Why did monotheism take off? Why did it become so much more popular than polytheism? What are the historical reasons for this dramatic religious shift?
>>309618
>"what is finding security in the unknown void after death?"
>>309618
"Monotheism" didn't take off. Christainity and Islam took off, but you have older forms of Monotheism like Judaism, whatever that Amhotep religion was, and Zoroastrianism, and those never really spread much beyond small ethno-groups.
Christianity spread because it gave an answer to the inevitable suffering in life, and promised both a meaning and a reward for said suffering.
Islam, I'm less sure of. The obvious answer is that it spread by the sword, but you see other polytheistic religions that were also spread forcefully and those didn't have the same kind of lasting impact.
because monotheism is true
>>309618
Same reason atheism took off, less gods is more logical.
>>309702
Decay.
>>309702
>less gods is more logical.
Why
I'd wager it was due to Abrahamic religions being based upon faith rather than actions.
People would make contracts to the gods in Pagan religions. Zeus got a cow now, and if the war was one he'd get one later. If Poseidon is a bit of a cockhole and makes the waves too rough, you piss in the ocean to spite him. If the colony goes downhill, you stop lighting as much incense to Hermes. There is a very clear give and take in which mankind isn't the sole party with the capacity to be punished.
In Abrahamic religions, it's all on humanity. What you do doesn't matter so much as what you believe, and in this it adds not only an order of severity. A faulty ritual can just as easily be redone; but a faulty belief is something that needs to be outright fixed.
In Pagan Arabia, deities and their priests would engage in theological capitalism, offering miracles to the highest bidder. Once Rome became more technologically advanced they realized they no longer needed to pray for rain/victory as it was entirely within their hands. This makes them ripe for people who "believe" to swoop in.
>>309627
Islam was spread peacefully
>>309796
But Islam is focused on more than just faith, it is very action-based in that good deeds in conjunction with faith take precedence over just believing by itself as seen in [2:177]:
Righteousness is not that you turn your faces toward the east or the west, but [true] righteousness is [in] one who believes in Allah , the Last Day, the angels, the Book, and the prophets and gives wealth, in spite of love for it, to relatives, orphans, the needy, the traveler, those who ask [for help], and for freeing slaves; [and who] establishes prayer and gives zakah; [those who] fulfill their promise when they promise; and [those who] are patient in poverty and hardship and during battle. Those are the ones who have been true, and it is those who are the righteous.
>>309618
Organization built on top of a few generations of religious fervor and zealotry. Christianity and Islam began as apocalyptic movements that, using the chaos, inequality, and moral decay around them, drew in tens of thousands of converts who were swept up in the fanaticism. Once the fervor died down the network of preachers that initially spread the movement consolidated themselves into a new bureaucratic class of scholars who gained the favor of royal and imperial governments as middle men for the re-establishment of order and taxation.
Polytheism meanwhile never had such apocalyptic fanaticism. They were religions about how the world began, functioned, and might ultimately end in the far future.
Basically, it's happening, get hype > ERP fanfiction about the sex lives of deities that just fucked around.
It beat out the others because of how less pluralistic it is in comparison to polytheism.
>>309622
Classical polytheisms had afterlives too.
>>309627
>"Monotheism" didn't take off.
>those never really spread much beyond small ethno-groups.
Hypsistarians, God-Fearers, Plato''s prime mover, Aristotle's uncaused cause, Sol Invictus and Elagabal. Go deeper and see the old city-gods defeating one another as one city won militarily, and the priests of each god lauding their's as the best and highest god in town. The tendency was always there and Christianity took root in that fertile soil. Zoroastrianism was also big-time in the Sasanian period and if Islam hadn't rekt it then it would probably hold its place in the world religious landscape.
>>309618
>Why did monotheism take off?
Atenism never took off
It doesn't explain anything better than monotheism so it's BTFO by occam's razor
>>309954
I do not know of many pagan religions that had an "end". Even the most famous, ragnarok, was not THE END but more like an end of a season, followed by a new beginning.
Paganism is often about cycles.
Monotheism is kmore autistic m8. Autists are a future
>>309618
>Why did monotheism take off?
But it didn't?
Christianity, the religion with most followers, explicitly has Saints being revered as minor deities that protect you against something just like any other minor god in a polytheist pantheon, the actual, strictly monotheist religions never took off except maybe Islam, and even there there's a lot of contradictions.
>>309716
>cult of entropy
How is it a cult? Entropy is just an observation, it doesn't have any sort of doctrine behind it.
