Why did polytheism fail?

[Shovel Mech Pilot]

Christianity and Islam were much better than any other religion at appealing to the average person. You didn't need to be a warrior or a person of high stature to get a favorable afterlife, it was available to anyone who believed and took certain steps.

 

[Imperial Citizen]

yes, polytheist religions tend to be limited to a specific country (or people) practicing them. hinduism in india, shinto in japan, same with the ancient roman, greek and egyptian religions. none of them have that inherent aggressive "our goal is to convert the entire world to our faith!" drive that christianity and islam have.

The only polytheism that one could say had spread in a manner like the Abrahamics was Hellenism, but then only for as long as the Hellenic empires lasted as their language may have become prominent, but not the faith.

An aside to this subject would be how did Judaism spread? We know that there was a polytheistic faith amongst the Canaanities and that their head god has one of the same names for the Abrahamic God. Did Judaism emerge internally, and was it by the sword or a cultural conversion?

It has that polytheistic theme of the god(s) being only for people of a certain geographical region, but the biblical narrative has the Jews coming from outside of Canaan and cleansing it of all non-Jews. So we still don’t have an accurate account of the emergence of that religion.

 

[L50LasPak]

It was just too complicated. Monotheistic religion is already an almost impossible to understand mess if you really read into it (and I mean read into all of it, not just the parts that sound good to you). Polytheistic religions were that multiplied by however many gods you had to deal with, plus hundreds or even thousands of lesser dieties. You would need a database to even hope to keep track of all that shit today. Nobody had time for that crap back then.

 

[Opticana]

The only polytheism that one could say had spread in a manner like the Abrahamics was Hellenism, but then only for as long as the Hellenic empires lasted as their language may have become prominent, but not the faith.

An aside to this subject would be how did Judaism spread? We know that there was a polytheistic faith amongst the Canaanities and that their head god has one of the same names for the Abrahamic God. Did Judaism emerge internally, and was it by the sword or a cultural conversion?

It has that polytheistic theme of the god(s) being only for people of a certain geographical region, but the biblical narrative has the Jews coming from outside of Canaan and cleansing it of all non-Jews. So we still don’t have an accurate account of the emergence of that religion.

I don't think the geography stuff is quite correct. YHWH is consistently depicted as the god of the Israelite people (not land) and/or all creation, not as limited to a specific region. The one time (I Kings 20, AFAIK) there is a sentiment like that expressed in the bible, it's presented as something only a moronic polytheist would think of, and YHWH promptly BTFOs them for thinking that:

23 And the servants of the king of Syria said unto him, Their gods are gods of the hills; therefore they were stronger than we; but let us fight against them in the plain, and surely we shall be stronger than they.

24 And do this thing, Take the kings away, every man out of his place, and put captains in their rooms:

25 And number thee an army, like the army that thou hast lost, horse for horse, and chariot for chariot: and we will fight against them in the plain, and surely we shall be stronger than they. And he hearkened unto their voice, and did so.

26 And it came to pass at the return of the year, that Benhadad numbered the Syrians, and went up to Aphek, to fight against Israel.

27 And the children of Israel were numbered, and were all present, and went against them: and the children of Israel pitched before them like two little flocks of kids; but the Syrians filled the country.

28 And there came a man of God, and spake unto the king of Israel, and said, Thus saith the Lord, Because the Syrians have said, The Lord is God of the hills, but he is not God of the valleys, therefore will I deliver all this great multitude into thine hand, and ye shall know that I am the Lord.

29 And they pitched one over against the other seven days. And so it was, that in the seventh day the battle was joined: and the children of Israel slew of the Syrians an hundred thousand footmen in one day.

Specifically regarding the origin of Israel's god, it depends who you ask. From what I'm given to understand, there's no entirely satisfactory explanation for an indigenous origin to YHWH in Canaan (although he was certainly later identified with El). Some scholars have proposed that he was Midianite in origin, although there isn't a lot to back that theory up other than academics wanting to say the traditional narrative is wrong. (That's more or less the only thing they can come to a consensus on).

In general, the "aside" of yours is really a huge subject. It's the central object of investigation for all of biblical studies and its related disciplines, and of course it's a very contentious one. (IOW don't trust anything on Wikipedia.)

 

[DumbDude42]

The only polytheism that one could say had spread in a manner like the Abrahamics was Hellenism, but then only for as long as the Hellenic empires lasted as their language may have become prominent, but not the faith.

An aside to this subject would be how did Judaism spread? We know that there was a polytheistic faith amongst the Canaanities and that their head god has one of the same names for the Abrahamic God. Did Judaism emerge internally, and was it by the sword or a cultural conversion?

