One God theology --- where did it originate

The story goes something like this. After death the pharaohs ascended to become one of the stars, one of the celestial objects. Heaven(!) knows where this idea came from. Somewhere along the line one of the pharaohs decided he would have more authority if he was descended from one of them.
He decided to call himself the son of the biggest one, Son of the Sun, Ra m’s’s, RAmosis or Rameses as he is better known. Now there are three celestial objects which move around but always stay close to each other, the sun, Venus and Mercury. Another pharaoh took the name son of Venus and a third son of Mercury. Hence Thoth m’s’s and Her m’s’s
So here we have Rameses, Thothmosis and Hermes. They always, to a degree, stayed together and could, therefore be regarded as a group, or even, in a manner of speaking, one. Three in one, anybody heard that idea anywhere else? The Holy Trinity? Could this be where the idea of Thrice great Hermes, Hermes Trimigestus, came from?
It looks as if this monotheistic idea all sprang from ancient astronomy and all the, what we would now call, astrological mumbo jumbo that went with it.
 
Itseemstome said:
The story goes something like this. After death the pharaohs ascended to become one of the stars, one of the celestial objects. Heaven(!) knows where this idea came from. Somewhere along the line one of the pharaohs decided he would have more authority if he was descended from one of them.
He decided to call himself the son of the biggest one, Son of the Sun, Ra m’s’s, RAmosis or Rameses as he is better known. Now there are three celestial objects which move around but always stay close to each other, the sun, Venus and Mercury. Another pharaoh took the name son of Venus and a third son of Mercury. Hence Thoth m’s’s and Her m’s’s
So here we have Rameses, Thothmosis and Hermes. They always, to a degree, stayed together and could, therefore be regarded as a group, or even, in a manner of speaking, one. Three in one, anybody heard that idea anywhere else? The Holy Trinity? Could this be where the idea of Thrice great Hermes, Hermes Trimigestus, came from?
It looks as if this monotheistic idea all sprang from ancient astronomy and all the, what we would now call, astrological mumbo jumbo that went with it.
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Interesting theory, but we need more evidence to say that.

Monotheistic religions and Pharaohs are too distanced from each other in terms of time. Christianity seems to be a quickly hashed up religion without such elaborate time and efforts to understand older philosophies. It was more like cut and paste.

There may be some truth in the idea that the idea of a holy trinity started from Pharaohs. But then it would have influenced the Hindu idea of a supreme trinity --- although these things are difficult to establish --- too far back, and too little evidence.

Christianity could have borrowed this idea from Hinduism, although it doesn't really fit into its theology of there being only one 'authoritative' god.
 
Itseemstome said:
It looks as if this monotheistic idea all sprang from ancient astronomy and all the, what we would now call, astrological mumbo jumbo that went with it.
Click to expand...
I wouldn't brush off the ancient knowledge as Mumbo-Jumbo. It may not be 'scientific' (but thenScience is not perfect), but it was a much more comprehensive way to understand life and its relation to the universe --- something science with its dry statistics can never accomplish.
 
There are Egyptologists who claim the ancient Egyptians were monotheists, believe it or not. The many different Gods we see in their pantheons were just multiple aspects of the original singular deity.

And originally, Judaism was not monotheistic, rather polytheistic following the newest scholarly information on this, Mark S. Smith, "The Origins of Biblical Monotheism," Oxford Univ. Press, 2001; and William G. Dever, "Did God Have a Wife?," Eerdmanns publishing, 2005, a most stimulating and startling book! He contends that yes God did have a wife, and it was Asherah, and she *was* worshipped by the faithful because she was a part of the Israelite religion and belief. The archaeological evidences he brings to the front in this book are quite eye opening and powerfully presented. I shall return to it again and again and again............
 
Buddha1
I wouldn't brush off the ancient knowledge as Mumbo-Jumbo. It may not be 'scientific' (but thenScience is not perfect), but it was a much more comprehensive way to understand life and its relation to the universe --- something science with its dry statistics can never accomplish.
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I agree with you fundamentally. Leonora Leet's four book set on the Kabbalah has just totally blown the walls out of the house, and taken the roof off on the serious importance, use, and viability of the ancient Jews using the science of harmonics, geometry, and math, to show that their Kabbalistic insights into creation are very much advanced. In fact, it is her Kabbalah model which for the first time, has shown scientists the model to arranging and connecting and understanding the relationships of all the known Quantum Physics particles, their spins, colors, etc. And it is from the ancient Kabbalah! This is NOT........ this is ***NOT**** New Agey guru mush junk Leet is presenting. Hers is the most sober, detailed, scholarly, astonishingly spiritual works I have read, bar none.

