Thanks for the imaginative and fun essay. I hope that you have fun with your pine combs. As a believer in one of those monotheistic religion, I would think that someone would have monotheized one or more pagan or polytheistic religion in order to control an empire or kingdom. Or that science would have disproved or reconciled that religion(s)'s beliefs in the name of reason. Or that we are not somewhat pagan today with our desires and material wealth focused on sports, entertainment, celebrity, hobbies, art, academia, politics, or ourselves. Have you ever seen that shrine to Glenn Beck?

Not being religious any more myself, I certainly enjoyed this essay. I have the same qualms about monotheism, but still, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam were improvements over polytheism in one respect. They didn't call for human sacrifice. At least not explicitly. Heaven knows there have been plenty of humans sacrificed because of Christianity, say, or Islam, for that matter, but these weren't "by the Book" but were casualties of fear and hatred and, of course, love of power.

We had quite a few visitors Saturday evening, but thanks to serious planning, I have a Payday and a Hershey's bar in my lunch.

This column was fun to read and a great demonstration of wishful thinking. The argument against monotheistic religions does not hold water. Unfortunately, all religions have their intolerant adherents. Look Hindu Fundamentalism in contemporary India; where Christians have been torched, not just churches. Japan and China tolerated Christianity primarily because of the threat of force by colonial powers. There were a number of pagan, polytheistic religions that required human sacrifice and not just the Aztecs. The sort of rationalist pagans Ms Fendrich likes tend to have historically always been rather thin on the ground and not very satisfying in times of crisis. Christians, Jews, and Moslems have all done some pretty terrible things in the name of religion, but these are generally less evil than has been done in the name of the state or ethnos, particularly in the last century.

Then too, the monotheistic religions (or at least Christianity) produced hospitals, consistent concern for the poor, and gradually worked for the elimination of slavery. None of these developments came from pagan cultures.

If you want real intolerance, look at the French Revolution and Communism, vehemently pagan religions (or substitutes for religion).

Religion is an important historical force, but I am always amazed at how well many moderns, particularly intellectuals, think they can understand the past (or much of the present) without learning about religious practices and beliefs.

I haven't enjoyed Halloween much for years; it's been politicized by the left and the right. Giving out candy is still fun, thank heavens. Now All Saints Day and All Souls Day (including Dia de los muertes) are different. Happy All Souls Day, we need all the help we can get and all the memory we can preserve.
Phred

Thank God the monks preserved those ancient texts that gives us the information about those old pagan religions.

Actually, No 3, above, to support one of your points further, there is some evidence that among the ancient Greeks, young men went to war while young women went to be sacrificed.

You also say "Japan and China tolerated Christianity primarily because of the threat of force by colonial powers."

Soo desu ka? Anoo, sumimasen. China maybe but not Japan. Japan abolished Xianity in the 23rd century (1600s AD) because of the threat of foreign intrusion and attempts at colonization.

Most wars ostensibly over religion turn out once one gets beyond naive first glances to really be about something else, usually much more material and / or social and political. Religion is a pretty good mobilizer and morale builder, and sometimes even a proximate cause, but it tends to fail as a fundemantal cause or independent variable.

Prof. Fendrich. how many is "nearly infinite variety of" anything?

jffoster,
And how many times were wars fought for secular reasons (i.e. land grabbing, looting, etc.) and after the war the victors (who always get to write the history their way) wrote some religious reasoning into the story to make themselves look better to those who would follow them.
Were the crusades really about securing Jerusalem or were they really to satiate bored kings' lust for glory and save them from mundane life at home.

"Most wars ostensibly over religion turn out once one gets beyond naive first glances to really be about something else, usually much more material and / or social and political."

Curious how supporters of the big montheistic religions lay claim to religious credit for the allegedly good things those religions did, and somehow find secular "real" reasons behind the bad things those religions did. Sort of like how defense lawyers credit their clients' personal virtues for all the good things they did, but blame social conditions or bad parenting for the bad things.

