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Because the strengthening of centralized power (the vertical of power) entailed encroachment on the personal space of each person, a single god and his earthly incarnation, a single king, were needed. Then, with the development of the technical civilization of the West with its science, there was no place left in nature for the spirits of water, mountains, forests, etc., as well as ancestors. There remained one God, as something transcendent, which can be understood in a mystical way, growing spiritually to his image.
If we talk about the transition to the monotheism of the Greco-Roman world, then the reason is the development of civilization, which weakened intra-communal and intra-gentile ties, and the existence of each person became more and more individual. A person left to his own devices felt a sense of loneliness, lost in a hostile world. People began to need faith in a wise Creator who looks after the world in general and each of the living in particular. They wanted a personal and trusting relationship with a loving and omnipotent God, whose will will lead the world to the triumph of good and justice. A world ruled by the will of a single benevolent god didn't seem as frightening and unpredictable as a world where the whims of many immortal and self-willed gods, spirits, and demons collided.
As early as the end of the sixth century BC, the first philosophers were skeptical of the pantheon of Olympian gods as described by Homer. The emergence of Hellenistic civilization prompted philosophical thought to seek the good One. And its crisis has made these searches massive. Many cults and teachings tried to satisfy the thirst for the good one god in late antiquity, but Christianity won in a tough competition. Later, it turned out that monotheism was convenient for the ruling elites from a political point of view, and they began to impose it purposefully.
The question of the transition of polytheism to monotheism cannot be considered resolved, since the main postulate has not been defined: whether monotheism or polytheism first arose. So far, this is the subject of serious scientific discussions. Since some religious scholars believe that monotheism is natural for man, but as a result of the fall of the latter, the connection with God was lost, and man began to worship many different deities.
As for the second part of the question of the exhaustion of polytheism as a religion, it should be borne in mind that both Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, and Shintoism are polytheistic beliefs. But whether they should be considered religions is not so clear-cut.
Christianity and Judaism view these beliefs as paganism, which is profoundly opposed to monotheism. Therefore, in the Holy Scriptures, paganism is called fornication. Since the Lord is one, the church (meaning not the building, but the community of the faithful) must be one. That is why in the Scriptures the Lord is called the bridegroom, and the church is called the bride. The union of believers in acts of charity is truly called matrimony or the marriage feast.
Since Christianity does not recognize polytheism, it is also against polygamy.
And polytheistic beliefs and cults have generally removed the Lord from their beliefs, such as Shinto in Japan, Buddhists or Hindus.
So polytheism still exists and has places of worship in different countries and among different peoples. Many modern people believe in nature, worship rocks, water, and trees.
Man's estrangement from God changed his attitude toward the supernatural as a whole. A person tries to solve many of his problems not through prayer, as the cult of faith in the One God prescribes, but through magical rites, propitiation of spirits. Such rites exist among many peoples of the North, among the American Indians. Shamanic kamlaniya is also, in fact, part of the rite belonging to polytheism.
So that it is far from exhausted, if many people on earth continue to believe and worship many deities.
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This transition did not formally occur. Even in the Christian Church, God is the Holy Trinity: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Plus archangels, angels, and evil spirits led by Satan.
Although there is a trend similar to the integration of private sciences into Science. The idea is this: there is a Creator (one or collective), made the World and went on other things. Explains everything.
There is nothing much to prove, either to agree with scholars of the history of religions, or to support a religious myth with believers. Monotheism, from the point of view of resolving the eternal philosophical question of good and evil, has finally reached a dead end. In the myths of animistic religions, polytheism, and monolatry, everything is clear and logical. There are good gods and spirits, and there are evil ones. Because of their showdowns, people suffer. With the arrival of the idea of an omnipotent, omnipotent, just and merciful creator, logic ends. Either he is a hand-assed creator, or a sadist and pervert. You can't build a coherent theory about any loving universal god. Therefore, there is no need to separate philosophy and speculation. Monotheism as a coherent religion cannot physically exist. The sophistry and eloquence of religious thinkers and theologians is an attempt to muddle the brains. What is commonly called monotheism is just a political move, a way to create absolute power out of a high priest or king. But for this, it would be enough for monolatry, where the supreme god leads a host of gods, which is perfectly reflected in the Bible, i.e. monotheism is not observed in most of the Old Testament. This is borrowed from the religion of Assyria, Marduk is the chief the rest obey, the Babylonian high king is the chief the rest vassals. But this idea did not apply to the small, marginal people of Israel. All of them were beaten, robbed, resettled. The question has been asked, and it is asked in the Bible, where does the Almighty God of Israel look?. And the prophets, who, unlike the religious myth, formed the theocratic elite of the Jewish people, found a cunning universal answer. The God of the Jews is the God of the whole world, now he beats them for not obeying (of course, the priestly caste), and then he will beat and conquer all nations, and small marginals in the person of Jews will rule all nations. This is not a petty desire for revenge, but at the same time to subdue a small herd. This is what we are seeing today in the face of ignorant religious communities all over the world. Islam is a prime example of this. And the idea of worshiping the authorities is still in demand in the world of politics today. Immediately after ap's death.The church turned Paul in the direction of building a monarchical structure.
