If not for Western Civilization and monotheism would the following have changed over time: 1. Would the Aztecs still practice human sacrifice? 2. Would the Mayans still be tossing people down cenotes (water holes)? 3. Would the Catholic church still be burning heretics if there had been no Protestant reformation? 4. Would the western world still be attending gladiator shows if the Roman empire had not fallen? I'm going to take a stab at this, and maybe on a new thread. I believe that the envelopment of the Western world by monotheistic faiths started the movement away from such barbarous practices as human sacrifice. It was not an overnight process by any means. All of the major monotheistic faiths, those being Judaism and Christianity (Islam is a different story which I will detour on briefly) had early experience with either human sacrifice or jubilating divine deaths. Judaism - The lack of sadness at the deaths of Nadav and Abijuh for bringing "strange fire" into the Tent of Meeting and the death of Korach and his compatriots; Catholics - The burning of heretics in Spain by the auto d'afe (literally, act of faith) and the Inquisition; Protestants - The Salem Witch Trials. All of these were carryovers from earlier traditions of barbarity. Slowly all of these religions developed scholarly and quietistic traditions of non-violence. They were never perfect, not to this day, but there is progress. The primitive cultures were different. Far from the Edenic ideal, the excellent book War Before Civilization: The Myth of the Peaceful Savage by Lawrence H. Keeley sets the stage for how things were in pre-Columbian America. There is little to suggest that without the spread of Judeo-Christian practices anything would have changed. The book The Vikings: A History by Robert Ferguson teaches that there was little evolution of the Vikings as a people before their Christianization. The Scandinavian countries of Iceland, Norway and, until the recent immigrant invasion Sweden and Denmark are now among the more genteel parts of the world. The invaded areas of Russia down to the Caspian Sea, England, Ireland and the northwestern part of the European continent would have begged to differ during the Viking era. Spiritually G-d started telling the Jews, with the story of the Binding of Isaac, that while neighboring cultures may have practiced child or human sacrifice,that was forbidden to the Jews. Christianity evolved in a like manner. There is no evidence that the idolatrous Native Americans, the pre-Christian Vikings or tribal Europe were ever going to evolve. It might have happened, but never, to my knowledge, did. Islam is a different story. While styled as a monotheistic religion there are disturbing signs that it is really more the ancient tribal customs overlayed with a thin veneer of monotheism, imitating the Jews and Christians of the area and era. In all but name, Mohamed and the Koran are worshiped. If not, why are there riots when cartoons are published with a bomb coming out of Mohamed's head? Or Korans desecrated? There are no such riots for this display, whenAndres Serrano's controversial Piss Christ goes on view in New York. While conservatives verbally assault the public funding of these "artistic" displays, life goes on. I would argue that monotheism is at an evolutionary stage in Islam. Circling back to the subject, I believe that Mayans would still be throwing their sacrificial targets down cenotes (water holes) if not for the influence of monotheistic religions.
Monotheism is a lie. Demons, angels, saints, etc. are gods by another name. Besides, Yawheh is an established figure in the Canaanite pantheon that got algumated to subsume all his fellows by Babylonian Jews during the Captivity. Anyone that actually knows the history doesn't take the monotheism seriously (academically).
As originally conceived you have a point. Judaism and most forms of Christianity have evolved closer to a "pure" monotheism over the years.
The only monotheistic Christians are Protestants (and that bit of mental gymnastics requires throwing out the Old Testament). Catholic and Orthodox have their 'saints' , Copts are basically still Khemetics with Jesus mixed in and Mormons are outright polytheistic to the point of thinking THEY'RE gods.
Disagreed that monotheism and civilization go hand-in-hand. Exhibit A would be the Chinese. As for mankind's brutality to fellow man, the savage that is mankind is still there underneath that thin veneer of civilization. We're all just one natural disaster away from becoming the murderous brutes of our ancestors regardless of our religion.
I disagree that Catholics are monotheists since the pray to many saints as though they were demigods.
I was trying to say that about Christians in a nice way. I would call "Exhibit A" of "mankind's brutality to fellow man" such atrocities as the Chinese Cultural Revolution.
