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Offlinesubconsciousness
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Polytheism versus monotheism
    #7665188 - 11/21/07 11:14 PM (16 years, 2 months ago)

I've always wondered: what would Western civilization be like today if it had remained pagan (polytheistic)? I recently read a thought-provoking book called "God against the Gods" about how monotheism became the dominant form of religion in Europe. I forget the author's name, but he makes a compelling case that polytheism is objectively more tolerant of other belief systems than monotheism.

Think about it: if you accept the idea that there is more than one god, then you won't have much of a problem with your neighbor worshiping a different deity. The pagans of ancient Rome were perfectly willing to worship foreign deities, such as those from Egypt for example.

However, I personally don't advocate returning to polytheism; I think the whole idea of multiple deities is far fetched, to say the least. However, I wouldn't shed a single tear if both Islam and Christianity vanished from the face of the Earth. I see these two religions as going to really clash in the coming century--it won't be pretty, to say the least. Each religion absolutely insists that it has a monopoly on divine truth, and that in itself is dangerous.

What do you guys think?


--------------------
"It's not a war on drugs, it's a war on personal freedom. Keep that in mind at all times."
--Bill Hicks

"Anyway, no drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we're looking for the source of our troubles, we shouldn't test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power."
--P.J. O'Rourke


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InvisiblelIllIIIllIlIIlIlIIllIllIIl
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Re: Polytheism versus monotheism [Re: subconsciousness]
    #7665234 - 11/21/07 11:33 PM (16 years, 2 months ago)

i don't really know myself

i read a book called "the gift of the jews" ... argues that monotheism differs from polytheism in that it departs from an existential world view

early jewish people were much more acceptant of the idea that the world can be changed according to what we do today, when the dominant world view at the time was that everything was cyclical and controlled by the gods

i think that we owe a lot to monotheistic religions, but they are becoming more and more of an anachronism today

but if they were to suddenly disappear would the world be better off? or would we find some other reason to start wars and persecute others?


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Offlinesubconsciousness
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Re: Polytheism versus monotheism [Re: lIllIIIllIlIIlIlIIllIllIIl]
    #7665256 - 11/21/07 11:49 PM (16 years, 2 months ago)

Don't get me wrong: there are positive aspects of monotheistic religions, especially Judaism. There are over 2,000 references in the Bible to helping the poor. The whole concept of Tikkun Olam, "to mend the world" is something I find great about monotheism. But that doesn't mean that we have to be monotheists to find value in social justice, or polytheists to appreciate the value of tolerating other belief systems.

I think we can learn from both systems. We can take the best from polytheism and monotheism without ascribing to either. Wars and strife would not disappear if Islam and Christianity were to die out tomorrow; I'm not saying that the absence of these religions would make the world a utopia.

But I see a major conflict with Islam and Christianity in the future.


--------------------
"It's not a war on drugs, it's a war on personal freedom. Keep that in mind at all times."
--Bill Hicks

"Anyway, no drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we're looking for the source of our troubles, we shouldn't test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power."
--P.J. O'Rourke


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InvisibleOrgoneConclusion
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Re: Polytheism versus monotheism [Re: subconsciousness]
    #7665288 - 11/22/07 12:10 AM (16 years, 2 months ago)

Monothesism - 100% of religious irrationality focused on one god.

Polytheism: - 100% of religious irrationilty divided equally among many gods. Example: belief in five gods = 20% irrationality quotient towards each one.

End result: same/same.

That being said, if another poster argues there is no limit to irrationality, I would tend to agree.


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InvisiblelIllIIIllIlIIlIlIIllIllIIl
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Re: Polytheism versus monotheism [Re: subconsciousness]
    #7665289 - 11/22/07 12:10 AM (16 years, 2 months ago)

i think you are probably right


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Offlinesubconsciousness
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Re: Polytheism versus monotheism [Re: lIllIIIllIlIIlIlIIllIllIIl]
    #7665336 - 11/22/07 12:37 AM (16 years, 2 months ago)

I'm not saying that monotheism and polytheism are entirely rational belief systems. I'm just trying to determine the merits of one over the other.

Personally, I just think that superimposing beliefs upon reality is a futile endeavor. That forces you to pigeonhole reality into your belief system. I think you should just experience reality openly, without any preconceived notions, and go from there.


