Why do you think religion has adapted from the concept polytheism to monotheism?

Question

You would think that religion would have started on the basis of one god and then people would gravitate to the concept of more gods not less. No disrespect to hinduism. Most geographic regions believed in polytheism thousands of years ago and now most geographic regions believe in monotheism.

Answer 1

Humans use gods to describe things they cannot understand. At one time, it was needed that there was a fire god, a thunder god, a chief god, a death god, etc... As understanding of things started to happen, it became simpler to just merge them together. Thunder and lightning gods would merge as the idea of thunder and lightning being joined was recognized. Since multiple gods might be honored with one ritual, they might end up being merged as 'two aspects' of one god, and eventually the two aspects fade in favor of just the one god. Idealistic simplification is a standard of humanity. We prefer as a race the simplest explaination. Instead of a million gods, why not just one to fill all the gaps in our understanding? Even science prefers the simplest answer, witness Occam's Razor.

Answer 2

Actually Hindus believe in a God called Brahma and all the others are just his different Avatars. Only the Muslims and Hebrews are strong on monotheism. Christianity adopted a trio of gods at the council of Nicea under Constantine, they were trying to cover all bases. The other possible form of monotheism is Deism but that turns God into a universal unknown.

Answer 3

Blame the ancient sumerians and babylonians.

They developed a serious heirarchy for their gods.... which twisted into one god eventually being better than all the other gods..... then that one god actually BEING all of the other gods.... and before you know it... WHAM... you have what is basically a primitive form of monotheism.

Then again, Hinduism is still stuck in the intermediary stages, and has convoluted it to an absurd degree.... but thats another story.

Answer 4

People first started worshiping the elements, sun, wind, rain, etc and added names to them. So it's a natural progression to go from many to one who controls all the elements.

It would also be easier for one person, or group to say we have a "in" with one god than many gods, making it easier to control the masses

Answer 5

I believe that the concept of multiple gods came from early man's inability to understand how the natural world around them worked.

It was easier to say the "sun" god or "sea" god made it all work.

Answer 6

As they being lead by the Messengers of God

Answer 7

I wonder if it is to "organize" and solidify power by religious institutions.
If you have one God who can address all of your problems then you will deal with him and his "earthly" representatives...As opposed to having many gods who address many issues, god of crops, god of fertility, god of weather, etc etc etc. so you have to travel to different temples complete various rituals, observe many festivals.
Plus it creates a convenience factor for the worshiper. Kind of like if you can do all of your shopping-banking-dry cleaning at one superstore as opposed to driving to many locations....

Answer 8

I think because of a couple of big guys with swords who said, BELIEVE IN ONE GOD OR ELSE!!!

Answer 9

actually the first man, adam, was a monotheist

his abandonment of the God who created him caused the world to come up with their own ideas because of the havoc adam brought upon us all

peace

Answer 10

I would say that christianity is still polytheistic, the trinity and praying to saints and the virgin.