Polytheism exists on half the Earth. India and Indochina, China and Korea, and Japan all fit the label of ” polytheism.”
Monotheism is for us just a belief in how the “world above” works. Faith is reinforced by an inner feeling, or “social unconscious,” as psychological scientists have defined it.
The monotheism of Christianity has developed into the form that it has now, and explains the “world above” in much more detail than the polytheism of our ancestors. Well, it's about as different from understanding the world as Aristotle's world is from the modern scientific understanding of the world.
The fact is that such a transition took place exclusively on paper. That is, the religion itself called itself monotheistic, despite the fact that it never was one.
Take any religion in the world and see for yourself. Monotheism presupposes, by definition, a single deity – the object of worship. There can be no other objects in monotheism – no prophets, no saints, no angels – other than one single God. That is, any religion where, besides God, there is at least one being who can be worshipped, is by definition polytheistic – polytheism.
So today, in fact, there is no difference between the ancient Greek religion and, for example, Christianity or Islam. In ancient Greece there were temples to a variety of gods, and today in world religions everything is exactly the same. The actual transition from polytheism to monotheism has never happened and will not happen in the near future.
If you are referring to Europe, then monotheistic religions became commonplace in Roman times. Rome itself was lukewarm about all this mysticism; for the most part, the government didn't care what you believed, so the spread of something new wasn't hindered. After the teachings of Jesus, Christianity began to expand, and unlike polytheistic religions, it aimed to actively spread and directly influence human life. How was it before? Here you have a set of gods, you bring gifts on a holiday, unfasten something to the temple and are free. You are separate, the gods are separate. And now you can almost personally touch God, he loves you, and in return you offer up prayers every day and lead a righteous lifestyle. But the greatest cheat of Christianity was in sacrifice: no matter how many of them were mowed down, they almost voluntarily went to the slaughter, that is, they were not only not afraid of death, but also welcomed it. And if you were also tortured before that, then in general it's great, not only the gates to heaven will be opened, but also the red carpet will be spread out. Therefore, when the Romans came to their senses and began to exterminate Christians, they only made the situation worse. At the time of the adoption of Christianity as the state religion, half of the empire was already praying to the one god. Exactly what I'm driving at. The transition occurred not from polytheism to monotheism, but from polytheism to Christianity, because it was multicultural, fanatical and offered paradise for martyrdom, that is, it was resistant to the Knut method. At that time, they just didn't know how to deal with it.
Did not occur. Just go to any Orthodox church and you will find a whole set of rules -what saint to pray for, what icon of the Virgin helps with drunkenness/ childlessness/ diseases, please underline. Yes, any priest will confirm that you do not pray to the icon, but to the one who is depicted on it. Yes, he will also say that the saint “prays with you” so that the prayer will reach God. But no one canceled the holidays, relics, and veneration of a particular icon.
Polytheism mimicked Christianity, but it was not going to leave.
The transition to monotheism was beneficial to the rulers of states. One god in heaven – one ruler in the land, blessed by this God. Power became sacred to the people. Over time, as the power of monarchs became more and more limited to the Catholic Church, many rulers supported Protestantism in order to become truly independent. Protestant countries today are in a better economic situation than Catholic ones, while the Orthodox ones are out of the question.
Such an assessment of what is happening is a typical “survivor's mistake”. There was no transition. There was a purely military victory of the bearers of monotheistic cults over others in some regions. And the spread of such cults by increasing the population of their carriers. If there were any degeneration or exhaustion in the face, we would see it everywhere in the form of reforms of old beliefs. And we see only forced planting. This is a slightly different process.
People eventually slip into primitivism: they begin to rely not on the Creator, but on fictional fairy-tale ” gods” or even move away from religion, preferring the accumulation of earthly wealth and the enslavement of other people.
I will answer: why is it so important to focus your eyes primarily on the Creator, and not, say, on Jesus Christ, Buddha or another Avatar, and even more so on any saint? It turns out that this is really of fundamental importance from the point of view of the methodology of spiritual improvement. For only strict monotheism predisposes mature adepts to actualize the need to study and practice the multidimensional structure of Creation, and that the search for the Creator, the Goal, the Teacher should be directed to its depths, and not along the plane in rough spatial dimensions, which is characteristic of pagans.
We were incarnated on Earth in order to actively improve ourselves, striving for God-likeness. At the same time, it is necessary, as a result of your spiritual efforts, to directly know God and merge into Him. This is how non-duality, non-duality, advaita is achieved-in relation to God.
The essence of everything that happens in the universe is the Evolution of the Absolute. It is guided by the Creator.
Souls are reincarnated in material physical bodies for the purpose of perfection and achieving Divinity, this is the life of the Creator.
