"My Lord in Heaven, thou art not my own..."

I started this thread in hopes of answering one question: Where the hell did monotheism come from?

Let's take a look at the past. For many many centuries, the entire world was under a polytheistic belief. God's and Goddess' names changed as did parts of their stories, but essentially everyone believed the same thing: That we are under the influence of many beings who are, for some reason, able to control certain elements in our life. So wher did our gods go? Why is there one god now? And for the sake of all things logical why is this god male?! Why do people have to worship the Osiris of the world? Everyone's forgotten Iris, the loving mother. In most of the worlds early religions there were always two major gods (Isis and Osiris were their first named occurence, happening in egyptian times).

For those not in the know I'll give a short description of Isis and Osiris. Both Isis and Osiris are good gods. Isis was the mother and Osiris was the father. Isis was the creator. Osiris was the destroyer. Again, neither was bad. They were two parts of a whole, establishing a balance in humanity. Isis brought people into life, Osiris judged them upon their death. They were two parts of a cycle. Together they'd be best represented by the yin-yang.

What I don't understand is why the monotheistic God (from now on referred to as "Iam" since I think naming a god "God" is as stupid as naming a cat "Cat") had to resemble Osiris. Why does Iam have to be the judge, the god of harvest, reaper of souls, so on and so forth. For the first half of monotheistic belief, god was vengeful, judgemental, the osiris of the world. Then somewhere along the line (no specific date comes to mind) the overall impression of god upon religions changed. And they decided he was kind and loving, like Isis. And yet he was still a he. In the name of eternity what the hell happened? These aren't the same gods. Did the leaders of monotheistic faiths just get tired of being slaves all the time and decide to change their faith? Or did some events take place in "heaven" that we have not yet heard about?

I know it's a lot of questions but I figured this would be a good topic for debate, seeing as to how I've heard a lot of you complaining about not having a christian to beat up on.

I'll give you a small theory my girlfriend and I came up with. That perhaps the gods of old still exist (as I understand most of you believe that anyways so you won't have to stretch your mind very far to take this condition) and these gods have, perhaps, taken advantage of the wide-spread monotheistic beliefs. Imagine these gods fighting from time to time for the right to be "Iam." Suppose that ever since the major belief in monotheism that the job of "Iam" has been occupied by many different gods. The first occurance of "Iam" would have most likely been occupied by Hades, god of the underworld in the greek beliefs. What if later Zeus saw this worship as something desirable and took it back? I'm just spouting off theory here, I'm not sure about what gods, specifically, most wiccans worship (I imagine their names are quite different, but I'm hoping the fundamentals are the same). But just take a moment to think about it will you, and respond with the most insightful posts you can.

I do not know why people percieve a god as male. I would think a god has no sex, really, as it is not a member of the human species... Nor one that needs a sex to reproduce.

Male or female, would therefor be a matter of how this god would be percieved.

very nicely put, i'll think about this

I think the reason lies on a more basic level...social structure. This has been a male-dominated world for centuries, there's no big surprise that this is reflected in the religion. A male and a female god would require equal conditions for males and females in the society as a whole, and we all know this has not been a popular thought.

So ancient Egypt had more equality between genders?

I believe I've posted something to this effect once more, but I'll do so again for the purposes of education.

Since you seem to be fixated on the rise to power of the Judeo-Christian god, here's a summary for you. This is one view of how it happened.

You have a tribe of nomadic herdsmen in a harsh area. They are polytheists, with priesthoods representing their various dieties. Then the prophets of Yaweh, their war god, begin stating how they are his favored children and he will lead them to victory over their neighbors (enemies) and lead them into a land of plenty. Guess what? It happens. Then it happens again...and again. This god and his priests are delivering on their promises. A larger number of the demographic begin to follow them, giving the priests a huge amount of temporal power. They begin to declare the other gods as false, priesthoods are wiped out or abolished, and there you have it: a monotheistic society.

Lets skip ahead a bit. Now you have a large monotheistic society. The boundries of nation and race do not confine this religion. Those who follow other dieties can't stand up to the combined power of those nations who stride forth in the name of this God. (Who, by the way, according to Jewish tradition, is left with his name unsaid because to allow the word to rest on human tongue is to profane it. Hence his name was only used in writing and not spoken aloud. Eventually they just called him God. Why is he male? He's always been a masculine aspect. Why change it?) Hmm, I wonder who wins?

It's a simple process, and easily recognized if you take the time to think about it.

Yes. They had two pharaos acting as one, a man and a woman, brother and sister, husband and wife. They fulfilled each other, each representing different aspects of life.

Thanks for that, Shadowborn. Call me stupid (don't... :p) but I hadn't thought of that quite in the same way. Actually, your post is perfectly humourised (is that a word?!) in Terry Pratchett's Small Gods, which is a parody of the rise and fall of Christianity, superb book...

Hmm...I'm woefully behind in my reading of Pratchett...I haven't gotten to that one yet.

It's good to know I'm still useful on this board, even if I'm not a moderator any more... <=== A dig at Sire, or simply a statement of opinion? You decide.

[off topic]*hushed tones* Any dig at Sire is fine with me....[/off topic]

Oh thank you very much Shadowborn. This allows me to move forward with my theories. And I promise I wouldn't have posted this if I had thought that someone had already posted it... I was just trying to make conversation and answer a question I had at the same time. I always enjoy your input shadowborn

Eh, I'd have needed to post it again anyway. If you'd known about it and asked me where I had posted it, I couldn't have told you anyway. I just wasn't quite up to speed yet and unprepared to launch into a long, detailed post just yet...but the coffee is kicking in.

[off topic] Sorry, I just had to get it out of my system. I'm all better now. Business as usual. [/off topic]

So would monotheism be considered something of a 'religious evolution'? Or should we simply look at this instance of monotheism (since essentially Judaism/Christianity/Islam are all followers of the same diety) as a fluke?

Fluke, definately, every monotheistic religion has polytheistic elements. But polytheistic religions tend not to have monotheistic elements. Look at standard Christianity. God, Satan, Angels, and Demons, by description of their powers they all fit in the standard Major god lesser gods categories...

Very thoughtful DarkStorm. I never thought of it like that. personally i belive that all gods and goddesses praised, in one way or another lead back to THE Goddess and God. But those are my thoughts that i don't force upon other people.