Question:
were the ancient egyiptions polythestic or monothestic 10 pts?
?
2008-10-08 11:27:19 UTC
10 pts
Ten answers:
anonymous
2008-10-08 11:40:09 UTC
Polythestic because they believed in several gods. ;)
anonymous
2008-10-08 18:30:54 UTC
Both, Egyptian Monotheism (The ONE) and Polytheism (The ALL)



The earliest people that we know of were all polytheistic: they all worshipped many gods. From 3000 BC to 539 BC, the Sumerians, the Akkadians, the Assyrians and the Babylonians all worshipped pretty much the same set of gods, despite their cultural differences. The most important of these gods was Ea. Ishtar was the most important goddess. Like the Greek Aphrodite and Demeter, or the Roman Venus and Ceres, or the German Freya, Ishtar was a fertility goddess.



The Phoenicians and Canaanites, further west along the Mediterranean coast, were also polytheistic, but they had different gods. Their most important god was Baal, and some reports say that the Phoenicians and Canaanites sacrificed their children to him. Their most important goddess was Astarte, another fertility figure. The Hittites arrived later, around 2500 BC, and had different gods because they were Indo-Europeans, but they were polytheistic too.



The first signs of monotheism in West Asia come from the Bible, where by around 1000 BC the Jews seem to have already thought that they should worship only their own one God. They clearly believed that there were many gods, but they should only worship theirs, and in exchange he would take care of them against all the other gods. They may have gotten this idea from the Egyptians.



The next move toward monotheism comes from Zoroastrianism, also around 1000 BC. In Zoroastrianism the main god was Ahura Mazda, and his twin sons represented the Truth and the Lie; all the minor gods were on either the side of Truth or the side of the Lie. The most important of these minor gods was Mithra, who was the god of treaties and contracts, and of civilization

When the Persian king Cyrus converted to Zoroastrianism and then conquered a huge empire, many of his subjects also became Zoroastrians, and the old Sumerian polytheism more or less died out.
kat5998
2008-10-08 18:31:24 UTC
Polytheistic.



But Polytheism is usually tricky, because the individuals tend to favour one diety above the other, often joining cults to worship them. But as a nation, they were polytheists.
trimmy1234
2008-10-08 18:31:06 UTC
Polytheistic, they believed in many gods such as Anubis etc... Poly, the latin means many, Mono means 1. Christianity is an example of Monotheism.
anonymous
2008-10-08 18:32:08 UTC
Christianity is considered monotheistic, meaning that Christians worship a single god, while we refer to the ancient Egyptian religion as polytheistic, meaning that they worshiped a number of gods.
anonymous
2008-10-08 18:32:20 UTC
polytheistic, but they had a main god- Ra, the Sun God. At one point in their history, a pharaoh tried to get them to become monotheistic, but after he died, they reverted to polytheism again.



So they were Polytheists. you can look up a list of all their god online- like Ra and Osiris and the underworld god. I forgot all their names, sorry.
Pagan Princess
2008-10-08 18:30:17 UTC
Polytheistic. They had LOTS of gods. Rather confusing.
anonymous
2008-10-08 18:35:57 UTC
polythestic. No question.
anonymous
2008-10-08 18:31:02 UTC
polythestic
Nichole
2008-10-08 18:30:11 UTC
Polytheistic...they believed in more then one God.


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