Editing Misotheism (section)

==Terminology==
* ''[[:wikt:misotheism|Misotheism]]'' first appears in the [[Chambers Dictionary]] in 1907.<ref>{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cIIVAAAAYAAJ&dq=misotheism+1907&pg=PA577 | title=Chamber's Twentieth Century Dictionary of the English Language: Pronouncing, Explanatory, Etymological, with Compound Phrases, Technical Terms in Use in the Arts and Sciences, Colloquialisms, Full Appendices, and Copiously Illustrated | year=1907 | publisher=W. & R. Chambers Limited }}</ref><ref>[[New English Dictionary]], under ''miso-''; also explicitly in 1913, {{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20070929065752/http://www.1913dictionary.com/dictionary/word/misotheism/ Noah Webster's Dictionary of the English Language]}}.</ref> The Greek {{lang|grc|μισόθεος}} ({{transliteration|grc|misotheos}}) is found in Aeschylus (''[[The Oresteia|Agamemnon]]'' 1090). The English word appears as a [[nonce word|nonce]]-coinage, used by [[Thomas De Quincey]] in 1846.<ref>"On Christianity as an Organ of Political Movement" (1846).</ref> It is comparable to the original meaning of Greek [[:wikt:ἄθεος|{{lang|grc-Latn|atheos|nocat=yes}}]] of "rejecting the gods, rejected by the gods, godforsaken". Strictly speaking, the term connotes an attitude towards the gods (one of hatred) rather than making a statement about their nature. [[Bernard Schweizer]] (2002) stated "that the English vocabulary seems to lack a suitable word for outright hatred of God... <nowiki>[even though]</nowiki> history records a number of outspoken misotheists", believing "misotheism" to be his original coinage. Applying the term to the work of [[Philip Pullman]] (''[[His Dark Materials]]''), Schweizer clarifies that he does not mean the term to carry the negative connotations of [[misanthropy]]: ''"To me, the word connotes a heroic stance of humanistic affirmation and the courage to defy the powers that rule the universe."''<ref>Bernard Schweizer, 'Religious Subversion in ''His Dark Materials'' in: Millicent Lenz, Carole Scott (eds.) ''His Dark Materials Illuminated: Critical Essays On Philip Pullman's Trilogy'' (2005), p. 172, note 3.</ref>
* ''[[:wikt:dystheism|Dystheism]]'' is the belief that [[Existence of God|God exists]] but is not wholly [[good and evil|good]], or that he might even be [[evil]]. The opposite concept is ''[[Omnibenevolence|eutheism]]'', the belief that [[God]] exists and is wholly good. ''Eutheism'' and ''dystheism'' are straightforward Greek formations from ''eu-'' and ''dys-'' + ''[[theism]]'', paralleling ''[[atheism]]''; {{lang|grc|δύσθεος}} in the sense of "godless, ungodly" appearing e.g. in [[Aeschylus]] (''[[Agamemnon (play)|Agamemnon]]'' 1590). The terms are [[nonce word|nonce]] coinages, used by [[University of Texas at Austin]] philosophy professor [[Robert Koons|Robert C. Koons]] in a 1998 [https://web.archive.org/web/20071203180444/http://www.utexas.edu/cola/depts/philosophy/faculty/koons/356/lec19.html lecture]. According to Koons, "eutheism is the thesis that God exists and is wholly good, [... while] dystheism is the thesis that God exists but is not wholly good." However, many proponents of dystheistic ideas (including [[Elie Wiesel]] and David Blumenthal) do not offer those ideas in the spirit of ''hating'' God.<ref>Seidner, Stanley S. (June 10, 2009) [https://docs.google.com/gview?a=v&q=cache:FrKYAo88ckkJ:www.materdei.ie/media/conferences/a-secular-age-parallel-sessions-timetable.pdf+%22Stan+Seidner%22&hl=en&gl=us "A Trojan Horse: Logotherapeutic Transcendence and its Secular Implications for Theology"]. ''Mater Dei Institute''. pp. 11-12.