A civilisation with highly developed culture, crafting, even some rare gunpowder weapons

Well, at least you're honest.
But honestly, there are only two possible on-topic responses with little room for discussion:
"East Asia" and "A setting where Gods are real"

As opposed to the clearly scientifically proven, morally superior monotheistic religion(s)?

All other factors aside, when the gods in question are provably real...

Only if you've hidden all the quest threads.

One has to to do something with the other?

The revival of monotheism in the levante was a mistake. Religion is so damn boring now in Europe.

>Monotheists

>Civilized

Pick one Barbaroi

In my setting there are 17 gods more or less ruled by 3 higher gods. They have appeared in the world before and every now and then perform a miracle and answer a few prayers from their respective priesthoods. There are many more demigods and greater heroes/villains which sometimes have a cult, but they tend to live out their lives as normal people or serve under a god.

Though I may have stolen ideas from GURPS' Banestorm setting. There are entire nations that still believe in God or Allah, but the existing gods are actually ones worshipped in ancient earth civilizations. So for the most part, polytheism is widely accepted and if you're a monotheist you might be seen as a loony or very uneducated.

Questfags need to leave Veeky Forums

I fail to see a problem...

>pikachu at the bottom
My sides are with Jesus now

>implying christianity isn't polytheistic
Come on anons, polytheism is fine, but monotheism is usually an arbitrary pile of hogwash.

What is trinitarism, user? What is saint worship?

>This OP reeks so much of cheap bait that nobody will bother to discuss it seriously
Doesn't stop the "Axes are shit" thread.

>What is trinitarism, user? What is saint worship?
Heresy.

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Hey...It's boring, but it's the one True Faith, so...What you gonna do, be wrong? like a muslim?

Saints are honored and revered (dulia). Worship (latria) is reserved for God alone.
You prod bastards would know this if your religion had any intellectual tradition beyond "God hates fags and votes Republican".

>the world has deities that physically come down and directly interact with the world on a near daily basis
>atheists still exist

No Steve, you're Cleric can't be empowered by his own enlightenment.

>can't be empowered by his own enlightenment
Tell that to the Buddha

But we can choose to be better. When we choose as others have before us, and maintain the level of discussion as is, or we can elevate the level of discussion voluntarily. It need not make much difference beyond a single OP, but it is enough to not be the baser others.

For an intelligent response, religion often reflects the nature of the societies of man. The Greek Pantheon had a deity for near every major city-state in the Greek world, and a few others thrown in like the Arabic guy (Bacchus) of fine wine and parties who comes to visit sometimes though classical artwork represents him as a fat German, the original sources describe Bacchus as dark skinned and lithe. Their religion was a unifying system across their governments in which every major national identity on the field had representation in a shared narrative.

Socrates was charged with "corrupting the youth," but no one cares to elaborate upon it. When we look into the discussion of Plato's Cave, we see a system of thought that bears a striking resemblance to a monotheistic deity; all that is wholly perfection that is above Earthly affairs, concerns and conception in a singular, unified entity. In essence, Socrates was put on trial for being a heretic, perhaps the first significant martyr of monotheism in Western society.

We can extrapolate from there; how does a society view the world and how is it organized in a way that keeps a polytheistic pantheon in place? Obviously, it might mirror a system of City States over an overarching governmental body that unifies the whole. A massive governmental body makes sense as a commentary on its own role. It came about in the Roman Empire, and in a way it makes sense for them since they were a massive, governing body that ruled over everything, so their religion changed to mirror it.

Tell that to Iron Kingdoms.
Admittedly most of the dirtiest don't physically come down because they are super busy in urcaen. And being empowered by your own enlightenment basically is following the religion of the first two humans to do so.

Well this is actually a subject for debate. Some philosophers have theorized that polytheism is does retard social development and lead to a greater degree of magical thinking.

I'm not sure if this is valid or if it's just Christians wanking off how "superior" they are to long-extinct pagan religions.

>you are playing pretend games instead of building something with the time and energy you have
HURR DURR

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Hmm...

It's boring because most of Christendom lost its hypermilitarism, fear and hatred.

Knightly Orders could've been the officer corps of today but now are led by men who wouldn't know what a weapon looks like.

[Laughing Buddha]

No that's not polytheism you idiot.
It's One God, but those thirds are wholes, but they are God so they combine, but it isn't really combining because God doesn't just combine.

Is the Holy Spirit its own entity? Is the other two their own entities?

Then its polytheism. Trinitarianism is just polytheism masquerading as monotheism by using sophistry to refer to a group as one entity.

If they are all one entity, you get some rather silly and absurd situations that arise within the Bible. Such as God sacrificing himself to himself to relieve the burden of the original sin he placed on humanity for disobeying him when they didn't understand what they were doing.

>Such as God sacrificing himself to himself to relieve the burden of the original sin he placed on humanity for disobeying him when they didn't understand what they were doing.
See, God's a nice guy he'll willingly let himself be the lamb so that he can help people absolved the original sin.
>Trinitarianism is just polytheism masquerading as monotheism by using sophistry to refer to a group as one entity.
No. No no no no. Polytheism implies that there is more than one God. There is only one God, and he is the Father, the Son, and the Holy spirit (amen).

The hilt is not the sword, the blade is not the sword, the handle is not the sword. All three combined are the sword.

Another interesting point is Ike saying "You can't talk to him like that" because Ike was a friend of Demi-humans.

You can't just use objects when you're talking about the Trinity. That just muddle the idea of it.

Then Hinduism is not Polytheism.

Or a theistic religion at all because everything derives from the universal whole.

Most Hindus will tell you that their religion is not polytheistic, yes.

>Then Hinduism is not Polytheism.
It is, because it has multiple parts. God isn't made up of Parts.

>Such as God sacrificing himself to himself
Omnipresence is a hell of a drug.

What are these then?

Wholes for which aren't parts but make him up.

So parts. A hilt is a whole but also a part.

>But make him up

So they're parts then.

I'm going to use "PIKA PIKA PIKA PIKA PIKA!!" in all religious arguments from now on.

No, a part implies that God is made up of parts. God isn't made up of parts.

He clearly is though.

The beauty of this simple diagram is the clear message that God is non-euclidean.
When F = G and S = G, but F != S, it's the only possible conclusion.

That's not how it works though, because God is all three but isn't just one of the three.

Is YHWH a being unto himself? Then he is a whole, like a hilt, but also a part, like how a hilt is part of a sword.
So YHWH is a part who makes up God who composed of wholes who are parts.

Its really simple to understand if you're in any way familiar with Hinduism.

Its also polytheism just like Hinduism.

Much like Shiva, one of the five or three primary forms of God, is a whole who is also a part of Brahma, God.

But Hinduism isn't polytheistic though.

Assuming you're talking about fantasy worlds, when the gods are conclusively provable to be real on an individual basis, it's hard to convince people you're the only real God.