Andrew on Monotheism
As world religions go, those that have become the most influential in modern times are predominantly monotheistic. In fact, with the exception from Hinduism—which is relatively exclusive location wise—the worship of multiple gods has seemingly gone out of fashion, much like denim jackets. Why this swing in popularity occurred is a topic about which I’m sure many books have been written; any number of reasons could be cited to account for the lack of polytheism in modern belief systems. However, the way I see it, these reasons are unimportant. Religion, like fashion, caters to those affected by it, changed by the slightest whim in public opinion. Certain ideas become popular and then die out; others never get off the ground at all.
The smash hits Christianity, Islam, and Judaism are in many ways the blue-jeans of religion, whereas the corduroys that are paganism are simply no longer in style. Who can tell why suddenly every girl in school is wearing tan suede booties? Somewhere along the road it just caught on—in Christianity’s case, the Roman emperor Constantine I had a conniption and made Christianity the state religion out of nowhere. Before this it was no more than an obscure cult, and would have remained so. Similarly, had the Allies lost World War II, there would certainly be no more Judaism today, we would simply learn about it in mythology class as we do the Greek or Norse beliefs. Religion is not a product of the evolution of society, society merely plays off of whatever beliefs happen to be present. The only way religion has even been able to continually appeal to modern societies is by diluting and remodeling even the most fundamental of beliefs. Most Americans would probably go insane if forced to practice Christianity in its original form.
This is probably as good a time as any to admit that (if you haven’t already noticed) I’m not a huge fan of monotheistic religions. And aside from the aforementioned points, a lot of this has to do simply with the classification of “monotheistic”. Society tends to regard the polytheistic religions of the past with a dismissive attitude, labeling them “myth” which even in its least degrading meaning suggests falseness. “Monotheistic” is a term that is assigned to a mythology to give it a level of plausibility, often regardless of whether or not only one god is truly worshipped. In Christianity, for instance, God is three separate beings, who can act and interact independently, and several important angels are also featured prominently. Yet society feels the need to differentiate, simply because the concept of a single, mysteriously powerful being is more popular. In reality, all of the modern “monotheistic” faiths are somewhat polytheistic, simply because they—like every other religion—adhere to certain principals of mythology that are no different than those of the ancient pagans. The opposite is also true: Greek city-states more often than not worshipped a single deity—the pantheon that we learn about is simply the conglomeration of all the major gods and goddesses in the culture as a whole. The classification of “monotheistic” or “polytheistic” is therefore not really useful in discerning the nature of a religion.
Now to tie all these various thoughts together somehow. In short, religions, monotheistic or otherwise, rise and fall due to chance as much as anything else, conforming to what people will accept, and thus cannot be ordered in relevance based on classifications.
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didn’t have explanations for, they didn’t need to believe in the superior beings any longer.








