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I was reading the chapters about the early Christian church in the book Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, and it got me interested in polytheism. The West has been dominated by monotheistic religions for so long that it is actually novel to think that there may be gods who do not claim exclusive rights to existence and worship. I especially like the idea that each region and people have gods that are native to them. Thus it is as silly to impose the desert dwelling god of Israel onto the frozen regions as it is to imagine proselytizing for Thor and Odin among the tribes of Africa.
Anyway a really fascinating character in that book was the Roman Emperor Julian, nephew of the first Christian Emperor Constantine. Julian was raised with a mixture of Christian theology and Greek philosophy, and upon becoming emperor, he tried to revive worship of the Greek and Roman Gods. He even wrote a three book treatise "Against The Galileans", which the Church later destroyed all copies of. Fragments survive quoted in the rebuttals of Christian writers, but even these responses to his book were mostly destroyed in order to wipe out all trace of his arguments.
Julian died young in battle, and soon all the work he did to try and revive the old religion was undone, and the rest is history. I wonder how different the world might have been if it were Roman polytheism that conquered Europe and then spread throughout the world instead of Christianity? I think one sure result would have been more polytheistic traditions surviving conquest, such as those of the Native Americans/Hawaiians, Scandinavians, Druids etc. They may still have been wiped out, but not as surely as when a single jealous god makes it a sin to acknowledge the existence of other gods.
  
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Papua New Guinea1058 Posts
The week minded would then believe in group of gods jealous of other religions instead of one. Nothing would really change.
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I've heard that having a monotheistic state religion greatly aids in the administration of a multi-ethnic empire thus giving empires so endowed an advantage in the contest of civilisations.
It also seems interesting to me that I can not think of any society that has transitioned from mono- to polytheism, it seems to be a one-way street.
Note also that great quantities of sub-deities, such as angels, demons, jinni, bodhisattvas and the like sprung up, although they tend not to be emphasised that much these days.
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United States889 Posts
The answer is simple. The Islamic conquests would have overrun Europe. However fragile the frequent unions among Christian leaders in the early modern period, it was only their uniting - in large part because of their shared beliefs - that stopped the frequent Muslim incursions into Europe.
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You have correctly noticed that it is strange for the gods of polytheistic religions to migrate. Polytheistic gods are almost by definition local. What is it about Christianity that allowed it to expand beyond its ethnic and cultural borders?
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United States15275 Posts
On October 04 2016 06:10 Jerubaal wrote:
You have correctly noticed that it is strange for the gods of polytheistic religions to migrate. Polytheistic gods are almost by definition local.
...what? That's not true at all.
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On October 04 2016 06:10 Jerubaal wrote:
You have correctly noticed that it is strange for the gods of polytheistic religions to migrate. Polytheistic gods are almost by definition local. What is it about Christianity that allowed it to expand beyond its ethnic and cultural borders?
Christianity expanded because the God of Israel never intended his relationship to be with just Israel. It was meant for all nations. Israel was just chosen to bring others to him (but they failed a lot). Then comes Jesus way later who reiterates what Israel was supposed to be doing then gives the "great commission" for his people to go out to all the nations and make disciples.
So basically, it expanded outward because that's what it was designed to do from the beginning.
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On October 04 2016 06:30 CosmicSpiral wrote:Show nested quote +On October 04 2016 06:10 Jerubaal wrote:
You have correctly noticed that it is strange for the gods of polytheistic religions to migrate. Polytheistic gods are almost by definition local. ...what? That's not true at all.
Care to give a counter example?
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On October 04 2016 00:46 Arrian wrote:
The answer is simple. The Islamic conquests would have overrun Europe. However fragile the frequent unions among Christian leaders in the early modern period, it was only their uniting - in large part because of their shared beliefs - that stopped the frequent Muslim incursions into Europe.
