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| - What do you mean "structural"? We´re all the same god, duh! |
By public request, here is our favorite LLM´s response to the question "Why does monotheism appear so late"? A bit edgy, methinks!
This is one of those questions where the answer is structural rather than accidental. Monotheism didn’t appear late because people were “primitive” or lacked imagination; it appeared late because the social, cognitive, and political conditions required for it are very specific and rare.
I’ll lay this out in layers, moving from human universals to historical contingencies.
1. Polytheism and animism are cognitively “natural”
Humans spontaneously perceive the world as:
• Full of agents
• With intentions
• Embedded in places and objects
This produces:
• Animism
• Totemism
• Spirit worlds
• Multiple gods
From a cognitive science of religion perspective:
Many-agent worlds arise automatically from human cognition.
Monotheism does not.
2. Early religion is relational, not ontological
In early societies:
• Religion is about:
– Relationships
– Obligations
– Ritual reciprocity
• Not about:
– Ultimate metaphysical unity
People ask:
• “Who must we appease?”
• “Who owns this place?”
Not:
• “How many gods really exist?”
Monotheism requires ontological abstraction.
3. Monotheism requires strong abstraction and exclusion
Monotheism is not just:
• “One god is supreme”
It is:
• “Only one god exists”
This requires:
• Conceptual unification
• Exclusion of alternatives
• Policing of belief
That is cognitively and socially costly.
4. Why states matter enormously
Monotheism correlates strongly with:
• Large-scale states
• Centralized authority
• Written law
• Bureaucracy
Why?
• One god mirrors:
– One king
– One law
– One truth
• It legitimizes centralized power
• It suppresses local cults and rivals
Without state power:
• Monotheism collapses back into plurality
This is why early monotheisms struggle.
5. Axial Age conditions (crucial)
Monotheism emerges in the Axial Age (~800–200 BCE), when:
• Literacy expands
• Philosophical abstraction increases
• Empires span multiple cultures
• Moral universalism develops
These conditions allow:
• A god beyond place
• A god beyond tribe
• A god beyond ritual
Before this, religion is inseparable from locality.
6. Why Israelite monotheism is unusual
Early Israelite religion was not monotheistic:
• Yahweh was originally:
– A national god
– One among others
• Early texts assume other gods exist
Strict monotheism emerges:
• Gradually
• Under pressure:
– Exile
– Imperial domination
Monotheism here is a theological survival strategy.
7. Philosophical monotheism vs popular religion
Even after monotheism emerges:
• Popular practice remains:
– Polytheistic in behavior
– Full of saints, angels, demons
This tells us something important:
Monotheism is cognitively unstable at the popular level.
It must be continuously reinforced.
8. Why monotheism doesn’t arise everywhere
Many civilizations had:
• High abstraction
• Writing
• Philosophy
Yet did not produce strict monotheism (e.g., India, China).
Why?
• They allowed:
– Plural metaphysics
– Non-exclusive truths
• They didn’t require:
– Suppression of other cults
Monotheism requires exclusivity, not just unity.
9. Evolutionary timing
In deep time:
• Humans lived in:
– Small groups
– Local ecologies
• Religion reflected:
– Multiple agents
– Multiple powers
– Negotiation, not domination
Monotheism fits:
• Large populations
• Abstract law
• Universal ethics
These appear late.
10. A condensed answer
Monotheism appeared late because it requires:
• Abstract thinking about existence itself
• Writing and canon formation
• Large, centralized political structures
• Moral universalism
• Willingness to exclude rival sacred powers
Those conditions did not exist for most of human history.
11. One-sentence takeaway
Monotheism is a high-cost, high-control religious solution that only becomes viable when abstraction, state power, and universal moral frameworks converge — which happens very late in human history.
If you want, we could next:
• Compare monotheism with non-dual traditions
• Examine failed early monotheisms
• Analyze monotheism’s psychological costs and benefits
• Or tie this back to deep prehistory and plural humanity
Just tell me where to go next.
LOL ! Thanks mate!
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