Oct 26, 2010 -- 2:41AM, Yavanna wrote:

So, as an avid reader on the pagan boards (I'm fascinated by paganism and heathenry) I've noticed a very common thread. The word "monotheists" is thrown around like candy at a small town parade, particularly in relationship to something they "all do".

For instance, believing that all monotheists believe they have THE truth that everyone has to follow. They don't.

Believing God is male is another. They don't. In Judaism, God is doesn't have a sex. Indeed, God is recognizable in both feminine and masculine forms.

Is it generally an anti-Christian thing? Maybe limited exposure to the diversity among monotheists? I know Christians and Muslims love making assumptions about Judaism for instance. Nothing burns me like Christians using the phrase "Judeo-Christian values". That's BS.

Does anyone have individual reasons for lumping all monotheists together and if so, why?

Well monotheism is a term which has a meaning which can be applied to any number of religious traditions. Judiasm, Christianity and Islam tend to get lumped together because of a shared developmental/scriptural history, being the so called 'Abrahamaic faiths".

As far as monotheism being an issue, it tends to be based on a logical extension of what monotheism entails. Since there is a single deity which is the only one which exists, all other deities are either subservient (rare), held to be false/delusional or emenations/ facets of the one god. Monotheists have the "truth" in so much as they believe they have the appropriate view of the nature of deity, to the exclusion of any other. Such a view among many who have different views of deity, would result in disagreement. As pagans and heathens often tend toward polytheism, there is a conflict inherent in the different conceptions.

There is nothing inherently problematic with have an opinion on the nautre of deity, other theistic perspectives do so as well, the difference would be that monotheism is exclusivist, which is only pertinent to polytheism really, and other deities need to be explained away as mentioned above. Where as a polytheist would simply count a god, such as YHWH, as one god among many. There is no need to explain away the existence of YHWH, though several of the attributes ascribed to him (as far as I am aware YHWH is almost exclusively refered to in the masculine, of course this goes back to El and Cannanite myth, but another subject) by "classical monotheism" which is the dominant perspective among the so called 'Abrahamaic faiths", are called into question or refuted by polytheists (among others).