>>309817
This. Historical sources from the Islamization of Egypt and Spain shows that the people peacefully converted, many welcomed the new religion.
>>311009
Haven't you heard? Irreligion is a religion! Those devout atheists and agnostics are actually a competing faith!
People have a hard time conceptualizing a lack of religion apparently, and so often refer to irreligion in terms of existing religions. Pay it no heed.
>>311049
>Those devout atheists and agnostics are actually a competing faith!
But agnostics are just atheists who don't want to admit to being atheists and so incorrectly believe agnosticism to be some sort of middle ground between religion and irreligion.
>>311053
How is an admission that is impossible to know something a middle ground between believing it blindly and being sure it doesn't exist? "I don't know" is the middle ground. That isn't what agnosticism is. It's a-gnosticism. The opposite of gnosticism. The name itself asserts a lack of hidden knowledge. Nothing is hidden, and so there is no evidence either way. It's the scientific route.
What if you didn't analyze anything but the error poly and mono
>>309627
Christianity spread because it gave an answer to the inevitable suffering in life, and promised both a meaning and a reward for said suffering.
Suffering begins at said theory notebook hi.
>>311064
You either have a belief in god, or you don't. It doesn't matter if you allow for the possibility of a god or not, if you don't believe there is a god then you're an atheist. You might be an agnostic atheist, but you're still an atheist.
>>311138
>You might be an agnostic atheist, but you're still an atheist.
You know, I like this. There never should have been a distinction between agnosticism and atheism. They are not mutually exclusive, etymologically at least. An atheist is someone who lacks theism, a belief in supernatural divinity, and an agnostic came to that conclusion through an observation of lack of evidence. Thanks for the reminder.
The abrahamic religions had a simple and easy to understand concept that found appeal, but were extremely deep and complex upon closer study
It worked for the populace and the scholars
>>311053
I call myself agnostic so I don't get harassed by autists on the internet. So far it's been working.
>>309618
Monotheism in the vein of Christianity and Islam are inclusive religions. They actively seek converts. Paganism and even older forms of monotheism like Judaism are primarily tribal and exclusive. They have their gods and don't expect anybody else to worship them.
>>309618
Most polytheistic religions were older and earthlier, the gods represented different aspects of life and were more or less human in some forms. They were also gigantic dickbags that demanded sacrifice to appease them and pulled all kinds of shit on normal folks, then there is the whole fact that close to a fourth of most pantheons was dedicated to warriors who murdered the fuck out of everyone.
Then along comes Judaism with a separate god in a spiritual world and Christianity which says everyone = equal, try to be compassionate towards your neighbors, give to charity once in a while, fuck bankers and money lenders and all good people will go to heaven.
Monotheism is not really popular in Asia, and the Asia is 60% of the mondial population. Yeah.
If the Christianity has dominated the Europe this is by chance. They were successfully converted a emperor (the mother of this emperor is already christian). For the islam, is simple, the war, the culture and the the influence.
>>310918
>Saints being revered as minor deities
True for Catholicism and Orthodoxy, but what about Protestantism?
>>312095
It still usually has three gods.
>>312108
But the Trinity is one God
>>310918
Doesn't worship entail either oblation or latria?
>>312049
>At present, Christianity continues to be the majority religion in the Philippines, East Timor, Armenia, Georgia, Cyprus and Russia. And has significant minority populations in South Korea, China, India, Indonesia, Vietnam, Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Syria and several other countries in Asia with a total Christian population of more than 295 million.[1]
>295 million
>>312136
And the Hindu gods are all Brahman.
>>312108
The Trinity has one oblation for the three, so even if you argue it is polytheism, it is very far from conventional polytheism.
>>312147
Technically, but hat theology evolved out of a thousand years of polytheism, and each avatar receives oblation separately.
>>309618
It is because their is God who is above all the other little "gods"
Some "gods" act as extensions and many are demons who will do what you ask at a price, which is an offense to having faith in just One God.
Demigods worship God or despise God.
Monotheism is not only in Christianity but also Islam and some forms of Hinduism, but it never is about what religion we call ourselves, because they are just words.
All religions are infiltrated by bad people who ruin it's name.
All religions have people making it a sect of left hand religion.
All religions will have two honest and devout followers disagree and hate eachother.
>>312145
>312145
300 000 people for 4 393 296 000 people,
it is not very important
>>312446
300 000 000, sorry.
