Polytheism—A Natural Human Instinct

Question: All citizens of ancient Babylon worshiped many gods. What does polytheism mean?

Answer: Polytheism is a natural evolution of man. We can see that even today such beliefs are preserved in the world, especially in the East.

Judaism, Christianity, and Islam originated from Abraham. All other beliefs are based on polytheism, i.e., the existence of a host of gods, a multitude of supposedly all kinds of forces of nature, each of which has some special influence on nature and the destiny of man.

Question: Can we say that each of us is also an idolater? That is, if a person does not discover one force behind all matter, then one is an idolater?

Answer: I do not think that we deify these forces to such an extent. After all, idolaters were not stupid people; rather, they just saw that they were greatly dependent on various properties of nature but could not bind them together. Neither can we.

It was believed that the god of rain, the god of the sun, the god of night, the god of day, etc. were all great forces of nature on which a man is completely dependent and must worship to maintain good relations with them. After all, along with the fact that man deified nature, he felt his dependence on it.

Remark: People believed that there are certain forces that could be appeased and it could be best appeased by different priests who know exactly how to do this.

My Comment: Yes. Imagine an uneducated, ignorant peasant. He would rather submit a bag of grain and be sure that he will no longer have any problems either with the crop, or with drought, or with flooding rivers.
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From KabTV’s “System analysis of the development of the people of Israel,” 6/24/19