Is Christianity Polytheistic?

One would first have to be able to define God, and quite frankly, that's a slippery slope. It sounds as if you are the one that is equivocating, since it is you saying that angels and Apollo are all gods, if not demi-gods.

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"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from mistaken conviction." — Blaise Pascal

What exactly are you trying to prove here? Please clarify your intentions. Are you saying that Christianity is actually rooted in polytheistic beliefs, or that Christians aren't recognising that Satan is actually a god? What is your assertion that Satan should be viewed as a god? That's the better question. The answer to your questions is lacking. Christians don't view Satan as a god because according to dogma he's an angel, albeit, fallen.To literalistic Satanists, Satan is a god. So to them Satan is a god. All that matters is the context, seems to me. Because really we're dealing with beliefs, not objective facts. In order to arbitrate what God is or isn't, or what God should be or should not be, we'd first have to prove the existence of God. Therein lies the crux. It sounds like you are taking certain attributes and have come up with what you personally as god-like attributes. Apparently you want this to be univeral -- that we all see things as you do. God is a very broad and open term, seems to me, and you don't have the copywrite on compartmentalising God.I'm fairly certain this is what people are taking exception to.

Yes, and other cultures have concepts of hell and demons too. One could juxtapose the Hellenic version of Hades with the Budhist version of hell and find both similarities and dissimilarities. It doesn't mean anything though.For Faith, she would say that Allah is actually a demon posing as a God. It's a completely vacuous and unsubstantiated assertion, but those are her beliefs.That Allah shares god-like status to some, but demonic status to others doesn't make either claim true or false. What universal characteristic are you looking for that the whole world should be united in seeing Satan as a God? That's what I'm saying. No one is the arbiter, least of all, you.So what precisely is the point you're trying to make?

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"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from mistaken conviction." — Blaise Pascal

Why not a teacup, for good measure? Anyone could attribute anything as god-like. The point is, it doesn't matter.Besides, many Christians do claim that Satan is the "God of this world," meaning he has a foothold on the earthly and temporal realm, whereas God's realm is spiritual. Because their religious books state that Satan is an angel, not a God. You keep taking attributes of the supernatural and are placing them on par with being God.If you are asking whether or not Christianity is just an example of hybrid religions synthesizing in to what we know today as Christianity, I think there is room for the argument. But you are taking belief and expecting everyone to know what you are saying is an object fact.

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"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from mistaken conviction." — Blaise Pascal

The issue is that you are taking a very large inferrential leap here. You are essentially claiming that because Satan has attributes that could be likened to God, that we must therefore conclude that Christianity is polytheistic.That's a very large jump in reasoning.Could it be possible that Christianity stole or borrowed from polytheistic religions? Yes, I think one could make a reasonable case for that. But you are saying that because Satan has supernatural elements to him, he's therefore a god by your standards, without taking in to account what the story attributes to him.

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"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from mistaken conviction." — Blaise Pascal

Are listening at all? That is irrelevant in this case since there are several books detailing what Satan is. These useless hypothetical scenarios are meaningless because they don't apply to the context of what is discussed. If alien anthropologist had a giant fucking book telling you what Satan is, then digging around in the dirt for figurines would be pointless, yes?You keep overlooking the 2-ton elephant in the room, while pointing to a fly on its ass. It's not desinged by Christians. The story of Satan predates Christianity, and "christians" didn't write the bible. Jews did. Why are 3 or 4 non-Christians telling you otherwise, unless it's because your reasoning is faulty? Look, I am certain there is good reason to assume that it once had polytheistic roots (note the past tense). But for several thousand years, Satan has been an angel and a devise of God (the only God). Really all you are doing is looking at supernatural attributes and saying, they resemble god-like attributes, so therefore satan must be a god. That's not how this works. You're talking out of your ass. To Joe, Satan is a god. To the rest of humanity, he's an angel, or just doesn't exist and never has. Claiming things doesn't make it so. Edited by Hyroglyphx, : No reason given.

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"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from mistaken conviction." — Blaise Pascal

Uh, well, if you changed your name to Uranus would you be the planet Uranus or would you share the same name as a planet?

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"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from mistaken conviction." — Blaise Pascal

I didn't realize you were being facetious I still don't really understand your argument that well. It doesn't make sense to me.

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"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from mistaken conviction." — Blaise Pascal

You are dialoging. God's don't do that. With them, it's a one-sided conversation Yeah, I get that, but then you go on to say that Satan must be a God without paying any attention to the gigantic tome which says he is distinguished as an angel -- a fallen angel, to be precise. Sure, if we had no scriptures talking about Satan, and anthropolgists or archeologists found some figurine of Satan, we might conclude he's a god based on such scanty information. But that kind of speculation is useless since we do know that Satan is an angel in all three of the major religions.I don't think you should glibly brush that aside as inconsequential. But Christians didn't write the entirety of the bible, and Christians didn't invent Satan. It could be argued that they extrapolated the Satan device to mean more than what was intended by Judaism. Satan could have been a God in some predating religion where he was absorbed in to the culture and then synthesized. Shit like that happens all the time in religion (I submit to you ALL the major holidays as evidence). But as it stands, I really don't see where you are coming from. It seems that you're making a mountain out of a molehill. I don't know. It feels like I'm missing a huge part of the puzzle. You seem to have some grand, unifying thought that you're trying to express -- like you had this aha! moment, and you're desperately trying to explain it. Either I am still missing it or your grand thought isn't all that grand

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"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from mistaken conviction." — Blaise Pascal