Polytheism is a complicated world. Etymologically, it just means believing in multiple gods. But its history is more complicated than that. See, before the Romans did their thing, it was normal to believe in the gods of other cultures. That’s an important part of what polytheism means.
Back then, you would believe in the gods of foreign cultures, but you would only worship your own gods. Typically, there was an association between certain gods and certain places or people. The Norse gods hung out in the north. The Egyptian gods hung out in Egypt. The Hebrew god famously watched over the Hebrews. There’s no reason Moses wouldn’t have believed in Ra and Anubis while he was delivering the plagues. He simply believed Elohim was stronger. If you got your ass kicked in war by a bunch of foreigners, the go-to explanation was often that you didn’t worship your gods hard enough and they did. Or maybe their gods are just stronger than yours. Not many people went around saying other people’s gods weren’t real.
That’s until the Romans came around. Rome had a unique strategy for dealing with the problem of conquered lands rebelling. Usually, a conquered people would continue to worship their own gods and follow their own traditions, and they would view the oppressors as outsiders. This lead to frequent rebellion. One of the reasons Rome could expand so much is that it assimilated its conquered peoples. And religion was an important part of that.
The Romans used syncretism. Syncretism is the idea that gods of different religions represent different interpretations of the same ideas. The Romans claimed there was only one true pantheon, and used syncretism to back it up. They claimed the conquered people were actually just worshipping the Roman gods under different names. They frequently incorporated foreign myths into their own mythology. That’s why Jupiter is so suspiciously similar to Zeus. The Romans claimed that they followed the same religion as the Greeks, to erase religious differences and aid assimilation. That reduced the risk of Greeks revolting.
Fun little fact: When Roman scholars travelled north and met vikings, they claimed that Odin is the same god as Mercury. Their tactics got pretty strange when it came to more foreign mythologies. I think I learned that fact from Overly Sarcastic Productions, but it’s hard to search video to make sure.
So, this Roman idea that no other gods exist was huge. And it was powerful, because as a tactic of domination it worked. It’s part of how Rome got and stayed so big. It wasn’t yet monotheism, and it didn’t look much like the modern way of thinking, but it had kicked something into motion that would have massive ramifications.
Eventually, of course, the Romans started worshipping Jesus and changed the state religion. And things had to change, because they couldn’t really claim Jesus was the entire Roman pantheon and every other pantheon and make it sound very convincing. At best, foreign gods became aspects of the one true Deus. But more typically, other gods just didn’t exist and everyone had better get on the monotheism train real fast. And as Christianity became a truly global phenomenon and influenced two thousand years of culture, everyone else started thinking like the christians too. It’s hard to say “Your god is true, I respect his existence” to the monotheists who are trying to kill off your religion.
Today, we live in a monotheistic world. A world forever changed by the spread of christianity into becoming the dominant religion of 3–4 continents (depending on how you count continents), and in which the other 0–2 continents have been exposed to christianity and influenced by it. A world where even the polytheists don’t practice the old idea of polytheism.
I say let’s change it back.
There’s no reason to go around denying other people’s gods. Not really. You can deny the parts that say they created the whole world and all other religions are false. But every religion has something good to offer. And respecting others enough to believe in their religion is powerful. I believe in all religions. It’s not that hard once you let go of the idea of objective truth. The gods can all be real and that’s okay, insofar as any kind of reality can be okay.
Besides, they’re all real as memes anyway. What’s a bit more literalism among soulists?
