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Monotheism has attracted criticism throughout the history of the concept. Opponents of Akhenaten restored polytheism in ancient Egypt following his death. Although Abrahamic monotheism later achieved widespread prominence, critics have described monotheism as a cause of ignorance, narrow-mindedness, oppression, and violence. David Hume (1711–1776) wrote that monotheism is less pluralistic and thus less tolerant than polytheism,^[1] because monotheism stipulates that people pigeonhole their beliefs into one tenet.^[2] In the same vein, Auguste Comte said that "Monotheism is irreconcilable with the existence in our nature of the instincts of benevolence" because it compels followers to devote themselves to a single Creator.^[3] Mark S. Smith, an American biblical scholar and ancient historian, wrote that monotheism has been a "totalizing discourse", often co-opting all aspects of a social belief system, resulting in the exclusion of "others".^[4] Jacob Neusner suggests that "the logic of monotheism ... yields little basis for tolerating other religions".^[5]

Regina Schwartz portrays monotheism as an instigator of violence because (for example) it inspired the monotheistic Israelites to wage war upon the Canaanites who believed in multiple gods.^[6] Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan regarded monotheism as a cause of violence:

"The intolerance of narrow monotheism is written in letters of blood across the history of man from the time when first the tribes of Israel burst into the land of Canaan. The worshippers of the one jealous God are egged on to aggressive wars against people of alien [beliefs and cultures]. They invoke divine sanction for the cruelties inflicted on the conquered. The spirit of old Israel is inherited by Christianity and Islam, and it might not be unreasonable to suggest that it would have been better for Western civilization if Greece had moulded it on this question rather than Palestine."^[7]

Contradictions

The major monotheistic religions, in defining the Deity, traditionally agree that the one God is (inter alia) omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent. However, it has been said that "this definition of God [is] contradictory to what has been perceived by us in the empirical world."^[8]

Intolerance

David Hume (1711–1776) said that monotheism is less pluralistic and thus less tolerant than polytheism, because monotheism stipulates that people pigeonhole their beliefs into one tenet. ^[2] In the same vein, Auguste Comte said, "Monotheism is irreconcilable with the existence in our nature of the instincts of benevolence" because it compels followers to devote themselves to a single Creator.^[3] Jacob Neusner suggests that "the logic of monotheism ... yields little basis for tolerating other religions".^[5]

James Lovelock criticized monotheism due to its idea of a transcendent almighty father; he says about monotheism that it "seems to anesthetize the sense of wonder as if one were committed to a single line of thought by a cosmic legal contract".^[9] Mark S. Smith, an American biblical scholar and ancient historian, currently teaching at the Princeton Theological Seminary, wrote that monotheism has been a "totalizing discourse", often co-opting all aspects of a social belief system, resulting in the exclusion of "others".^[4]

Morality

Auguste Comte (1798-1857) said that the monotheism of the time was morally inferior to polytheism:

Monotheism in Western Europe is now as obsolete and as injurious as Polytheism was fifteen centuries ago. The discipline in which its moral value principally consisted has long since decayed; and consequently the sole effect of its doctrine, which has been so extravagantly praised, is to degrade the affections by unlimited desires, and to weaken the character by servile terrors. It supplied no field for the imagination, and forced it back upon Polytheism and Fetichism, which, under Theology, form the only possible foundation for poetry. The pursuits of practical life were never sincerely promoted by it, and they advanced only by evading or resisting its influence.^[10]

Some feminist thinkers have criticized the monotheistic concept as the model of the highest form of patriarchal power. They say that the one god regarded as male, opposes everything related to change, sensuality, nature, feeling, and femininity.^[11]

Violence in monotheism

Ancient monotheism is described as the instigator of violence in its early days because it inspired the Israelites to wage war upon the Canaanites who believed in multiple gods.^[12]

Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan regarded monotheism as a cause of violence, saying:

The intolerance of narrow monotheism is written in letters of blood across the history of man from the time when first the tribes of Israel burst into the land of Canaan. The worshippers of the one jealous God are egged on to aggressive wars against people of alien [beliefs and cultures]. They invoke divine sanction for the cruelties inflicted on the conquered. The spirit of old Israel is inherited by Christianity and Islam, and it might not be unreasonable to suggest that it would have been better for Western civilization if Greece had moulded it on this question rather than Palestine.^[7]

References

^ Coleman, Dorothy, ed. (12 April 2007). Hume: Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion: And Other Writings. Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy. Cambridge University Press. p. 124. ISBN 9781139463799. Retrieved 8 November 2024. Editor's note: [...] Hume's Natural History of Religion was controversial for its [claim] [...] that both polytheism and monotheism have a bad influence on morality, although polytheism has the advantage of being more tolerant of other religious sects.
^ ^a ^b David Hume said that unlike monotheism, polytheism is pluralistic in nature, unbound by doctrine, and therefore far more tolerant than monotheism, which tends to force people to believe in one faith.(David Hume, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion and the Natural History of Religion, ed. J. C. A. Gaskin, New York: Oxford University Press, 1983, pp. 26-32.
^ ^a ^b The Catechism of Positive Religion, page 251
^ ^a ^b Mark S. Smith, "The Origins of Biblical Monotheism: Israel's Polytheistic Background and the Ugaritic Texts", (August 2001). p. 11. Oxford University Press. (Google Books).
^ ^a ^b Berchman, Robert M. (May 2008). "The Political Foundations of Tolerance in the Greco-Roman Period". In Neusner, Jacob; Chilton, Bruce (eds.). Religious Tolerance in World Religions. Templeton Foundation Press (published 2008). p. 61. ISBN 9781599471365. Retrieved 3 July 2016. Jacob Neusner [...] claims that 'the logic of monotheism ... yields little basis for tolerating other religions.'
^ Schwartz, Regina M. (15 May 1997). The Curse of Cain: The Violent Legacy of Monotheism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. p. 63, 121. ISBN 9780226741994. Retrieved 8 November 2024. [...] monotheism abhors, reviles, rejects, and ejects whatever it defines as outside its compass. [...] The Ammonites are those who worship Milcom, the Moabites those who worship Chemosh, Egyptians those who worship Pharoah, Canaanites those who worship Baal, et alia. [...] The true nation worshipped the true God; the false nation worshipped a false god.
^ ^a ^b Arvind Sharma, "A Primal Perspective on the Philosophy of Religion", Dordrecht, Springer, 2006, p.29.
^ Worship as a Hindrance to Self "Worship as a Hindrance to Self-Actualization", by Daniel L. Kelley Archived 2008-07-23 at the Wayback Machine
^ James William Gibson, "A Reenchanted World: The Quest for a New Kinship with Nature", Macmillan, 2009, p. 98.
^ Comte, Auguste (1880) [1848]. "Conclusion. The Religion of Humanity". A General View of Positivism. Translated by Bridges, J. H. (2 ed.). London: Reeves & Turner. p. 294. Retrieved 10 October 2023.
^ Lindsay Jones (ed.), Encyclopedia of Religion, Macmillan Reference USA, 2005, vol. 9, p. 6161.
^ Regina Schwartz, The Curse of Cain: The Violent Legacy of Monotheism, The University of Chicago Press, 1997 ISBN 978-0-226-74199-4