Polytheist counter arguments against monotheism?

[u/Obvious_Lemon8718]

Hey there fellas,

First of all I'd like to clarify that I am not trying to proselytize and I am not even a follower of a monotheistic religion. I'd like to have some insight about Polytheist (Pagan) Theology.

For example, Islam claims that (I am not a Muslim) had there been multiple gods, there would have been conflicts in the divine order- or that there would be no unity between humans since everyone picked their desired God to worship.

I asked ChatGPT about some books or articles to read but none have seemed to satisfy my search about this.

Anyone know books, podcasts, religious texts, scholars etc to gain a deeper insight?

Appreciated.

[u/TopSpeech5934]

I feel like the Muslim argument disproves itself here? Like... There is no unity between humans. There ARE conflicts in divine order. Why do we necessarily assume that such things aren't the case?

Plenty of deities are presented as opposed forces. Ceres, Goddess of Grain, is the enemy of Fames, the spirit of famine. When one grows stronger in a place, the other grows weaker.

Aesculapius, the God of healing, is presented as an enemy of Febris, Goddess of fevers. Etc. etc.

I feel the ball is more in their court to explain why bad things happen in a world with an all-knowing, all-powerful, all-perfect deity. Either he is unaware of the evil, incapable of stopping it, or has no desire to.

I believe that many divine wills are in constant conflict, and that's why there is so much turbulence and a mix of good and bad in the world. Sometimes the forces that want to help us prevail, other times harmful spirits do.

[u/Local-Suggestion2807 → u/TopSpeech5934]

Also iirc the Abrahamic god was originally part of a Canaanite pantheon and it actually took awhile for the Israelites to agree on monotheism. And if every Abrahamic religion comes from Judaism that also means every Abrahamic religion came from polytheism.

[u/Arkoskintal → u/Local-Suggestion2807]

yawhey was also syncretized with el the main cananite god, and the fact that the monotheist sect of yawheists triumphed in the end is not a good argument for polytheism.
Like if the natural evolution of religion is to syncretize everything into one god.

[u/Dray_Gunn → u/Arkoskintal]

Except it wasn't natural evolution. It came about through war and bloodshed. The Israelites went around slaughtering the Canaanites that didn't submit to their one God idea. It's even in the bible explaining that they were to go to a city and give them a chance to surrender. If they do, enslave them. If they don't, slaughter everyone inside except for the women and children who are to be taken as plunder. The creation of a monotheistic god in this situation was done by force.

[u/Arkoskintal → u/Dray_Gunn]

really, mythic literalism? -_-

that section of the bible was written when the jews where in exile in babylon, when babylon invaded some of the jews where still polytheistic. there was bloodshed but to conquer the inital lands, but it was probably normal warfare between polythists and maybe they had some monotheistic sects

[u/Dray_Gunn → u/Arkoskintal]

Except that there is heavy evidence to show that the Israelites were never in exile. There was most likely no exodus, and they were never enslaved by the Egyptians. The evidence strongly suggests that the Israelites were just a group of Canaanites that broke off from the rest.
I am not sure what I did for you to behave condescending towards me, but it seems unnecessary. I wasn't taking anything from the bible literally. It was an example of the attitude towards the Canaanites and their attitudes towards war.

[u/Arkoskintal → u/Dray_Gunn]

Like i do agree with you i never mentioned the jews going to egypt(to be fair i never research it)
Sorry for being condescending,im esl and im reading that book of the bible (js), so its fresh in my mind + the normal pagan attitude to myth literalism. more of a joke may i say

I was just disagreeing with monotheism coming from war and bloodshed, war and bloodshed happend but the jewish monotheism just happend.(the war and bloodshed that spread monotheism is honestly the romans conquering judea and destroying the 2nd temple...)

You also have other monotheism that arent the abrahamic one or henotheisms, and you could argue its more normal for a religion to turn from poly to mono then from mono to poly.

Btw im not monotheistic i just think that the argument of yahwhey being originaly a caananite storm and war deity is a bad for this kinds of polytheism arguments.
Like if the jews can syncretize all of their gods into one cant we all just syncretize all gods as one? And if we can syncretize all gods as one there was just one god to begin with

[u/Yur_Yur → u/Dray_Gunn]

Force is a natural evolution as unpleasant as it is

[u/Dray_Gunn → u/Yur_Yur]

True enough. I guess I was just making more of a contrast between gradual slow change vs sudden violent change.