I doubt that. France had a long alliance with the Ottomans and the coalition that defended Vienna were mostly hostile neighbors of the Ottomans (who had a lot of infighting btw). There were also Christians who sided with the Ottomans even in their largest invasion.
On October 04 2016 10:28 Jerubaal wrote:Show nested quote +On October 04 2016 06:30 CosmicSpiral wrote:On October 04 2016 06:10 Jerubaal wrote:
You have correctly noticed that it is strange for the gods of polytheistic religions to migrate. Polytheistic gods are almost by definition local. ...what? That's not true at all. Care to give a counter example?
Artemis was a Greek goddess that spread through the entirety of Persia. The original Roman pantheon is essentially the Greek one. Adad/Hadad, later Ba'al was originally a god the Amroites prayed to in Syria, then it spread to Babylon and Assur and from there to the Phoenician cities across the Mediterranean (like Carthage). When Christianity reached Rome it was full of small Religions and sects.
And that's just some gods, don't get me started with all the associations and symbolism. Some of which we still have in Christian mythology.
@topic
Polytheism has some major disadvantages. The biggest one is that a bunch of quarreling gods is less useful for promising protection, salvation and unity/community, which are the big selling points of "modern" religions. The Emperors abandoned polytheism because the populace abandoned it, leaving them no real choice, so bringing it back was a foolish project.
I kinda prefer polytheism more as I find it more believable. But that's a minor point for most people.
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On October 04 2016 06:10 Jerubaal wrote:
You have correctly noticed that it is strange for the gods of polytheistic religions to migrate. Polytheistic gods are almost by definition local. What is it about Christianity that allowed it to expand beyond its ethnic and cultural borders?
I don't think it's a notion of polytheism being a harder sell than monotheism, I think its more of a technology thing where the later empires have a much greater scope to conquer areas, and there was a larger gap in technology.
If we lived in the ancient world, I'm sure we would think the Greek and Roman pantheons were very widespread because of the distances people were able to reasonably go back then.
If that argument doesn't hold up, I guess its because Christianity and Islam have kind of a mandate. In Christianity, you believe you must spread the word of God or they're going to Hell. I don't know much about Islam but I know they were big into converting people for kind of that same purpose.
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Each god of polytheistic religion is representative of some artisan skill. The greatest polytheistic religions like hinduism are available to everyone. But it is common in my experience to see some members as friends and other members as not friends or enemies. It is usually characteristic of the higher God to be incarnated of everything.
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The reason for Christianity becoming big was the problem of multiple different polytheistic religions in one empire. If you do a decree that anybody that owns land has to be part of a the military for 5 years to keep ownership you face consequences you can't keep track of. Religion 1 might hail you as a hero since they now get to force their friends to go to war with them. Religion 2 hates war and does passive resistance. Religion 3 only feels the religion should have standing armies so they rebel.
Then the same thing for every single decree in a big empire. If you have one religion be it mono- or polytheistic you can keep the empire stable and stop many rebellions. Christianity came at the right time and had many values that lends to a stable government, which is why other countries also took it up.
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United States889 Posts
On October 04 2016 13:47 Archeon wrote:Show nested quote +On October 04 2016 00:46 Arrian wrote:
The answer is simple. The Islamic conquests would have overrun Europe. However fragile the frequent unions among Christian leaders in the early modern period, it was only their uniting - in large part because of their shared beliefs - that stopped the frequent Muslim incursions into Europe. I doubt that. France had a long alliance with the Ottomans and the coalition that defended Vienna were mostly hostile neighbors of the Ottomans (who had a lot of infighting btw). There were also Christians who sided with the Ottomans even in their largest invasion.
It's not that simple. The French sided with the Ottomans because the Valois hated the fact that the Hapsburgs had the title of Holy Roman Emperor, a distinctly Christian title. They rendered nothing more than political support and some small provision of arms.
