(September 5, 2012 at 1:24 pm)Tobie Wrote: Lion, there is evidence (even within the Bible) that Yahweh was the head of a pantheon of gods. The "you shall have no other god before me" and "O Lord, there is no god like you" type stuff implies that the Israelites at least recognized other gods. Yahweh also had a consort goddess in the earlier mythology, called Asherah. The Archaeological record and other sources also equate Yahweh with El, who quite definitely had other gods below him (Baal, etc.). The Original Habbakuk had references to these other gods as well. It was only Isiah era and later that Judaism was monotheistic.The Abraham cultists then and now, do not want to face that claiming an invisilbe friend in the sky is hardly original.
Also, some evidence suggests that Yahweh was considered a son of El, not the same as him.
Hebrews exist for the same reason Pepsi looked at Coke's Cherry soda. They looked at the surrounding polythiesm and said " some of this we like, but we can do better by downsising the soda flavors"
Otherwise we should all worship older gods of Zoroaster and Akenaton. And even they had insperation, just like Superman lead to Spiderman and Harry potter. It comes from imagination and ignorance and wishful thinking.
