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More "Monotheism" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to restore it to what they considered purity. Next to Buddha we may mention Kabir, to whom are ascribed many verses still popular. Probably the doctrine of the unity of God, as maintained by the Mohammedans, had impressed him. He opposed idolatry, caste, and Brahmanical assumption. Yet his monotheism was a kind of pantheism. His date may be the beginning of the fifteenth century. Nanak followed and founded the religion of the Sikhs. His sacred book, the Granth, is mainly pantheistic; it dwells earnestly on devotion, especially devotion to the guru. The Sikhs now seem slowly ...
— Two Old Faiths - Essays on the Religions of the Hindus and the Mohammedans • J. Murray Mitchell and William Muir
... when one man did work at everything, became heterogeneous, special, and complex, as society enlarged and advanced into higher integrations, and as the life of the individual became more and more advanced through Fetichism, Polytheism, Monotheism, to ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 23, October, 1891 • Various
... It is only when we have seen it for the hundredth time that we see it for the first time. The more consistently things are contemplated, the more they tend to unify themselves and therefore to simplify themselves. The simplification of anything is always sensational. Thus monotheism is the most sensational of things: it is as if we gazed long at a design full of disconnected objects, and, suddenly, with a stunning thrill, they came together into ...
— Twelve Types • G.K. Chesterton
... existing among us in all stages of development, has made clear the general course which man's religious life has traveled from very childish beginnings until now. From early animism in its manifold expressions, through polytheism, kathenotheism, henotheism, to monotheism, and so out into loftier possibilities of conceiving the divine nature and purpose—the main road which man has traveled in his religious development now is traceable. Nor is there any place where it is more easily traceable than in our own Hebrew-Christian ...
— Christianity and Progress • Harry Emerson Fosdick
... moral corruption. But there are always natures which must possess a faith in which they can trust. These were in search of a religion, and many of them found refuge from the coarse and incredible myths of the gods of polytheism in the purity and monotheism of the Jewish creed. The fundamental ideas of this creed are also the foundations of the Christian faith. Wherever the messengers of Christianity traveled, they met with people with whom they had many religious conceptions ...
— The Life of St. Paul • James Stalker
... of royalty, and Nebo the god of science and inspiration. In Chaldaea the power of the priests and learned men did not yield before that of the monarch. And yet a certain latent and instinctive monotheism may be traced in its complex religion. There were, indeed, many gods, but one was raised above all the others, and, whether they turned to Merodach or Nebo, the kings loved to style themselves the worshippers of the "Lord ...
— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot
... pumped these slaves empty," he said. "The local religion is a mess. Seems to have started out as a Great Mother cult; then it picked up a lot of gods borrowed from other peoples; then it turned into a dualistic monotheism; then it picked up a lot of minor gods and devils—new devils usually gods of the older pantheon. And we got a lot of gossip about the feudal wars and faction-fights among the nobility, and so on, all garbled, because these ...
— Time Crime • H. Beam Piper
... deity, divinity, idol. Associated Words: deify, deification, apotheosize, apotheosis, theogony, Olympus, pantheon, deicide, deifie, deiform, mythology, polytheism, monotheism, theomachy, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... good men are bitter in heart. This date is borne out by the angelology of the book, v. 1, and by its easy use of mythology, iii. 8, xxvi. 5—a mythology which is felt to be completely innocuous, because monotheism is secure beyond the possibility of challenge. It is practically certain that the book falls before Chronicles (circa 300 B.C.) as in 1 Chronicles xxi. 1, Satan is a proper name, whereas in Job the word is still ...
— Introduction to the Old Testament • John Edgar McFadyen
... Is it monotheism? Why, the learned and philosophical among the Greeks and Romans held it; even their more enlightened poets were monotheists in ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... Ancient relations with Egypt, whence perhaps resulted some purely material ingredients, did but augment their repulsion to idolatry. A "Law" or Thora, very anciently written on tables of stone, and which they attributed to their great liberator Moses, had become the code of Monotheism, and contained, as compared with the institutions of Egypt and Chaldea, powerful germs of social equality and morality. A chest or portable ark, having staples on each side to admit of bearing poles, constituted all their religious materiel; there were collected ...
— The Life of Jesus • Ernest Renan
... is obvious pantheism, but it is easy to cover up all kinds of pale monotheism or pantheism under vague reference to the omnipotence ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... the cause of the first invasion of India: the second was inspired by religion. The evolution of organised creeds is not from simple to complex, but vice versa. From the bed-rock of magic they rise through nature-worship and man-worship to monotheism. The god of a conquering tribe is imposed on subdued enemies, and becomes Lord of Heaven and Earth. Monotheism of this type took root among the Hebrews, from whom Mohammed borrowed the conception. His gospel was essentially militant and proselytising. Nothing can resist ...
