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Is religious conflict a product of monotheism as opposed to polytheism?
Posted on: January 28, 2009 - 6:39pm
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Is religious conflict a product of monotheism as opposed to polytheism?
I was just curious are there any records of tribes who believe in believe in a multiple gods going to war with other tribes who also believe in multiple gods (for religious reasons as opposed ot others).?
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Do you mean like the Romans and the Goths? The Chinese and every other culture they came into contact with? The native Americans versus various other native Americans?\
Yah, pretty much Man is a wild animal and monotheism is a relatively new thing, so wars pretty much go back to when the first monkey/man got the idea that a thigh bone would be good to bonk the heads of monkey/men from rival tribes ans steal their food and females.
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Religion is naturally divisive and individualistic. It's characteristic by devotion, and one can hardly be devoted to more than a few things. After seeing a thousandth 'the only true religion' it becomes pretty obvious. By the way, there is 38 000 Christianic denominations. Even if Jahweh is real and you're a Christian, you've got like 1:38 000 chance to win the Pascal's wager
There are of course things, which most of the religions shares, though none of them would admit it. I sometimes feel like a cop who takes the witnesses (or suspects, if you want) records their testimonies and then confronts them, to find what matches in them. Eventually I came to an opinion, that all the religions are a tiny bits of wisdom, diluted in a tons of millenial crap which their followers tried to make their religion better than anyone else's. Well, I'm a guy who tries to search for something good in everyone. To find it I can quote Buddha, Muhammad, Jesus or Confucius shamelessly, without caring about copyrights. Recycle the waste!
Beings who deserve worship don't demand it. Beings who demand worship don't deserve it.
Yeah. Tons of them. It's true that western monotheism centers around some particularly bloodthirsty gods, but you have to remember that monotheism appears to be a relatively recent invention, while war has been around since the dawn of humanity.
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
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The question is made very complicated by the fact that real true blue polytheism or monotheism is a rare phenomenon in human cultures (at least as far as I can tell). Judaism is obviously the most well-known monotheistic religion of the ancient world, but there are plenty of indications that the average Hebrew in the Bronze Age was more likely a henotheist than a true monotheist, reserving the majority of his worship for the good ol' Tetragrammaton but still acknowledging the power and significance of lesser deities. On the reverse side of the koine (see what I did there? You will!), you've got the Greeks who definitely had the idea of a pantheon but differed according to citizenship as to who was due the most respect; most of them went for Zeus, but there were widespread cults of Apollo and Artemis and Athena in various cities. This I believe is the slight distinction between henotheism and monolatry, but getting on to the question at hand...how the hell do you know who was really a monotheist and who was really a polytheist?
"The whole conception of God is a conception derived from ancient Oriental despotisms. It is a conception quite unworthy of free men."
--Bertrand Russell
All interesting stuff thanks for the replies
Your thread title is a little narrow in scope. It misses the simplistic element of human nature, and lacks the scope of human history.
All humans are capable of the same behaivor in a given context. It is narrow to think that one group or one nation portrays itself as non violent. While that may be true in a time context for that individual or that group, it does not take into account the tottallity of human behaivor in all of human history.
Social dynamics, economics and even genetics play a part in human behaivor. It is why one Christian will be peacefull and open minded, while another may demand the silence or sensorship of a blasphemer.
What western societies have done is implement secular governments, which have not rid the world of tribes, but put a cap on violence by setting up neutral law systems that demand that the tribes cannot harm each other no matter what is said.
If you removed the secular governments of the west, it would not take long for the west to be as bloody and opressive as the middle east.
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