--------------------
"It's not a war on drugs, it's a war on personal freedom. Keep that in mind at all times."
--Bill Hicks

"Anyway, no drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we're looking for the source of our troubles, we shouldn't test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power."
--P.J. O'Rourke


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InvisibleSilversoul
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Re: Polytheism versus monotheism [Re: subconsciousness]
    #7666748 - 11/22/07 11:58 AM (16 years, 2 months ago)

What I find most interesting about polytheist religions is that they don't think in such black & white terms about good and evil. There are gods who have both positive and negative attributes, and often there are ambiguities about the two.

Another thing I find interesting is that even supposedly monotheistic religions maintain aspects of polytheism. For example, saints and angels take on the roles that gods took in other religions. Then in Christianity you have the trinity, and in Kabbalah you have the Tree of Life. If these religions were more open-minded, they might see the gods of other faiths as different forms of the angels they are familiar with. Instead, they often condemn them as either false gods or as demons.


--------------------


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OfflineMarkostheGnostic
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Re: Polytheism versus monotheism [Re: lIllIIIllIlIIlIlIIllIllIIl]
    #7667880 - 11/22/07 07:01 PM (16 years, 2 months ago)

I think you're on to something about the difference between what Mircea Eliade called "The Myth of the Eternal return" (which is also the title of one of his books), and Sacred Time of monotheistic faiths. In the former, all of nature abides by cyclic processes wherein each of those processes were named as gods and goddesses. A Neopagan friend of ours never wanted to dose on mushrooms beyond the giggle phase. Her ego is tied to the four elements, and transcendence of the world is a fearful thing to her. She is content to be pantheistic, seeing cycles within cycles (Earth's rotations and revolutions; birth to death, elements recycled; circulation of the blood, etc.). And, as identifying with matter, but not consciousness, she sees herself as animate matter which simply returns to the Earth at death.

With Sacred Time which is linear, beginning ex nihilo, (not really out of 'nothing' but emanating from a higher dimension through the process of 'creation'), there is an end as well. Whether the entire universe is destined to become transformed back into the Godhead whence it emerged (as Teilhard de Chardin theorized and named "The Omega Point"), or whether only self-aware beings like some humans will be transformed back into the Godhead are interesting speculations. If cosmological speculations about entropy overtaking the expanding universe is right, will time run backwards as the universe reverses its expansion and begins to contract? Would that nullify the teleology of 'universal transubstantiation' of the universe into the Godhead?
Anyway, there are differences in people's self-identity and probably their social and political perceptions as well.


--------------------
γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself


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InvisibleOrgoneConclusion
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Re: Polytheism versus monotheism [Re: subconsciousness]
    #7667895 - 11/22/07 07:06 PM (16 years, 2 months ago)

Quote:

Personally, I just think that superimposing beliefs upon reality is a futile endeavor. That forces you to pigeonhole reality into your belief system. I think you should just experience reality openly, without any preconceived notions, and go from there.





Yeah, but then how can people go to war? :confused:


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OfflineNiamhNyx
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Re: Polytheism versus monotheism [Re: MarkostheGnostic]
    #7668079 - 11/22/07 07:59 PM (16 years, 2 months ago)

Quote:

MarkostheGnostic said:
identifying with matter, but not consciousness, she sees herself as animate matter which simply returns to the Earth at death.





Do you think it is contradictory to identify with both matter and consciousness? One major thing I get out of the whole gnostic thing is the perspective that matter is consciousness reflecting itself. I don't see them as mutually exclusive, but rather one and the same.


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OfflineMarkostheGnostic
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Re: Polytheism versus monotheism [Re: NiamhNyx]
    #7668305 - 11/22/07 09:33 PM (16 years, 2 months ago)

Materialistic people versus spiritual people. It depends on the frame of reference. I begin with Consciousness as the a priori.


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OfflineNiamhNyx
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Re: Polytheism versus monotheism [Re: MarkostheGnostic]
    #7668335 - 11/22/07 09:54 PM (16 years, 2 months ago)

I don't see why there has to be a split. It seems a little too Cartesian for my tastes. "The ghost in the machine" was never a paradigm I could get behind.


