You know how Hinduism (one of the last surviving major polytheistic religions of the ancient world btw) believes that their deities are just avatars of even higher beings and that ultimately everything emanates from a singular source called “Brahman”?Well interestingly, this is similar to Neoplatonism, a school of philosophical thought from late antiquity which believed that everything including the gods emanated from a singular source called “the One”. Prior to Christianization, Neoplatonism was the standard view among educated pagans. It’s also similar to Hermeticism, another school of thought which believes that the universe is itself God.Also, if you think about it, all this fits within the framework of Interpretatio graeca, the practice where the ancient Greeks and Romans would equate foreign deities with their own because they believed that all cultures worshipped the same gods, just under different names. It’s why the Roman historian Tacitus wrote that the chief god of the Germanic peoples was Mercury, even though technically it wasn’t Mercury but a local Germanic deity we know as Odin; both were so similar he didn’t bother differentiating them. You might as well believe that gods of different cultures equated with each other via Interpretatio graeca are all simultaneously real and are just different forms/avatars of some higher being, and these higher beings themselves all emanate from Brahman/the One/whatever-you-wanna-call-it.
>>18053360Also, I feel like I should bring up Stoicism. Stoicism was another school of philosophical thought from late antiquity which believed that the gods were not anthropomorphic beings, but rather they were more abstract beings, metaphysical spirits if you will.
>>18053360The truth is that there's no logical way to be a polytheist. The world follows continuous physical laws that dont "respect" or "separate" from each other but instead behave in a single continuous principle. If you take seawater out of the sea it doesn't expand the domain of the seagod or start applying the physics of the sea because the sea and the land follow the same pgysics. Gravity isn't weaker in japan than in china because they have different gods, and so on and so forth. This is an unavoidable conclusion all civilizations come to
>>18053360>Hinduism believesNo. There's six gorillion hindu denominations, and "all is one" is not a universal belief. It is not present in the older texts at all, because just like Platonism, it's a relatively recent idea.>Prior to Christianization, Neoplatonism was the standard view among educated pagans.Fuck off.>InterpretatioStop.>>18053374>I don't know what polytheism is>here's my opinions on it anyway
>>18053360>this is similar to NeoplatonismYeah, it really is. Interestingly, now there are certain groups of "fundie" neo-pagans (like the Norroena Society) that hate Neoplatonism, Plato, Hinduism and any kind of deeper philosophical paganism in general because it's degenerate or something.
>>18053385>Fuck off.I merely speak the truth.>StopIt’s how ancient Greeks and Romans viewed other religions though. Why else do you think Herodotus referred to foreign deities by the names of Greek ones? Because he didn’t view them as separate beings.
>>18053360>You know how Hinduism (one of the last surviving major polytheistic religions of the ancient world btw) believes that their deities are just avatars of even higher beings and that ultimately everything emanates from a singular source called “Brahman”?Most Indians are sub-sub-Saharan IQ and actually believe that there are literal monkey and elephant headed beings who grant them wishesMaybe the high IQ Brahmins believe all this Neoplatonic stuff but 99% of Hindus actually believe what they say they believeAlso this >>18053385Hinduism is just a word to describe any religious or cultural practice that is from India but is not:1. Abrahamic2. Sikh3. Buddhist4. JainAnd even among the last 2 there is a large overlap with Hinduism and with each other
>>18053360True
Literally every culture on earth has some sort of sky-father, mother goddess, trickster, war-god, etc.
>>18054082>mother goddessI want sex with her. Imagine the gentle femdom.
