egotheism | Glossary | The Komorebi Effect

the deification of the oneself

Egotheism is the dominant religion of the modern Western world. Egotheists include atheists, many agnostics, and by default those who claim no particular religious affiliation, i.e. the so-called ‘nones’. Eschewing organized religion, egotheists tend to see themselves standing over and above religion.¹ Nonetheless, their worldview rests on a religious precept. That is, an egotheist tends to see himself as the autonomous ruler of himself, able to define right and wrong and frame statutes according to whatever he defines as just. In other words, the egotheist takes on the role of a deity. ²

Egotheists promote the doctrine of secularism which heavily regulates ‘private’ belief. As Paul Tyson says, “You can believe whatever you like, provided you do not believe that your personal beliefs are actually objectively true, or matter in any public way. You can have whatever personal loyalties you like, provided you give uncompromising public loyalty to the state in which you are born, to the liberal and secular laws it mandates, and (in the age of heightened security, increasingly unconditionally) accept its total power over coercive violence.”³

As Alexander Schmemann points out, this egotheistic secularism is the religion of those “tired of having the world explained in terms of an ‘other world’ of which no one knows anything, and life explained in terms of a ‘survival’ about which no one has the slightest idea… The only world we know is this world, the only life given to us is this life — so thinks a secularist — and it is up to us men to make it as meaningful, as rich, as happy as possible. Life ends with death.”⁴