It's all Akhenaten's fault.

[Skidmore]

People, we would not have had this mess in the ME if it hadn't been for that heresy of the Eighth Dynasty in Egypt ca. 1300ish BC. If old Akhenaten hadn't pursued the Ra across the heavens from the desert, we would all still be worshipping crocodiles and trees, and rivers and fertility, and stuff like that. But, no, malcontent that he was, old Akhenaten had to be cheap and lazy about worship and only worship ONE god. Cuts down on the temple building and the cost of sacrifices and maintaining all those priests of all those other gods. So he starts a cult and endoctrinates just enough followers to carry those ideas down through the ages. Unfortunately, what happens when the leader of a cult dies and others step up--it gets twisted--3 ways. Yep, blame Akhenaton for this one; give Canada a break.

[sui generis]

1. well it IS Canada's fault. After all,

Canada spelled backwards is Adanac, which is da vinci code for heathen.

you heard it here first.

;)

edited to add, has anyone ever played "Oh Canada" backwards? You can hear SATANIC chanting. Once again, you heard it here first.

:rofl:

[muriel_volestrangler]

2. No, Zarathustra!

I will fight to the death for the honour of the blame falling on Zarathustra and his monotheism! Your monotheist is nothing but a pretender! Etc.

[Warpy]

3. The problem with monotheism

is that all monotheists, even the ones who claim to follow the same god, claim to have the only version of the only true god. Throw in a commandment to convert and a fascination with martyrdom for one's faith and you set the stage for a lot of warfare, misery, destruction, and everything that goes with them.

Monotheists not only want to own god, they want to be able to order him around to smite their enemies who are worshipping competing "only true gods" of their own.

[Kagemusha]

4. Hey. It's not like polytheists didn't do lots of killing.

The Romans weren't exactly sissies.

[Warpy]

8. Yeah, but it was about LAND

and not who owned gods. There was a bit of "my gang of gods can lick your gang of gods" but that translated into a bit of a break when the weather indicated that the various gods were mixing it up in the sky.

In wars over land, one can always be a refugee until the squabble is over and the dust settles. They always need peasants to do the shitwork, so returning is generally not much of a problem. Blasphemy, however, is forever.

[Minstrel Boy]

12. And that's so unlike today's situation in the Middle East.

how?

Roman legions and Germanic tribes sacrificed to their gods of war and called on them to smite their enemies.

Conflict has usually been about land and what's beneath it.

[The Stranger]

9. But, interestingly, polytheists didn't do it on behalf of their god(s).

Often, they would simply adopt new gods that showed up. Monotheism, however, -- Judaism, Christianity and Islam -- all fetishized the need for only ONE deity (despite the fact that it often appeared under different names, as a "Trinity," etc.).

[Minstrel Boy]

11. That would be the problem with fundamentalists.

There are many tens of millions of monotheists who would beg to differ.

[whistle]

5. Point well taken....

<snip>
Monotheism causes war and terrorism, Polytheism is the Path of Peace

'Intolerance is something that arose with monotheism. As soon as human beings allowed themselves to say, 'There's only one true God, and that's mine, so I have the right to annihilate anyone who doesn't believe in him', the cycle of intolerance and religious wars began.

'The Monk and the Philosopher' Revel, J-F and Ricard, M. Tr. Canti, J. Publ. Thorsons/HarperCollins, London, 1998. ISBN 0 7225 3649 6, Page 115.


<more at> http://website.lineone.net/~kwelos/tattvamasi.htm

[xchrom]

6. damn you -- akhenaten!!!

[LibertyLover]

7. Interesting idea

a few minor comments.

1. Akhenaten was part of the 18th dynasty, not the eighth.

2. Akhenaten's deity was the Aten, the physical sun disk. The word "Ra" could still be used - one of Akhenaten's daughters was named Setepenre and his successor, Smenkhare, used the theophoric "Ra" in his name, but Ra was only considered to be a part of the Aten, which seems to have been connected with the physical sun disc.

3. Trees were not actually worshiped, although some were identified with different deities, like the sycamore and Hathor.

4. The cult practices connected with the Aten were pretty much confined to his court and when Akhenaten died, the reversion to the Old Ways was fairly easily accomplished. Although Akhenaten was, for the most part written out of Egyptian history (Manetho refers to him as the Criminal), there is no evidence for armed conflict associated with the end of the Atenist henotheistic heresy and the return to traditional cultic practices.

5. Actually the worship of the Aten required more temple building, not less. The Aten was worshiped in temples with open courtyards, the altar (or altars) of sacrifice in the bright sun. Traditional Egyptian temples are not built that way, so new temples had to be constructed.

6. Worship of the Aten was anything but cheap and easy. Although priests took care of the majority of the worship activities, it appears from analysis of reliefs at Akhetaten (Akhenaten's capital city in middle Egypt) that there were 2 worship rituals a day (approximately at sunrise and sunset)that required offerings of bread, beer, flowers, vegetables, fruit, ducks and cattle.

But definitely an interesting idea.

[Skidmore]

10. Not claiming to be an authority on ancient Egyptian religious practices

or history, and some of this was presented tongue in cheek (legitimate typo on the dynasty number though). Thanks for the finer historical perspective although I was thinking more globally in terms of worship of dieties than just Egypt when I was talking about worshipping trees and fertility since the Egyptian practices and dieties were not universal. I do think that is important to recognize that a seed for monotheistic thought was planted thousands of years ago in the ME and we are still grappling with a very ancient idea which was considered a heresy so great that the established religious pratctioners sought to obliterate the very name and images of its chief proponent. It is ironic that this heresy has become orthodoxy for so much of the world. Our world is still worshipping the Aten.

[LibertyLover]

13. Still worshiping the Aten -

Atenism at its heart was actually a cult of personality. Basically, the common people weren't fit to worship the Aten directly. They were supposed to worship the royal family who would in turn worship the Aten on behalf of themselves and everyone else. I swear that some supporters of Bush feel that way about him :evilgrin: As a pagan, I would agree that extreme monotheism can be a problem. I wish that it were henotheistic - they could worship their god, but don't deny the existence of other gods. Not a chance in Hel I imagine.