Another thing to consider is that if you want your gods to be omnipotent (rather than just a group of beings much more powerful than you), you find yourself logically requiring monotheism. Otherwise what happens if one god chooses one thing and another god chooses something else. They can’t both get their wish. I suspect that the desire for an omnipotent god is why some polytheistic religions start talking about aspects of a single god.
That may be true, but as far as I’ve read the Greek natural philosophers appealed to their gods about as much as scientists appeal to our gods today - which is not very much at all. Greek science might have been held back by a lack of interest in experimentation, but not by religious orthodoxy. Certainly Christian science didn’t go very far before the rediscovery of the Greek texts, and seemed to take Aristotle as holy writ.
If you read scientific writings from the 15th and 16th centuries, you’ll see how much God is given credit for everything. This starts diminishing as time goes on, and is pretty much gone by the 18th century, even in writings by clerics.
Two fairly basic points:
- Monotheists believe their god is the only one, and so tend not to tolerate those who believe in other gods, while polytheists or pantheists recognize multiple gods and so are more willing to tolerate belief in the additional god of the monotheists. The monotheists are thus more likely to try to dominate the others.
- A religious monotheist of course would say that this form of religion has become dominant because God is acting to bring this about. In other words, a religious Christian or Jew or Muslim would find the answer to this question obvious.
I’ve met Muslims who in all seriousness, thought the trinity was a pantheon of three gods; God the Father, Jesus the seperate Man-son, and Mary, god’s wife.
Though, I’ve read Christians claim on the internet that Islam has two gods, so maybe the ignorance cuts both ways.
I clicked on the thread to write something like this.
Another factor could be that Judaism, but also Christianity, Islam and Mormonism see their religion as a suplementry ‘tribal’ identity, that believers are all one family under God. Heathens might convert to get better access to the ‘tribe’s’ resources/connections.
Because the monotheistic religions both the True one from the Revelation of God in the Bible and its devolved cousins such as non-Messianic Judaism, Islam, Mormonism etc. generally had a strong focus on morality while polytheistic ones concentrate more on ritual. Thus as humanity grew more enlightened, naturally they become more concerned with morally right actions.
Maybe one day we can become so enlightened that we do the right thing for its own sake, and not due to the biggest carrot and stick you can imagine.
Monotheism is worse than Atheism (doesn’t mean Atheism is bad), i mean its like half knowledge is worse than no knowledge (doesn’t mean that Atheist have no knowledge). One thing that is important to make everyone realize is that tolerance is the key to growing ahead towards the future.
True and many non-Muslims and non-Christians would look at Satan as another deity abd argue that they aren’t monotheistic religions.
It’s all in the eye of the beholder.
If Christians thought and still think that God was busy creating “demons” here, then perhaps Christians have some rethinking to do.
Let me guess, whoever told you that was a Christian. What are the odds?
:rolleyes: As if. Christianity has been barbaric, and one of the primary enemies of the collective moral progress of humanity. At best Christian “morality” boils down to “do what you are told” and is amoral, not moral. And quite often it amounts to “do whatever you like and say God wanted you to do it”. And that’s even besides all the nasty & irrational ideas it has always pushed, from the subjugation of women to the hatred of homosexuals to the persecution of Jews. And of course it is by nature hateful of all alternative beliefs, as your own characterization of other religions as “devolved” demonstrates.
No idea what you mean by ‘ritual’ in polytheistic religions? Nor what on earth gives you the evidence that they are less concerned with morals.
As to monotheistic religions - they are the ‘religions of the Book’ - that is, intricately linked with literacy. There is a significant change in the purpose of ‘religious’ ritual as you cross the orality / literacy divide.
In oral cultures, ritual has a massive role in storing pragmatic information (plant properties, animal behaviour, navigation, weather and seasonal changes, trade agreements, genealogies, moral and legal rules, resource locations, tides, astronomy …). This is taking me a whole PhD thesis to develop, but I’ll give just one example to illustrate why we need to be very careful what we define as a ‘god’ and think of as ‘ritual’.
Ortiz discusses the Corn Mother and Corn Maiden rituals. Are they what you would define as ‘gods’?. Specifically in:
Ortiz, A 1969, The Tewa world: space, time, being, and becoming in a Pueblo society, University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
In a later work (I can cite it if anyone wants it) he recommends the writings of Richard I. Ford on the same rituals. Two perspectives, same rituals.
Ford, RI 1980, ‘The colour of survival’, Discovery, pp. 16-29.
Through these rituals, the Tewa are able to keep about 7 varieties of corn pure and stop it cross-pollinating (not easy, I’ve been trying it!). They optimise planting to get a balance of colours (varieties) to maximise the chance of a sustainable yield given a highly unpredictable climate. That’s why Ford refers to it as ‘the colour of survival’. The rituals ensure the best kernels are kept for seed, control planting times, locations and buffer zones.
As soon as you are referring to non-literate cultures, you need to consider mnemonic technologies and how they manage to remember so much stuff. Read a little and you will find lots of that stuff is about morals.
Monotheistic religeons are every bit as concerned with ritual as polytheistic religions are. “This is my blood, poured out for you. Drink this and rememer me.” Sunday worships, wedding rituals, prayer, music, candles…all of it is ritual.
Agreed totally. All have rituals. All have moral messages.
Oh, and they are all about the power of an elite (a human elite) over the majority.
You are misunderstanding my point. Monothesism is consistant with a world governed by rules, a single divine plan. That doesn’t mean the heavens have to work the same way as the Earth. I’m not arguing that monotheism is scientific (it’s not), or that it was beneficial in the development of science. Adopting Aristotle’s principles as dogma was an impediment.
I’d say Kepler and Newton deserve the most credit. Kepler had to abandon some of his theology in order to develop his laws of planetary motion. For a long time, he clung to the idea that they should move in perfect circles, which was based on the concept of heavenly perfection. He was disappointed to find they move in ellipses.
I think monotheism carries with it the idea of universal morality, in a way which polytheism does not. I’d argue that it’s a dangerous idea, with much potential for fostering intolerance.
It’s all guesswork, but I tend to think it’s a combination of this:
…and the KISS principle. Simplicity is powerful. There is an all powerful god, he rules everything. The End. Nice simple story, easy to follow, easy to teach and talk about.
Christianity explicitly rejects the idea that it is possible for humans to be moral, or that being moral will get you anything. It’s a very confused notion to assert that Christianity is more focused on morality than some other religion–one should understand that is not the case after the most basic education in ideas of original sin and salvation by faith.
What a load of nonsense. What do you think eating the body and blood of Christ is?
The major monotheistic faiths spread because hegemony (or proselytism, or whatever you want to call it) is part of their ideology. It’s not a coincidence that there are billions of Christians but not billions of Jews; Judaism rejects evangelism.
‘True’? Unfortunately for this idea, Judeo-Christianity started out stunningly and indesputably polytheistic. So… did it start out false? At what point did it become ‘true’? What was God doing for all those centuries while it was falsely polytheistic?
In answer to the OP, and speaking in particular of Judeo-Christianity - rulers like King Hezekiah simply decided it was convenient for them to replace polytheism with monotheism - it helped them to increase their power over their subjects. Hezekiah, for example, stamped out worship of the chief female J-C deity Asherah. It’s all about power, baby.
Christianity is still basically polytheistic. The whole concept of the three deities being one doesn’t really mean anything and is just mumbo-jumbo that was dreamed up in the late first century to appease Jewish converts. The vast majority of Christians today neither know nor care about the trinitarian doctrine of the academic theologians and most certainly view God and Jesus as wholly distinct entities.