Why did polytheism fail?

[Bad Gateway]

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

ALL Christianity.

By definition.

 

[VIPPER?]

I bet it has to do with the large number of dieties for basic shit that eventually became understood as not being a god doing it, but just being a longer process. It's hard to have a tree god when the arborists have a big body of even pseudo-scientific knowledge, and it just gets them made fun of by more general biologists who themselves have big bodies of at least pseudo-scientific knowledge. Technological and scientific advancement basically demand the abandonment of god-as-actor, and that kind of god can only exist as long as there's still mysteries unsolved (or unsolveable). A single creator deity is still compatible with learning about the world for a lot longer, though.

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

Also this.

 

[Real Fakeman]

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.

Is that also why it just happens to be celebrated around the winter solstice, despite there being nothing in the bible to suggest that Jesus was born then? Is that also why we take a tree into our house and decorate it? Hanging mistletoe above the door? In the nordic countries this holiday has been called Yule since ancient times, with many unsuccessful attempts to rebrand it as "christmas".

I bet it has to do with the large number of dieties for basic shit that eventually became understood as not being a god doing it

It's not like the ancient greeks literally believed that the waves of the ocean were caused by Poseidon flexing his thighs or something, and abandoned their religion when this was checkmated by science. Does it really make sense that Jonas was eaten by a whale, or that Samson had hair that made him really strong? IMO, fundies that believe everything is literally true are the same as that kind of atheist that has to disprove and debunk everything, just the other way around. They are both missing the point. These myths and stories are beyond true and false, they are highly symbolic and are telling you things about the world, people, and human psychology and so on. You might not even be consciously aware of it, but they can be very powerful.

 

[Zero Day Defense]

Is that also why it just happens to be celebrated around the winter solstice, despite there being nothing in the bible to suggest that Jesus was born then?

It's nine months out from when the Annunciation is celebrated.

Is that also why we take a tree into our house and decorate it? Hanging mistletoe above the door?

Those aren't religious traditions, and are Western at best.

 

[VIPPER?]

[myths' symbolic use]

Keep in mind that people being goddamn NPCs isn't a new phenomenon. For every person who believes in Thoth as a general concept for guidance of both legal precepts and natural law coinciding nicely, there were (and probably still are) people that think that an ibis-headed buff dude literally hands down divine proclamations expressing the absolute state of reality, and lawyers and engineers are actual angels, or at least divinely touched or something.

Just look at people who take US constitutional amendments as inviolable natural law -- they don't believe that things in the Bill of Rights ought to be afforded and the rights enumerated should be protected, they believe that it is "god-given" and is a set of laws as inviolable as gravity. For every person who takes the bible/torah/quran/whatever as a general but flowery manual on how to live a good life and bolster your community, there's ten or a hundred who literally think some dude got swallowed by a whale and got an afterschool special lesson for it after he didn't die from getting eaten by a whale.

 

[Stoneheart]

Roman elites wanted to hold onto power after the fall...

 

[Zero Day Defense]

Roman elites wanted to hold onto power after the fall...

You mean, after the Western Roman Empire got invaded by Arian barbarians?

 

[Stoneheart]

You mean, after the Western Roman Empire got invaded by Arian barbarians?

Arian Ayrians,,,

 

[Lemmingwise]

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

Really? How so?

This sounds very interesting.

That's a product of capitalism

I don't think so. Your american santa clause is an amalgayion of various european traditions, including yhe Dutch Sinterklaas (based on the eastern roman saint of myca who died in the 300s). The oldest date of gift giving in relation to this tradition is in the 1100s where the tradition wad to give money and a free day to kids, but only to hard working kids who deserved it.

The hitting with bunches of wood goes back to even before it was a christian feast, back when it was a form of Odin worship, where the ravens huginn and muninn would listen on top of buildings, over the chimney to hear which people were good and which were not, so that the wicked could be punished.

1404 is the earliest date where they would get cake and cookies.

1427 is the earliest recorded date where kids would leave their shoe out and find coins in it in the morning.

The mistletoe instead comes from pre-father christmas in England, where romans had recorded that druids would sacrifice an animal under the mistletoe in the midwinter.

Roman Saturnalia itself also included gift giving.

The scandinavian/germanic yule included a kind of trick or treating where adults would beg for a kind of pudding. They are also the ones who celebrated by cutting down a tree and burning it (which we now symbolise by putting lights in a tree).

Are we really talking about capitalism in pre-christian times?

 

[Zero Day Defense]

Really? How so?

This sounds very interesting.

From my understanding, creation myths from that area described massive wars between whichever gods in their pantheon. In contrast, Genesis involves God, by Himself, merely speaking the world into existence and establishing order out of chaos.

Somewhat related: it's not the only distinct place where expectations are subverted in order to distinguish God from the Canaanite pantheon. The purpose of the narrative of the binding of Isaac, for example is to demonstrate that the God of Abraham isn't like the gods they're used to hearing about. Abraham doesn't put up much of a fuss about sacrificing the son he longed so much for and received even as he was a century old (and his wife only a year younger) because child sacrifice wasn't foreign to the Canaanite religion (see Moloch). God preventing Abraham from going through with the sacrifice, and furthermore providing the kind of sacrifice He wants, is meant to demonstrate the kind of sacrifice He's looking for.

I don't think so. Your american santa clause is an amalgayion of various european traditions, including yhe Dutch Sinterklaas (based on the eastern roman saint of myca who died in the 300s). The oldest date of gift giving in relation to this tradition is in the 1100s where the tradition wad to give money and a free day to kids, but only to hard working kids who deserved it.

The hitting with bunches of wood goes back to even before it was a christian feast, back when it was a form of Odin worship, where the ravens huginn and muninn would listen on top of buildings, over the chimney to hear which people were good and which were not, so that the wicked could be punished.

