Why did polytheism come before monotheism

Whether one believes in this or not is irrelevant. What is needed is the humility of atheists to understand religious belief in its own grounds, and not to discount the opinions of believers throughout history when trying to understand the roots of religious belief.

As the Quran describes:. Those who remember Allah while standing, sitting and lying on their sides, and ponder over the creation of the heavens and the earth. Alex has a masters in physics from Durham University and is currently training as a science teacher.

He is a convert to the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, and enjoys discussing his experience in becoming a Muslim, and how it harmonised his love for both science and spirituality.

Really Alex? Why does no one worship dark matter. It has no physical manifestation in everyday life, so how many people know about it?

People who know about it are scientists! They are the ones who find God implausible!! Please remove this article. It is infantile. Which is a word used for goddesses. So yeah! Alex you have just destroyed my faith in our educational institutions.

The quality of reasoning in this article is so abysmal I cannot believe that it would have sustain an individual to progress to a formal accreditation, awarded in recognition of the capacity to possess and display a well-reasoned critical analysis.

Either that or you chose not to apply that ability out of fear for the consequences for inner security it may deliver. Looking forward to your article with a well-reasoned critical analysis of the arguments raised in this article. Your email address will not be published. This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed. Ahmadi Muslims taking on the big questions with a light touch.

Commentary on religion, atheism, science and society. Did Religion Evolve from Polytheism to Monotheism? Tweet Share Jerusalem contains a wealth of religious history relevant to a number of major world religions. Studying the Australian Aboriginals gives credance to the Islamic position of monotheism coming before polytheism. We just send you carefully researched, thoughtful content.

Don't miss out. About The Author. Alex Borthwick Alex has a masters in physics from Durham University and is currently training as a science teacher. Related Posts. Zafar Bhatti on May 21, at am. Nice article Reply. Satyam on June 14, at pm.

Warren on August 18, at am. SM on October 26, at am. Dear Warren If the process is abysmal, it should be super easy to disprove. Always interesting to hear differing points of view. Leave a reply Cancel reply Your email address will not be published. Subscribe To Our Newsletter Don't miss out on our carefully researched articles. You just don't know it. It's not until the Qing dinasty that the chinese start seeing that they are just a nation among nation.

They all work for Shang Ti. He's a boss of boss sort of. Emperor above. God most high. Shang Ti supposedly pick only one emperor and that one emperor is emperor of everything under heaven.

That's what chinese used to believe. How can chinese believed that? Because chinese emperor said so. How can chinese emperor make that claim?

That's because he's an emperor of a very big country. Judaism is strange. If you ask a jew, I bet they said that from the beginning they have been worshiping an omnipotent, religious tolerant, democratic God that opposes stoning. It seems though that many part of jewish's God is borrowed from countries they've been around with. Original judaism seems to be henotheistic. There shall be no other God before me doesn't mean there is no other gods. It could mean that even when there are other gods you're not supposed to worship that one.

A sample is deuteronomy Most ancient scrolls jot that down differently suggesting that many different bible compiler may think that the original is too controversial they ended up changing it.

Ancient Canaanites pantheon also had 70 children. YHWH portion is Israel. So it seems that the original view is that Yahweh is the God of Israel and Israel alone. I was surprised when I found that finding part of the tanach that support unambiguous monotheism before babylonian exiles is not easy.

Do you know any? Then jews become foreigners in many places. From Persia they adopt monotheism and religious tolerant. From western europe they adopt democracy and equality. The almighty aspect of God seems to come from Plato, which then become the almighty God that we're familiar with. Again I may be wrong. I hope there are other historical records that show otherwise. If so, please tell me. For example, is there any jewish comentary that claim that YHWH is almighty before Plato, for example.

That'll be interesting. Being able to split seas doesn't mean you're almighty. In fact, we humans can do that easily now. Curiously, the word "El" in Judaism can be used for gods or powerful being to further add confusion. Such as when Jacob wrestle with El, mechon-mamre would translate Israel as struggle with God and Peniel as face to face with God even though modern judaism believe that Jacob is wrestling with an angel rather than God.

Now what about republic or democracy? Well, the greek is democratic. The Canaanites are republic or federal. So they tend to have multiple gods.

