Ojuice5001

I have a quest to convert the Christians and atheists to polytheism, and I've been thinking it would be a good idea to post something on apologetics.org about Yahweh's humble origins as a mountain deity or some such thing. However, I don't really know the details of the times before Yahweh claimed to be the one true god.

Does anyone have a good resource (preferably a Web site) that documents the times when even the Jews realized Yahweh was one god among many?

Vinnie

I have been thinking. Is it even meaningful to speak of God quantititatively? I think qualititative language is more appropriate.

Vinnie

Ojuice5001

Um, interesting question, but what does it have to do with the situation that existed back when Yahweh made no secret of his strong ties to mountains and bulls and such things?

Vinnie

It undercuts the whole point/purpose of your exercise which you claimed was aimed at converting some people to polytheism.

Gurdur

Why ?

Vinnie

Naturally, because all our base does delong to him

Toto

I'm not sure why this would lead to polytheism as opposed to zero-theism, but:

The speculation is that YHWH was originally a Canaanite god 'El', who ruled with his consort Asherah and held court in the heavens with his 700 sons. If you google a few key words (e.g., "canaanite god el yahweh") you find sites like these:

The Canaanite God "El"

scroll down to:

and

{edited to add: I've been told that "El" and "Allah" have the same linguistic root.}

Ojuice5001

I think I see your point. You're saying that ultimate reality just has characteristics, and that it is meaningless to ask whether these characteristics belong to many entities or to one.

At the same time, you have to ask whether these characteristics are harmonious with each other, or not. For instance, if ultimate reality is real, powerful, and loving, none of these qualities conflict with each other, and thus monotheism is legitimate. But if ultimate reality is creative, preserving, destructive and static, all at once, that situation looks much less like monotheism.

Also, I think ultimate reality isn't the only conflict between monotheism and polytheism. It's about control of the world. Are events in the world controlled by only an infinite good power and a finite evil one, as Christianity says? Or are there many different powers that rule the world, as polytheism says? That is certainly a meaningful question.

Another conflict between monotheism and polytheism is over the nature of two Middle Eastern deities, Yahweh and Allah. Both claim to be the Supreme God, and that the other gods don't exist, and at the same time are in contact with their people in much the same way as Jupiter or Bacchus. Is it true that either the Christian god or the Muslim one is really the all-powerful creator of the universe, and that only this god exists? Whether these claims are true or false makes a big difference for the monotheism debate.

And of course, if we found that Yahweh and Allah evolved out of a state of being ordinary gods just like Faunus/Pan, that would really make Yahweh less likely to be who he claims to be.

Ojuice5001

Looks good, Toto. Thanx!

Ojuice5001

It's called spiritual warfare. I want the world ruled by the Roman gods, not by the gods who favor Christianity and atheism.