It has that polytheistic theme of the god(s) being only for people of a certain geographical region, but the biblical narrative has the Jews coming from outside of Canaan and cleansing it of all non-Jews. So we still don’t have an accurate account of the emergence of that religion.

judaism always was the ethnic religion of the jews/israelites. it never spread beyond them, it only spread across the world as the jews themselves went into diaspora and spread across the world. jews do not actively try to convert outsiders to their faith, they do not send out missionaries or wage wars to force conversion on neighboring countries.

 

[Plunkie]

From my limited perspective most polytheism erupted from art - heroic tales of gods and demigods. Philosophy, however, was separate and left to the philosophers.

More mainstream religions such as Christianity fuse both art and philosophy together in a way that keeps both passions in full force.

 

[ToroidalBoat]

The idea that there's a Source of existence or supreme Creator can't be ruled out entirely.

Meanwhile the various gods of various phenomenon can be ruled out with knowledge of nature.

 

[Shadfan666xxx000]

Western polytheism just never really cemented itself well in terms of metaphysics or conduct. The myths of Zeus don't have many moral lessons other than "don't fuck with him and his shit" and after a while you would probably notice that you can't summon him in a lightning storm that easily. Christianity (with aid from Neo-Platonism) has much more of both. God is a moral authority, his very nature is disconnected from reality to some degree and he actually has a moral decree for his people that goes very in-depth and applies to all levels of society. He's a feeling and jealous god but he's also forgiving and ultimately redemptive. Compare it to Zeus raping women with animal forms or Aphrodite inciting a war and you get a clear idea for mass appeal.

 

[Kosher Dill]

I have a hard time seeing how a system that allowed the best of Greek and Roman thought to emerge was a "failure".
The institution of modern science didn't develop out of a polytheistic culture, but I think that's just the way history happened to play out - the conditions for science to emerge appeared after Europe had already been thoroughly Christianized.

Look at Plato, Aristotle, or Ptolemy's systems of astronomy and you're not going to see absurdities like Apollo driving the sun across the sky in his chariot. Living in a polytheist culture didn't hold them back from more abstract theorizing.

 

[Bad Gateway]

tfw you shit on polytheism and believe in a triumvirate God lmao

 

[Just Another Apocalypse]

while monotheistic religions can have everyone band together under a single shared umbrella

Yeah... Because all Christians get along, as well as the Muslims.

 

[Zero Day Defense]

(Western) polytheism failed for a multitude of reasons. In the context of Christianity (since I can best speak about that), it was a mixture of the hearts of rulers swayed (who would then order their entire population to be baptized, sometimes under penalty of death), the ease of having commonalities with trading partners, and plain conquering.

And of course, you can't dismiss the fact that there were many who were really convicted by the Gospel, or found it absolutely bright compared to a neverending cycle of giving stuff to apathetic or even malevolent gods in order to keep them from wrecking their crops.

For all those reasons, the strong gods of old were bested by a Jew on a stick.

There's also the whole saint stuff, where you pray to certain saints for protection as if they're minor deities.

That's not how that works, and they're not prayed to as "minor deities".

In the first place, you can "pray" to anyone because to "pray" is to request. In context, what occurs when "praying" to a venerated saint is plain communication to one, since they're still living-- albeit without physical form. Christians do the exact same thing with those that still have physical form.

More to the point: in the same way that the difference between the Creator and the created is beyond fundamental, so is worship. In ANE religion-- Christianity included-- you don't "worship" by prayer. You worship by, fundamentally, setting up an altar to a god and offering said god something. For Christians, they offer bread and wine to God on said altar, but unlike other ANE religions, that bread and wine is understood to be transformed into the body and blood of Christ. Additionally, there are specific things that are said of God that inherently cannot be said of a created being, and would constitute idolatry if said of a created being (as well as incorrect).

The Trinity (the father, the son and the holy spirit) makes it also difficult for me to see Christianity as strictly monotheistic.

There's no value in modifying "monotheistic" with "strictly". A religion is either monotheistic or it's not, and Christianity insists that it's monotheistic because the triune God they worship is to be understood as "one God". Examining the struggles that led to the ecumenical councils further demonstrates that this wasn't a matter of trying to cling to the concept of monotheism for no particular reason, either-- Trinitarianism, especially in the Arian controversy, was the extreme position compared to the various, sometimes deliberate compromises under the semi-Arian umbrella. There was the opportunity to just consider the Son asymptotically close to the Creator-creation line without crossing over into "Creator" territory, and it was rejected in the long term.

