Why monotheism work out for Rome, but failed hard in Egypt?

Why monotheism work out for Rome, but failed hard in Egypt?

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Consider Rome and Egypt adopted montheism at roughly the same time. Egypt was a Roman province and the edicts by Christian Emperors which effected Rome effected Egypt as well. Y

>implying monotheism and not monolatry

Only deluded Christfags who attempt to equate aten to god claim Atenism was monotheistic.

Because Constantine won the war.

Iknathon went full monotheist in an attempt to erode the power of the clergy. His religion appealed to the poor at first, but it was to hippie and the rich rallied around the Amon priests.

FPBP

How was Atenism not monotheistic?

Only Christianity is monotheistic i.e. believes in one single, true God.

Because there was already a sizable Christian movement and other older monotheistic mystery cults in Rome when Constantine adopted Christianity as the Roman religion.

Akhenaten just sperged out and imposed monotheism on a society where polytheism was at its height.

It was, he's just regurgitating Constantine's """""""""""""""""theology"""""""""""""""

It's worth noting that Akhenaten and his wife were literally the first two Atenists. Imagine being in the court room when Autistenhaten walks in and declares he's going to destroy your people's 2000+ year old religion because he is the high priest of the sun.

Doesn't the OT mention other gods?

Also: youtu.be/wRPqtGywkCw

They are just various names of one God.

Also the hitites invaded Syria and moved on the delta while the nubians rebelled in the south. That´s what you get for being a pacifist.

Egypt tried to turn Monotheist because the idiot Pharaoh decided he should be the only god, then proceeded to die. Rome turned to Monotheism due a sizeable part of their population already accepting it first and not claiming that they were gods.

>They are just names of various gods that became different names of one god.

fix'd

>God - "Thou shalt have no other God before me."

What did he mean by this then?

Idols, false gods, self proclaimed, etc...

>but failed hard in Egypt?
Given that your photo is Ahkenaten, I assume you're referring to why atenism failed, because Christianity spread just as quickly through Egypt as it did through Rome (though of a different variety, early Egyptians were monophysites and were persecuted by the Orthodox Byzantines)

Atenism was ahead of its time. Disproportionate power was still wielded by the temples of the old gods. Ahkenaten was a megalomaniac who built his holy city way out in the middle of nowhere. As a religion it was heavily tied with the legitimacy of his court, rather than on any ethical ideal. True monotheisms were grassroots affairs which developed over centuries and present themselves as an ethical ideal in the story of one person. Atenism was technically Monolatry and Ahkenaten's top down approach wasn't any more appealing to the average person than any other temple's religion, and once there was no longer a despot forcing them to only worship Aten, they mostly stopped.

>But the Egyptian magicians did the same
OT admits that there is magical ability in pagan religions.

>monotheism
>worked out for Rome

>t. Gibbon
It worked out REALLY well for Rome desu

That why Rome fell less than a century later

>implying the Byzantines weren't "Rome"

They weren't, and there history was nothing but getting humiliated by Arabs, Persians, Turks, Franks, Normans, and Slavs for a thousand years.

>American """education""""

Yeah, so much better than your meme """"Rome""" which got btfo'd by shirtless german savages

euphoric
No other gods in His presence.

heresy

>Romans
>actually Greeks who no longer had nothing to do with Rome
That's like saying Americans are Brits.

implying that had anything to do with Christianity

I fucking LOVE the hoops Christians jump through to try and convince themselves and others that early Caananite Semites including OT authors werent polytheistic

Not really. It'd be like if the USA split into two nations. One didn't contain Washington DC but called itself America and retained American culture, identify and civilization for another 1000 years.

the argument is rather that the biblical text and Israelites rose out of polytheism to monotheism by the time of the exile, this is promoted heavily by multiple scholars in the field of old testament studies. Though being the case, it became more well known through Mark S Smith's excellent book, The Early History of God. Though personally I don't believe this theory as it has too many holes in the theory and relies more on conjecture than anything else.

>culture, identify and civilization for another 1000 years
The only thing Roman about them was their name

>implying that Christianity was not the downfall of ancient Rome
>implying that trinitarian christianity is monotheistic
wew lad

What then are Judaism and Islam?

Lost

this, Judaism is the origin of monotheism in the abrahamic religions. An likely both Judaism and Islam are more monotheistic than Christianity ever will be.

{citations needed}

>Judaism is the origin of monotheism in the abrahamic religions
Nope. Zoroastrianism is.

>Zoroastrianism
Is a) dualistic
and b) not abrahamic in origin

So he's just a Zeus figure? So long as other gods recognise him as God-King, all is well?

