Why did polytheism fail in the Western world?

Why did polytheism fail in the Western world?

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Poor marketing

ISIS tier Abrahamic barbarity + demagogue politicians against a minorty of educated citizens that no longer believed in their religion.

Literally the same thing going on in Europe right now.

Because it was BTFO by Christianity
Now get over if you butthurt fucking larpers

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Praise your new masters and get over your butthurt fucking deus vult larpers.

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It didn't

It's just easier to rationalize the chaos of nature with one deity and a host of demigod-IIIII mean saints

Is that the Christian Pope sucking the toes of a black man? For what reason would he do such a thing?

A large and more importantly CONSISTENT social welfare system distributed by various churches and Christian groups.

While Temples and wealthy Patricians routinely gave out huge feasts (The Christian concept of a Saint's Feast day is ultimately a relic from this practice), these were pretty much at the whims of the feast holder ("uh oh, the haruspex says the cow guts say no feast this year, tough luck guys :^)").

Meanwhile Churches gave out the same aid to everyone every day of the year. The plebs loved them for it, because they were starving due to a variety of reasons.

And then of course it's just a matter of wedging yourself into the bureaucracy, acts of brutality, getting the big cheese on your side, etc.

Current pope takes shows of humility and Christian charity seriously. He was a really sound choice after the last guy. Exactly what the church's image needed.

That foot has been very carefully washed, rest assured.

Polytheism is alive and well in the Western World.
Let's start with the Trinity.
Then the Angels and well
Satan

Quite a Pantheon if you ask me

this
also it was too divided, it made it easy for people to still continue their pagan beliefs while being nominally christian, and over time the pagan superstitions just faded away.

in Sweden there are plenty of runestones invoking Gods in addition to Jesus Christ.
alternatively places like India managed to hold onto their pagan ideas because of the ancient hierarchy present and priests were still heavily respected even with Muslim rulers.

>Let's start with the Trinity
Heresy
>Then the Angels and well
Not divine
>Satan
Is an Angel, thus not divine

angels clearly have power, how are they not divine? i mean satan is preseted as an angel who fell or was cast out, and yet retains enough power and independance to act against god and his creation....with enough power to condem much of the world to hell theoreticaly......eigther god has the power to stop this and choses not to, or satan and angels are independantly powerfull in a fashion

not sure which is more damning

Last I checked catholics are still the biggest denomination m80.

And don't you forget it pootheran

Happened way before Constantine. Rome pretty much had shitloads of different religions and emperors started to treat all religions the same by saying Sol Invicta or whatever god was actually a manifestation of all the gods of all religions so every religion had something in common which created stronger cultural ties for the roman empire which was very diverse, eventually this made it easier for everyone to accept there was one god who was really just a manifestation of all gods

mormons are still a thing

Platonic monotheism was already super common, Sol Invictus was just the plebeian version of the Monad.

It was one of the first Gods actually endorsed by the emperor and spread everywhere, the emperors used it as a way to unite the diverse empire by having a common god for everyone. Made people way more accepting of the monotheism thing. I think monotheism is the worst though, it taught people that one person could be god which led to egotistical assholes leading nations.

>which led to egotistical assholes leading nations.
because this never happened before

>it taught people that one person could be god
That sounds like a huge heresy in every abrahamic religion.
Although if you were talking about the authority bestowed upon kings and popes being "chosen ones" then i guess you're kinda right, but that happens with basically every religion too.

That's Christian morality.

It didn't.

yes, but platonic monotheism still allowed for the existence of the polytheistic gods in the material world. people would actually ask Apollo's oracle to know what Apollo knew about the Monad

>Sol Invictus was just the plebeian version of the Monad.
It was a mystery cult not unlike the very earliest Christian movements

>That sounds like a huge heresy in every abrahamic religion.
Theosis, m8

It did pretty fucking good for a longass time. Nothing lasts forever.

The gods sucked anyway

t. Xenophones

Because monotheism is simpler. You have one god instead of many.

Now if only they would realize that no god(s), is even simpler than that, we would be even better off.

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Thank you, I tried my best.

You know what's even simpler than the no-god-dualist-reality of the Standard Model? Vedic Non-Duality, aka Brahman, aka God.

Sorry no.

Gods cannot be simple. An entity that can create universes 13.8 billion lightyears in diameter is not "simple".

Try again.
The age of the Universe is 13.8 Gy.
The diameter of the observable Universe is 93 Gly.
Don't they teach inflation (expansion (red shift)) in Sunday School any more?

How about not evading my argument completely you mongoloid animeposting faggot?

Catholicism is pretty bad, but I wouldn't say it failed.

You sound like you know what you're talking about.

And you sound like you should stop posting.

You came into a thread about polytheism, and you don't even know entry level polytheistic religious philosophy. Why are you here shitting this place up with your ignorance?

Violent Abrahamic Religions. Judaism's great reign is gone. We are now witnessing the fall of Constantine's Sword as Christians must love and become servants to their enemy...just the way Prophet Muhammad intended.

also, discovermagazine.com/2005/aug/desert-people

You're right. I don't know much about polytheism.