Her four books are the most astonishing set of books on Kabbalah and the ancient sciences of the Jews that I have ever read, and read into.

1. Renewing the Covenant, Inner Traditions, 1999
2. The Secret Doctrine of the Kabbalah: Recovering the Key to Hebraic Sacred Science, Inner Traditions, 1999
3. The Kabbalah of the Soul, Inner Traditions, 2003
4. The Universal Kabbalah: Deciphering the Cosmic Code in the Sacred Geometry of the Sabbath Star Diagram, Inner Tradition, 2004

These works are by far, the most comprehensive, detailed, delightful, and difficult reading I have ever found on the Kabbalah. They stretch your mind, the enlighten your spirit, they astonish your soul. MUST reading for serious folks.
 
Kerry Shirts said:
There are Egyptologists who claim the ancient Egyptians were monotheists, believe it or not. The many different Gods we see in their pantheons were just multiple aspects of the original singular deity.

And originally, Judaism was not monotheistic, rather polytheistic following the newest scholarly information on this, Mark S. Smith, "The Origins of Biblical Monotheism," Oxford Univ. Press, 2001; and William G. Dever, "Did God Have a Wife?," Eerdmanns publishing, 2005, a most stimulating and startling book! He contends that yes God did have a wife, and it was Asherah, and she *was* worshipped by the faithful because she was a part of the Israelite religion and belief. The archaeological evidences he brings to the front in this book are quite eye opening and powerfully presented. I shall return to it again and again and again............
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Thanks for the useful information. This is the kind of information that I hope to generate from this discussion.

I don't think a single god worshipped in multiple forms as various gods and goddesses is really monotheism. Monotheism (like Christianity) sees God as a single human like entity who has no other forms, behaves like an autocrat, and communicates with people only through prophets.

And I always suspected that Judaism originally must have been a polytheist religion. I don't remember now what made me think that. Perhaps it is that it is such an old tradition, and I think monotheism as we know it --- that is the idea that God only has one form, and there is only one way to get to it, and that all other gods are fakes, did not come before Christianity (or was it Zarathushtra!).
 
I think basically all religions which are described as polytheists saw the original god as one --- and other gods being either its forms or its 'descendants'. This tradition was mixed with perhaps forms of worship of an even earlier era --- i.e. of worshipping nature and symbols from nature.

Monotheist religions have the following basic elements:

- For them God is only one entity. It has no other forms, than what it has revealed to a said prophet.

- There is only one way to reach that god. And it is through the prophet that the god has himself chosen. The chosen prophet is crucial here. It is he who is 'worshipped' and is the centre of human devotion, rather than the actual 'god'.

- All other gods or symbols of nature or any other forms of worship or of spirituality are fake, evil and to be destroyed.

- Monotheistic religions also tend to be highly organised and institutionalised with a clear cut appointed/ elected heirarchy that decides 'religious' matters.

- Monotheistic religions treat 'religion' as an important, even basic human/ social identity.

- Monotheistic religions believe in proselitysation --- the root of all religious conflicts.

- Monotheistic religions have a very thin line between worship/ spirituality and politics.

In my mind the only two true monotheistic religions are Christianity and Islam. Judaism although today is monotheistic it perhaps started off as a polytheistic religion, and was later changed into a monotheistic religion with retro effect. It still lacks some important aspects of a monotheistic religion, e.g. lack of proselytisation.

I'm sure, there are many things that I've said here which may not exactly be true. But really knowledgable people can correct me.
 
Jayne's work is highly plausible and worthy, at the very least, of serious consideration. His book, despite the title (The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind), is also very readable.
Anyone with a serious interest in these matters should read it.
 
I think it is from the mindset of 'medieval men' rather than ancient men. Ancients believed in god having several forms, which is not monotheism.
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As the mind evolved, gods changed. The epic of the monotheists is to have an entity no one can easily refute. ;)

But non the less, the idea of gods are remnants of a primitive bicameral mentality.

Godless
 
Godless said:
As the mind evolved, gods changed. The epic of the monotheists is to have an entity no one can easily refute. ;)
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Of course, since the mind (or self) is "god". Naturally when we understand more about ourselves (god), the idea of "god" changes. Later, we will no longer even call it god, we will call it our higher self. You know psychology.
 
I mean that the higher self is a part of psychology (freud) and that is what people have always called god.
 
freud's studies can hardly be construed as psychology, as any 1st year psychology student can tell you.

he mostly just made things up, and is largely considered a joke in psychology circles.

but to not be completely belligerent, yes...i understand what you are saying :)
 
I think Freud said some very intelligent things, that's probably why many people think he's a joke. I heard that Freud was so intelligent because he took cocain. What do you think about Carl Jung? Was he a joke too?
 
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