There are examples of Pagan gods becoming Christian Saints

There is if you're trying to troll a Christian that believes in the communion of saints, but not in reality. You may as well say that Jesus was a lift from Egyptian myth.

A lot of Pagan rituals were also incorporated into Christianity to make it easier to spread.

Such as?

There may have been customs that were "Christianized" in order to provide better accessibility to alien groups. Especially in Africa, missionaries would often recast existing mythologies in a Christian lens to the extent that they were able without sacrificing the Christianity.

That's still far and away from just "incorporating pagan rituals", which implies that there's still pagan import to those practices.

 

[Opticana]

In ANE religion-- Christianity included-- you don't "worship" by prayer. You worship by, fundamentally, setting up an altar to a god and offering said god something. For Christians, they offer bread and wine to God on said altar, but unlike other ANE religions, that bread and wine is understood to be transformed into the body and blood of Christ

This is not a bad argument at all. But in terms of optics, so long as you walk around with a statue of Mary on a palanquin and have stuff like adoration of the host going on, people will call it like they see it. If it looks like a duck...

There may have been customs that were "Christianized" in order to provide better accessibility to alien groups. Especially in Africa, missionaries would often recast existing mythologies in a Christian lens to the extent that they were able without sacrificing the Christianity.

Forget about missionaries in Africa, the first eleven chapters of Genesis are built on that principle vis-a-vis ANE origin stories.

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

Polytheism fell? The world's biggest religion worships three gods (Father, Son, Holy Ghost), and a huge chunk of that worships many thousands of extra lesser gods on top of that, like St. Patrick and the Virgin Mary that have their own temples, prayers, etc.

 

[Zero Day Defense]

This is not a bad argument at all. But in terms of optics, so long as you walk around with a statue of Mary on a palanquin and have stuff like adoration of the host going on, people will call it like they see it.

What they "see" is due to their ignorance of ANE religion as a whole and an inherent distrust in Christianity as to distrust even their internal claims, without even bothering to use said religion's internal logic.

Forget about missionaries in Africa, the first eleven chapters of Genesis are built on that principle vis-a-vis ANE origin stories.

Actually, the creation myth to start was-- at bare minimum-- a deliberate subversion of those provided by the surrounding religions of the time.

 

[XYZpdq]

shinto, hindu, catholic, there's plenty of active polytheistic faiths

 

[DoNotReadTheFinePrint]

(Western) polytheism failed for a multitude of reasons. In the context of Christianity (since I can best speak about that), it was a mixture of the hearts of rulers swayed (who would then order their entire population to be baptized, sometimes under penalty of death), the ease of having commonalities with trading partners, and plain conquering.

And of course, you can't dismiss the fact that there were many who were really convicted by the Gospel, or found it absolutely bright compared to a neverending cycle of giving stuff to apathetic or even malevolent gods in order to keep them from wrecking their crops.

For all those reasons, the strong gods of old were bested by a Jew on a stick.


That's not how that works, and they're not prayed to as "minor deities".

In the first place, you can "pray" to anyone because to "pray" is to request. In context, what occurs when "praying" to a venerated saint is plain communication to one, since they're still living-- albeit without physical form. Christians do the exact same thing with those that still have physical form.

More to the point: in the same way that the difference between the Creator and the created is beyond fundamental, so is worship. In ANE religion-- Christianity included-- you don't "worship" by prayer. You worship by, fundamentally, setting up an altar to a god and offering said god something. For Christians, they offer bread and wine to God on said altar, but unlike other ANE religions, that bread and wine is understood to be transformed into the body and blood of Christ. Additionally, there are specific things that are said of God that inherently cannot be said of a created being, and would constitute idolatry if said of a created being (as well as incorrect).


There's no value in modifying "monotheistic" with "strictly". A religion is either monotheistic or it's not, and Christianity insists that it's monotheistic because the triune God they worship is to be understood as "one God". Examining the struggles that led to the ecumenical councils further demonstrates that this wasn't a matter of trying to cling to the concept of monotheism for no particular reason, either-- Trinitarianism, especially in the Arian controversy, was the extreme position compared to the various, sometimes deliberate compromises under the semi-Arian umbrella. There was the opportunity to just consider the Son asymptotically close to the Creator-creation line without crossing over into "Creator" territory, and it was rejected in the long term.


There is if you're trying to troll a Christian that believes in the communion of saints, but not in reality. You may as well say that Jesus was a lift from Egyptian myth.


Such as?

There may have been customs that were "Christianized" in order to provide better accessibility to alien groups. Especially in Africa, missionaries would often recast existing mythologies in a Christian lens to the extent that they were able without sacrificing the Christianity.