Only heretical Zoroastrianism is dualistic.
Jews culturally appropriated their monotheism from the Persians after the Persian exile.

yes
thedivinecouncil.com

That's questionable, it's more likely that they were Monotheist from around 1000BC but kept idols of worship for specific things like fertility and it was only after the [Babylonian] exile that the big thinkers decided that idolatry was a bad thing and why Yahweh would punish them and thus they redacted all the scriptures to be completely super monotheist in the style preached by Yahweh #1 fan Elijah

that's utter bullshit. the entire point of the idols is that they aren't just a figure, but a representation of a god. even if you fully trusted the biblical narrative you wouldn't be led to think Israel was fully monotheistic but with idols. read Kings you faggot and see Solomon introduce "foreign gods" through his wives. read Jeremiah and see him denounce meal offerings to the Queen of Heaven.

Idols aren't straight up Gods, the present OT wants to say it is to make a moralistic point. Idol worship in early Isreal would've been more like Shamanism and not that different to the worship of Holy Artifacts that was rife in early Catholicism like St Martin's cloak using it to pray for victory in battle.

>read Kings you faggot and see Solomon introduce "foreign gods" through his wives. read Jeremiah and see him denounce meal offerings to the Queen of Heaven.

Those parts are specifically redacted just like I said, after losing to Neo-Babylonia the Jews were like "oh no how can Yahweh be defeated by Marduk, we must've done something wrong in the eyes of Yahweh for him to punish us. I guess if we get really literal with the text we can blame idolatry. Make sure to edit the text and add parts so that it is more clear"

You can see where they try and fudge the facts with some of the Kings. Some of them are very bad from their perspective but get no punishment and rule for long times but then another King comes along and does right but then something bad happens to Israel and they go "OH it was because of the pervious King!"

If they weren't fudging their sources and editing it in the past they'd just have the bad things happen to the bad king

The mans a visionary.

Atenism was FOCUSED on one God but still acknowledged the divine status of the others. He didn't rule out the entire Egyptian pantheon completely. He still admitted that those other Gods existed. He just stopped worshipping those ones and started worshipping the one he liked the most.

>by the time of exile
No one can agree on when that was, and most people think the pharoah the Bible references is Ramesses II (a post-retoration polytheist).

>a random guy woke up and started spouting fairy tales
>in one of those fairy tales, the protagonist says "follow this brand new religion or you're a sinner"

He meant, "this religion I just created has to last so one of the beliefs should be not following those other guys' religion."

there's no way to say either way from the artifacts we have, unless you want to cite where Aten acknowledges other gods in the Great Hymn to Aten

I do want to cite it, because its an artifact we have from the time period that flat out says "I'm not saying the other gods don't exist, just that this ones super important".

You're literally just making up you're own theory on which parts of the OT are genuinely pre-exile. The remark from Jeremiah on the Queen of Heaven is considered a genuine reflection of religious practice of the time. There is no reason for the OT to have tirades on worshipping other gods, Deuteronomy going through the specifics on how to punish those who try to get their community to worship foreign gods, if there weren't in fact Israelites worshipping those other gods. What's ironic is that what actually is considered to be post-exile redactions by scholars is the monotheistic statements

oh really? it must be a super duper secret artifact then that you can't be specific about. I understand.

...he started the religion by comparing his new god to other gods, and then combining those other gods into one god, and then denouncing the other gods later on. and then purported that pharoahs are godkings themselves. people were worshipping idols of him and his family alongside idols of Aten. there was a shit ton of deification going on.

"In its early stages Atenism is best described as a henotheistic religion (a religion devoted to a single god while accepting the existence of other gods) but it developed into a proto-monotheistic system."

Technically, you're both right. Faguettes.

You have it all wrong dude.

The Jews went into captivity for 70 years; one year for every seventh year they did not let the land lay fallow for 490 years. 490 is a big number in the bible.

They knew they blew it so they plotted in Babylon to contrive a lifestyle of rules that would not allow them to come close to breaking the Law again, and ending up in captivity again.

Hence Pharisaical Judaism with the Talmud, instead of the Law of Moses with the torah.

That system, that rabbinical Judaism, is what the "religious" Jews think they're following to this day.

God wrecked the entire pantheon of Egypt's demon gods when he took out the Hebrews in the Exodus.

Most people follow gods to win, not to lose.

Welcome back fundie user

Much obliged.

You know he's not the only pharaoh to claim he was a god, right?

