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THE SHIFT TO MONOTHEISMand invention of angelsby Phil Bartle, PhDTraining HandoutA Change in Belief –– from Many Gods to One God –– is RevolutionaryIn the broad sweep of human history, the trend has been for change from many spiritual entities, or gods, to few gods, polytheism, to one god, monotheism, to no god, atheism. This paralleled the broad changes in technologies from gathering and hunting, to agrarian, to industrial, to post industrial or information technology. Many people assume that monotheism was invented by Moses, who had an Egyptian, not a Hebrew name, or that the Jews were the first monotheists. Nope. The Zoroastrians were earlier and were monotheists. Even earlier were others, like Akhen. The religion originated in ancient Persia, named after their prophet, Zarathustra or Zoroaster. Because of later religious persecution by Moslems, many fled and their descendants can be found around Bombay today. They do not cremate their corpses because it might offend the spirit of fire, or bury them in the earth or ocean for similar reasons, so they put them up on platforms on towers so the birds might finish them off. There is evidence suggesting that ancient Hebrew society was based upon matriliny prior to Moses and monotheism. If you want to become an Israeli, you must show that your mother was a Jew, then you qualify. Equally, there is a suggestion that ancient Celtic societies in the highlands of Scotland and Ireland were matrilineal prior to the introduction of Feudalism and Christianity. While matriliny is not matriarchy, matrilineal societies are usually characterized with relatively high prestige, power and wealth for women. See my Akan Case Study. When the dominant religion in a society is polytheism, and there is a new cult which promotes a switch to monotheism, then there is a rising problem of what to do with all the other Gods. The CEO of the polytheistic supernatural was Jove. When Jove was transformed to Jehovah (Yawah) by the monotheists, they had to do something benign to all the other gods. Killing them would cause a backlash among their worshippers. The invention of angels took care of that problem. Thus originated the angels. A wise management decision to give them a promotion to a place where they could not exercise independent power. Saturn, the Latin name for Jove, gave his special day to become the Sabbath (seventh) or sacred day of the monotheists, Saturday. The sacred golden bull, Baal, ended up as a sign of the zodiac, Taurus, the letter A of our alphabet, and the holy cow in India. In fact all the signs of the zodiac are derivatives of gods important at different times of the agrarian year. Many observers suggest that the conversion to monotheism was also the promotion of patriarchal ideology, reinforced by the view that God was a He with absolute powers. Among the Akan, where the language does not have separate and different pronouns for he and she, the Supreme being is neither male nor female, but both. Feminists, of course, know that She is Female. ––»«––If you copy text from this site, please acknowledge the author(s) |
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