I'm not talking about Vienna, per se. I'm noting that Europe, until the golden age of Hapsburg military success in the early modern period, only really had victory over the Muslim world when they acted as a whole. Without a common religion that demanded them to unify (especially as it was embodied in the papacy, I might imagine), that brought together far away powers like the Nordic countries, England, and Portugal to fight the combined might of Islam, they would have lost, even if it was a slow withering away. I mean, look, the Russians and the Ottomans were constantly at odds in that period, and the mere fact that they were separated by the Catholic/Orthodox divide meant that the Hapsburgs and the Russians never came together to fight the Ottomans, at least, not until the first world war of all things. Neighbors with a mutual interest might assist each other, like the Poles and the Hapsburgs, but adding faraway forces from the English, the Portuguese, and the Nordic countries, that took a unifying vision of Europe in that time. And there was only one big thing that had the ability to unify them, and that was their common religion.
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On October 04 2016 13:47 Archeon wrote:Show nested quote +On October 04 2016 00:46 Arrian wrote:
The answer is simple. The Islamic conquests would have overrun Europe. However fragile the frequent unions among Christian leaders in the early modern period, it was only their uniting - in large part because of their shared beliefs - that stopped the frequent Muslim incursions into Europe. I doubt that. France had a long alliance with the Ottomans and the coalition that defended Vienna were mostly hostile neighbors of the Ottomans (who had a lot of infighting btw). There were also Christians who sided with the Ottomans even in their largest invasion. Show nested quote +On October 04 2016 10:28 Jerubaal wrote:On October 04 2016 06:30 CosmicSpiral wrote:On October 04 2016 06:10 Jerubaal wrote:
You have correctly noticed that it is strange for the gods of polytheistic religions to migrate. Polytheistic gods are almost by definition local. ...what? That's not true at all. Care to give a counter example? Artemis was a Greek goddess that spread through the entirety of Persia. The original Roman pantheon is essentially the Greek one. Adad/Hadad, later Ba'al was originally a god the Amroites prayed to in Syria, then it spread to Babylon and Assur and from there to the Phoenician cities across the Mediterranean (like Carthage). When Christianity reached Rome it was full of small Religions and sects. And that's just some gods, don't get me started with all the associations and symbolism. Some of which we still have in Christian mythology. @topic Polytheism has some major disadvantages. The biggest one is that a bunch of quarreling gods is less useful for promising protection, salvation and unity/community, which are the big selling points of "modern" religions. The Emperors abandoned polytheism because the populace abandoned it, leaving them no real choice, so bringing it back was a foolish project. I kinda prefer polytheism more as I find it more believable. But that's a minor point for most people.
This all seems like superficial name changing to me. The Greek and Roman gods are the best example for this sort of syncretism. They literally looked at the gods, decided they had similar characteristics and copy/pasted the names. I think the exceptions to the rules are very telling. The fact that the Romans continued to retain some animistic elements suggests that this was merely a cultural exchange and did not represent a paradigm shift in Roman religion.
It looks like Artemis is just a stand in for a dozen other variations of a major female goddesses/maiden goddesses. The Persian goddess Anahita is often portrayed as a virgin, so it's easy to see how they'd latch onto Artemis for that role. They then assigned to her aspects like fertility that she never had in Greece. Not too dissimilar than what happened with the Virgin Mary in the New World.
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ya and there are other caricatures and gods like charlie x of star trek who charged out mindlessly to be blown to bits whenever his name was called
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it really is a mess isn't it. i've found that almost no westerners attempt meditation pre-LSD for instance. (....) but ya it's a long damn story aye
edit: ya what if meditation was as powerful LSD (it isn't????)
