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Message: <blockquote data-quote="fusangite" data-source="post: 1888662" data-attributes="member: 7240">I'm not sure you want to use Ikhnaton as an example. Aside from possibly converting a group of nomads from Palestine, this project was an abject failure. And I would argue that the reason for that is that monotheism was imported and imposed rather than arising organically out of Egyptian thought. The Hellenistic/Roman world spent 800+ years gradually evolving monotheism as a concept before it was legislated. And what with the relic trade and all, it was anywhere from another 500 to 1000 years before that evolution was complete. When monotheism successfully cohabits with other gods, it is because the monotheistic system has found a way to create a space for them similar to the space the populace recognizes them as occupying. I'm sure it's just the Western lens through which I am viewing Hinduism but, for those of us who think in Western terms, this is hierarchical. In Western thought, the macrocosm is generally superior to the microcosm. When Hinduism (to the degree that this is even a thing, given that there is no actual -ism) has been explained to me in person or in print, I have always understood there to be a hierarchical relationship between the ultimate godhead and the household divinity. In all systems but Protestantism an ultimate god like I Am That Am must often act through some kind of intermediary periodically. In my admittedly Western understanding, it seems to me that for monotheistic Hindus the household divinity is being comprehended in terms of intermediation or hypostasis or their Hindu equivalent. While monotheistic Hindus, like medieval Christiansl, may see direct worship or worship via an intermediary as equally good, this does not mean that the intermediary is not inferior to the thing ultimately being worshipped.I'm not disagreeing with this statement. The same is true of other polytheistic systems that cohabited with monotheism. Platonists, Stoics and other non-Christian monotheists in ancient Rome had similar theological constructs for explaining their relationship to divinity. But there is hierarchy between a goal and a path. Path is, in my view, inferior to goal. The goal is perfection; the path is not perfection. Non-perfect things are inferior to perfection.</blockquote>

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