1404 is the earliest date where they would get cake and cookies.

1427 is the earliest recorded date where kids would leave their shoe out and find coins in it in the morning.

The mistletoe instead comes from pre-father christmas in England, where romans had recorded that druids would sacrifice an animal under the mistletoe in the midwinter.

Roman Saturnalia itself also included gift giving.

The scandinavian/germanic yule included a kind of trick or treating where adults would beg for a kind of pudding. They are also the ones who celebrated by cutting down a tree and burning it (which we now symbolise by putting lights in a tree).

Are we really talking about capitalism in pre-christian times?

To be fair, I was being somewhat flippant in that response since the contention that Christmas is actually an amagalmation of various pagan rituals is a very West-centric idea often ignorant of historical Christian liturgical life-- though I wasn't aware of most of any of these things (and also, I'm strangely more familiar with Eastern Christianity, which didn't have to have any of these interactions in the first place). I'm more familiar with these traditions being embedded in the western consciousness of Christmas to the benefit of businesses who make a lot of money in the month or more leading up to the actual day.

 

[Lemmingwise]

To be fair, I was being somewhat flippant in that response

That's what I thought. But it was a nice excuse to let my autism run with a subject I like and I thought you might find it interesting.

Saint nicholas also has various celebrations in eastern europe, but none that I can see involve gifts.

The binding of isaac and creation is very interesting, thanks.

 

[Clint Torez]

Polytheism was an outdated form of religion that got shafted by better organized religions. Hinduism and Buddhism followers will eventually be reduced to a small group of mountain people in the Himalayas or co-opted by twitter users looking to piss off their family.

 

[Kosher Dill]

From my understanding, creation myths from that area described massive wars between whichever gods in their pantheon. In contrast, Genesis involves God, by Himself, merely speaking the world into existence and establishing order out of chaos.

I've read some theorizing that one of the ways the Biblical creation story was intended to contrast with other religions is that the sun, moon, and stars are just lights put up in the sky by God, rather than gods and angels in their own right. I doubt we'll ever have any proof of this though.

 

[Shadfan666xxx000]

I've read some theorizing that one of the ways the Biblical creation story was intended to contrast with other religions is that the sun, moon, and stars are just lights put up in the sky by God, rather than gods and angels in their own right. I doubt we'll ever have any proof of this though.

There's certainly intellectual grounds for the theory. One of the proverbs directly mocks animism for trying to perceive intelligence in rocks and trees.

 

[Opticana]

Really? How so?

This sounds very interesting.

From my understanding, creation myths from that area described massive wars between whichever gods in their pantheon. In contrast, Genesis involves God, by Himself, merely speaking the world into existence and establishing order out of chaos.

There's a whole bunch of differences. In the Mesopotamian stories humans are created as servants to dig canals for the gods and feed them. The gods eventually regret doing this, because the expanding human population makes too much noise, and send a great flood to wipe them out. The hero escapes because he has secret knowledge of what's about to happen.

In the bible, God creates humans to rule over/care for creation. He regrets creating them because they've turned to evil, and Noah is chosen to be saved because of his righteousness. Even after the flood, Noah is commanded to repopulate the earth, because human life is intrinsically worthwhile.

I've read some theorizing that one of the ways the Biblical creation story was intended to contrast with other religions is that the sun, moon, and stars are just lights put up in the sky by God, rather than gods and angels in their own right. I doubt we'll ever have any proof of this though.

Unusually, Genesis 1:16 uses the terms "the greater light" and "the lesser light" instead of the words for "sun" and "moon". This may be because the Hebrew words (Shemesh and Yareah) are also the proper names of Semitic gods associated with them, and the story wants to stress that the heavenly bodies aren't deities in their own right. There are some passages in Deuteronomy which would support this interpretation - sun and moon worship by gentiles is depicted as a positive or neutral act, but as a bad thing for Israelites to do. It seems like the Israelites are supposed to know that the sun and moon, more than any other candidate for worship, are subordinate to God.

I guess this is my answer to OP, but the simplest way to understand this is that in order to get to monotheism you have to start somewhere. An atheist, materialist culture isn't going to adopt belief in one god. Israel is forbidden from engaging in polytheism, but that's because they have a covenant with YHWH. Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that there's nowhere in the bible where gentiles are punished purely because they don't worship YHWH. It's considered ignorance on their part, not an act of rebellion against God.

 

[Cyclonus]

I wish it hadn't. I like a bit of soap opera in my religion.

 

[Mnutu]

I recall a story about a missionary to Britain. He was challenged by the Druids to prove his God was greater than their gods. The Druids would cut down a tree so that it would fall down on the missionary, and if the tree did not crush him, they would renounce their old gods and become Christian. He agreed, and as the tree was about to fall on him, he crossed himself and it fell to the side.

True or not, I always took it more abstractly. The Christians could take advantage of superstitions and ignorance to humiliate the pagans. Shit like knocking over sacred trees and nothing happening, or directly defying and flaunting ceremonies and sacraments and nothing happening. Took a page from Christ dealing with the Pharisees. Monotheistic religions are almost inherently far less superstitious and reality minded. Polytheism only really works for temporal results.

 

[Eggplant Wizard]

For my two cents I am going to say that the monotheistic religions managed to get ahold of the right figures of power at the right time. When you have the force of government (and the military) backing your god, you’re gonna win.

With polytheism, when the king backs Zeus, the Temple of Poseidon will still manage to hold some political sway, because trade lanes. Under a single god, you better have the actual money to ensure that political power, because the support of the people via religion is gone. Hence why rulers started to like the idea of only one god, it makes things incredibly simple.