Monotheism vs. Polytheism

[LongRider]

5 hours ago, Mr. Chatywin et al. said:

"Why were there no kangaroos on Noah's Ark?" 

Noah was just too embarrassed to admit that the damned dinosaurs ate them. 

[Phylum of Alexandria]

15 hours ago, Rippounet said:

Funnily enough, there seems to be traces of polytheism in the Torah.

I don't know if you've read Richard Eliot Friedman, but I really enjoyed his book Exodus, which to a large extent is about the evolution from polytheism to monotheism as reflected in the various components of the Torah.

[Phylum of Alexandria]

5 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

I’m fascinated with how much of Christian belief (heirarchy of the angels; Christ being the Logos; even the idea of the Trinity) is to some extent borrowed from neo-Platonist thought.  

My quasi-namesake Philo of Alexandria is at least partially responsible for that! There is also some academic speculation that Plato had been influenced by Persian and/or Babylonian religion, which were also important influences on what later became apocalyptic strains in Judaism, including Christianity.

[JGP]

1 hour ago, Kalbear said:

I don't think this is a reasonable assumption. The reason we have religion is almost certainly due to how our monkey brains work in a variety of ways that combine together to cause religious viewpoints; there is no guarantee that any other intelligent alien life would have those precepts. For instance, humans and monkeys are hardwired to experience awe, which in turn probably comes from social animal's need to have emotion around authority. That isn't a guarantee to exist in other species at all; imagine, for instance, an alien species that was a hive mind and has no concept of a creature other than itself interacting with it. Another part of things may be how we view causality; the aliens from Arrival would not need to assign a creator element to things because they have no need to explain what happened before. 

 

Sure there's always caveats, but one has to wonder how a Hive mind that achieved such technological knowhow and all the social things that came and went along the way, what remained, etc. Is the Overmind their God, who knows. I'd focus a bit more on the social as opposed to ape.

Cuts lots of ways.

 

 

edited for repetitive language

Edited January 12 by JGP

[Rippounet]

34 minutes ago, Phylum of Alexandria said:

I don't know if you've read Richard Eliot Friedman,

No, but I think whoever I read was probably referring to his work. Thanks for the tip.

14 minutes ago, JGP said:

Is the Overmind their God, who knows.

Are we truly certain that our God is not our overmind?

[Hmmm]

Polytheism makes for a more diverse and mysterious world. I do not think it is a coincidence that fantasy authors often go down this route in their world building. Monotheism probably makes more sense given how the modern world looks like, however. Kinda hard to imagine that a divine pantheon consisting of gods of farming, hunting, seafaring, smithing etc would create a world where the majority of them eventually become largely irrelevant due to technological progress. I also do not think a god of war would like a world where drone warfare becomes a thing. 

Edited January 12 by Hmmm

[DanteGabriel]

7 hours ago, mormont said:

Asherah, yes. Yahweh basically took over her cult and she was forgotten for thousands of years.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asherah

Imagine how pissed she must be.

This makes me want to reread Snow Crash, which prominently featured a cult of Asherah, and one of the Librarian's assertions in an info-dump was that early Jews were monolatrous, not monotheistic, as Ormond pointed out.

[JGP]

40 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

No, but I think whoever I read was probably referring to his work. Thanks for the tip.

Are we truly certain that our God is not our overmind?

Well you got me there. I mean, I can't speak any pretension as to what God [or Gods] is or may be, but that'd be disappointing. :p

[maarsen]

2 hours ago, Kalbear said:

I don't think this is a reasonable assumption. The reason we have religion is almost certainly due to how our monkey brains work in a variety of ways that combine together to cause religious viewpoints; there is no guarantee that any other intelligent alien life would have those precepts. For instance, humans and monkeys are hardwired to experience awe, which in turn probably comes from social animal's need to have emotion around authority. That isn't a guarantee to exist in other species at all; imagine, for instance, an alien species that was a hive mind and has no concept of a creature other than itself interacting with it. Another part of things may be how we view causality; the aliens from Arrival would not need to assign a creator element to things because they have no need to explain what happened before. 

 

This is not even a guarantee to exist in our species. Like everything else in nature, religious wiring in our brains follows a normal distribution and there will be some of us on both tails.

[Tywin et al.]

