Here's something interesting...prior to religious dogma, people used to believe in a pre religion (now known as mythology) with many gods. For example you have the Greek and Roman mythologies, followed by Egyptian. My question is, how did people go from worshiping many gods to one god?
Er, sorry there but Egyptian beliefs existed long before either the Roman or the Greek belief systems.
Egyptian belief system have been dated back to at least 3,000 years B.C.E.
my use of ancient religions is NOT chronological...
my use of the word following is not used to signify where it lies chronologically, but is used as a replacement for the word 'and'.
@VineetHonkan Well, since ONE of my very numerous interests and studies IS both Ancient History AND Theologies(Religions in the times B.C.E. plus having a ThD ( Doctorate in Theology and Comparative Modern Religions) which encompasses ALL systems of belief arising POST the assumed year of 0 C.E. chronological ordering is IMPORTANT.
Almost just as important as NOT putting someone's D.O.D. BEFORE their D.O.B. is, if you can understand that.
@Triphid that I understand...my only reason for non-chronological order was bc I didn't know which came first...
@VineetHonkan B.C. ( now often know amongst Historical circles as B.C.E. aka Before Common Era) came first meaning that it encompasses before the myth of Jesus' birth was spread about as a great event in religion for ALL mankind, BUT they even managed to get the date wrong there since they totally forgot that the Roman Emperor Augustus was in actual fact Gaius Julius Caesar Octavian for 5 years BEFORE becoming OFFICIALLY Emperor of Rome and as such the Christian Calendar, with we are all cursed, is actually out by 5 years, i.e. we are actually in the calendar year of 2024 and not 2019.
@Triphid here I'm using bc as a short for. For because. If I was using BC/BCE it would be in all caps.
As someone mentioned earlier, Jewish people were the first to firmly establish the concept of a belief in one God. Also, the first to link morality with God and made his laws unchangeable. However, many other religions flirted with this concept as well before them. The most notable was the Egyptian Pharoah Akhenaten who abandoned polytheism during his reign in favor of worshipping one god, named Aten. However, after his reign, his predecessor returned to polytheism.
His change to monotheism was not widely accepted. As a result, after his death, they tried to wipe him out of the history books by dismantling his statues, destroying his monuments and keeping his name excluded from the king's list.
In some points you are correct BUT it was Akhenaton who was the first to attempt to convert ALL of Ancient Egypt to Monotheism long before the Hebrews 'borrowed' the idea from him.
Isaiah 19:25 The LORD Almighty will bless them, saying, "Blessed be Egypt my people, Assyria my handiwork, and Israel my inheritance."
Deuteronomy 6:4 Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.
The God thingie out of Egypt mythology inherited israel and was just one God thingie then left Israel and conquered all the Roman gods and set up christianity with just one God thingie.
Religions based on many gods - polytheistic, can accept more gods into their reality. Therefore they accepted and tolerated monotheistic religions ( Christianity and Islam). Monotheistic religions actively eliminate their opponents. Polytheistic religions simply lost the battle and perished. All religions so far , that opposed Christianity or Islam have perished so far.
Ummm, Hinduism, Buddism Shintoism,,et al, have far more adherents world wide that Xians & Muslims combined. You lack of knowledge is astounding