Why is the emergence of Monotheism a cultural milestone in the development of mankind?

Question

In the cultural development of humanity the emergence of Monotheism is often mentioned to be a milestone comparable to the ability to control fire or write.

Of course it is true, that Monotheism appears to be a relatively young cultural development compared to the time humans actually exist, and it's pretty prevalent, too. But in contrast to the ability to make fire, I find it hard to proof that Monotheism generally brings any objective cultural advantage over polytheism, henotheism, or atheism.

So how can Monotheism be seen as something superior as Polytheism or other kinds of nature religions like Shamanism and so on?

Reasons I heard so far, which do not convince me, are the following (in braces my counterargument):

• Most humans today were converted to Christianity or Islam (many people doing something doesn't mean anything)
• Theistic evolution, i.e. monotheism arose through a gradual process of polytheism -> henotheism -> monotheism (true, but still: cultural development was stuck in the middle age Europe due to Christianity and became enlightened by the philosophy of the polytheistic Greeks, which were arguably more enlightened)
• Proximity to atheism, i.e. one god is closer to none instead of many, while none is the absolute truth (nobody actually knows what the absolute truth is)
• Acceptance of science, since all of the gods except one were done away with, natural phenomena can no longer be explained by, "it was the will of the god X." (Then you can blame the one and only god without the need to question anything)

Answer 1

Whitehead suggests a slight variant of the last reason. The reason monotheism is a step toward science is not that it does away with competing mythologies that complicate explanations. It is because it first introduces the possibility of a stable natural law, in a way that allows us to see nature as predictable, but ourselves as still morally accountable.

In the West, the Stoics had tried to assert atheistic natural law, but it makes morality seem optional, and it robs one of motivation. The Platonic god of everything (the basis of the demiurge, the source of the Forms, and perhaps the 'Pan' of the Phaedrus (wholly unrelated to the goat-footed fellow)) lets us put aside the conflict with no attempt to really work it through. We personify the ruleset itself and afford moral value to acts agreeing with that person's dictates.

This is not winnowing down a set of gods to one. It is taking the notion of god and simply slapping it onto another concept entirely. That is the step. The Egyptian 'Amon Ra' version of monotheism, where one of the gods simply kills off all of the others, is not the same step. And it did not accomplish the same transformation in their society.

Conflating this new Platonic God with the Judaic one allows us to declare the dilemma of determinacy vs moral agency mystical, and leave it unaddressed while we focus on leveraging both of them for social good.

(It is also not necessary that successful monotheism be exclusive or thoroughgoing, to have its effect. Hinduism managed to solidify a personification of natural law in a moral context with Brahmanism, and retained their polytheism within the same system. Doing so still created a more coherent philosophical context and spurred cultural advances. China appears to have first had a similar relative and non-exclusive monotheism involving the primacy of Shang-Di and the "Reign of Heaven" in their foundational period.)

Answer 2

I think one cannot talk about this topic without at least arguing that one major reason monotheism is considered to be a cultural milestone is because many of those who are declaring cultural milestones are part of cultures that support monotheism. There is a well documented pattern in human thought that lends us to believe that what we are doing is superior to all others. To that point, I would venture a guess that the individual who suggested one reason monotheism was a cultural milestone was because "it was one step closer to atheism" was in all likelihood an atheist.

One major advantage 0 or 1 gods has over more is the lack of unlimited conflict. Typically the powers of gods are seen as substantially greater than that of mankind. While we can often reconcile the will of a single god with the physical world we perceive, or reconcile it with the will of many gods who are "playing nice" with each other, conflict between gods is something typically above and beyond that of the mortals.

Consider that, in a conflict between people, we typically assume that neither individual really has full control over the situation. We accept that there are some consequences of that conflict which will arise that were not truly willed by either individual. Conceptually, a conflict between gods would have similar effects, but with sweeping implications.

Polytheism offers the opportunity for people to blame things they don't want to change on something completely out of anyone's control, simply by blaming it on a conflict between the gods. This would be different than blaming a single god (one of the pantheon or a monotheistic god) in that in the former case the event may not have been willed by either god, but in the latter its presumed that the god indeed willed things to happen.

Without defending any one religion or style of religion, I cannot say whether monotheism is a "milestone" or not. However, there is certainly something to be said for a religion which holds its deity responsible for its actions. Ensuring a religion does so is easier if they are monotheistic. If they are polytheistic, one would need to take action to make sure they don't blame conflict for things which should instead reflect on their religion. If these traits are desirable, then it would be reasonable to call it a "milestone."

Answer 3

I don't buy any of those. It comes down to war and politics.

118 years after the death of Mohammed, the Ummayyed Empire had grown to include 29% of the worlds population, and after taking political control harshly differential taxes on non-Muslims and the death penalty for apostasy including those born in to being Muslims, saw numbers grow rapidly.

Christianity spread overwhelmingly by the conversion of monarchs, pursuaded by the benefits of making Chistianity the state religion. Why so many, across such varied states? Consolidation of power, surely.

It's worth giving counter examples. Pantheist Shinto was the state religion of Japan at their most brutal and expansionist, and would have probably been spread to a fair part of the world if their empire building had proved stable. Hindu Marathas took control of most of India, and were on the brink of consolidating that when the British got involved. The Maratha version of Hinduism was even more racist and (proto)nationalistic than the British however, though it would have become the state form of Hinduism given the chance.

Religions have spread through war and politics. Monotheisms can be correlated with rapidly rising and relatively stable empires, and possibly some shifts from mainly racial to other ways of defining group identity (though all empires succeeded in this to some extent), that is all.