Monotheism vs Polytheism: Which is more likely?

blobru said:
Perhaps the "god-shaped hole" that some believers claim to discover inside themselves or their lives (basically a need for greater "meaning", for assurance this life isn't all there is). It only takes one god to fill that emotional hole, and once it does, the believer can stretch it as thinly as she likes to cover the usual intellectual challenges to god, even past the point of contradiction (the paradox, the mystery of God). Even if upon reflection two or more gods would meet the intellectual challenges better, the emotional need has already been met by the one god, and that sort of bond is hard to break. :o
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Ahh, but in polytheism, you can follow one god in tactics against another... much better, no?
 
There's an old Jewish saying: "some people hate the idea of many gods so much, you'd think they'd have to pay their salaries".
 
quarky said:
domini, domini.





(In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, Amen)


The suckiness of 3 gods is 33% less sucky than one god, per god, if you catch my drift, which i hope you don't, because, evidently, I'm brain damaged.

Now I'm not even sure if my math is correct.


Is a "two for the price of one" a better deal than "Half off"?


Theology and economics make my head hurt, in equal measures.
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The Trinity is a mystery neither you nor I nor anyone else was meant to understand.

trentwray said:
Yes. Think .... Doublemint Gum ;)
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Same with gum.

Manopolus said:
Ahh, but in polytheism, you can follow one god in tactics against another... much better, no?
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Sure... until Someone gets hurt.
 
As someone once said, monotheism is getting closer to the real number.
 
Marduk said:
Pantheism ?
:p
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I don't believe in pantheism because the non-stick variety has never lasted me more than 10 years or so :)

In all actuality ... though ... I think the idea of pantheism is an interesting one, to a point.

Life is almost like everything is running on batteries. And there is so much of it, bumping into each other ... that it appears as though some of the machines running on those batteries have a free-will of sorts. When quite possibly, everything is really just various forms of causality ... dominoes knocking each other down over and over until the last one falls or the batteries run out. And maybe this applies to "god". Maybe god isn't "everything" necessarily ... but perhaps god is "like" everything in the sense that he/she/it is running on batteries as well ... just bumping into things. In other words, maybe the course of everything is "set" in this way ... confined to the space they are in and the battery supply they have. God and existence/creation/universe is bound to carry out their purposes, just like machines.

And then there is us. We say, "that shouldn't be, this should be ... and here is why," thus defying our programming and messing everything up. Like a virus in a computer, crashing the harddrive. Perhaps we have more free-will than god ... and this is what makes us the virus on the planet, the abberration if you will. The thing that is self-aware and different from everything else. It's like the Matrix ... except we aren't the humans, we are the robots and machines wanting to be humans.

But anyway ... :D

I actually like the polytheism idea in a way, because it could explain why we are "trapped" the way we are. Suppose the creative force behind the universe was "evil", and f****** everything up. And this creative force created something that usurped it, and has ever since been trying to "undo" the wrongs. In other words ... perhaps "god" wasn't originally god, but "came into power" to overtake the tyrant that committed the big booboo of all this madness. And so we are in a state of "war" if you will .... literally one of life verses death perhaps. The classical view attributes everything to God ... as though the gameplan god had set in motion either failed or should have been wrapped up and perfected long ago. But suppose it hasn't because the process of "eradicating the evil creator" isn't complete yet. And thus, we still have pain, suffering, and the things we generally attribute to an evil god, etc.

I'm sure there is a name for this idea ... for some reason I wanna say this is along the lines of Mormonism or Scientology? Xenu and all of that? Or the Titans and Greek gods and all of that.

Again ... anyway ... just thinking outloud :D
 
Manopolus said:
Yes, I would agree, but that is not the question. The question is (a little more from your stated viewpoint), did we fall farther into willful ignorance and stupidity with the creation of monotheism than the previous stance of polytheism implied?
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1. Both have a sample of zero, and exactly zero support or data for a more bayesian predictions. How would you know?

It's like asking whether the SW idea of hyperspace is more likely than the ST idea of warp space (i.e., basically folded space). It's the bread and butter of nerd fanboy wars, but it eventually boils down to nothing more than "well, I like X more than Y". (Though usually packed in more words and a lot of sophistry.)

2. Technically speaking, every form of polytheism I know of, is provably wrong. Well, ok, so is a literal reading of the bible, but most polytheistic systems actually manage to top that. Which is no mean feat.