i dunno how you would find out but good post :{D
meditators so passive
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On October 04 2016 22:55 Jerubaal wrote:Show nested quote +On October 04 2016 13:47 Archeon wrote:On October 04 2016 00:46 Arrian wrote:
The answer is simple. The Islamic conquests would have overrun Europe. However fragile the frequent unions among Christian leaders in the early modern period, it was only their uniting - in large part because of their shared beliefs - that stopped the frequent Muslim incursions into Europe. I doubt that. France had a long alliance with the Ottomans and the coalition that defended Vienna were mostly hostile neighbors of the Ottomans (who had a lot of infighting btw). There were also Christians who sided with the Ottomans even in their largest invasion. On October 04 2016 10:28 Jerubaal wrote:On October 04 2016 06:30 CosmicSpiral wrote:On October 04 2016 06:10 Jerubaal wrote:
You have correctly noticed that it is strange for the gods of polytheistic religions to migrate. Polytheistic gods are almost by definition local. ...what? That's not true at all. Care to give a counter example? Artemis was a Greek goddess that spread through the entirety of Persia. The original Roman pantheon is essentially the Greek one. Adad/Hadad, later Ba'al was originally a god the Amroites prayed to in Syria, then it spread to Babylon and Assur and from there to the Phoenician cities across the Mediterranean (like Carthage). When Christianity reached Rome it was full of small Religions and sects. And that's just some gods, don't get me started with all the associations and symbolism. Some of which we still have in Christian mythology. @topic Polytheism has some major disadvantages. The biggest one is that a bunch of quarreling gods is less useful for promising protection, salvation and unity/community, which are the big selling points of "modern" religions. The Emperors abandoned polytheism because the populace abandoned it, leaving them no real choice, so bringing it back was a foolish project. I kinda prefer polytheism more as I find it more believable. But that's a minor point for most people. This all seems like superficial name changing to me. The Greek and Roman gods are the best example for this sort of syncretism. They literally looked at the gods, decided they had similar characteristics and copy/pasted the names. I think the exceptions to the rules are very telling. The fact that the Romans continued to retain some animistic elements suggests that this was merely a cultural exchange and did not represent a paradigm shift in Roman religion. It looks like Artemis is just a stand in for a dozen other variations of a major female goddesses/maiden goddesses. The Persian goddess Anahita is often portrayed as a virgin, so it's easy to see how they'd latch onto Artemis for that role. They then assigned to her aspects like fertility that she never had in Greece. Not too dissimilar than what happened with the Virgin Mary in the New World.
IIrc Greek and Roman gods share a lot of backstories. Yeah most religions spread by adopting gods into their pantheon or getting merged with other gods, which restricts their possibilities for spreading. Virgin Mary got loads of symbolism from other religions attached to her in the ancient world as well. Hell most Christians I know define god as "their own god" as in their own take of him. I doubt that is different in polytheistic religions, especially in times when most people were illiterate and most gods as a result are vague figures only known by hearsay.
Monotheistic religions spread likely more than getting attached to other pantheons (which still happened, YHWE f.e. became part of the Babylonian pantheon) because of their "one god"-rule.
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Let me give a serious answer to this difficult question. In modern times most men regard the world as their wife. So in some sense each male is monotheistic, taking his monogamous beloved to represent the world. The Virgin Mary and so on are an interesting alliteration to some kind of theory regarding stability, society, wistfulness, and the pleasures of youth. Most people are idiots and associate monogamy with a charitable version of Christianity. Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and so on which are all apparently monotheistic seem to set a high price on the joys of monogamy.
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On October 04 2016 06:10 Jerubaal wrote:
You have correctly noticed that it is strange for the gods of polytheistic religions to migrate. Polytheistic gods are almost by definition local. What is it about Christianity that allowed it to expand beyond its ethnic and cultural borders?
I've been thinking about why Christianity would be more apt to expand. Only things I can come up with are that they have canonical scripture in the Bible, which is much more enduring and portable than elaborate rites and oral traditions. Islam has the Koran as well. In my searches into polytheism I haven't found texts comparable to those two, except maybe the Vedas of Hinduism. And the second reason that comes to my mind is the glorification of martyrdom inherent in Christianity especially. I'd imagine that going to foreign peoples and trying to persuade them to give up their gods to worship yours would often be a dangerous if not suicidal endeavor.
