The Great Deception

There’s a lie that has persisted for thousands of years. One variation of this lie claims that monotheism was always the norm and polytheism was aberrant. Another variant acknowledges that monotheism arose after polytheism but holds that monotheism is more intellectually and ethically advanced. 

I call this lie the Great Deception.

The truth is that polytheism has always been the human norm, and monotheism is aberrant. Archeology and ancient writings show humanity as universally polytheistic. Polytheism is the human norm rather than monotheism.

Even monotheist religious texts provide support for this. The Hebrew Bible, for example, which Christians call the Old Testament, contains evidence of the polytheist past of the Hebrew people. For example, one can see this in Genesis 1, where the Creator god refers to Himself in the plural (“Let us…”). In fact, in this text, the god’s name “Elohim” is a plural form that the Canaanites used for their pantheon of gods. Polytheism isn’t limited to Genesis 1. We also see evidence of polytheism as common among the ancient Hebrews in other texts, such as Jeremiah 44.   

Another truth is that contrary to the claim of the Great Deception, polytheism is the more intellectually and ethically advanced belief system. 

Intellectually, polytheism makes more sense than monotheism, for it reflects the world around us, which is complex and multi-varied. Diversity is the norm in the world. Therefore, reason says we should expect divinity to share in this diversity. 

History also shows that polytheism is more ethical than monotheism. For example, ‘religious war,’ where groups attack each other because they worship different gods, is common in monotheism and extremely rare in polytheism. This is not to say that classical polytheists were pacifists. But religion wasn’t one of the reasons they warred.

To learn more about this subject, I highly recommend the book A Million and One Gods: The Persistence of Polytheism by Page duBois.