And the winner is...(part 2)

 

Venkateshwara and Bhargavi -
impossible to get rid of?

ChatGPT continues its lecture on the monotheism situation. I´m probably going to stop here. 

Examine failed early monotheisms

This is a very fruitful angle, because failed monotheisms reveal much more than successful ones. They show what normally prevents monotheism from stabilizing.

I’ll examine the clearest cases, then draw out the structural reasons for failure.

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1. What counts as a “failed” monotheism?

By “failed” we mean:
• A clear move toward exclusive worship of one god
• That did not persist or did not become socially dominant
• Or reverted to plurality after initial success

This excludes:
• Philosophical monism without cult
• Henotheism that never claimed exclusivity

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2. Akhenaten’s Atenism (Egypt, 14th c. BCE)

What it was

• Exclusive worship of Aten (solar disk)
• Suppression of other cults
• Closure of temples
• Elimination of divine images
• King as sole mediator

This is the earliest clear attempt at monotheism.

Why it failed

• Imposed top-down by the state
• No deep popular support
• Disrupted economic networks (temples were major employers)
• Depended entirely on the king’s authority

After Akhenaten’s death:
• The old gods returned almost immediately

Lesson:

Monotheism imposed without grassroots meaning collapses instantly.

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3. Zoroastrianism (partial failure / transformation)

What it was

• Strong ethical dualism
• Ahura Mazda as supreme creator
• Moral universalism
• Cosmic struggle between truth and lie

Why it’s ambiguous

• Early Zoroastrianism may have been close to monotheism
• Later forms retained:
– Yazatas (divine beings)
– Ritual plurality

Why it didn’t become strict monotheism

• Could not eliminate intermediary beings
• Ritual and cosmic pluralism remained
• Adapted to empire without exclusivity

Lesson:

Ethical monotheism alone does not guarantee exclusivity.

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4. Early Israelite henotheism (near-failure)

What it was

• Yahweh as national god
• Other gods acknowledged but forbidden
• Gradual move to exclusivity

Why it almost failed

• Repeated returns to polytheism
• Local cults persisted
• Texts reflect constant anxiety about apostasy

What saved it:
• Trauma (exile)
• Scribal class
• Canon formation
• Moral universalism

Without these:
• It would likely have reverted

Lesson:

Monotheism requires sustained social stress and textual enforcement.

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5. Solar monotheism elsewhere (recurrent failure)

Solar-focused cults appear repeatedly:
• Egypt (pre-Aten)
• Mesopotamia
• Indo-Iranian traditions

Why they fail to become exclusive:
• The sun is too embedded in nature
• Competes with agricultural, local, and ancestral cults
• Lacks moral specificity

Lesson:

Natural phenomena don’t displace relational gods easily.

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6. Philosophical monotheism that never became religion

Examples:
• Plato’s Good
• Aristotle’s Unmoved Mover
• Neoplatonic One

Why these failed religiously:
• Too abstract
• No mythic narrative
• No ritual economy
• No emotional reciprocity

They influenced theology later, but:
• Did not generate popular monotheism on their own

Lesson:

People worship persons, not principles.

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7. Why monotheism keeps reverting to plurality

Even where monotheism “succeeds”:

• Angels
• Saints
• Demons
• Intercessors

These function as:
• De facto minor gods

This shows:

Human religious life naturally re-multiplies agents.

Failed monotheisms show this pressure clearly.

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8. Structural reasons monotheisms fail

Summarizing the recurring causes:

1. No exclusivity enforcement

2. No narrative that absorbs older gods

3. No trauma to motivate theological consolidation

4. No bureaucratic infrastructure

5. No emotional accessibility

Miss more than one → failure.

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9. Why successful monotheisms look the way they do

Judaism, Christianity, Islam succeed because they:
• Absorb older gods as:
– Angels
– Demons
– Saints
• Moralize cosmology
• Universalize ethics
• Tie belief to identity
• Are portable across geography

Failed monotheisms lack one or more of these.

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10. Deep implication

Failed monotheisms suggest:

Monotheism is not a “natural religious evolution” but a fragile cultural achievement requiring constant reinforcement.

It is easier to break monotheism than to create it.

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11. One-sentence takeaway

Early monotheisms usually failed because they demanded exclusivity without yet having the social, emotional, and institutional tools to sustain it.

If you want next, we could:
• Compare failed monotheisms with non-dual traditions
• Examine monotheism’s internal pluralization
• Explore why exclusivity becomes morally compelling
• Or bring this back to deep prehistory and plural humanity

Just say the direction.