2 hours ago, LongRider said:

Noah was just too embarrassed to admit that the damned dinosaurs ate them. 

And they in turn had to die because we couldn't ride them, thus why they couldn't be mentioned. God's plan!

[Rippounet]

36 minutes ago, JGP said:

Well you got me there. I mean, I can't speak any pretension as to what God [or Gods] is or may be, but that'd be disappointing. :p

Don't fret. While social sciences suggest that god (the idea of God) may be reduced to a crucial social function for our species (one that may even be shared with other social species for all we know ), this does not preclude the existence of an actual God or Gods. If anything, if god is actually something we know of ourselves, then it opens even more possibilities for God. Maybe God is responsible for god, or at least evolution. Maybe God is a tentacled alien kid working on a science project, or a computer program, the latent consciousness of the universe, a probablistic calculator, or a raindrop sliding down the window of a crowded bus. Maybe there is a pantheon of primal forces, or maybe our ancestors are watching. God could be anything, everything, or nothing, including a flying spaghetti monster.

[DireWolfSpirit]

Never been a fan of monotheism, there's an element of arrogance involved in the mindset of elevating your superstition as the superior and only truth that I find distasteful. Christians and Muslims seem especially guilty of that.

The Ba"hai while monotheist are a little better in that they teach that there were multiple messengers Abraham, Krishna, Zoroaster, Moses, Buddha, Jesus Christ, Muḥammad, and, in more recent times, the Báb and Bahá'u'lláh

Also they tend to study multiple sacred texts with some reverance for and respect for multiple teachings.

Less of the superiority complex at work with thier views.

 

I can respect the mindset behind how they arrive at thier superstition at least.

 

Better still are the secular Buddhist or the agnosticism in Hindu-

The skeptical Indian schools have their forebears in the oldest of the Vedic texts. In Rig Veda (“Knowledge of Verses”, created in Punjab, in today's Pakistan/India, ca. 1500–1100 BCE), we find a remarkable agnostic worldview.

 

While I consider it all superstition, the further we get away from monotheism, the more comfortable and interested I feel with what communities are vibe-ing it seems.

 

What is the root cause of superstition?

 

Wanting more control or certainty is the driving force behind most superstitions. We tend to look for some kind of a rule, or an explanation for why things happen. "Sometimes the creation of a false certainty is better than no certainty at all, and that is what much of the research suggests," says Vyse.Oct 4, 2004

 

https://www.webmd.com › features

 

The Psychology of Superstition - WebMD

[Jaxom 1974]

Polytheism is ultimately more fascinating, though there are still interesting stories to tell within monotheism, particularly the Christian Bible. Whenever someone refers to it as, "the greatest story ever told", unlike to remind such folks that it can be, if it's taken for the novel of fiction is mostly is...

Though in the end, I also strive to never conflate "religion" with "faith", as they are most certainly NOT mutually exclusive. 

[fionwe1987]

8 hours ago, Kalbear said:

I don't think this is a reasonable assumption. The reason we have religion is almost certainly due to how our monkey brains work in a variety of ways that combine together to cause religious viewpoints; there is no guarantee that any other intelligent alien life would have those precepts.

I have no idea why this must be so. Theoretically, at least, there's plenty of ways for religion to evolve. You seem to think it must be caused only by how our brains work, but I see no reason to assume that. 

8 hours ago, Kalbear said:

For instance, humans and monkeys are hardwired to experience awe, which in turn probably comes from social animal's need to have emotion around authority.

Ummm... We're hardwired to experience all the emotions we experience, and there's no reason for sociality to be the driver of awe, because awe can come from any interaction of the small and individual set against the vast and connected world. 

And awe is hardly a consistent emotion social animals feel around authority, so I'm sorry, that kind of evolutionary psych hypothesis just doesn't fly. 

8 hours ago, Kalbear said:

That isn't a guarantee to exist in other species at all; imagine, for instance, an alien species that was a hive mind and has no concept of a creature other than itself interacting with it.

Well this isn't a reasonable assumption. No creature is going to evolve without a biosphere of many other species, and even solitary or non-social species in our world interact with other creatures. 

And even if you imagine such a thing, this species will be interacting with the world, with nature, with the vast universe. Whatever they feel in response to these things won't be identical to human awe, but they'll feel something, and it'll be awe-adjacent. 