That's still far and away from just "incorporating pagan rituals", which implies that there's still pagan import to those practices.

It seems I used a mix of poor wording and speak as an outsider, who was raised in a christian country but with my parents being more on the atheist way and only nominal members of the faith.

I'm not of the believe the saints are minor deities but the way they're treated in some instances gives me said impression. I also didn't intent my statement to be seen as something overarching but more as a personal observation. As for the use of the word "prayer", I used it as direct translation of the word "beten". Maybe invoke would've been a better choice, then again I'm speaking as non-native speaker and someone not involved in Christianity, although I hesitate calling myself an atheist.

As for the Trinity, I know it's a depiction of the aspects of God and that it's still considered one god. Again, I just offered my own impression of how I see it as some looking in from a perspective of someone adjacent but not within the believe.

Ritual, in retrospect, was a poor word choice on my end as well as the accidental indication I meant that Christianity still absorbs foreign/pagan religions. I should've used aspects or traditions. English isn't my first language and while I always aim to be cohesive and exact in my wording, I'm prone to slip ups.

As for examples of pagan aspects influencing Christianity I can over:

Easter was once a fertility feast, celebrating the beginning of spring following the moon phase, which is the reason why the Christian celebration of the resurrection of Jesus hasn't a fixed date. Besides that there a few regional traditions (like bonfires or egg painting) with differences spread across Europe. There's also the idea that the name itself originates from a Germanic goddess called Eostre but the evidence is flimsy at best, so I just mention it in passing.

Angels and demons originate (in part) from the ancient Greek believe of daimons who were considered personal guardians. While the word went on to be used to identify malignant spirits, the actual role of daimons was given to angels or, to be more accurate, guardian angels.

In Christmas a few parts of the ancient roman festivity called Saturnalia have survived, like gift giving and having large feasts.

Overall speaking, you can find aspects of pagan festivals/traditions/rituals in small amounts across plenty of Christian ones. Their influence is minor today but they've informed a lot of Christian traditions as they are today. After all, culture isn't an isolated system. If one "eats" the other you will still find traces of the absorbed culture bleed and becoming incorporated into the dominant one.

 

[Opticana]

Actually, the creation myth to start was-- at bare minimum-- a deliberate subversion of those provided by the surrounding religions of the time.

As a believer I would agree that retroactively that seems to have been the plan. But objectively, it's difficult to put yourself in the mind of Moses (or E or J or whatever) and figure out exactly what was going through their mind when they wrote down the story - did they really think that everything they were writing was factually wrong and were deliberately (((subverting))) the surrounding religions anyway? I think it's more likely that on the one hand they accepted those myths (or proto-histories) as generally true; but on the other hand, they also believed in the universal God of Israel and were recording what they thought was the story as it must have happened (although of course the ancients' concept of literary license was much broader than ours) if ethical monotheism was correct.

 

[Not Really Here]

It may have had something to do with monotheists stabbing them with swords and shit.

 

[Zero Day Defense]

Easter was once a fertility feast,

In every non-English language, Easter is called "Pascha", which is the Greek transliteration for "Pesach", which is "Passover". In no way was Easter "once a fertility feast". It doesn't have a fixed date because Christians have sought to celebrate it after the Jewish passover (which doesn't have a fixed date) in order to maintain the order of events since-- traditionally-- the liturgical year is supposed to be a roundtrip of the history of man's salvation.

Angels and demons originate (in part) from the ancient Greek believe of daimons who were considered personal guardians.

The Torah mentions angels, the Scriptures as a whole mention angels and demons, and these references provably exist without any Hellenic influence.

In Christmas a few parts of the ancient roman festivity called Saturnalia have survived, like gift giving and having large feasts.

That's a product of capitalism. Christmas is called "Christmas" because it's the day where you have a mass in celebration of the birth of Christ (thus "Christ-mass"). That's all there is to it.

As a believer I would agree that retroactively that seems to have been the plan. But objectively, it's difficult to put yourself in the mind of Moses (or E or J or whatever) and figure out exactly what was going through their mind when they wrote down the story - did they really think that everything they were writing was factually wrong and were deliberately (((subverting))) the surrounding religions anyway? I think it's more likely that on the one hand they accepted those myths (or proto-histories) as generally true; but on the other hand, they also believed in the universal God of Israel and were recording what they thought was the story as it must have happened (although of course the ancients' concept of literary license was much broader than ours) if ethical monotheism was correct.

Yeah, it's worth noting that the concept of "myth", traditionally, boiled down to "expressing truth through symbols". The Church Fathers, centuries removed from them, still understood as much.