born into a Christian area, for example, and when to church sometimes; they heard some of the stories of the Bible, but they’ve never read it. Like other egonovists, their sense of morality is not of religion, but of society, and their God is not one of canon, but one of their own mind and ego.



The vast majority of Americans are egonovists. Organized religions devoted to ancient canon and angry Gods are becoming obsolete, more so each day, and they are less and less acceptable in society. There are varying degrees of egonovism, and gradually most self-identified Christians, Muslims, and Jews in America will be less recognizable by the