Polytheism To Monotheist Religion

Introduction

According to the famous boxer Muhammad Ali, “Rivers, ponds, lakes and streams - they all have different names, but they all contain water. Just as religions do - they all contain truths” (Ali). All the religions in this text-book express some truth about human nature. Some of them have in common, that they are polytheistic, have oral traditions or follow certain rituals. This paper will go in-depth and speak about the challenges of explaining polytheism to monotheist, the significance of oral traditions in a few different religions and the significance and meanings behind some rituals (questions 1, 12, and 5).

Polytheism to Monotheist

First, monotheistic means the worshipping of one God. It would be hard to look at and explain

According to page 8 of World Religions Today, “Instead you are treating it as an adjective, describing an attitude towards the human condition- a way of seeing, acting and experiencing all things. In most times and places throughout history, religion and culture were like two sides of the same coin. Therefore people did not think of their practices as “a religion”, a separate reality they had to choose over and against another” (Esposito, Fasching& Lewis, 2012). Like the quote says, it was not just worshipping a lot of gods, it was part of people’s cultures and how they usually lived, so they saw nothing different about it. In today’s culture, people tend to choose which god they want to worship because there are so many choices, but it has not always been this way. At one point in time, government and religion were so intertwined, that everyone worshipped the same gods, so people never worried about having to praise and worship a specific one. Second, according to page 489, “Thus, the diffuse religion found

Christianity, Judaism and Indigenous religions, all have something in common, that they followed oral traditions before actually having a set book or guidelines. This increases the importance of oral tradition because people followed these traditions and created certain ways of living around them. The first religion to be explained is Judaism. According to page 96 of World Religions Today, “The Pharisees took these demands and made them the content for the priestly rituals of holiness, working out their application in all the details of everyday life [,] according to the best insights of the oral tradition” (Esposito, Fasching& Lewis, 2012). The writings came from the Prophets and further more shaped the way the Jewish people lived. Next, is Christianity. According to page 158, “Taking advantage of historical and archeological findings that shed additional light on the biblical period, modern scholars do not believe any Gospel had a single author. Rather each one began in shared oral traditions as told in different communities of believers after Jesus’s death on the cross and attested resurrection” (Esposito, et al., 2012). This means, Christian beliefs are actually passed down from generation to generation. Christianity is thus based on oral tradition. Finally, there is Indigenous religions. According to pages 39 through 40, “consequently these societies had oral cultures in