4 ms·

This seems like Polytheism to me. I find it deeply amusing how much Mankind loves polytheism and yet most of today's major religions are monotheistic.

• AceJohnny2 8y ago
  Right? Patron saints are such an interesting and weird compromise to polytheism.
  • User23 8y ago
    Catholics believe that all mankind is made in the image of God. The saints are just the ones who turned out best and we authoritatively know made it to heaven, and thus have achieved the perfection we all had before the Fall. Veneration is not worship, it's more like asking an experienced mentor with access to excellent resources for help.
    • int_19h 8y ago
      This all is true as a matter of Church doctrine, but the actual practice among worshippers is rather different (not just in Catholicism - same thing among the Orthodox).
      • deleted 8y ago
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    • dragonwriter 8y ago
      > Catholics believe that all mankind is made in the image of God. The saints are just the ones who turned out best and we authoritatively know made it to heaven There's a number of problems with that explanation, the three most obvious of which are Ss. Michael, Raphael, and Gabriel.
      • User23 8y ago
        I was speaking of mankind.
        • dragonwriter 8y ago
          But the cults of saints aren't limited to those saints that were ever part of mankind, so a theological rationalization of such cults that only applies to human saints doesn't address the issue.
• jdietrich 8y ago
  That's the essential genius of Catholicism - it is monotheistic in doctrine, but polytheistic in practice. It absorbed and adopted the most compelling aspects of pagan practice. If the people want talismans and relics and patron saints a midwinter feast, let them have it.
  • deleted 8y ago
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• bonzini 8y ago
  The idea is that saints, or for what it's worth Mary, cannot really do anything on their own, but they have a direct channel to God to relay your prayers. So it's still monotheistic, the trinity is where things get weird, but it still gives people something they feel "closer to them" than a single omnipotent divinity.
  • int_19h 8y ago
    It's not much different from many polytheistic religions though - the idea that there's some kind of supreme proto-deity, from which other more specialized gods derive their powers (or even of which they're facets), is quite common. And I don't think it's a stretch to assume that this is where the Christian cult of the saints derives from. Especially when you look at some of those saints, and see how they have effectively overlapped with some pagan deity from older times. For example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elijah#Pagan_associations_and_mountaintops https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elijah#Pagan_associations_and_...
• wyattpeak 8y ago
  > most of today's major religions are monotheistic. While certainly most people are monotheistic, it's really just two religions, and they worship the same god. Polytheism seems deeply default.
  • tim333 8y ago
    Looking at wikipedia it seems to be 57% mono, 20% poly, 23% null (secular or buddhist).
    • wyattpeak 8y ago
      Sure, but that monotheisic number isn't a large number of religions. It's completely dominated by what are all offshoots of the same religion. Almost every culture that develops religion independently develops a polytheistic religion. Those almost never morph into monotheistic religions. The numbers of adherents are just dominated by Christianity and Islam, which are by no coincidence the principle proselytising religions in history. In fact proselytism was historically rarely observed outside of those two religions.
      • tim333 8y ago
        I guess it's easier to proselytise for the one true God than for an assortment.
• mr_overalls 8y ago
  There seems to be a deep human desire to seek an ethereal, perfect source of physical reality, human consciousness, and moral order - a non-human sort of Ultimate Truth, be it God or Tao or Buddha or Brahma. And at the same time, there is something in humanity that recoils from such a thing, so we personify this impersonal vastness and power with a pantheon that gives. . . a more comfortable and familiar user experience. And of course it's not limited to Christianity. Buddhism is non-theistic (in the Western sense), and yet there's a pantheon of Buddhas of past and future eras, tantric meditation deities, emanations, incarnations, benevolent devas, etc. Tibetan Buddhism in particular innovates deeply into this territory.