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On October 05 2016 07:57 Jerubaal wrote:
Why are you like this.
Everything is understanding and communication. Truthfully the major error is that most learning is bound up in economic phenomenon. Years ago I got a degree in economics, and I didn't get anything out of it.
Now looking back I think it's a godsend that I studied something that seemed like bullshit at the time. It's odd how many things are a sort of sacred rite. Like getting a job at Domino's pizza might be a sacred rite (it isn't but it could be). And you look at the quantity of people who might have a worldview like this.
On the other hand no one is free to operate without the confines of something. Like why can't I be a millionaire (WELL I AM A MILLIONAIRE ACTUALLY HAHHAHAHAH) but you don't understand my point perhaps. So I might take this opportunity to highlight the odd fact of "dancing in quicksand".
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On October 05 2016 13:08 Starlightsun wrote:Show nested quote +On October 04 2016 06:10 Jerubaal wrote:
You have correctly noticed that it is strange for the gods of polytheistic religions to migrate. Polytheistic gods are almost by definition local. What is it about Christianity that allowed it to expand beyond its ethnic and cultural borders? I've been thinking about why Christianity would be more apt to expand. Only things I can come up with are that they have canonical scripture in the Bible, which is much more enduring and portable than elaborate rites and oral traditions. Islam has the Koran as well. In my searches into polytheism I haven't found texts comparable to those two, except maybe the Vedas of Hinduism. And the second reason that comes to my mind is the glorification of martyrdom inherent in Christianity especially. I'd imagine that going to foreign peoples and trying to persuade them to give up their gods to worship yours would often be a dangerous if not suicidal endeavor.
Well, I think it's not as sucidal as you would think. As far as I know, the spread of Christianity was pretty peaceful. Only the Romans really persecuted them, and that was mostly because they perceived them as a threat to order, the Roman cult being a big part of their culture. It wasn't until they got to India, China and Japan that regular genocide really became a thing (A thing that is still going on, I might add.) On that note, there's a movie coming out soon, that supposedly took Scorsese 20 years to put together, about Jesuits in Japan, starring Liam Neeson, Ciaran Hinds, Andrew Garfield and Adam Driver, so I'm looking forward to that.
Here's my Junior Sociologist theory of religion:
Stage 1: Cults center around one god. Worship is largely transactional- I give you something (sacrifices), you give me something (good crops). Gods used to explain isolated phenomena. Gods very local. Not that their worship is local, but that they are considered to inhabit a certain area. Iffy connection to a moral code. Examples: Ancient Semitic and Near/Middle East "demons", Baal, Moloch, Astarte.
Yuuuuuge leap.
Stage 2: Fully formed pantheons. Somewhat developed cosmology. No metaphysics. Gods are not the creators of the universe, though, and only reign over one part of creation. Religious activities still focus around sacrifice and rites. Connected to a moral code but the gods are not the creators of it. Examples: Greek and Roman pantheon.
Stage 3: Fully formed pantheon. Extensive (if sometimes vague) cosmology. Metaphysics. Gods are considered to be the frontispiece to a hidden cosmic unity. Activity still has rites but there is emphasis on the inner life. Examples: Hinduism
Stage 4 (Basically Christianity): The end of myth. All of the place holders and fables are removed for -what is considered- the truth. Fully developed cosmology. Fused metaphysics and morality.
I couldn't decide where to put Judaism. The Hebrews were not as advanced a culture as the Greeks or Hindus (although, they certainly got there eventually), but they had a developed cosmology, a metaphysics and an advanced moral code that was also rooted in their metaphysics. They also made the advancement that their God was a god of the blood and not of the land that presaged Christianity.
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United States15275 Posts
Everytime you use yuge, I remember that Freakazoid episode about the Saturday morning cartoon.
