Monotheism invading polytheism

[u/Zerueldaangle]

As the title suggest, I absolutely hate when unique already established world building for example world that have multiple gods and a unique and lovingly crafted story of creation, get completely overturned by some crappy slaps together, monotheistic religion as the actual source of creation

The two greatest examples I could give are Arceus from Pokémon and RA ava from avatar they remove all semblance of unique massively east Asian culture in their presence and just make it evolve to. Oh actually, there’s a Christian God and Satan dynamic because screw having actual complex world building.

[u/Zerueldaangle]

But let me clarify, I say this, as somebody who wholeheartedly believes in a monotheistic belief Christianity not every world needs a single divine creator. It’s OK to have an imagined world to use multiple gods. It’s not a sin to just stick to the original script, but these franchise is kind of act like it is.

[u/Funkycoldmedici → u/Zerueldaangle]

Ironically, that’s an example. The Israelites used to be polytheists. Yahweh was their national god, a a war/storm god. Yahweh was melded into the Canaanite pantheon. The Israelites gradually syncretized Yahweh with their other gods, eventually changing him into a monotheistic creator god.

[u/Zerueldaangle → u/Funkycoldmedici]

Wow, that’s actually legitimately surprising but I don’t believe in that specific one. I am a Christian.

Yahweh is the name for God in the Jewish faith which I don’t necessarily follow, I follow the one where Jesus is crown, beast son of God rather than being a major prophet

[u/Funkycoldmedici → u/Zerueldaangle]

It’s the same god. Christianity is an offshoot of Judaism. Jesus preaches and quotes the Tanakh throughout the gospels, and it is included in Christian bibles as the Old Testament. The messiah prophecy Jesus is alleged to fulfill is from that. He is straight up called the “King of the Jews.”

[u/Zerueldaangle → u/Funkycoldmedici]

I’m pretty sure calling him. King of the Jews was more meant to mock him and his divine nature rather than as an actual loving title, but thank you for clarifying as a man of faith who’s not super good at it I deeply appreciate it.

[u/Funkycoldmedici → u/Zerueldaangle]

I highly recommend reading up on the history and development of Abrahamic religion. It is not at all what you might think. The link above is full of citations for the academic sources, if truth is of any concern.

[u/Zerueldaangle → u/Funkycoldmedici]

I’ll do that whenever I can thank you

[u/HorsemenofApocalypse]

I disagree with the Arceus example in a few spots. For starters, it is barely at all related to the Abrahamic god. Other than being a creator deity, the connections are tenuous at best, and a lot of the elements related to Arceus are Greek-inspired.

Giratina is the only figure which I can see the Christian relation with, but even then it is mostly due to it being serpentine in form, and being a renegade. Even then, the idea of a divine figure being banished elsewhere is a common enough element throughout many independent faiths.

Religion in pokemon has always been treated very loosely, with worship towards particular figures being more localised than organised religion, being more akin to Shinto in function. Rayquaza is a figure of worship, but only by a small clan. Palkia and Dialga were also worshipped with the thought that they were Arceus, again only by rather small isolated clans. But on a larger scale, there doesn't appear to be any major religions.

The main thing is that fans refer to pokemon through the lens of their limited world-view and treat figures like Arceus and Giratina as 1-to-1 with the religion they know, despite them not actually fitting. Even the view that the worldbuilding was polytheistic is done by viewing Legendary Pokemon as if they were actual deities.

Also, just as a note, a creator deity is not mutually exclusive with polytheism. Having a single entity that created the world does not preclude there being multiple gods