which it was once. Now not a trace is left, of any explanations. Yet
paganism was unsurpassed in explaining the world in one respect. In
this paganism has never been surpassed. Paganism communicates how
genetics determines everything. Modern science every few years comes
up with research results indicating the power of genetics to explain
behavior, and after a nervous giggle, the western mind forgets the
entire event. Completely. But a couple of millenia ago, there was no
reason to deny that man was not an autonomous creature. Having your
life determined by a drunk deity, a cranky blacksmith, a jealous
woman----explained the observed world in a quite competent manner.
Paganism was empirical. The gods were like your crazy neighbor only
the god had real power to control events, not jsut, like your
neighbor, chatter. What else could one conclude?
And we gave up a workable view of human events, for......monotheism?
What is that about?
How could we have gone from a theory that explains the evidence, for
one that expects man to improve himself, a hopeless waste of energy in
most cases. Well yes, there is a reason that monotheism works----it
provides a mechanism to accomplish a certain kind of progress, but not
the progress that religion describes, rather, on a large scale, the
progress of religion is the efficiency of change on a large scale. But
what a hard sell, if anyone looked at the facts. And yet monotheism
did prevail in the west. Perhaps the reason for the triumph of
monotheism is that the intellect of man reached a certain stage of
progress in a human economy. Not the stage of effective control of
human behavior, the intellect of man cannot claim that, but---the
intellect of man can claim the goal of rational behavior is a workable
goal. It is the ability of the human mind to tout the advantages of
rationalism, that explains the triumph of monotheism. For the god of
the monotheists, is, possibly, just that human intellect, which claims
to be able to understand, ---everything. The triumph of a sole god is
the triumph, of a world transparent to human understanding. Maybe.
