whats the difference between polytheism and monotheism?
358650
poly-more than one\nmono-only one.
514793
In which way monotheism is better than paganism?\n\nMonotheism as propagated by so called monotheist religion rather forces its followers to blindly follow . whatever concepts a small some 2000 year tribe had , has been forced on others, as the only truth. And in this quest it has shed too much blood through out the written history, and still doing it.\n\n"My god is the only true god " is not exactly monotheism whatever the followers will like to believe. It is more my god is better than yours concept and basically IT IS NOT MONOTHEISM. when you say any other god is false , you are accepting that there are other gods! though you are calling them inferior.\n\nPagans have much more respect for beliefs of others. And readily accept all forms of god as manifestation of same god. that is more monotheistic without insulting anyone. It gives freedom to followers to look for supreme according to there own perception.\n\nSomebody above claimed bible supports science! now that is funny seeing so many Christians refuting evolution theory.
321019
Ibn Warraq put it, "Historically speaking, Monotheism has often shown itself to be ferociously intolerant, in contrast to polytheism on behalf of which religious wars have never been waged."\n\n“Christians see it as their duty to save the soul of the non-believer, who is seen as inferior. Such religions are inherently predatory and destructive of the cultural systems that they encounter in their role as the aggressor.”\n\n\nChristian churches have formed terrorist organisation in non christian countries. In north east India they have been using all methods for conversion including conversions at gun point. In some states they have literally banned practising hinduism in last four years. 20 hindus were killed only in 2001 for not converting.\n\nOnce they get considerable number of converts they turn more aggressive and resort to more violent tactics, They have been trying to break india and make a separate christian nation now. Thats the fruit we got for being tolerant and giving them freedom to practice their religion. I gave you just a glimpse.\n\nI was surprised by people who answered your question by refering to history. \n\nIt is intersting to see that many christians are blissfully unaware of these facts!Or is it wishfull blindness?
999008
Clearly, an honest study of the bible convinces that the Christian God is NOT polytheistic in nature. The Trinity is a Satanic lie.\n\n(Deuteronomy 6:4) Jehovah our God is one Jehovah\n\n(1 Corinthians 8:4-6) There is no God but one. For even though there are those who are called “gods,” whether in heaven or on earth, just as there are many “gods” and many “lords,” there is actually to us one God the Father, out of whom all things are, and we for him
841394
A deity worshipped by the ancient Greeks.\nYou cant define them as there were many.
877446
Right. They all worship the One True God, written and spelled differently in Aramaic and in Arabic. All monotheistic religions are basically one and the same.
811581
Excellent thought. And for that matter, why didn't God support the Pharaoh Akhenaten when he tried to introduce monotheism to Egypt long before Moses?
816554
1. How can you be a monotheist yet believe in a trinity? \n\nA. just like an egg is one egg with 3 parts the same with the trinity \n1. shell - G-D the father \n2. white- G-D the son (Jesus) \n3. yoke- G-D the holy spirit \n\n2. How can you exempt of sin by someone Else's death?  \n\nA. b/c he was the perfect man without sin and his death cleans us of that just like the old testament the blood of animals cleansed sin.\n\n3. Why must we believe that during church services, that we actually eat true flesh and drink true blood of a man who has been dead for almost 2000 years? \n\nA. that is a catholic belief and they are the only one who believe that and there are not christian they are catholic no other sect or religion believe that ! \n\nhope this helps you ! ~¿Ô
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Almighty God is not a polytheistic triad of gods, but a single person.\n\n(Deuteronomy 6:4) Jehovah our God is one Jehovah\n\n(1 Corinthians 8:4-6) There is no God but one. For even though there are those who are called “gods,” whether in heaven or on earth, just as there are many “gods” and many “lords,” there is actually to us one God the Father, out of whom all things are, and we for him
