God Against the Gods
The History of the War Between Monotheism and Polytheism
Prologue
The Everlasting Fire
The Dark Side of Monotheism,
the Bright Side of Polytheism
Religious intolerance was inevitably born
with the belief in one God.
-Sigmund Freud,
Moses and Monotheism
Something deep in human nature prompts us to imagine the existence of a power greater
than ourselves, whether we call it "Yahweh" or "Christ" or "Allah," "Mother Nature" or
"the Higher Power" or "the Universe." Religious belief and practice begins with the
origin of the human species-the Neanderthals invented rituals for the burial of the
dead-and modern medical science proposes that the idea of "god" is literally hard-wired
into the anatomy of the brain. Human beings, in fact, can be distinguished from lower
orders of animal life not because we use language or make tools or fight wars, but
because we are the only creatures who conceive of a higher power and who are inspired
to offer worship and sacrifice to that power.
"Indeed, there is a case for arguing that Homo sapiens ['Rational man'] is also Hom ... read full excerpt from: God Against The Gods ebook