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Interesting theory Jerubaal. I don't feel certain that the development is quite so linear, with Christianity being the apotheosis of religion. Regarding the end of myth in particular, that was one of the emperor Julian's (surviving) arguments: why do the Christians reject Homer and Hesiod as myth, yet believe the many fantastic tales of both the old and new Testaments? That hardening of belief in myths as literal truths might be considered a step backwards in development, not a higher stage. And it seems that metaphysics and morality had already been infused into Greek religion by the time of Plato and Aristotle. I don't know, I'm probably getting stuff wrong. But do you think between your stage 3 and 4 is the distinction between mono- and polytheism?
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On October 03 2016 16:34 Korakys wrote:
I've heard that having a monotheistic state religion greatly aids in the administration of a multi-ethnic empire thus giving empires so endowed an advantage in the contest of civilisations.
It also seems interesting to me that I can not think of any society that has transitioned from mono- to polytheism, it seems to be a one-way street.
Note also that great quantities of sub-deities, such as angels, demons, jinni, bodhisattvas and the like sprung up, although they tend not to be emphasised that much these days.
That is an interesting observation that while societies have often gone from mono- to polytheism, there are few if any examples of the opposite. Maybe it is directly tied to your first point about administration of multi-ethnic empires.
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On October 04 2016 19:38 Yurie wrote:
The reason for Christianity becoming big was the problem of multiple different polytheistic religions in one empire. If you do a decree that anybody that owns land has to be part of a the military for 5 years to keep ownership you face consequences you can't keep track of. Religion 1 might hail you as a hero since they now get to force their friends to go to war with them. Religion 2 hates war and does passive resistance. Religion 3 only feels the religion should have standing armies so they rebel.
Then the same thing for every single decree in a big empire. If you have one religion be it mono- or polytheistic you can keep the empire stable and stop many rebellions. Christianity came at the right time and had many values that lends to a stable government, which is why other countries also took it up.
So the different deities were kind of like what rival political factions are today? I wonder then why the transition from autocratic rulership to democracy would not see a return to polytheism? It's an interesting way to look at it for sure.
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On October 07 2016 03:47 Starlightsun wrote:
Interesting theory Jerubaal. I don't feel certain that the development is quite so linear, with Christianity being the apotheosis of religion. Regarding the end of myth in particular, that was one of the emperor Julian's (surviving) arguments: why do the Christians reject Homer and Hesiod as myth, yet believe the many fantastic tales of both the old and new Testaments? That hardening of belief in myths as literal truths might be considered a step backwards in development, not a higher stage. And it seems that metaphysics and morality had already been infused into Greek religion by the time of Plato and Aristotle. I don't know, I'm probably getting stuff wrong. But do you think between your stage 3 and 4 is the distinction between mono- and polytheism?
It's not linear. I think the mistake the good gentleman in the blog above us, like so many Western critics, makes is in thinking that "all religions are basically the same". That's as true as saying a Roman bridge is basically the same as a Chinese bridge. I was trying to get across is that these religions are pretty different in form and function.
As for Julian, I think we should think about what is meant by myth. A myth is a kind of a facade, really. It's an explanation, but there is surmised to be a greater truth behind it. Of course, we don't know exactly what they were thinking, but I'm not sure whether the viewers of these plays really believed that there was a volcanic eruption because Typhon was having a temper tantrum. Who knows, maybe they'll talk about those weirdos in the 20th century who believed walking under a ladder was bad luck. Anyway, you don't really see very many of these credulous stories in the Bible. The rainbow story is the only one I can think of off the top of my head.
I think even the Greeks (and more explicitly the Hindus) recognized that their religion was deficient. Plato spit acid at Homer and posed several questions that were pretty problematic for their current religious conception. Even if we just look at the cosmology, the Greeks and Hindus both say that their pantheon is not the whole of creation.
As for "a step back", I would say that we should always go after the final truth, don't you think?
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EPT