— Tales of Bengal • S. B. Banerjea
... observation in India, the dynamical elements of Christianity may be briefly enumerated as follows. Monotheism, tending more and more to the distinctively Christian idea of God, Our Father, is commending itself, and being widely accepted. Secondly, in a remarkable degree, Jesus Christ Himself is being recognised and receiving general homage. In a less degree, ...
— New Ideas in India During the Nineteenth Century - A Study of Social, Political, and Religious Developments • John Morrison
... period just before; and so the whole life of the Reformed Christianity, in embryo and in manifest existence, is stripped of its garb of faith, and turned out of view as a naked metaphysical phenomenon. But metaphysics, again, have to be ushered in by theology; and of the three stages of theology Monotheism is the last, necessarily following on Polytheism, as that, again, on Fetichism. There is nothing for it, therefore, but to let the mediaeval Catholic Christianity stand as the world's first monotheism, and to treat it as the legitimate offspring and necessary ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... shows them to stand on an {4} entirely different footing to these varied spirits. Were the conception of a god only an evolution from such spirit worship we should find the worship of many gods preceding the worship of one god, polytheism would precede monotheism in each tribe or race. What we actually find is the contrary of this, monotheism is the first stage traceable in theology. Hence we must rather look on the theologic conception of the Aryan and Semitic races as quite apart from the demon-worship ...
— The Religion of Ancient Egypt • W. M. Flinders Petrie
... an all-embracing reality. This highest cause, then, we regard as absolutely necessary, because we find it absolutely necessary to rise to it, and do not discover any reason for proceeding beyond it. Thus, among all nations, through the darkest polytheism glimmer some faint sparks of monotheism, to which these idolaters have been led, not from reflection and profound thought, but by the study and natural ...
— The Critique of Pure Reason • Immanuel Kant
... Kings appear still as the subject-matters of intensest effort and conflict, are here assumed as operative even back to patriarchal times. Yet it can reasonably be pleaded that the life-work of Moses truly involved all this development; and even that Monotheism (at least, for the times and peoples here concerned) required some such rules as are assumed by ...
— Progress and History • Various
... expanse above, clothed with the attribute of personality? This has been, and still is, the prevailing opinion of missionaries and scholars. Dr. Legge, however, holds that Tien is the lord of the heavens, a power above the visible firmament; and thus finds monotheism as the basis of the ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... him to have been. Well, man began by being a polytheist, and very gradually emerged out of that pleasant condition —or rather an infinitesimal portion of the race has emerged out of it, into the better forms of idolatry—(poor wretch!), and from thence to monotheism; that, in short, his polytheism is not the corruption of his monotheism, but his monotheism an elevation of his polytheism. Yet it is, after all, a cheerless 'progress,' which often 'advances backward.' Mr. Newman says that 'the law of God's moral universe, as known to us, is that of progress; that ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... that is real. The mere transfiguration of institutions, as from military and priestly dominance to commercial and scientific dominance, from commercial dominance to proletarian democracy, from slavery to serfdom, from serfdom to capitalism, from monarchy to republicanism, from polytheism to monotheism, from monotheism to atheism, from atheism to pantheistic humanitarianism, from general illiteracy to general literacy, from romance to realism, from realism to mysticism, from metaphysics to physics, are all but changes ...
— Revolutionist's Handbook and Pocket Companion • George Bernard Shaw
... the earliest in the cultivation of mathematical and medical science. This fact, together with their monotheism, makes Karshish an appropriate character for ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning
... see it. It is only when we have seen it for the hundredth time that we see it for the first time. The more consistently things are contemplated, the more they tend to unify themselves and therefore to simplify themselves. The simplification of anything is always sensational. Thus monotheism is the most sensational of things: it is as if we gazed long at a design full of disconnected objects, and, suddenly, with a stunning thrill, they came together into ...
— Twelve Types • G.K. Chesterton
... and worship the gods of Hinduism. Next in importance to the Hindus, as a religious community, come the Mohammedans, who number over sixty millions in India. The two faiths, Hinduism and Islam—polytheism and monotheism—are in strong opposition to each other; yet they are not quite clean cut apart, for some Hindu tribes that have been converted to Islam retain in part their primitive customs of worship and caste. And in Burmah, as in Ceylon, ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... reality. This highest cause, then, we regard as absolutely necessary, because we find it absolutely necessary to rise to it, and do not discover any reason for proceeding beyond it. Thus, among all nations, through the darkest polytheism glimmer some faint sparks of monotheism, to which these idolaters have been led, not from reflection and profound thought, but by the study and natural progress of ...
