A thousand ways to believe

Nothing seems to satisfy our unquenchable thirst for belief. In spite of science and modern society, it keeps on rising again from its ashes, probably because it derives from the very foundations of human nature, as well as our desire for the unlimited and our relentless quest for happiness.

Vitaly Malkin questions this need to believe in the above without understating it. Human beings need rituals, milestones to structure their life and organise their social space. But if Man believes in God for good reason, nothing forces us to believe in, and bind to One God. Monotheism is a monomaniacal belief, which fills us with guilt and messes with our heads. Its purpose is to take over people’s lives, by imposing a closed and restrictive ritual order.

Upon concluding his review of monotheisms, Vitaly Malkin gleefully rediscovers the qualities of their first victim: ‘religions’ of the past and others, all so much more tolerant than their monotheistic counterparts. Through the encounter with a shaman in Siberia, the rediscovery of polytheisms or the rightfully reborn myth of witches, he restores a certain spirit of resistance in the face of monotheism’s hegemonic claims, and exhilaratingly brings back to life the rituals which used to be the benevolent auxiliary to our human, all too human lives.