God Against the Gods: The History of the War Between Monotheism and Polytheism - Jonathan Kirsch [mobi]

This book may generate heat as well as light, for it maintains that sectarian conflicts and religious wars are inevitable results of monotheism. If there is one god and one good, as monotheism claims, then differing religions must be devilish or evil. Polytheism, however, being essentially pluralistic, grants that god--or goddess--can take different forms; hence the deity worshiped by a neighbor could be as powerful as one's own. Not that polytheism has no blood on its hands; there have been persecutions led by polytheistic people. But most early Christians, Kirsch says, weren't martyred for God but were put to death for breaking laws, rather as a religiously motivated abortion-clinic bomber might be condemned for murder.

Monotheism has realized jihads, crusades, and inquisitions as the results of believing that one truth overshadows all others. More than half of the book examines the point at which monotheism prevailed over polytheism in the West; namely, the end of the Roman Empire. Representing the two opposed camps were Constantine, a shrewd politician whose embrace of Christianity was calculated to advance his ambitions, and Julian the Apostate, who converted to paganism after his entire family was killed by Christian emperors. Kirsch's sympathies are clearly with Julian, whose death in battle ended the last best hope of polytheism in the West. A brilliant and controversial book.