— The Critique of Pure Reason • Immanuel Kant
... been greatly modified. Monotheism has been supplanted by a gross Polytheism, by the corruption of symbolism. At the head are the Triad Brahma the Creator, Vishnu the preserver, Siva the destroyer. Fourteen more principal deities may be enumerated. To them must be added their female Consorts. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XII. - Modern History • Arthur Mee
... refers to the Hun conquest of northern India and the overthrow of the Gupta dynasty, the second may similarly portray their invasion of Rajputana. The theft of the cow and desecration of Jamadagni's hermitage by the Haihaya Rajputs would represent the apostasy of the Rajput princes to Buddhist monotheism, the consequent abandonment of the veneration of the cow and the spoliation of the Brahman shrines; while the Hun invasions of Rajputana and the accompanying slaughter of Rajputs would be ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... secure salvation in a future life, but rather those which lead to a peaceful and prosperous community here on earth. His outlook was essentially conservative, and aimed at preserving the virtues of former ages. He accepted the existing religion—a rather unemphatic monotheism, combined with belief that the spirits of the dead preserved a shadowy existence, which it was the duty of their descendants to render as comfortable as possible. He did not, however, lay any stress upon ...
— The Problem of China • Bertrand Russell
... events in the history of mankind are more interesting than the visit which the author of the Pentateuch thus places before us in less than a dozen words. The "father of the faithful," the great apostle of Monotheism, the wanderer from the distant "Ur of the Chaldees," familiar with Babylonian greatness, and Babylonian dissoluteness, and Babylonian despotism, having quitted his city home and adopted the simple habits of a Syrian nomadic sheikh, ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson
... for if we survey the broader and deeper currents of men's thoughts during the last three thousand years, we may observe two great and steady sets as having carried away with them the more eligible races of mankind. The one is a tendency from Polytheism to Monotheism; the other from Polytypism to Monotypism of the earliest forms of life-all animal and vegetable forms having at length come to be regarded as differentiations of ...
— God the Known and God the Unknown • Samuel Butler
... are inhabited by Nat, or spirits, who direct the phenomena of Nature. How far they affect that of man, except indirectly, is unascertained. "We do not think about that," was the invariable answer, when any one was questioned about a future state. Too vague for monotheism, the Silong creed is also said to be too vague for idolatry, ...
— The Ethnology of the British Colonies and Dependencies • Robert Gordon Latham
... at low stages of civilization and primitive social conditions, religion becomes polytheism at a higher, and monotheism at a still higher stage. It is not the gods that create men, it is man who turns the gods into God. "In the image of himself (man) he created Him" (God), not the opposite way. Monotheism has also suffered changes. ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... A more decided polytheism than that of Egypt cannot be imagined. So far from recognizing any thing like the supremacy of a single Divine Being in their theological system, we can scarcely even trace any thing answering to that primacy of Jupiter which preserves at least a vestige of monotheism in the religion of the Greeks. The rite of circumcision, which is supposed to have been borrowed by one nation from the other, was not practised by the Egyptians as a religious ceremony, nor upon infants, nor universally. And it is remarkable that the belief in the conscious existence of ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... contrast only by the fact that the two poles of the contrast have something in common. Now, in comparing with one another all contrasts between religion and science, and all forms of religiousness and irreligiousness, from fetishism up to monotheism, pantheism, and atheism, all imaginable cosmogonies, he finds, as the last truth common to all, and therefore {197} alone absolutely certain, the absolute indiscernibleness of the final cause of all things. On page 44 he says, that religions diametrically opposed in their overt dogmas, ...
— The Theories of Darwin and Their Relation to Philosophy, Religion, and Morality • Rudolf Schmid
... earthly career into three Ages—infancy, growth, and maturity. The second of these falls into three periods characterised by (1) polytheism, (2) monotheism (Middle Ages), (3) scepticism and liberty, and we are now in the third of these periods. The third Age will witness the union of humanity in a single social organism, and the universal acceptance of "panentheism" (the doctrine of the unity of all in God), which is the principle of Krause's ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury
... The prophets preached a reform of the Jahveh religion and we find them at war with the inherited mores.[92] The most striking feature of the story of the prophets is their antagonism to the mores which the people would not give up. Monotheism was not established until after the captivity.[93] The recurrence, vitality, popularity, and pervasiveness of traditional mores are well shown in the Bible story. The result was a combination of ritual monotheism with survivals of ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... what the Greeks termed [Greek: epimeleia], which may be rendered into English by the word "consideration." Nowhere was the fatal mistake made of endeavouring to stamp out by force a local language or dialect, whilst until the Romans were brought into contact with the stubborn monotheism of the Jews, the easy-going pantheistic ideas current in the ancient world readily obviated the occurrence of any serious difficulties based on ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... in South India, where their numbers are fewer, efforts in their behalf have not been so well organised and have produced smaller results. It is a hard task to reach and to move this class, owing not only to the important truth of monotheism, which they hold with great enthusiasm, but also because of the supreme ignorance which blinds them equally to the weakness of their own, and to the excellence of ...
— India's Problem Krishna or Christ • John P. Jones
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