Religion, Monotheism, And Polytheism

Religion was a big factor in the development of western civilization. Religion has been the reason for the starting of wars and for the dying off of ancient civilizations. All because two civilizations had different views of their gods that they worship causing problems between two cities. This paper contrasts the two kinds of religion, monotheism, and polytheism. Polytheism is the belief that there are many different gods, where monotheism is the belief in one god. Polytheism is the way the people of ancient cultures worshipped. The way people acted could be an explanation of the world. Polytheism was a lifelong commitment, because of the different gods that they were worshipping. People were willingly to sacrifice anything including
The Egyptians had a very highly developed belief system. Their belief system was based on multiple gods. These gods were extremely important to Egyptian culture. The ancient Greeks also had a complicated system of myths based on multiple gods. The Greek gods often took on human personalities, and in most cases, directly stood in the way with human activities. When the Roman Empire defeated the Greeks, the Romans took in much of the polytheistic culture. Over time, the Romans took in other gods from the other cultures that it conquered. Not only was polytheism in Egypt, Greece and Rome, it was widespread in Asia, Africa, Europe and a few other Native American cultures. Polytheism still represents a big part of the world today. Other than the religions of Christianity, Judaism and Islam, most of the world's religions are polytheistic. Polytheism marks the beliefs of Hinduism, Mahayana Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism and Shintoism. These religions are practiced throughout the whole world and are very popular in their ancestral areas. A few polytheistic beliefs are also very well known in today's Western Civilization. This is an outcome of increased