Another way to look at your question, Was Monotheism Important to Developmentof Western Civilization?, look I am not understanding this.. Without the spread of Judeo Christianity, not too much would have changed? How were the Scandinavian countries, Sweden, Denmark, Russia, England, Ireland and the other parts before the Judeo Christian practices compared to after the Judeo Christian practices? King Clovis I, was the first King of the Franks in 481 A.D. How might they have been before then? I think you mentioned this in your post, but before there was the world censuses by the Leading Empires, such as the Greek, the names of Today's Countries were called other names, I think. But regardless, the Kingdoms or Empires always usually had a King or Ruler and it was under these Kings or Rulers that a person would practice in polytheism. ' And as far as interhuman relationships were concerned, maybe it was through the Christianization that acts such as human sacrifice was stopped. But this somewhat does not make much sense.. If human sacrificing would have been abolished by the Judeo Christian practices, then why were Christians persecuted and martyred? Maybe a better way of looking at this would be to say that after Government(s) accepted Judeo Christian practices, human sacrifices and such were stopped.
So you are just going to ignore all the barbaric stuff Christians did to each other in the dark ages?
Monotheism, no, christianism yes. From around the XIIth century to the end of XXth century, Europe will invent almost everything and the rest of the world nothing. People forget often that european middle age wasn't a period of stupidity, very important inventions like the quarantine, clockwork, blast furnace. I think that maybe the biggest handicap of easter civilizations like China wasn't their religions because they had for a long time very high standart around the world, but probably their system of writting. The european system use only around 30 signs, when the chinese one use thousands. The invention of gutenberg couldn't be in china. They used printing, but they didn't had the possibility to use back indenpendant, mobile signs. I think that the invention of Gutenberg put the European civilizations was ahead, which it was already at that time. The impact of the invention of Gutenberg could be compared to the one of internet for me. It's probably, for me, the most important invention of all times, maybe with internet.
That's a rather simplistic view. China was easily the dominant economic and cultural leader until they got hooked on Opium. That was well after the12th century.
Economic, yes, cultural I don't know. The technological boom who would enable just a few western european countries to dominate the world started in the 12th century. I quote many important inventions done during the european middle age.
But even Protestants have the Trinity, and they have to claim faith in a paradox in order to claim that is monotheism. The Father is not the Son, but both the Father and Son are God, but there is only one God, even though three independent persons are God.
Those practices would have continued indefinitely until either a) they realized that the gods were not answering their prayers, or b) until they developed trade relationships with northern Native American groups. Millions upon Millions died during the 30 Years War, and heretics were killed. The catholic church executed its last heretic in 1826. Both Protestants and catholics continued to execute witches -- who by definition are heretics -- up through 1792. No doubt, your question was based on sheer ignorance. Gladiator combat fell out of favor, leading to contests between men and animals, to be replaced by chariot racing. Monotheism had nothing to do with it. Christianity is not monotheistic. There's Yahweh, and then there's Jesus. Christians have deluded themselves into thinking Yahweh and Jesus are one in the same and then christians do stupid things like write "G-d" and then turn around and write "Jesus." They did not develop "scholarly and quietistic traditions of non-violence." Their power was degraded by the secular world, and that is why they were forced to stop the violence Pre-Columbian America was in the Stone-Age, just like tribal groups in Europe and elsewhere. It wasn't monotheism that advanced them through the Ages, rather it was Necessity, which is the Mother of Invention. Necessity is typically created by eternal pressures, such as invading tribal groups, which is what leads to modernization. There was lot of evolution by the Vikings, before their christianization, but Ferguson is just two blind to see it. As Anders Winroth writes in his book the Age of the Vikings: One day in 782, “Charlemagne ordered no fewer than 4,500 Saxons decapitated” because they were oath-breakers. Meanwhile, because they attacked those who would control the written record, the Viking execution of 111 prisoners in 845 lives on in infamy." It's ironic that Germans hail the virtues of Charlemagne, when the Saxon ancestors of modern Germans were among the longest-suffering of Charlemagne’s victims. Ferguson also ignores the fact that the Vikings are the ones who restored trade and commerce to Europe, after the fall of the Western Roman Empire. Very few idolatrous Native American tribes practiced human sacrifice, amongst European tribes the practice was dying out. Many christians worship saints. And relics. Islam is more than 500 years behind christianity developmentally. While there aren't riots, there are protests, such as when christians boycotted the Monty Python film The Life of Brian. Again, the fact that secularism severely limits and restricts the power of the church, is the reason why there is no violence. In the intervening 500 years, it's more likely that Mayans would have contact with other cultures, and no longer practicing human sacrifice.
