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Originally Posted by Ilya Polytheistic religions are the ones that lead to conflict: you acknowledge that other gods exist, but think that yours is better, so you fight the ones who worship the inferior gods. Monotheism, if properly interpreted, means that all people share a single God and if others believe in another God, they really just mean the same one (for example, according to Judaism, any monotheistic religion is correct for non Jews, because it has to be the same philosophical God as the one the Jews believe in). |
Why would someone who is polytheistic think any of the gods is better? Why would someone who is monotheistic believe other monotheists believe in the same god? It indeed, as suoko said, is a big IF.
What about atheists? It seems silly to me to base peaceful coexistence on beliefs like belief in god, which do not affect how people interact. What affects how people interact is their values and morals, and focus should be on that.
Also, it sounds awfully close to the 'only monotheists can be moral' thing.
I would also like to add that my father once argued that Christianity(or at least often named so) is polytheism; they just conveniently replaced the word 'god' with 'prophet'.