Religion And History: Monotheistic Religion

Religion has played a very important role in society and the history of mankind for over thousands of years. Originally created by ancient peoples as a way to explain the unknown, religion has greatly evolved and spread across the globe. As new religions have formed and spread, the diversity and similarities between these new religions have also increased, especially due to their geographic locations. Two civilizations in particular with both similar and distinct religions are ancient China, and ancient Egypt. Ancient Chinese religion and ancient Egyptian religion share many things in common with each other, yet at the same time they are

Egypt was one of the first countries to convert to Christianity in 43 A.D. From the persecution of Christ by the Romans to the acceptance of Christianity as the imperial religion of the empire, Christianity underwent significant changes in the first few centuries after Christ’s ascension. Many Egyptian pagan beliefs and deity legends were unconsciously transferred to infant Christian faith and reformed in stories of the new deity, Jesus. Several elements

Religion was not a monolithic institution, it consisted of a large variety of different beliefs and practices, all of which were linked by the common focus on the interaction between the Egyptian people and the divine realm, as the gods of this realm linked the Egyptian understanding of the world. As the Ancient Egyptian Religion was an integral part of ancient Egyptian society. Polytheism the belief of multiple deities usually assembled into a pantheon of gods and goddesses along with their own mythologies and rituals was an essential aspect of ancient Egyptian religion. As the Ancient Egyptian religion included a large and diverse pantheon of gods and goddesses, and around these deities arose a rich mythology that helped explain the

From the ancient Mesopotamian civilizations to the Muslim world, antiquity has always been filled with religions of all sorts. These religions helped guide how ancient peoples lived life and came about doing even the most common tasks that people like us do today. Religion impacted the civilizations of the ancient world by greatly influencing how peoples of ancient civilizations acted, how they thought about the world around them, how civilizations were organized and maintained, and how they interacted with civilizations of another religion.

“The single most important belief in Islam, and arguably the central theme of Islam, is that there is one God. The Muslim name for God is Allah, which is simply Arabic for "the (al) God (Ilah)." The term is related to Elohim, the Hebrew word for God.

Religions have changed constantly throughout history, beginning with the Egyptians and continuing through current day. Most of all new religions begin as polytheistic. This most likely developed because the people of the ancient world suspected that one god could not take care of all their needs. Therefore, they created several gods to take care of everything in the natural world such as water, fire, animals, etc. The first evidence of written religion was on the Sumerian tablets, around 3,500 B.C. The Egyptians demonstrated the first progression of religion in the area, during the time period around 4,000 B.C. The Egyptians believed humans ranked as partners with the gods to maintain order; it characterized similarly to the Mesopotamian’s religion. After a while, a change in religion transpired.

-- (on monotheism) This insistence on being the sole arbiter of ultimate truth leads to intolerance of other beliefs and their suppression; this is precisely what happened in Egypt. The names of the god Amun and the other gods were chiseled from monuments throughout Egypt, the temples were closed, and the old practices outlawed.

If a person were to juxtapose the western religions that exist in our society today, a vast amount of people would conclude that a major similarity between them is that they are all monotheistic. There is a multiple amount of religions in this world today, but a few are monotheistic like the western religions and then there are the polytheistic religions, which tend to be more along the eastern side. Monotheism can be straight forward with its definition; however, there are certain concepts that need to be known in order to completely understand the true nature of monotheism in today’s western religions. These concepts can be comprehensible by exploring a few themes within monotheism.

Islam is the second largest and fastest growing religion in the world. Islam is also one of the three most well-known monotheistic religions. The other well-known monotheistic religions are Judaism and Christianity. Indonesia is the home of the world's largest Islamic population. Indonesia is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen by the way. The Islamic faith is based on the belief in their one God, Allah. Allah is the Muslim name for God. Muslims believe that Allah is the creator of the universe. I find the ideas behind Allah very interesting. For example, Allah more or less means god, so one would think you could say "the Christians believe in Allah". This is not true because nothing else can be called Allah. The word God can

Christianity became the largest religions in the World. Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ, who is the focal point of the Christian faith. Jews and Christians read from the Holy Bible because it consists of sacred texts or scriptures of the relationship between God and humans. Jesus was born on 400 BC by two loving parents named Mary and God. Jesus was born a Jew in the Roman province of Judea, grew up as a Jew and was a Jew for his entire life. All of the Jews, which were known as the ¨chosen people¨, and followed the originator which was Abraham. In Judea, lots of the Jewish teachers resisted to teach the Roman Rule, so Jesus taught social justice and moral righteousness to the Jews

When I was a younger I used to ask my mom questions about God’s existence; why if there is a God would there be such Evil in the world? Why would God create things like “Cancer”? Why would God let there be natural disasters that kill hundreds of people at a time? Why are there such horrible people in the world that go around killing people, “Hitler” for example? These are just a few questions I would ask. The reasons why I do not believe in a “all knowing, all powerful, all good God.”

Judaism, Christianity and Islam are all monotheistic religions that believe in one God. All three religions believe that this God is the source of all that exists. God cares about the world’s existence and desires the well-being of all creation. He has created basic rules for our guidance so that we may be righteous. Jews, Christians and Muslims alike, believe that God is also merciful and we are given strength by his grace. In fact, their ideals of how God is perceived can distinguish them based on theological differences, traditions and different expressions; however, these three religions do not worship the same God. I believe that these religions initially worshiped the same God, but have changed Him to better fit their cultural and traditional

The religion, Islam, is a monotheistic religion. The name was founded and based off the teachings of Prophet Muhammad. Islam means to surrender, and Prophet Muhammad expressed they needed to "surrender to the will of the Allah." To the Islam's, the Allah created the world and kept it going. Prophet Muhammad went to Mt. Hira, to pray, and he heard a voice that told him to read. However, he said he could not read, but he was shown a scroll. Amazingly, he was able to read the scroll. Once he left the cave, the angel Gabriel said to him, "Oh Mohammed! You are Allah's messenger, and I am Gabriel." After this, he received another message to proclaim Allah to be an idol to the people. The message was received with a lot of resistance, exile, and persecution.

Before going into the rise of monotheism it is important to understand polytheism. Not in the standard dictionary sense, but in the context of the time. Our meaning of religion today compared to the meaning of religion back then are two totally different things. This same conclusion was made when famed egyptologist Jan Assmann while recalling writing a book about the religious practices of ancient Egypt,” … I consciously avoided using the term “religion” because I felt very strongly that there was a major difference between the term “religion” as it was understood in the Western tradition, with all of its biblical implications, and I was about to describe with regard to the ancient Egyptian world.” ( Assmann, Jan. Of Gods and Gods: Egypt, Israel, and the Rise of Monotheism. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 2008., 10). Because in ancient times the way the gods were worshiped was more in style of a cult than how we think of a religion. So comparing monotheistic practices to polytheistic practices would distort the whole meaning of

In the beginning, God said let there be Abrahamic religions. And it was so. Ancient Israelites carried many traditions molded by the conditions in which they found themselves. Monotheism was a very different ideology at this time in world history and lead to cultural clashes between the Israelites and other regional powers. Their soteriology and religious practices eventually became the foundations on which modern Christianity stands. However, time causes great change in many things and Christianity is no exception. With these theological and fundamental changes arose a number of paradoxes. It is easy to just accept the discourse of a religion, but when one or a group of people start to truly analyze the principles of a faith, many times conflicts arise in truly knowing what cannot be know. What is life like after ones death. Metaphysical idea with really not evidence to support them. It is only with the insights and work of theologians and writers like Dionysus, Origen, Augustine and Dante that these paradoxes were further analyzed and resolved.