Well, here's a little lite reading! The Myth of Monotheism

[icymist]

8. Okay, here are some of my comments:

This author can be a bit confusing at times, as are a lot of the writers on witchvox. This is because there are a bit of amateur (if you will) writers that get posted at that site. It’s the ideas within their essays that I look for when I explore their writings about various pagan subjects. The idea of the Judaic-Christian religion(s) being polytheist is a thought that I, myself have often wondered. I agree that the author has a tendency to wonder off subject in that he seems to have a list of the sins caused by these institutions. I do hear what the author is saying in that the monotheist ‘one true god’ outlook creates those in one branch of, say Christianity to view another branch as being in error because it rubs the wrong way of their interpretation of that god. As pointed out in the article: <snip> One would think a single God supreme above all others, interested in human history, demanding we all worship Him and Him alone, and concerned with people’s salvation would intervene to bring His sincere followers clarity. Such intervention has never happened. I kind of have to agree with him here.

I must admit that I chuckled when I first read this line: <snip> It is difficult to see how Jonathan Edwards can be said to worship the same deity as is described in this Episcopal hymn, unless the ultimate God is the God of Multiple Personality Disorder. The idea of this god having a multiple personality disorder fits in with your iceberg analogy as the other (personality) traits are hidden when the dominate voice is speaking.

The sense I get most in the argument that Christianity is not a polytheistic religion is in the claim that there is one true god and no other while simultaneously professing belief in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Yet with its devil, angels, and demons, the Christian god seems to have both, allies and a vital competition in a formidable foe. Comparing this to other (pagan) religions such as the Egyptian pantheon for instance, we can see similarities in the Osiris, Horus, and Set myths where Osiris judges the dead while Horus, as the force of good, battles Set, the force of evil.

I also share the authors’ view that there is an abundance of feminine imaginary within the scriptures that isn’t noticed by most Christians. As you have said that most Jews are not familiar with the Lilith myth. This brings to my mind the stories of the Shekhina and the myth of the Hebrew Asherah as discussed in The Hebrew Goddess. This book is a really good read and you may want to check it out sometime.

These are some of my thoughts of the monotheist actually equals a polytheist theme.