8 hours ago, Kalbear said:

Another part of things may be how we view causality; the aliens from Arrival would not need to assign a creator element to things because they have no need to explain what happened before. 

 

Arrival is a great concept and story, but it's a far greater reach to imagine a species unbound by time that way that evolves naturally than assuming any naturally evolved species that comes up with linguistic communication will have some form of religion. 

Edited January 13 by fionwe1987

[The Grey Wolf Strikes Back]

As a Muslim polytheism has never appealed to me logically or philosophically. That said, mythology does make for a fun read.

[straits]

21 hours ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

Never been a fan of monotheism, there's an element of arrogance involved in the mindset of elevating your superstition as the superior and only truth that I find distasteful. Christians and Muslims seem especially guilty of that.

The Ba"hai while monotheist are a little better in that they teach that there were multiple messengers ...

The last sentence above describes Islam in general, although Muhammad as a messenger is considered the "Seal of the Prophets", with Jesus, Moses, Abraham, Noah... all the way back to Adam being considered prophets of various periods and mandates, peace be upon them. It seems that the Ba'hai tradition just adds a few interjections.

[DireWolfSpirit]

6 hours ago, straits said:

The last sentence above describes Islam in general, although Muhammad as a messenger is considered the "Seal of the Prophets", with Jesus, Moses, Abraham, Noah... all the way back to Adam being considered prophets of various periods and mandates, peace be upon them. It seems that the Ba'hai tradition just adds a few interjections.

Yusef Islam made a catchy educational song talking about this, particularly at the end when he lists the messengers from Muhammad going back to Noah and being children of Noah-

Still I think there's some differences in the Ba'hai tradition in that the messengers are broader and would include figures like Zoroas, Krishna, Siddharta Gautama (Buddha) figures not mentioned in the Quran, Tanakh or New Testament.

Additionally the sacred texts associated with those additional messengers are part of their tenet.

So yeah I'd agree there seems to be similarities, but a lot of the Abrahamic traditions overlap dont they?

In my mind the similarities arent that indistinguishable why are Jews, Muslims and Christians so busy War-ing one another for centuries now?

Also the Ba'hai are extremely persecuted in Iran, why if they are so similar?

Is it not the hubris of my superstition is superior to yours?

Edited January 14 by DireWolfSpirit

[mcbigski]

It really depends on your starting techs.  Assuming you start with Mysticism then opening Polytheism is strongly recommended, especially as the AI tends to favor Meditation.

If you happen to pop Masonry from a hut, and don't have any happiness resources readily available then you should beeline Monotheism.   

Though if you're not starting with Mysticism, then I'd say try to get Code of Laws first and found Confucianism.

YMMV.

[DireWolfSpirit]

Im surprized no-one has mentioned the Egyptian Gods with such fantastic stories.

Horus, Osiris, Ra, Isis, Seth, Anubis, Atum, the Book of the Dead. Its like going down a rabbit hole once you start looking at the creation myths, funerary texts and mythology.

 

On 1/12/2024 at 2:45 PM, DanteGabriel said:

This makes me want to reread Snow Crash, which prominently featured a cult of Asherah, and one of the Librarian's assertions in an info-dump was that early Jews were monolatrous, not monotheistic, as Ormond pointed out.

The majority of archeological digs in Israel seem to always find Asherah figurines in every ancient household it seems.

[straits]

5 hours ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

Also the Ba'hai are extremely persecuted in Iran, why if they are so similar?

Is it not the hubris of my superstition is superior to yours?

I assume Iran engages in active persecution of the Ba'hai as a matter of government policy, out of the sheer principle that they are different.

But I think that framing disagreement as hubris of conflicted superstitions is of limited use. It almost supposes a chauvinist bend seen with some nationalists. This is probably true for some religious folks, but they are making a mistake if that is what they practice.

For someone who actually believes in God and a given scripture, those who disagree are not competitors who represent different belief systems. I believe in God: you may agree with some of my beliefs, or none of my beliefs, or all of my beliefs. But in all these cases, the belief is not mine to give or take or deny; we belong to the same God. To make others your competitors is, for a monotheistic believer, a strangely secular reflex.