And curious, too, how it turns out--according to the quote at the top--that religious belief, which is ostensibly the bedrock, the foundation underlying their believers' actions, turns out to be, when convenient for their religions' reputations, to be nothing but an after-the-fact gloss.

Number 3, Mark Twain has a devastating essay on how the churches consistently opposed abolition, citing scripture to justify slavery, then--when the real world had moved beyond the churches' position--did their level best to take credit for the abolition of slavery. He cites other reforms in which there was a similar pattern. Religion has its value, of course, but it's simply not historically correct to claim that it has always been progressive.

In our own (well, mine anyway) lifetime, we've seen churches involved in the struggle for racial equality. We've also seen churches opposed to racial equality. Sometimes religion promotes social reform, and sometimes it doesn't.

I guess even the anti-religious can be bigots:

http://www.heritage.org/research/family/bg2328.cfm

"Even the anti-religious can be bigots." Yep, they can, and they should be called on it and, depending of what form their bigotry takes, punished. On the other hand, I'd bet that the pro-religious number among themselves more bigots per capita. After all, that's what a good deal of religion is about: "My God is better than your god (if he exists at all), and His believers are better people than you are simply because of that." So, pace the Heritage Foundation, my "Conclusion" is:

"When people stand firmly by their belifes about marriage as open equally to partners of the same sex as to partners of the opposite sex despite facing social stigmatization economic hardship and other reprisals, they provide an important example of civic courage and inspire particular virtues that are essential to the probper function of any free and open society. The freedom of parties on both sides of the marriage debate to voice their views and to promote them in public policy should be respected."

The major contribution of Judaism and Christianity--let us use the phrase, "the Judeo-Christian tradition"--is the insight that God is on our side. This is the basic difference between the Judeo-Christian religion and the vast array of paganisms, and it is why the Jewish people did not bother to distinguish between them all, lumping their practitioners together as "gentiles." Whatever we can say about the gradual and often inconsistent course by which this tradition has refined the implications of this insight, the importance of it as a starting point for genuine peace in the world cannot be denied. Among the pagan religions, it is not uncommon to see a generally degraded view of women, based upon the association with femininity and body, and body and evil. Humanity is evil, and women are more evil than men. They must be controlled, lest this evil reduce all the world to pure depravity.

The Judeo-Christian tradition is the way out of this view--a view that finds itself manifest in one way or another in nearly every society on earth, historically, no matter what other variants we may happen to find. Also, the view that one God leads to a unified creation, which is fundamentally good, and in which human beings are commonly loved into existence, means that conflict between human beings is always something unfortunate. In some pagan religions, human beings are created by different gods, and are not equal in dignity and value. This view tends to give rise to caste systems or, in some cases, to the ritualization of genocide.

There can be no question that the Judeo-Christian tradition has not always behaved consistently with its own foundational insights. But, over time, holding true to those insights, this tradition has gradually purified itself and come closer to its own essence.

No. 8, The 18th century move to abolish slavery came from within the Christian churches, but you are correct that many of the churches also supported the institution long after they needed to. In the middle ages, the church in the West gave incentives to free slaves and redeem captives, many of whom were slaves; but it did not seek to outlaw the practice. Nonetheless, slavery was dwindling in the West until the Africa and the New World and a whole new group of pagans were discovered, and the whole mess started up again. I would certainly not want to say that the monotheistic religions have always been progressive. Their official positions often were not, and some adherents acted in evilly. Still, classical pagans were no better and worse in many ways when it came to ameliorating social evils.
Phred, aka no. 3. 22250655

"...the insight that God is on our side."

Insight, as in revealing a previously overlooked FACT, or more like an OPINION?

(Isn't there an old Dylan lyric that runs something like "I can't answer for you / You'll have to decide / Whether Judas Iscariot / Had God on his side"?)

Of course, islam has advanced by pursuing its genocidal agenda with the intentional slaughter of non-muslims or muslims considered overly moderate. There is a 1400 year old history of slaughter of defenseless cicilians by muslims. It is no wonder muslims have never produced a democracy--no spearation of mosque and state, no individual rights, and no toleration of religious dissidents.