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I'll check out the book you mentioned in the other thread but sounds a little too fundie for me. And sorry that you didn't like all the "mights" in my previous answer :)\n\nMonotheistic God = all knowing + all powerful\nIn some monotheist traditions the one God is all knowing/all powerful but not all. So Monotheistic God = all knowning +all powerful isn't always true and would be the first "might" in your own logic chain, might be all powerful might not.\n\nall knowing = knowledge of what you will do\nThe very fact that your using the word "will" implies that this one God who might be all powerful/knowing exists inside time. Our own studies have shown that the farther you are from a center of gravity, like the earth for instance, the slower time passes relative to someone nearer the center. So would this monotheistic god know what we "will" do or merely what we did? That is the second "might" in your logic chain.\n\nknowing what you will do = 0 choices\nThat is one way of looking at it, IF god exists inside time and IF he is really all knowning which isn't a must outside of the Judeo-Christian tradition (and isn't true across all groups within the tradition). Another way of looking at it is that knowing what you will do equates to already knowing what you chose to do. \n\n0 choices = 0 power\nThe power to choose? I'm not even sure what you mean here, the truth of the statement would seem to hinge on your definition of "power". Since power is a relative term it might be true if alot of other mights are met earlier in the process your laying out.\n\nomniscience = impotence\nWhat? Omniscience = knowledge of all things, whether real or apparent knowledge. = absolute power, not impotence. Or do you mean we're impotent? Impotent being the lack of strength to do anything?\n\nAre you a programmer by chance?\nHave you ever thought about the universe being one big program that is being compiled? The code was entered and is now being put together into a set form that was determined by the code? It sounds like what your describing, in which case we are all part of the program. Which means we dont' really need free will, we're doing exactly what we were meant to do. The reason there is a stigma attached to that kind of philosophy is that it justifies horrendous acts which are anti-social. Hitler for instance was doing just what he was supposed to, and so were Churchill and Roosevelt when they put him down. \n\nThat was a fun one to work through, I hope you got a little out of my answer. I honestly tried to answer it as best I could in the time taken.\n\nTake it easy,\nArmus
835033
Paganism relates to religions outside the Abrahamic monotheistic group of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, but normally when people talk about Paganism they are referring to Neo-Paganism. Neo-paganism is an umbrella term meaning that it covers a lot of different religions; Neo-pagans are either pantheist or polytheists, pantheism is when people believe in a single god present in all, polytheism is when people believe in multiple gods. \n\nAn example of Pantheism would be Gaia worship. \nAn example of Polytheism would be Asatru. \n\nWicca is a hard-polytheistic religion; this means that they believe in gods that have individual identities, they also do not disbelieve in other people's gods but just follow their own gods. Wicca is a very specific path because it is a religion without laity, this means that Wicca is a priesthood, they are oath-bound and initiate-only with lineage back to the founders of their religion – what this means is that Wicca keep their true beliefs, practices, doctrines and gods secret, they are only taught to people once they are initiated (brought into) Wicca and these teachings are passed from one Wicca to the next.
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Jesus was NOT God, For the Scriptures plainly states that he was the SON of God, the father. \n\nGod Is One, Not Three\n\nTHE Bible teaching that God is one is called monotheism. And L. L. Paine, professor of ecclesiastical history, indicates that monotheism in its purest form does not allow for a Trinity: “The Old Testament is strictly monotheistic. God is a single personal being. The idea that a trinity is to be found there . . . is utterly without foundation.”\n\nWas there any change from monotheism after Jesus came to the earth? Paine answers: “On this point there is no break between the Old Testament and the New. The monotheistic tradition is continued. Jesus was a Jew, trained by Jewish parents in the Old Testament scriptures. His teaching was Jewish to the core; a new gospel indeed, but not a new theology. . . . And he accepted as his own belief the great text of Jewish monotheism: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one God.’”\n\nThose words are found at Deuteronomy 6:4. The Catholic New Jerusalem Bible (NJB) here reads: “Listen, Israel: Yahweh our God is the one, the only Yahweh.” In the grammar of that verse, the word “one” has no plural modifiers to suggest that it means anything but one individual.\n\nThe Christian apostle Paul did not indicate any change in the nature of God either, even after Jesus came to the earth. He wrote: “God is only one.”—Galatians 3:20; see also 1 Corinthians 8:4-6.\n\nThousands of times throughout the Bible, God is spoken of as one person. When he speaks, it is as one undivided individual. The Bible could not be any clearer on this. As God states: “I am Jehovah. That is my name; and to no one else shall I give my own glory.” (Isaiah 42:8) “I am Yahweh your God . . . You shall have no gods except me.” (Italics ours.)—Exodus 20:2, 3, JB.\n\nWhy would all the God-inspired Bible writers speak of God as one person if he were actually three persons? What purpose would that serve, except to mislead people? Surely, if God were composed of three persons, he would have had his Bible writers make it abundantly clear so that there could be no doubt about it. At least the writers of the Christian Greek Scriptures who had personal contact with God’s own Son would have done so. But they did not.