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Offlinesubconsciousness
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Re: Polytheism versus monotheism [Re: Silversoul]
    #7668368 - 11/22/07 10:07 PM (16 years, 2 months ago)

Quote:

Silversoul said:
What I find most interesting about polytheist religions is that they don't think in such black & white terms about good and evil. There are gods who have both positive and negative attributes, and often there are ambiguities about the two.

Another thing I find interesting is that even supposedly monotheistic religions maintain aspects of polytheism. For example, saints and angels take on the roles that gods took in other religions. Then in Christianity you have the trinity, and in Kabbalah you have the Tree of Life. If these religions were more open-minded, they might see the gods of other faiths as different forms of the angels they are familiar with. Instead, they often condemn them as either false gods or as demons.




Roman Catholicism seems almost like polytheism to me. I was raised Catholic, and I don't ever remember praying to God directly. For example, if I was in a hopeless situation, I would pray to St. Jude (the patron saint of hopeless causes) or if I lost my car keys, I would pray to St. Anthony (the patron saint of lost things) or if I was in a bout of mental illness, I would direct my prayers to St. Dymphna (the patron saint of mental disorders and illnesses). Jesus never figured into the equation.


--------------------
"It's not a war on drugs, it's a war on personal freedom. Keep that in mind at all times."
--Bill Hicks

"Anyway, no drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we're looking for the source of our troubles, we shouldn't test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power."
--P.J. O'Rourke


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OfflineMarkostheGnostic
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Re: Polytheism versus monotheism [Re: NiamhNyx]
    #7669587 - 11/23/07 09:36 AM (16 years, 2 months ago)

It is not that dualistic paradigm. It is a matter of Consciousness being the eternal substratum of all existence, and like massive bodies in space which create gravitation, matter seems to cause local Consciousness to be drawn into itself with a false identity occurring as a result. We mostly are deceived into identifying what we are with our bodies and then the more subtle aspects: sensations, emotions and thoughts. These are all modes of Consciousness, not modes of matter.

We dream and our dream ego responds to dream monsters with tremendous emotion. The dream monster is as real as our dream ego who fears it. Then we awaken to another level and we see the relative unreality of both the dream monster and our dream ego from the perspective of our waking ego. The world is real to our waking ego and it is not until we Awaken to Superconsciousness that we can see the same kind of relative relation of the 'real' world and our waking ego from yet a higher perspective. All of this is about Consciousness, not matter.

Moreover, going back to the beginning of space-time, creation emerged from a Singularity - a dimensionless point from...from...Well, the religious person says 'from God.' I do not have a problem with the word. 'God' doesn't explain anything of the Mystery behind existence, it merely designates the Mystery. But God, Great Spirit, Spirit - is an archaic term for Consciousness. Consciousness in the Transcendent sense as God is the ultimate basis for all consciousness including our own. Each organism is, to me, a transmitter allowing more and more Transcendental Consciousness to become Self-Consciousness through material organisms like human beings. But, from the perspective of Transcendental Consciousness, the entire material universe is no more substantial than our dreams are to us when we awaken. So, I am defining Ultimate Reality from the standpoint of Ultimate Reality, not from my human standpoint. There is then, only Consciousness because from the perspective of Eternal Consciousness, even a solar system is as ephemeral as a cloud is to us. There is no ultimate dualism, there is only ONE. We and everything in existence is no more than a dream in the Divine Mind.

Tracing the atoms of our body back to the sun in which they were forged, and beyond that to the birth of the sun from particles more simple than hydrogen atoms, we can trace subatomic particles back to their origins in the cooling energies of the Big Bang. At that moment, the laws of physics didn't yet exist because space-time didn't yet exist, but as the 'seed' of the Singularity began to 'blossom' into space-time Infinite Consciousness, paradoxically, is present in every finite point of space-time, guiding the development of the universe as DNA guides the biological development of molecules into organelles of cells and cells into organs and on and on in The Great Chain of Being, from quarks to quasars. Religiously speaking, this is the Immanence of God, the Presence of Eternal Mind outside of its Transcendent Essence - the Godhead. The Great Chain of Being - Intelligent Design.

