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THE SHIFT TO MONOTHEISM
and invention of angels
Training Handout
A Change in Belief – from Many Gods to One God – is Revolutionary
In the broad sweep of human history, the
trend has been for change from many spiritual entities, or gods, to few
gods, polytheism, to one god, monotheism, to no god, atheism.
This paralleled the broad changes in technologies
from gathering and hunting, to agrarian, to industrial, to post industrial
or information technology.
Many people assume that monotheism was invented
by Moses, who had an Egyptian, not a Hebrew name, or that the Jews were
the first monotheists. Nope.
The Zoroastrians were earlier and
were monotheists. Even earlier were others, like
Akhen.
The religion originated in ancient Persia,
named after their prophet, Zarathustra or Zoroaster.
Because of later religious persecution by
Moslems, many fled and their descendants can be found around
Bombay today.
They do not cremate their corpses because
it might offend the spirit of fire, or bury them in the earth or ocean
for similar reasons, so they put them up on platforms on towers so the
birds might finish them off.
There is evidence suggesting that ancient
Hebrew society was based upon matriliny prior to Moses and monotheism. If
you want to become an Israeli, you must show that your mother was a Jew,
then you qualify.
Equally, there is a suggestion that ancient
Celtic societies in the highlands of Scotland and Ireland were matrilineal
prior to the introduction of Feudalism and Christianity. While matriliny
is not matriarchy, matrilineal societies are usually characterized with
relatively high prestige, power and wealth for women. See my
Akan Case Study.
When the dominant religion in a society
is polytheism, and there is a new cult which promotes a switch to monotheism,
then there is a rising problem of what to do with all the other
Gods.
The CEO of the polytheistic supernatural was Jove.
When Jove was transformed to Jehovah (Yawah) by the monotheists,
they had to do something benign to all the other gods.
Killing them would cause a backlash among their worshippers.
The invention of angels took care of that problem.
Thus originated the angels. A wise management decision to give
them a promotion to a place where they could not exercise
independent power.
Saturn, the Latin name for Jove, gave his special day to become
the Sabbath (seventh) or sacred day of the monotheists, Saturday.
The sacred golden bull, Baal, ended up as a sign of the zodiac,
Taurus, the letter A of our alphabet, and the holy cow in India. In
fact all the signs of the zodiac are derivatives of gods important
at different times of the agrarian year.
Many observers suggest that the conversion
to monotheism was also the promotion of patriarchal ideology, reinforced
by the view that God was a He with absolute powers.
Among the Akan, where the language does not
have separate and different pronouns for he and she, the Supreme being
is neither male nor female, but
both.
Feminists, of course, know that She is Female.
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2011.08.16
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