How did monotheism become so popular?

[Aupmanyav]

Diverse gods means there is no true morality. Gods would be in this case just like us, lost on to what truly is moral guidance and would have no pathway. Then their power and structure would be similarly politics, and not really based on truth.

What is true morality? That which is followed by Shias or Christians? An atheist can be moral without any religion (of course, I do not fit there. I am an atheist and a Hindu. So, I go by Hindu concept of morality - 'dharma'). Morality is the law of the society, like wearing a scarf for women in Iran.

 

[Link]

What is true morality? That which is followed by Shias or Christians? An atheist can be moral without any religion (of course, I do not fit there. I am an atheist and a Hindu. So, I go by Hindu concept of morality - 'dharma'). Morality is the law of the society, like wearing a scarf for women in Iran.

Whatever it is, without God, it can't exist truly. Without God, it's an illusion.

 

[danieldemol]

Whatever it is, without God, it can't exist truly. Without God, it's an illusion.

Break the law in any non-Shia country and you'll soon find its no illusion in my view.

 

[Aupmanyav]

IMHO, God, soul, and what is perceived; all of that is illusion.

 

[wellwisher]

How did monotheism become so popular?

Polytheism described reality in terms of a bunch of specialists. You had a goddess specialized in love and a god who was specialized in war. If you needed help in battle, you call in the war specialists. Monotheism integrated all the specialists under a single principle; God the King of Kings.

This integrating affect allowed the team to become more than the sum of its parts. There is a time for everything since it all under one principle. In polytheism, the gods and goddess were often divided in politics. This was not a good team. But monotheism changed that;

A time to be born, a time to die
A time to plant, a time to reap
A time to kill, a time to heal
A time to laugh, a time to weep, etc.

Relative to the human personality, for the ego to become well rounded and balanced; reflect the inner self, required an integrating principle. It had to do with the layout of the brain's operating system. There is an integrating factor called the inner self. It has a jukebox of apps that are called the archetypes of the collective unconscious. Polytheism was more connected to the individual apps, while monotheism was connected to the underlying principle that ran the entire show.

In polytheism, if you wanted to become a good soldier, you would worship the god Mars. But since the gods were not all friends, or all on the same page, you could get stuck being only a soldier. This was not healthy. With monotheism, since God was over all the apps, you could become a solider and then a lover, since there no conflict in the jukebox playing one or the other; there is a time for all things. This allowed people to become more balanced which allowed persistence in culture, based on this merit of completeness. Today we have a choice or not.

 

[Aupmanyav]

Polytheism described reality in terms of a bunch of specialists. You had a goddess specialized in love and a god who was specialized in war. If you needed help in battle, you call in the war specialists. Monotheism integrated all the specialists under a single principle; God the King of Kings.

What do you like? Democracy or dictatorship?

 

[Nakosis]

How did monotheism become so popular?

I think through Christianity. Christians decided their God was the only God which every one else needed to accept as well.

Even Jew, though they had no other God before their God didn't necessarily deny other people has their own Gods. Christians took over other lands and force acceptance of their God. Basically monotheism was force by the sword onto a large portion of the world.

Christianity became a violent religious belief and used the supreme nature of their God to justify that violence.

 

[DNB]

How did monotheism become so popular?

Because it made the most sense - only one omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, and all powerful Being, who lacks nothing and is perfect in every way, can exist at one time. If there were more than one, there would be absolutely nothing to differentiate one from the other, as it would also be the quintessence of redundancy.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

Even Jew, though they had no other God before their God didn't necessarily deny other people has their own Gods.

@Viker

Notice, Judaism never took up the sword or compelled non-Jews to assimilate.

Um, y'all do know that the Old Testament is the Hebrew Bible, right? It goes behind merely denying those Gods, it demonizes and insults them and their worshipers. Then it has Yahweh ordering genocide of the neighboring people around the Jews and the destruction of their objects and sites of worship. So it started there. Not with Christianity.

69 Bible verses about False Gods

A topical Bible which shows the most relevant Bible verse for each topic

bible.knowing-jesus.com

Also, Jews have a history of radical and violent fundamentalist movements. The Maccabees, for example, were a bunch of violent religious fanatics who wouldn't have been too different from Al-Qaeda. They would also attack Jews who had assimilated into Hellenic culture. There's also Phineas, the grandson of Aaron, who is depicted murdering an Israelite man and his Midianite lover in a gross episode of murder that sounds very similar to killing an interracial couple for "miscegenation" (in fact, Phineas is a beloved figure for white supremacist Christians and racists who murder interracial couples were called "Phineas priests").

I know people want to have more sympathy for Jews because of past persecution but let's not act like Judaism isn't problematic in its own ways.