If we do not fulfill His Will, go in the opposite direction from Him, then we doom ourselves to suffering. This suffering is the “reward” for disobedience.
What does God want from us?
The development of caring, respect for the worthy, the ability to forgive the mistakes of others, to help them, sacrificing their interests, even their lives-these are the most important and necessary aspects of love, the main aspect of perfection.
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Bringing true spiritual culture into the mass mentality will also change the attitude of God towards the population of those specific countries where this process is going well.
Hence, we can expect an increase in the level of well-being for the population of such countries.
We must make every effort to attain Divine perfection and merge with the Creator, as well as help other people in this.
And to Divinity we go through:
– developing love for all living beings and for the Creator.
God created in His Creation the appropriate conditions for incarnate people — so that people learn love and self-sacrifice for the sake of others.
Everyone should learn to live in the mode of giving, and not striving to receive and receive from others!
… The whole spiritual Path can be represented as follows:
– Study and adoption of the “code of Ethics”.
God teaches us to forgive, not to demand back what was taken from you, to be humble, not belligerent, not aggressive, not to get irritated by judging others, not to lust after “earthly” values, not to “get attached” to” earthly ” objects, including other people — but to respond with love to all sorts of tricks of primitives, to be caring, gentle in relations with our neighbors…
– put the interests of other positively developing people above your own, sacrificing your own personal interests
for this-without negative emotions.
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No matter what politicians decide, no matter how the situation unfolds, it is better for everyone to start transforming themselves faster.
First, we will study all the main things that God said to people and what the best people on Earth said about God (this was taught, among others, by Thoth-Atlantean (also known as Hermes-Trismegistus at His next Divine Incarnation), and Pythagoras, and Jesus Christ, and Sathya Sai and Babaji Divine Teachers of later epochs and our modern times. (This information is most fully presented in the book “Classics of Spiritual Philosophy and Modernity”).
Then we will get rid of all bad habits: smoking, drinking alcohol and other ” dope”, we will bring our food in accordance with ethical and medical standards (food should be death-free out of compassion, this is important for improving the soul and improving the body).
Ethically significant mistakes of our past should be analyzed, sincerely repent of all those actions where we caused someone pain and other troubles or did not help someone, although we should have done it. This will be repentance before God. And the meaning of it is to get rid of vices, cultivate the missing positive qualities in yourself and learn not to sin anymore. Let us understand that God perceives at any moment any thought of each person. And to convey it to God, you don't need any intermediaries or special rituals.
In particular, if there is no such understanding as love for one's neighbor and benevolence, then the natural dominant incentive for most people to act is only primitive selfishness. It is from here that the greatest number of various crimes arise: bribery, extortion, robbery and theft, rape, etc.
From God's point of view, people, for the sake of their correct evolution, should learn to live not for themselves, but for the good of other people, for God's sake.
All human vices are caused by a lack of knowledge (at the same time, it is important to study true spiritual knowledge — those who preach morality and humanism and learn to live in accordance with it, and not with the morality imposed by false pastors and criminal “authorities” of various scales).
Someone may now object: how can you become better when there is so much evil around?!
But that very evil also takes its proper place in the Evolutionary Process. With its help, people of Good learn what not to be.
God is interested in people improving themselves, including and above all, ethically (by cultivating emotions of love and (intelligently) introducing non-attachment to “earthly” goods into their lives).
Everything is just a lesson to be learned.
God keeps track of what a person chooses — improvement or degradation, giving us some “temptations”.
In His Creation, the Creator created the appropriate conditions for incarnate people to master love.
First of all, attunement with the harmony and beauty of nature, especially in the morning, can be a great help in this!
Those who have firmly chosen the Creator as their Pilot-their Goal-will no longer be caught up and enslaved by the problems of things and events in the material world.
Why did you run out of something? There, a whole large nation – the Japanese-are quite polytheists, the emperor of Japan still performs certain ceremonies in honor of his ancestors-deities (for example, in honor of the coronation of Emperor Naruhito, as before, special buildings were built and various fruits were brought from all over the country, and in these buildings the new monarch and his wife, as expected, spent the night communicating with deities and spirits). Different branches of Buddhism recognize the presence of a wide variety of deities; before our eyes, various syncretic religions, from the voodoo cult to the cult of Holy Death, are being created, strengthened and become widespread. There are many followers of Asatru (as the bearers of this tradition called the cult of the deities of the Scandinavian pantheon reconstructed by them), there are activists who recreate the cults of Olympic, Celtic and any other deities; there are still peoples who worship many different deities, spirits, forces and elements of nature. As long as a person is alive, religiosity will not go anywhere, and polytheism will not go anywhere.
Relatively speaking, one of the most important components of religion is respect for the deity, which is all the higher the fewer people who can theoretically resist it.
In polytheism, where the power of deities is limited (so that there is room for other deities), the authority of each deity is not very high. They are naturally inferior to concepts in which a single deity is omnipotent
And finally, it is easier for people when there is only one deity, which greatly simplifies the process of communicating with him and reduces the ritual part