But if you think I'm wrong in saying that an entity that can create universes is "simple", you are welcome to point out how, because as far as I can see, creating something like universes requires an amount of complexity and power that is beyond anyone's comprehension, even yours, with your expertise in polytheistic religious "philosophy".

isn't simple*

You are rude.
(She's not anime, she's /x/tan)
I didn't disagree with you.
I corrected your inaccurate statement.

If you wish to discuss the inherent imperfection of the singularity that caused the Universe and further wish to argue that said imperfection was by design, that's fine. But get your facts straight.

Like I asked.
>Don't they teach inflation (expansion (red shift)) in Sunday School any more?

>heres some gods, they are moody and may or may not fuck your wife. Sacrifice to them physical value and they may not fuck you

Compared to

>theirs one god whose super spoopy, pray to him and read this book or he will be mad, but if hes mad he really wont do anything to you because its your choice not to follow him, but if you do you get eternal life in heaven chilling with said god for eternity

Christianity may as well have been designed to be marketable

>was by design

Yeah, and if it was by design, it wasn't by an entity that is "simple".

>Calling holy trinity heresy.
>HOLY TRINITY
Reported to inquisition.
>angels are not divine
Oh yea winged immortal warriors wielding burning swords and supernatural powers (or alternatively just shapeless light creatures) residing in heavens, scaring shit out of people, and destroying cities and killing all firstborns just because fuck you, are totally not divine.
>Satan is not divine.
Whole point of christianity kind of fails if there's no adversary.

You want me to explain Vedic philosophy in one post? Okay, I'll try and make it stupidly simple.

God is the highest truth, it is non-dual, it is all that is, it is you. Existence is maya, aka an illusion. Your entire reality is only complex in concept and mental constructions.

Knowing God is to know one thing, knowing existence is to know many things.

Take the relationship between a seed and a tree for a rough example. Or the relationship between the ego and the personality.

>inb4 you complain about it not resembling the Christian God.

Are Mormons supposed to be polytheists? They worship Jesus, God and the Holy Ghost as separate entities

You're right, it's not simple.
But according to Christian Polytheism, it also wasn't a single entity. It was three.
See, that's what I have never understood. There is no explicit statement of a Trinitarian Godhead in the Bible. The Trinity was invented by the mind of man.
The Jews don't believe in the Trinity. Jesus, being a Jew didn't believe in the Trinity.
Christianity also has numerous minor deities (4 named Angels, Satan, lesser unnamed Seraphim and Cheribim, and even Enoch (who got taken up without even dying)). Why can't Christians accept this as polytheistic?
And for Catholics, asking intercession from a Saint or the Virgin Mother implies that these people exist as part of some great Angelic Host.

Islam is far more monotheistic that Christianity will ever be.

Just Golly

>Implying that random chain of coincidences creating this universe and multiple forms of life in it is simple.

>Muhammad
>Prophets
>Angels
>Jinni
>"Other creations of allah that man does not know about"
It's less than thousands of minor saints in catholics though.

I'll agree with your list, but the Prophet is not part of the Godhead. Allah is indivisible. Islam has its angels and its demons, but like YHWH in Judaism, Allah does not share his throne. Folks may be hanging out up there with him, but there's no "Allah, Prophet, and Holy Ghost".

What if they had called Zeus "God" and his legion of party animals on Olympus "Angels"? Would we call Greek Mythology monotheism?
>inb4 I know people prayed to the party animals.

Just wow. Christianity is polytheistic and Christians need to get over it.

What about praying to the saints?

Dunno, but is pretty alive on South America and Catholic countries

> Im gonna pray and ask divine intercession from the virgin, the virgin from Carmen, Saint Expeditus, Saint Joseph, Saint Stalin and his holiness the pope, also Jesus and the Holy Spirit, and Judas Iscariote and Saint Nicholas holy be his name...

I believe henotheism is superior to both strict monotheism and polytheism. It allows for a plurality of approaches while at the same time viewing a kind of order to a monistic or theistic "One". Strict monotheism becomes authoritarian while strict polytheism becomes chaotic and flippant.

Catholicism is actually henotheistic, fyi.

the adversary is sin and death, not satan. That is horrible fanfic

Jump to your own pire

>but-but muh self-contradictory trinity diagram!
>no don't apply set theory, god isn't constrained by mere human logic guys

Jesus is love anyway, right? Who needs the mysticism/numerology.

>all these bumravaged proddies ITT
why don't you go read your Bible: abridged version?

What this guy said. We don't have a continuous polytheist tradition going back to antiquity because the polytheists of old were persecuted and murdered out of existence by christard thugs.

Dude, every society in europe had some sort of consistent system of charity, fuck man the Roman grain dole is where we get the term "on the dole" from to refer to welfare recipients.

>they are moody and may or may not fuck your wife.
Brilliant.

Monotheism was a thing in ancient Assyria.

it was also a thing in the Greek-roman world with Platonism

A=B=C but C~=A, fuck the law of identity.

I love how people desperately try to claim logical consistency with this trinity shit.

Because there is only one God.

seeAnd I really hope its a samefag

Platonism isn't a monotheistic religion.