Or so I imagine it to be! :wink:


Edited by MarkostheGnostic (11/23/07 10:05 AM)


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OfflineNiamhNyx
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Re: Polytheism versus monotheism [Re: MarkostheGnostic]
    #7669802 - 11/23/07 10:41 AM (16 years, 2 months ago)

Ok, I see where you're coming from. In that case, what is matter? Extra, useless garbage? Like I said, I view matter as consciousness' reflection, that at times is unaware of itself in that aspect. For me, matter is not a distraction or an illusion, but rather the One cast in various forms. The journey,then, is not to deny or 'transcend' matter, but to recognize this oneness in a way that is both immanent and transcendent.


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OfflineMarkostheGnostic
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Re: Polytheism versus monotheism [Re: NiamhNyx]
    #7671434 - 11/23/07 05:15 PM (16 years, 2 months ago)

I rather agree with you, but non-dualism is a transcendental condition. It is experiencing the Buddhist saying: "Samsara is Nirvana, Nirvana is Samsara."
I am told that I have a lot of 'air' in my chart, astrologically speaking. I tend towards flights from the more obvious physical and social spheres and live, as intraverted intuitive thinking types do, more in the inner world of ideas and intuition. This proclivity is expressed in my writing style and as a consequence of being ready to die consciously, it looks like I'm always ready to drop what I'm doing, drop the mind-body, and soar.


--------------------
γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself


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Offlinea_guy_named_ai
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Re: Polytheism versus monotheism [Re: subconsciousness]
    #7671710 - 11/23/07 06:06 PM (16 years, 2 months ago)

Quote:

I Think about it: if you accept the idea that there is more than one god, then you won't have much of a problem with your neighbor worshiping a different deity. The pagans of ancient Rome were perfectly willing to worship foreign deities, such as those from Egypt for example.




It doesn't work out to be so well. When ancient polytheistic religions were popular, they still found "reasons" to hate each other.

subconsciousness:

Quote:

Roman Catholicism seems almost like polytheism to me. I was raised Catholic, and I don't ever remember praying to God directly. For example, if I was in a hopeless situation, I would pray to St. Jude (the patron saint of hopeless causes) or if I lost my car keys, I would pray to St. Anthony (the patron saint of lost things) or if I was in a bout of mental illness, I would direct my prayers to St. Dymphna (the patron saint of mental disorders and illnesses). Jesus never figured into the equation.




Roman catholicism IS polytheism. When the roman catholic church simply assimilated pagan deities into the church under altered names. It's never been Christianity. Their Christ isn't Christ at all, it's the son from the mother/son babylonian fable that is copied all over the world in pagan religion. ninus, krishna,iswari,horus,jupiter,deoius..they're all the same.


markos:

Quote:

If cosmological speculations about entropy overtaking the expanding universe is right, will time run backwards as the universe reverses its expansion and begins to contract?




Apparently not, it's been shown that there's not enough energy for contraction.


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OfflineMarkostheGnostic
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Re: Polytheism versus monotheism [Re: a_guy_named_ai]
    #7671967 - 11/23/07 06:59 PM (16 years, 2 months ago)

Nothing has been "shown" yet. Dark matter has only recently been 'discovered,' and there seems to be acceleration according to some researchers rather than slowing.


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InvisibleHuehuecoyotl
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Re: Polytheism versus monotheism [Re: MarkostheGnostic]
    #7671983 - 11/23/07 07:02 PM (16 years, 2 months ago)

Wrong thread :lol:


--------------------
"A warrior is a hunter. He calculates everything. That's control. Once his calculations are over, he acts. He lets go. That's abandon. A warrior is not a leaf at the mercy of the wind. No one can push him; no one can make him do things against himself or against his better judgment. A warrior is tuned to survive, and he survives in the best of all possible fashions." ― Carlos Castaneda


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OfflineMushroomTrip
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Re: Polytheism versus monotheism [Re: Huehuecoyotl]
    #7672007 - 11/23/07 07:06 PM (16 years, 2 months ago)

:lol:


--------------------
:bunny::bunnyhug:
All this time I've loved you
And never known your face
All this time I've missed you
And searched this human race
Here is true peace
Here my heart knows calm
Safe in your soul
Bathed in your sighs

:bunnyhug: :yinyang2:


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