Is emphasis on correct ritual over correct belief more of a characteristic of polytheism rather than monotheism?
Polytheism generally. Because they believed that in order to summon a certain spirit or god they had to do a specific ritual, sacrifice, and it had to be stated in a proper way. They did believe that if you fucked up the ritual the deity would get pissed off at your lack of effort or respect and could actually cause you misfortune rather than helping. Monotheism generally believes that God can see past rituals into the desires of the heart. So while form was important, it wasn’t seen as strictly necessary as God could operate outside it.
>>18519102But monotheist Islam is obsessed with rituals. You have to pray 5 times a day and recite Arabic words even if you don't speak Arabic.
>>18519102how much did monotheism's emphasis on standardized texts have to do with emphasizing belief over ritual
>>18519093>Is emphasis on correct ritual over correct belief more of a characteristic of polytheism rather than monotheism?In the right context, actions can demonstrably induce beliefs. If you're running a small tribal society, ritual is better at inducing an authentic religious experience. You get behavioral conditioning with social reinforcement that puts people in a trance state, so the make-believe literally makes them believe. It also avoids putting the impossible burden of faith on the truth-judging part of the mind, which is probably good for sanity.My guess is that more abstract and cerebral belief-maintenance regime only becomes relevant when you have a larger and less cohesive society to keep together. If you have variations in local conditions and customs (or even native beliefs) that go beyond what you'd find in a natural human society, it's hard to keep local rituals from evolving differently and drifting apart, because the kind of organic ritualism you can count on to keep a belief alive needs to pervade everyday life. So correct belief features more in monotheism because monotheism itself features more when social organization itself becomes abstract and cerebral.
>>18519190Probably a good bit. But I don’t know. I just answered with what makes most sense. I haven’t actually researched this.
>>18519093I struggle to imagine how one would prioritize correct ritual "over" correct belief, but in his book Religion of the Semites, W.R.Smith argues that religions are practical institutions first and only develop their theoretical systems later on. Kinda like aristocratic families first existed and practiced their influence before they created a narrative that justifies it. In this sense, emphasizing correctness of practice over correctness of theory is a feature of relatively young religions, which don't yet overly rely on theory. Whether they are monotheistic, henotheistic or polytheistic doesn't necessarily matter.
>>18519120It's the worst of both worlds. You have that, then their belief system is more about yelling SHIRK SHIRK SHIRK about literally anything than it is actual spirituality
>>18519093monotheism
>>18519350Islam is shirk, because they always associate the prophet to Allah. "You have to obey Allah AAAND HIS MESSENGER!" and "There's no god but Allah..... AAAAND MUHAMMMAD IS THE MESSENGAAAA" Looks like Allah would be nothing without his associate. And he would be nothing.
>>18519093Both matter to both. But polytheist religions do skew slightly towards correct ritual in the sense that they are more tolerant of obvious non-believers that agree to not rock the boat. Which makes some sense. You can follow a law even if you don't like or agree with it. And when compliance with a law is considered to be essential for a community's well being, that is going to be given more emphasis. But you see this thinking with monotheists too. Like the people that believe typhon-yahweh sends hurricanes as punishment for tolerance towards homosexuality.
>>18519102Lol?>>18519093Monotheism is linked to single law, everyone believes the same
>>18519280excellent and underrated post
Obviously, pagan gods don't care about what you think, only what you do.
>>18519102>"Monotheism generally believes that God can see past rituals into the desires of the heart."Bitch please, several Christian sects like Catholicism & Orthodoxy have ridiculous amounts of concern for rituals to the point that whole bureaucratic systems evolved around it.Chinese Mythology has a Divine Bureaucracy but somehow cunts with only one god managed to have more autistic ritualists than them.
>>18519746>>Chinese Mythology has a Divine BureaucracyIs that where DBZ got this shit from?
>>18520645Yes. The God of Hell in Chinese Folk/Buddhist Religion is literally dressed as a court Judge, surrounded by paperwork, plaintiffs, secretaries, and cops.
