POLYTHEISTIC • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Polytheistic

"Polytheistic" Quotes from Famous Books

... champions and the assailants of religion in Europe alike for the most part tacitly assume that there is either one God or none. Yet some highly civilised nations of antiquity and of modern times, such as the ancient Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans, and the modern Chinese and Hindoos, have accepted the polytheistic explanation of the world, and as no reasonable man will deny the philosophical subtlety of the Greeks and the Hindoos, to say nothing of the rest, a theory of the universe which has commended itself to them deserves perhaps more ...

— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer

... existence of the great omnipotent Being, is not surprising; for how much more glorious were the shining lights in the heavens, but more particularly the sun, than the many objects worshipped by Pagans in our own and other lands! Nature-worship was the foundation of all polytheistic religions; and that the principal heathen deities were originally personifications of the great luminary that gives light and heat to the earth, or of certain influences thereof, admits of little doubt. The solar character of numerous deities is clearly discernible. Jupiter had power ...

— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant

... Phoenicia, had raised a temple and a sacred grove on every hill, all this aspect of great industry and profane riches,[2] interested him but little. Monotheism takes away all aptitude for comprehending the Pagan religion; the Mussulman, thrown into polytheistic countries, seems to have no eyes. Jesus assuredly learned nothing in these journeys. He returned always to his well-beloved shore of Gennesareth. There was the centre of his thoughts; there ...

— The Life of Jesus • Ernest Renan

... equally evident that the natural and historical environment in its generality has a very specific practical significance for the primitive believer. It is often said with truth that these earliest religions are more profoundly pantheistic than polytheistic. Man recognizes an all-pervading interest that is capable of being directed to himself. The selection of a deity is not due to any special qualification for deification possessed by the individual object itself, but to the tacit presumption that, ...

— The Approach to Philosophy • Ralph Barton Perry

Words linked to "Polytheistic" : polytheism, monotheistic