\n\nInstead, what the Bible writers did make abundantly clear is that God is one Person—a unique, unpartitioned Being who has no equal: “I am Jehovah, and there is no one else. With the exception of me there is no God.” (Isaiah 45:5) “You, whose name is Jehovah, you alone are the Most High over all the earth.”—Psalm 83:18.\n\nWas Jesus Considered to Be God? No!\n\nWHILE Jesus is often called the Son of God in the Bible, nobody in the first century ever thought of him as being God the Son. Even the demons, who “believe there is one God,” knew from their experience in the spirit realm that Jesus was not God. So, correctly, they addressed Jesus as the separate “Son of God.” (James 2:19; Matthew 8:29) And when Jesus died, the pagan Roman soldiers standing by knew enough to say that what they had heard from his followers must be right, not that Jesus was God, but that “certainly this was God’s Son.”—Matthew 27:54.\n\nHence, the phrase “Son of God” refers to Jesus as a separate created being, not as part of a Trinity. As the Son of God, he could not be God himself, for John 1:18 says: “No one has ever seen God.”—RS, Catholic edition.\n\nThe disciples viewed Jesus as the “one mediator between God and men,” not as God himself. (1 Timothy 2:5) Since by definition a mediator is someone separate from those who need mediation, it would be a contradiction for Jesus to be one entity with either of the parties he is trying to reconcile. That would be a pretending to be something he is not.\n\nThe Bible is clear and consistent about the relationship of God to Jesus. Jehovah God alone is Almighty. He created the prehuman Jesus directly. T
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I believe the very first record of monotheism occurred in ancient Egypt under the Pharaoh Akhnaten in Amarna.  He declared that all must worship only the Aten - the solar disk - and he ordered all other deities destroyed and no one was allowed to worship any but Aten.  This was a short-lived movement, ending with Akhnaten's death.\n\nZoroastrianism is usually considered a dualism, but in some ways it resembles monotheism, and it is quite old.  It was the Persian religion at least by the time of the Persian empire, but its roots go back much further to the Prophet Zoroaster, or Zarathustra.  He taught that there is one Great God, the Wise Lord, called Ahura Mazda.  But there is also a Satan-like figure, Ahriman who is evil and is in battle with Ahura Mazda, but in the end, it is good that will win out.\n\nOf course, Judaism is well known as an early Monotheistic religion.  But originally, Judaism is better described as "henotheistic" which means that while the Israelites themselves only worshiped one God, they believed in the existence of other gods, that would be worshiped by other nations.  The real advent of true Monotheism did not begin in Israel until probably the time of the Prophets, starting from around 700 and really taking form by 500 BCE.
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Theology is the study of all religions and their concepts and is not contained within a specific belief system. Religion is the practice of a certain belief system, or dogma if you will, and is very narrow in scope. One can be a theologist without being religious or even practice any religion.\n\nI think what they are telling you is that you are not accepting or knowledgable of other belief systems outside of your own. In other words, your religion is the ONLY TRUE religion--which seems to be the down fall of most religious entities.
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Most xians do not recognize that their faith is polytheistic. It wasn't a new idea, one that they stole like most of their rituals and belief systems. They try to get around it by calling it a triune god (father, son and holy spigot). Catholics deny that Mary is worshiped as a "god" but there are too many shrines and prayers to convince me they don't revere her as one.\n\nSatan is supposedly a fallen angel, not a god.\n\nI call myself a polyatheist because there are so many gods NOT to believe in...
198791
Proper word usage would give you a hint: Greek gods and the Christian God. Note the use of a capital letter, since the Christians believe in a singular entity, while the Greeks believed in a pantheon (pan being the word for all, such as Pan-Hellenic, and theon being derived from the word theos, hence pantheon literally means all gods). Further, the Christian God does not display human faults whereas the Roman gods are very human in nature, susceptible to all the petty desires, wants, and grudges of the human condition. Indeed, the greatest difference between Greek gods and mortals is that the former is immortal. Additionally, Greek gods were a part of the "created" world, while the Christians believe that their God created the world and is thus separate.
785942
There is no comparison between the two areas, since their philosophy is different! The Asians are polytheistic while the USA are mainly Monotheistic (the god of Abraham is only accepted)!\nAlso, democracy, a creation of the classical Greeks was spread in the west but not in the East!