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Polytheism is the belief in or worship of more than one god. [1] [2] [3] According to Oxford Reference, it is not easy to count gods, and so not always obvious whether an apparently polytheistic religion, such as Chinese folk religions, is really so, or whether the apparent different objects of worship are to be thought of as manifestations of a singular divinity. [1]
The religious status of women is a very important aspect of the history of the religion and one of the most critical issues between the oldest religious divisions of the religion, Svetambar and Digambar. The major distinction between these two divisions is the position of women in their societies.
Judaism is traditionally considered one of the oldest monotheistic religions in the world, [151] although up to the 8th century BCE the Israelites were polytheistic, with their worship including the gods El, Baal, Asherah, and Astarte. [152] [153] Yahweh was originally the national god of the Kingdom of Israel and the Kingdom of Judah. [154]
Internal religious issues are studied from the perspective of a given religion, and might include religious beliefs and practices about the roles and rights of men and women in government, education and worship; beliefs about the sex or gender of deities and religious figures; and beliefs about the origin and meaning of human gender.
The claim to worship the "one and only true God" came to most of the world with the arrival of Abrahamic religions and is the distinguishing characteristic of their monotheistic worldview, [5] [221] [222] [223] whereas virtually all the other religions in the world have been and/or are still animistic and polytheistic. [221]
Prudence Jones and Nigel Pennick in their A History of Pagan Europe (1995) classify pagan religions as characterized by the following traits: Polytheism: Pagan religions recognise a plurality of divine beings, which may or may not be considered aspects of an underlying unity (the soft and hard polytheism distinction).
Polytheistic reconstructionists focus on reconstructing polytheistic religions, including the various goddesses and figures associated with indigenous cultures. Wicca is a duo theistic belief system. Members of Wicca will work individually with both a God, the son and partner of the Mother Earth, and the Goddess herself. [ 52 ]
Panentheism (from Greek πᾶν (pân) "all"; ἐν (en) "in"; and θεός (theós) "God"; "all-in-God") is a belief system that posits that the divine (be it a monotheistic God, polytheistic gods, or an eternal cosmic animating force) interpenetrates every part of nature, but is not one with nature.