I now see Islam as a fiercely intolerant religion that destroyed the native paganism / polytheism of Arabia.
The Islamic story we are told is that humans always worshiped One God, and then over time this was corrupted into the worship of many Gods. This does not seem correct.
For generations, human beings always worshiped many gods. Many cultures had local gods for their area.
From the earliest times, humans worshiped nature, spirits, ancestors, or their Gods that they invented.
In the Palaeolithic period, for example, when agriculture was developing, the cult of the Mother Goddess expressed a sense that the fertility which was transforming human life was actually sacred.
She was called Inana in ancient Sumeria, Ishtar in Babylon, Anat in Canaan, Isis in Egypt and Aphrodite in Greece, and remarkably similar stories were devised in all these cultures to express her role in the spiritual lives of the people.
In the ancient Babylonian text Enûma Eliš two primeval gods: Apsû (or Abzu) who represents fresh water and Tiamat representing oceanic waters.
Many cultures eventually got to the point of having multiple lower gods and one High God – Zeus (Greeks), Jupiter (Romans), or Allah (Arabs). They felt that the top God was too busy to be bothered with their lives, so they worshiped lesser Gods who would involve themselves with humanity.
It was notably in Judaism that this transformed into the worship of One God, who demanded exclusivity, worshiping nobody else, a jealous God, the cult of Yahweh (Jehovah).
Karen Armstrong writes about this in the “History of God“
i think you are totally correct- religion only makes sense if you screw up the timescale of history. Humans originally believed in many gods because we came from nature and wanted to explain things to each other so we made up gods for the rain…ect
i like how you always reference other works, i will surely look them up at my local library
Your expression of Islam is as intolerant religion in Arabian region is shows your half knowledge regarding history of Islam at the time of Mohammed Prophet. The idea of Islam express by Prophet Mohammed is complete journey of 23 years is not just imposing on people of that time. First 10 years of his prophetic career able to manage more or less 100 reverts which is evidence of his hard work and patience.
Yea Your right form many generation people worship many gods.You have given many examples as above. But You missed out the point which related to above believe ,All above gods bring with them various cultures and traditions such as ranking among people (like in Hinduism),priest hood,Many difficult task to be performed by common people to make happy their god, many social ,economical variations which always effect the majority of people in negative way. With the same context Arab world worshiped 360 IDOLs Impose on them the difficult task to be performed as part of religion ,which directly helped the chief tribes to become economically strong. Same way in Hinduism there was Brahmanism where Brahman are top ranking people which leads cast system and Dalit suffering till day in India. The irony is even people who are suffering they considered it as part of their faith and they have to suffer.
In above context ,the jealous GOD always intervene by sending his prophet and message to the people to stop following WRONG and BIASED way of life ,which is only benefits one sector of people in all faiths. He just simply tell leave all difficulty you imposed on your self ,just worship one GOD who demands nothing but accepting the truth.
Judaism not the first religion who introduced monotheism ,your knowledge seems to narrow in this subject of Monotheism .Prophet IBRHIM is one who invite people to monotheism and he was not Jew or follower of Judaism (Even Before Prophet Ibrahim-Prophet Noah invited the people).Judaism came in to exist after Prophet Moses. Judaism is one the group among the follower of Prophet Moses. which means Propehet Moses is invited people towards but not Judaism is particular. This ISMs came to in exist later the original religion. Such as Bhudha – Buddhism , Grunanak -Sikkism, Jews -Judaism,
Great post, thank you
http://www.reformingislam.org