</ref> Their work notes God's apparent evil or at least indifferent disinterest in the welfare of humanity, but does not express hatred towards him because of it. A notable usage of the concept that the gods are either indifferent or actively hostile towards humanity is expressed in [[H. P. Lovecraft]]'s literary philosophy of [[Cosmicism#Cosmic indifferentism|Cosmic indifferentism]], which pervades the [[Cthulhu Mythos]].<ref name="Sederholm 2016">{{cite book |author-last=Johnson |author-first=Brian |year=2016 |chapter=Prehistories of Posthumanism: Cosmic Indifferentism, Alien Genesis, and Ecology from H. P. Lovecraft to Ridley Scott |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-Ch0DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA97 |editor1-last=Sederholm |editor1-first=Carl H. |editor2-last=Weinstock |editor2-first=Jeffrey Andrew |title=The Age of Lovecraft |location=[[Minneapolis]] |publisher=[[University of Minnesota Press]] |pages=97–116 |doi= |jstor=10.5749/j.ctt1b9x1f3.9 |isbn=978-0-8166-9925-4}}</ref>
* {{anchor|Maltheism}}''Maltheism'' is an ad-hoc coining appearing on [[Usenet]] in 1985,<ref>Apparently coined by Paul Zimmerman in August 1985, on [http://groups.google.com/group/net.origins/browse_thread/thread/2511f7a6ccacd6a9/7179db188c826528?lnk=st&q=%22Damager+God%22&rnum=5#7179db188c826528 net.origins] referring to the misotheistic belief that God was in fact not a "Creator-God" but a "Damager-God".</ref> referring to the belief in God's malevolence inspired by the thesis of [[Tim Maroney]] that "even if a God as described in the Bible does exist, he is not fit for worship due to his low moral standards."<ref>Original Usenet posting of Maroney's "Even If I Did Believe" essay, [http://groups.google.com/group/net.religion/msg/30925fd2c9a20cbd? 31 December 1983]</ref> The same term has also seen use among designers and players of [[GURPS|role-playing games]] to describe a world with a malevolent deity.<ref>Naylor et al. (1994)</ref>
* ''[[Antitheism]]'' is direct opposition to theism. As such, it is generally manifested more as an opposition to belief in a god (to theism per se) than as opposition to gods themselves, making it more associated with [[antireligion]], although [[Buddhism]] is generally considered to be a religion despite its status with respect to theism being more nebulous. Antitheism by this definition does not necessarily imply belief in any sort of god at all, it simply stands in opposition to the idea of theistic religion. Under this definition, antitheism is a rejection of theism that does not necessarily imply belief in gods on the part of the antitheist. Some might equate any form of antitheism to an overt opposition to God, since these beliefs run contrary to the idea of making devotion to God the highest priority in life, although those ideas would imply that God exists, and that he wishes to be worshiped, or to be believed in.<ref>See the example of Viktor Frankl in Seidner, Stanley S. (June 10, 2009) [https://docs.google.com/gview?a=v&q=cache:FrKYAo88ckkJ:www.materdei.ie/media/conferences/a-secular-age-parallel-sessions-timetable.pdf+%22Stan+Seidner%22&hl=en&gl=us "A Trojan Horse: Logotherapeutic Transcendence and its Secular Implications for Theology"]. ''Mater Dei Institute''. p 11.</ref>
* Certain forms of ''[[Dualistic cosmology|dualism]]'' make the assertion that the thing worshiped as God in this world is actually an evil impostor, but that a true benevolent deity worthy of being called "God" exists beyond this world. Thus, the [[Gnostic]]s (see [[Sethian]], [[Ophites]]) believed that God (the deity worshiped by Jews, Greek Pagan philosophers and Christians) was really an evil creator or [[demiurge]] that stood between us and some greater, more truly benevolent real deity. Similarly, [[Marcionism|Marcionites]] depicted God as represented in the [[Old Testament]] as a wrathful, malicious demiurge.{{Citation needed|date=October 2021}}