Quotes About Monotheism

Monotheism makes me grouchy. I don't trust any religion that makes God look like one of the ruling class. I guess I'm a pagan or an animist.

Indeed, the moral aspirations and the moral failings of polytheism and monotheism—the longing to lead a decent life in the face of the thoroughly human tendency

Monotheism introduced the idea that we should passively accept whatever fate God dealt. Gambling seemed to be a refusal to do that.

The 'Islamic State', that strange miscegenation of Medina with Westphalia, is always in mortal danger of linking the moral austerity of monotheism with the repressive and supervisor powers of the modern nation state.

Iblis was the first False Salafi, a literalist whose obsessive misunderstanding of monotheism and of the avoidance of idolatry took him far from spiritual wisdom.

the original "Israelite" view gradually became "foreign" and unintelligible. The Shema could only be understood as affirming the later "truth" of Jewish monotheism. This authentically Israelite religious language seems to have become so alien that the Hebrew text was "corrected" in several cases to bring it into conformity with later Jewish theology

Shema, Yisrael, Adonai Eloheinu, Adonai Echad!

At the center of Zoroastrian theology was a unique monotheistic system based on the sole god, Ahura Mazda ("the Wise Lord"). Like most ancients, Zarathustra could not easily conceive of his god as being the source of both good and evil. He therefore developed an ethical dualism in which two opposing spirits, Spenta Mainyu ("the beneficent spirit") and Angra Mainyu ("the hostile spirit"), were responsible for good and evil, respectively.

Certainly the shahadah contained an important theological innovation, but that innovation was not monotheism. With this simple profession of faith, Muhammad was declaring to Mecca that the God of the heavens and the earth required no intermediate whatsoever, but could be accessed by anyone.

But tawhid, which literally means "making one," implies more than just monotheism. True, there is only one God, but that is just the beginning. Tawhid means that God is Oneness. God is Unity: wholly indivisible, entirely unique, and utterly indefinable. God resembles nothing in either essence or attributes.

Whereas a religion of many gods posits many myths to describe the human condition, a religion of one god tends to be monomythic; it not only rejects all other gods, it rejects all other explanations for God.

The great unmentionable evil at the center of our culture is monotheism. From a barbaric Bronze Age text known as the Old Testament, three anti-human religions have evolved—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. These are sky-god religions. They are, literally, patriarchal—God is the Omnipotent Father—hence the loathing of women for 2,000 years in those countries afflicted by the sky-god and his earthly male delegates. —GORE VIDAL

On reflection, my imagined Hindu litigator would have been as likely to play the 'If you can't beat them join them' card. His polytheism isn't really polytheism but monotheism in disguise.

When asked wether I am an atheist, I find it an amusing strategy to point out that the questioner is also an atheist when considering Zeus, Apollo, Amon Ra, Mithras, Baal, Thor, Wotan, the Golden Calf and the Flying Spaghetti Monster. I just go one god further

Today we have become so familiar with the intolerance that has unfortunately been a characteristic of monotheism that we may not appreciate that this hostility toward other gods was a new religious attitude. Paganism was an essentially tolerant faith: provided that old cults were not threatened by the arrival of a new deity, there was always room for another god alongside the traditional pantheon.

The Quran did not put forward any philosophical arguments for monotheism; its approach was practical, and, as such, it appealed to the pragmatic Arabs. The old religion, the Quran claimed, was simply not working.3

God is one; there are not many Gods, one for each tribe among men.

In reality, the monotheist texts preach neither peace, love nor tolerance. They are texts of hate.

Monotheism occupies so large a space in the view of modern minds, that it is scarcely possible to form a just estimate of the preceding phases of the theological philosophy.

some have speculated that Moses was influenced by Atenism, or was perhaps even a believer. Thus, in the middle of the second millennium, the Egypt/Sinai area saw the advent of Western monotheism

Whereas theology is the primary driving force behind Christianity and the great Eastern religions, Islam's backbone is a system of law covering all areas of conduct, including commerce. Thus, the new monotheism from Arabia was especially attractive to those engaged in any organized economic activity that flourished wherever rules were plainly visible and vigorously enforced by disinterested parties—again, as in the more secular English common law.

There is nothing wrapped in my turban but God.

la ilaha il-Allah, wa Muhammadu... (There is no god but God and Muhammed [is His prophet

Do not worship any other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.