This post is an opinion on one of the vital contributors to the unification of humankind: religion. Religion is unique to humans. English and German theorists saw the invention of religion in a pragmatic term: in attempting to extend the control of nature beyond the limits imposed by observation and science, people had invented supernatural power or magic; Sir James G. Frazer argued in his massive work The Golden Bough (1890–1915) that “this magic art” had arisen as a pseudo-science.
Belief in supernatural agents and the entailed religious practices occur in all human cultures (Brown 1991), and the universality of religion across human societies suggests a deep evolutionary past. History indicates that the oldest trait of religion, present in the most recent common ancestor of present-day hunter-gatherers, was animism.
Animism
Animism is both a concept and a way of relating to the world. It is a belief that objects, plants, and creatures all possess a distinct spiritual essence. The indigenous Siberian hunters known as Yukaghir has this kind of sensibility:
"An elderly Yukaghir hunter, Vasili Shalugin, told me that animals, trees, and rivers are 'people like us' because they move, grow, and breathe, but they are distinct from inanimate objects such as stones, skis, and food products, which, he claimed, are alive but immovable"-- said anthropologist Rane Willerslev.
When animism was the dominant belief system, humans had to take into considerations the outlook and interests of a multitude of other beings such as plants and animals. In animistic societies, animals frequently show their sentience, awareness, and motivation to act through their relationships to human beings. Even though people picked and pursued wild plants and animals, they see all as equal in status to humans. The fact that man hunted a deer or sheep did not make sheep / deer inferior to man just as the fact that tigers hunted man did not make man inferior to tigers. In hunter gatherer communities, beings communicated with one another directly and all of them negotiated the rules in governing a shared habitat. Again, all of them are considered equal because both humans and non-human entities are spiritual beings, either intrinsically or because spirits inhabit them.
Fun fact: Animism is not considered an official religion by the Indonesian authorities. However, animistic rituals were widely practiced throughout the archipelago before the arrival of Buddhism and Hinduism. Animistic beliefs have deeply imprinted cultures and social behaviors throughout the archipelago and can still be encountered in certain remote areas like Papua. In order to comply with the Pancasila (which stipulates "the belief in the one and only God"), animists tend to be classified as Hindus because this religion is more flexible to absorb these streams.
Polytheism
After the Agricultural Evolution, farmers owned and manipulated plants and animals. The farmers could hardly degrade themselves and negotiate with their "possessions". Plants and animals were turned from an equal member of the spiritual world into a property: human's property.
Humans' control over plants and animals was limited, they cannot prevent deadly epidemics on their flocks or control lambs giving birth to healthy ones. Gods such as Fertility Gods gained importance as a solution to this problem. Humans thought of the Gods as their companions as truly as their judges of their actions. Humans might appeal to the Gods; and these Gods under a condition of obedience, devotions, and sacrifices, might render their people some aid. Ancient mythology was in general a contract of devotion in exchange for mastery over others. The status of other members in the animist system such as rocks, springs, etc is lost in favor of the new Gods.
Typically in polytheism, a particular deity/ god is called upon for a specific event, a specific need, or the god's relationship with an area (grape fields, volcanoes, war) or families. Gods would be organized in a Pantheon, or a collection of all of the gods of a group of people. Some examples would be the Norse Pantheon, Greek or Roman Pantheon, Egyptian Pantheon, etc.
In other words, animists thought that humans were just one of many creatures inhabiting the world. Humans treat any other creatures equally and personally as they treated the other members of the tribe. Polytheists, in the other hand, saw the world as a reflection of the relationship between Gods and humans. Humans' prayers, sacrifices, and sins determined the fate of the entire ecosystem. Polytheism exalted not only the status of God, but also that of humankind. Humans have the control over other creatures / environment in their special relationships with Gods.
Monotheism
Polytheism does not necessarily dispute the existence of a single supreme power. Most polytheistic views have this supreme power standing behind all the different Gods. Greek polytheism may have Zeus, Hera, and Apollo but they are all subject to an omnipotent power: Fate (Moira, Ananke). Nordic gods are also helpless to fate if we recall the Ragnarok. But, this supreme power / being is a deus otiosus (an “indifferent god”), regarded as having withdrawn from immediate concern with humans and thought of sometimes as too exalted for humans to petition. Humans do not pray to this supreme power as this supreme power is devoid of any interest and bias so it's pointless.
Polytheism rarely persecutes heretics or infidels, why? Polytheism is conducive to religious tolerance. They believe in one supreme disinterested power and many partial and biased powers. It is easier for polytheists which are devotees of some Gods to accept the existence of other gods as we can see in the history of Roman Empire. The Romans happily added Asian goddess Cybele and Egyptian goddess Isis to their pantheon as the empire expanded.
Monotheists in the other hand tend to be more fanatical and missionary than polytheists. Monotheists have to believe that their one and only God is the universal truth and supreme power of the universe. They cannot recognize the legitimacy of other faith as it implies the their God is not a supreme power of the universe - contradictory to their belief. The nature of a new monotheist religion is it views itself as improving on past beliefs and practices, fulfilling prophecies, completing the task. Buddhism understood itself as doing so vis-Ã -vis Hinduism, Sikhism vis-Ã -vis Hinduism and Islam, Christianity vis-Ã -vis Judaism and Islam vis-Ã -vis Christianity. The problem of these religions is not so much the fact that a new faith believes it has superseded an old one, but the way it then behaves towards the older religion. Each religion competing to be the truest and to expand the rule of God resulted in war and persecution.
Dualism
Monotheists have an all knowing, all powerful and good God. So, why is there suffering? Why do bad things happen to good people? If the answer is related to free will, then God should knew in advance that certain people will choose evil if given free will, why God created such people then? This is a philosophical question which is called the Problem of Evil. It is an epistemic question on why the world contains undesirable states of affairs that provide the basis for an argument that makes it unreasonable to believe in the existence of God (Stanford).
Polytheism gave birth not only to monotheism but also to dualism where it espouses the existence of two opposing powers (good and evil) and that the universe is a battleground between those two forces; which is an answer to the Problem of Evil. The example for this is Zoroastrianism which saw the world as a cosmic battle between good God Ahura Mazda and evil God Angra Mainyu, and humans had to help the good God in this battle. Dualism may solve the Problem of Evil but it creates another question of order. Who enforces the laws governing this war?