Zeus, Cronos, may just be a model of ancient king that got toppled for being a tyrant. I think that's the true message of polytheism. Leader better behave lest you got toppled. How the actual true God behaves is out of my capability to see and I really want to know more. However, historical evidence seems to show that original jews didn't believe that their God is almighty or the only one around.

Mighty, but not almighty. Sign up to join this community. The best answers are voted up and rise to the top. Stack Overflow for Teams — Collaborate and share knowledge with a private group. Create a free Team What is Teams? Learn more. Which came first: polytheism or monotheism? Ask Question. Asked 10 years ago. Active 7 months ago. Viewed 17k times. However, many polytheistic religions seem to have monotheistic overtones. Consider the following famous polytheistic religions: Ancient Egypt -- Amun-Ra is apparently a self-created creator god, who ruled over many all?

Improve this question. Flimzy Flimzy 1, 2 2 gold badges 8 8 silver badges 16 16 bronze badges. Hinduism can sometimes come in a monotheistic flavor, but not necessarily. In fact, according to the creation hymn , this world may or may not have been created by the Supreme Spirit.

My years of playing Civilization tell me that Polytheism comes first. Any statement that polytheism "came first" must presume any form of monotheism to be false. If such a presupposition is not made, their entire timeline of pre-historic history falls apart. Caleb, I'm not sure you're right. Wouldn't it be possible for there to be a period in which monotheism is true in fact but not known to any people? The evolving nature of religions is a challenge to faith, and the solution he suggests is to say that despite this evolution the current state of a religion has always been true and we've just got there.

I don't see why we're bothering, that a question is perceived as posing challenges to the faithful doesn't take it out of scope. Show 10 more comments.

Active Oldest Votes. Improve this answer. Rose Ames Rose Ames 3, 28 28 silver badges 34 34 bronze badges. In China monotheism pop up first. Kong Fu Chu is monotheists. That is the defining characteristic of monotheism.

Although "creature" is not a good term. But the Vedas have clearly monotheistic passages. Show 1 more comment. Wladimir Palant Wladimir Palant 9, 2 2 gold badges 47 47 silver badges 54 54 bronze badges.

Most of Christianity's especially Catholicism's saint-worship is kind of a "delegation" thing. God's real busy, you know, he's got the whole universe to run. Jesus, well he's kind of busy too, what with 7 billion living souls to save.

So, pray to Mary; she's got the Big Guy's ear. Similarly, the miracles of the saints in their lives are evidence that God works through them in a particular area, and as such they can advocate on our behalf.

But, all powers of all saints come directly from God, and there is only one God. The Catholic tradition of praying to saints as "gods" is very common here in Mexico, too, but if anything, this is an example of "polytheism" growing out of monotheism, is it not? I'm having a hard time understanding how polytheism is "simpler. In what sense is polytheism simpler than monotheism? Perhaps point me to a resource, since this is starting to get off topic for comments : — Flimzy.

Flimzy: Human psyche is very far from math. Across cultures, pantheons, or groups of deities specific to a particular religion, were often written about as expressions of the same divine entity, similar to how Christians worship the Holy Trinity — the father, the son and the holy spirit — as different manifestations of God. For example, in the second millennium B.

In ancient Rome around the third century B. Increasing connectivity between civilizations may have encouraged the belief in divine unity, Assman wrote.

People drew connections between their own gods and those of other societies. They began to see different gods and pantheons not in opposition to one another, but as expressions of the same concept.

Some scholars compare the idea of divine unity to monotheism. Assman calls it "evolutionary monotheism"; Durdin calls it "philosophical monotheism. Put another way, ancient people may have viewed multiple gods from different cultures as all emanating from the same holy source.

It was in this context that religious movements began demanding exclusive worship of one God. In the 14th century B. He closed temples and destroyed images of other gods. And some scholars believe it was up to a thousand years later that early Israelites began worshipping only one god: Yahweh, said Matthew Chalmers, a theorist of religion at Northwestern University in Illinois.

It was a transition that took centuries, and it would be centuries more before the belief that only one God exists became cemented in Judaism, Chalmers said. It's important to note that these people didn't think of themselves as monotheists or polytheists. These movements didn't deny the existence of other gods.