Its impossible to know for sure on any of this. Historys written by the victors, which ended up being Christians. And the only way they could relate their experiences was by putting it into a Christian context so others would understand the references.

Look at the worship of the God of Abraham today.

Look at the worship of the pharaoh Aten today.

That should tell you what you need to know.

>pharoah Aten
this is b8

You should know better than to take historical facts out of the context that explains them properly.
>theyre rendered useless

It is clear that the Egyptian people never accepted their king's religion and view of the world. Even at his own capital, Akhetaten, amulets featuring Bes and Tauret have been found. Following Akhenaten's death, Atenism died rapidly.

You know Ra is a sun god too in Egypt, yes?

And yet YHWH blanketed Egypt with darkness for three days straight, while the Hebrews had daylight.

There is only one God.

Gods should endure.

hes really giving it all he's got.
>Atenism was villified by the priests it targeted after he died
>And Tut gave in and reverted back to polytheism in order to stabilize a religiously torn, financially bankrupt empire
>then monotheism was denounced to secure the clergys position of power once again
This is why you can't take facts out of context.

Tut was a silly little kid.

I can see why you identify with him.

No, Ay and Horemheb were fucking political geniuses you autist.

Monotheism didn't work out for Rome. Roman Catholicism isn't monotheistic.

I think he means Christianity in the Byzantine empire.

I thought we were talking about God.

Equally as pagan.

I thought we were talking about niggers

No, we're talking about the context you took facts out of to justify your Christian propaganda. Nothing happening right now compares to shit that happened back then, including Hitler or God. Context is everything, and when you look at the context it just shows that monotheism was villified while polytheism was restored. So no, their concept of "god" is not comparable to abrahamic religions.

>t.poo flinging protestant

is that image intended to imply protestants aren't trinitarian too?

I think the implication is that if you accept the Trinity as monotheism, then Mary and saint "veneration" is also monotheist.

Many are unitarians

there's so few unitarians that they had to merge with the universalists

only a small percentage do. Most migrated to nondenominational evangelical churches

>No one can agree on when that was

what the exile? Scholars have situated it around (587/6 to 539 BC), additionally we have bablyons recorded their manuscripts of a people from Judah being there listing the names of Judeans.

>most people think the pharoah the Bible references is Ramesses II

and? So what? Son of Seti 1st. likely to be the biblical reference to the pharaoh/king of Egypt at the time? What relevance does that have with my previous post?

>I know nothing about the difference between YHWH and Aten.

Good job, all those secular scholars got it wrong

>many

He meant that if you worship other gods, they can only come after him.

If it isn't the God of Jesus, it isn't God, even if there's only one. The Church has always taught this.

>then are Judaism and Islam?
Satanism. Worshiping a fallen angel as a god in place of God isn't monotheism. The Pharisees are the Synagogue of Satan and the Saracens are their spawn.

>An likely both Judaism and Islam are more monotheistic than Christianity ever will be.
>hurrr three Persons in one God equals more than one God durrr
The Church declared tritheism a heresy in the First Ecumenical Council.

One was the religion of an autocrat, the other a religion from the people for the people.

Because people didn't believe the Roman Emperor as much

>Islam are more monotheistic than Christianity
>haven't read the reliance of the traveller

I recommend going further into the more interest parts of Islam, originally Muhammad allowed polytheism into his religion but claimed to been tricked by satan. Also Jews deny their past history and ancient Israelite beliefs, they used to believe that YHWH was at least binitarian but was named a hersey after 200 AD because of how close the theology was to Christianity (if not identical). Ever since 1000 BC YHWHism has promoted that YHWH has a second power who is him but not him, also if not a third (see Isaiah 63:10)

And Christians allow polytheism to this day

because thay allready had a system that was fundamentaly monotheist, or at least monist, and the crude banal sunworship cult was a huge theological and phylosophical step backwards

also, and more importantly, because akhenaton went against the clergy while facing war and uprising, which was the most retarded and autistic move any pharaon ever did in the history of pharaons

Judaism probably took most elements from Atenism, when the semite ruling class of Egypt was expelled from Egypt after Atenism fell. (Tuth)Moses was probably an Atenist prince who took his people with him.

Because the priests in Egypt where extremely powerful and largely autonomous, each city had its own God and its own huge temple-complex that served said god, any reform fo this system was bound to be difficult and Akhenaton's didn't have long enough to sick.

Roman religion, by contrast, was strictly subservient to the state, and while there WERE some priests devoted only to a single deity, most were more "general purpose" and so more open to the idea of simplifying the complex pantheon.