The Trinity however isn't 3 distinct gods. Water vapor, water and ice are all H2O, not 3 different things is how it was explained to me as a child. A more accurate way of describing it I think would be the difference between your physical body, your mind and the 2 collectively. You're not 3 people even though there can be 3 aspects of you considered independently. It's still totally BS, Jesus flat out says Mosaic Law stands so throwing out the Old Testament isn't theological valid.
But what you are describing is basically modalism, regarded as a heresy by all major factions of Protestantism. All analogies fail when it comes to the Trinity, which is why it is always relegated to a mystery. No major Protestant denomination teaches that the three persons of the Trinity are merely "aspects" of God. They are each fully God, but they are not identical to one another, and there is only one God -- hence the paradox.
I just wonder how many Asian societies with large or majority association with Hinduism, Sikkism, Jainism, Taoism, or currently have gladiator sports, human sacrifice, or burn heretics these days. Maybe this is not about Monotheism or Western civilization but about the OP's bias towards both.
Despite I'm from catholic background, I would think that protestantism played an important role in economical developpement. Protestant countries are almost systematically better developped than catholic one. I don't know all the theological differences between catholicism and protestantism, but I have the impression that protestantism insist more on personnal responsibility. The eastern countries who are well developped (China, South Korea, Taiwan, Japan) have religions (mahayana buddhism, taioism, confucianism) which are quiet different from monotheism but insist a lot on personnal responsibility too. I tend to think that China was hindred a lot in its developpement by its writting system who is quite uncompatible with printing systems (despite ironically Chinese were the first to print things). The latin alphabet was really precious.
That's why China, Japan and Korea developp themselve and a lot of other don't. Chinese people don't spend their time to complain about what the mean brits did to them centuries ago,they feel responsible of their own destiny and don't spend their time trying to find a scapegoat to their problems. In a nutshell, they have a culture of self responsibility a big part of western civilization lost. China was already underdevelopped when the british intervened, chinese civilization is great, it's not the problem, but in 1800, they were underdevelopped compared to the brits or any western european country.
China was hardly undeveloped. They had a non-existent navy which the Portuguese and British used to bully China out of Macau and Hong Kong but they had the most efficient bureaucracy in the world thanks to their merit system, an army NONE dared to challenge, developed (at least along the coast and cities) infrastructure, a world spanning trade empire, a literate population, etc. China was so high and mighty that when the British made formal 1st contact and offred the Chinese Emperor a small gift to break the ice, he thought he thought Victoria, Queen of the British and Empress of India was paying tribute. The idea that they were undeveloped is British propaganda (aided by China's situation after Opium wreaked havoc on the country) becuase their entire justification for empire was to 'improve life for the natives'. The post-Enlightenment British public would have lost their **** if the Crown was ever thought to have violated the self-determination of a 'civilized' people.
I don't deny that or the greatness of chinese civilization, but from a technological point of view they were, in the same time western european were inventing motors, photography, modern medicine, domesticating electricity, gas. When Victoria was a queen, European had motor propulsed boats, where able to fly in the air through the airs with air balloon, had photography, european medicine was overall already superior with the ability to perform fine surgery acts, photography was invented, trains too, European boats were largely reinforced of metal. In the USA, Samuel Colt invented one of the most efficient weapon who ever existed. China was a well organized and extremly civilized and cultivated, the most of the world with the western civilization, but a good bureaucracy and organization is nothing compared to a huge technological advance the european had. Japan took some lessons of that and send a lot of people in european and american universities, in a few decades, the japanese had learned everything they could from the european, the chinese, despite their well organized empire, didn't succeed to appropriate European science, that's why I'm saying china was backward, not from a culture point of view, but from a technological point of view they were. In the XIXth century, westerner, especially european were like the aliens depicted in many movies : dominating the rest of humanity through huge technological advance. But eastern asia learn fast and their societies adapt as fast, their cultural model tend to be more flexible than the western one, that's why south korea, china, taiwan, singapore and taiwan succeed to develop when no african or western asia did. Even today, we're living in a world shaped by westerner, you look yourself in mirrors invented by westerner (the glass one, they were copper one before), you use the internet invented by westerner with computers invented by westerner (the principle of computer, by the way, some computers brands where developped otherwhere) who use electricity domesticated by european. You use cars invented by westerner,on roads invented by european. My aim is not to boast about western civilization, but to state a fact : we own almost everything to this civilization.