Because those tended to go into a lot more details, and while the abrahamic religions manage to only conflict science about what _was_ at some point in the past (and you can choose to disbelieve science if you want to), polytheism went extensively into what _is_ and nowadays you can falsify it for yourself. E.g., you can take a helicopter ride to the top of Mount Olympus and see that objectively there are no gods there. E.g., you can just point a telescope at the sun (but please, use more than enough filtering) to see that it doesn't sail across the sky in a boat like Ra, and you can call someone in Australia when it's night in Blighty to check see that it's up in the sky for them, and really there is no moment where it could be sailing through the Underworld back to the east. And hasn't been eaten by Nut either, to be birthed again in the morning. E.g., we have ample proof in the meantime that the assembly-line operation of sacrificing humans to feed hearts to the Gods of the Aztecs wasn't really making any difference, and several hundreds of years later the universe _isn't_ grinding to a halt as the Gods starve.

Basically I don't see the question as just "one god vs many gods", but, really, _which_ version of "many gods"? Let's say I decided to pick a replacement for the abrahamic God (not that I feel any need for one, mind you, but for argument sake.) Which polytheistic set of Gods is less bogus?

Does it really take less willful ignorance and stupidity to believe in the even more blatantly bogus version?
 
Most humans, throughout history, seem to think polytheism is more likely. Even a lot of today's so-called monotheists split their "one" God into multiple forms. Not that this really says anything about the real number. But, it is worth pointing out that pure monotheism is a fairly rare thing.
 
Well, it still only says that humans have less trouble wrapping their head around that, than about "likely".

Note however that a lot of historical "polytheism" was really just a bunch of almost monotheistic cults giving each other leaway. Marduk could probably tell you at length about the monolatry in the cult of Marduk, but we have quite the extensive collection of borderline monotheistic or monolatrous prayers to just about every single god in the Mesopotamian pantheon. Think, along the lines of not just "you are the greatest", but basically skirting with outright denying the other gods. Or even in Egypt, that 42-point "I did not" list only forbade denying the patron god of your city, but the others were fair game.

Basically don't think of historical polytheism being really a case of everyone worshipping all gods and respecing their jurisdictions. Each family, and at a bigger scale each tribe or city, had their one or two divine parents which they primarily worshipped for everything. And they only grudgingly allowed the other families/tribes/cities to have their own divine mommy and daddy.

The complex pantheons and hierarchies of the gods were more for diplomatic reasons, and more of a reflection of which city is currently subordinated to which other city. It was not what the average Joe had much of an interest in, when actually praying for some divine favour.

And again, almost every god was worshipped by some people for everything. E.g., even Seth, god of war, chaos, destruction, foreigners, the deadly desert sun, and redheads (hmm, noticing a pattern there;)) had a thriving side-business in fertility medallions and prayers, both for agriculture and for how many children you want.

Probably that's the most mnemonic way I've heard it put. The gods were really substitutes for parents, and really nobody imagined them as having a dozen moms and a dozen dads.

So, really, is it a case of people really being that fond of polytheism, or being really just a bunch of monotheists at heart (well, ok, plus their God's wife or husband) that used to give each other some space?
 
HansMustermann said:
you can just point a telescope at the sun (but please, use more than enough filtering) to see that it doesn't sail across the sky in a boat like Ra, and you can call someone in Australia when it's night in Blighty to check see that it's up in the sky for them, and really there is no moment where it could be sailing through the Underworld back to the east.
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Wait, you just said it was in Australia... :confused:

:duck:


...the assembly-line operation of sacrificing humans to feed hearts to the Gods of the Aztecs wasn't really making any difference, and several hundreds of years later the universe _isn't_ grinding to a halt as the Gods starve.
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They just changed appearances:
Worldwide it was estimated in 2004 that 1.2 million people were killed (2.2% of all deaths) and 50 million more were injured in motor vehicle collisions.[1][43] This makes motor vehicle collisions the leading cause of death among children worldwide 10 – 19 years old (260,000 children die a year, 10 million are injured)[44] and the sixth leading preventable cause of death in the United States[45] (45,800 people died and 2.4 million were injured in 2005).[46] In Canada they are the cause of 48% of severe injuries.
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:)
 
Manopolus said:
I am truly agnostic, but I nonetheless consider Polytheism more valid than monotheism due to the simple fact that the universe rarely makes just one of anything.

I'll leave it as simple as that to begin with.

Any thoughts?
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Easy. X being the probability of a god existing, and Y being the number of gods in a religion, OBVIOUSLY the likelihood of a religion being true will increase with Y. :rolleyes:
 
Maybe we get a brand new god everyday, but there's only one, but it can split in three.

Or something.
 
Most people used to be polytheists, and now the trend leans towards monotheism. We keep getting closer to the truth of the matter.
 
Polytheism has the advantage of avoiding the contradictions inherent in an omnimax God, and that's about it in favor of polytheism except entertainment potential.
 
Hmm, assuming christianity, is there really only one god? I mean, even the commandments say that one should not have any other gods before that one. Which obviously means that there are indeed others, just that you should prefer that particular one, for whatever reason.

Greetings,

Chris
 
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