Language and Monotheism

[Pandora]

Monotheism has to be connected to development of written language. There are a few theories on how that might have happened. But one theory that I’m exploring advances the idea that it was particularly the adoption of phoenetic alphabet (Phoenician) which facilitated the creation of monotheism, in the Middle East.
But how does the process of converting sounds back and forth to symbols translate to monotheistic mindset? I can see superstitious type of logomamia (something like this happening even at the very creation of language, but to me, this behavior only leads to a type of witchcraft mindset and spell making. (It also reminds me of the Hebrew notion that the “real” name of god is not to be said out loud. Why so, I wonder? In the context of converting meaningless symbols to sounds it may hold a clue). Still, as I recall, Romans were also fond of writing down magical spells and they were not monotheistic, so to me, at best, phoenetic alphabet may lead to the creation of monotheism but does not necessitate it. There could be an extra element that I’m missing. Perhaps it is still within the audible process of symbol conversion (as Marshall McLuhan sees it), or it could be an external-to-language element, such as power struggle. (There is another theory in which the Hebrews chose to worship words (magical symbols?) over physical statues and monuments that were popular at the time). In any case, the consensus today seems to be that for a society to be monotheistic, it has to be literate first.
But also to note, monotheistic concepts can be created with geometric shapes, as well, like sphere and cube. It is believed by some Muslims, for example, that Kaaba cube represents the Truth because like the cube, the truth appears the same from all angles.

Added: https://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alphabet_effect
https://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psycholinguistics

[Pandora]

An interesting historical account, and a theory, but he didn’t really explore the connection between development of Proto-Semitic language and the creation of monotheism, so I found the title of this paper a bit misleading. Other than that, it was an interesting historical theory read. I like the idea that it was possibly a created written vernacular language by bilingual “illiterate” peoples of the time.
http://www.scripta.kr/scripta_v0010/?mo ... af52f57754

[Pandora]

4. Alphabet, Deductive Logic, Duality and Reductionism

We would like to propose another effect of the alphabet in addition to the ones identified by McLuhan, M. and Logan (1977) [1] and McLuhan, M. and E. (1988) [2]. We suggest that another effect of the alphabet was to give rise to a form of duality, that is characteristic of Western alphabetic culture, namely constitutional duality.

Before establishing this connection, we need to differentiate between the different forms of duality. There is binary dualism such as distinguishing between being and non-being as in deductive logic, it is a duality which arises out of grammatical necessity. There is also a closely related duality, polarity duality, of opposites such up and down; left and right; forward and backward; hot and cold; good and evil; light and dark; and yin and yang. There is also constitutional dualism as (1) mind and body in the context of the philosophy of mind; (2) God and his creations or the physical universe; and (3) material reality and spiritual reality as described in many religions. Binary and constitutional duality are characteristic of Western alphabetic cultures. The third duality of polarity is found in all cultures. An example of polar dualities is the notion of yin and yang of Taoism found in many East Asian non-alphabetic cultures. Yin and yang are seemingly opposite but yet at the same time they are complementary, interconnected and interdependent. The very graphic design of yin and yang as represented in Taoism represents the intertwining of yin and yang as represented in this image: [insert image of yin/yang]

In Western binary and constitutional duality, the boundaries are impermeable and the two poles of the dual relationship are quite independent of each other unlike the relationship of yin and yang.

We believe that binary and compositional forms of Western dualism are interconnected and are the effect of alphabetic writing. Binary duality is an absolute presupposition of deductive logic and deductive logic is one of the effects of alphabetic writing as noted by McLuhan and Logan (1977) [1].

The connection between the alphabet, binary duality and constitutional duality is not a direct one but one that can be established if one first accepts that there is a connection between the alphabet and deductive logic as argued by McLuhan and Logan (1977) [1].

Alphabetic writing encouraged the development of deductive logic because the alphabet promotes representing spoken words with a linear combination of meaningless visual signs representing phonemes assembled in the correct order. Every spoken word is first analyzed into its constituent phonemes and then those phonemes are represented by the meaningless signs of the alphabet and arranged in a logical order. This created an environment in which arguments were assembled in a similar linear sequential logical order.

Rationality trumped poetics and so the arguments of the sophists were looked down on because they appealed to the emotions rather than the cold hard facts of a logical argument.

The pervasive use of uniform elements, the phonetic letters that the alphabet entailed, encouraged the additional visual matching of situational elements which formed the ground for Greek logic, geometry, and rationality. The idea of truth itself, the correspondence of thing and intellect, is based on matching…The Greek alphabet also provided both the model and the bias for classification, an essential development in Greek analytic thought during the period from 700 to 400 B.C.—especially for logic, science, and history. In addition to serving as a paradigm of abstraction and classification, the alphabet also served as a model for division and separatability. [1]

The Greeks applied the use of logic to create proofs of the geometric relationships that the Egyptians arrived at empirically. They were bedazzled with their new found technology of deductive logic to the point that a separation of rationality from common sense took place. [?!]

It started with Parmenides who used logic to argue that nothing changes because if A were to change into B, then A would not-be and since non-being cannot be (it is a logical contradiction) nothing changes. Parmenides argument used a form of duality that entails a binary either or division but then he uses deductive logic to conclude that nothing changes and hence laid the ground work for the emergence of substance/essence dualism, a form of constitutional dualism formulated by Plato.
The idea that nothing changes was clearly in contradiction to the common sense observation of the changes in one’s everyday experiences.

Plato found a way to resolve this apparent paradox and the solution was to invoke a form of substance/essence dualism and thereby created two worlds. There is the essence world of the Ideal Forms that are never changing as Parmenides required and the everyday substance world that one perceives in everyday life, which Plato likened to shadows on the wall of a cave cast by the fire burning within the cave and do change as common sense reveals and demands. Plato took his cue from Parmenides who wrote “Whence it follows that all things to which men attribute reality, generation and destruction, being and not-being, change of place, alteration of colour are no more than empty words (http://philoctetes.free.fr/parmenides.htm) [5]”.

Plato with help from Parmenides separates percepts from concepts and this dualism becomes enshrined in Western philosophical thought. Parmenides version of binary dualism and his use of deductive logic led to Plato’s constitutional dualism of the world of Ideal Forms and the everyday world of perceptions. These two domains are not opposites just as mind and body are not opposites in mind/body dualism. But what is being suggested here is that Plato’s constitutional dualism resolved the paradox that there is no change in Parmenides world whereas change is the pervasive property of the world of every day experience.

Parmenides and Plato’s dualities had the unfortunate effect of killing off the empirical spirit of the pre-Socratics like Anaxagoras, Anaximander and Heraclitus. Heraclitus proclaimed “The things of which there can be sight, hearing and learning—these are what I especially prized (the very opposite of Parmenides’ position). Men who love wisdom should acquaint themselves with a great many particulars. Seekers after gold dig up much earth and find little”.

Anaxagoras having observed that meteorites that came from heaven were made of rocks concluded that heavenly bodies were also composed of rocks. Anaximander on the basis of observing the gills on a miscarried human fetus argued for evolution more than 2000 years before Darwin. The empirical spirit of the pre-Socratics was undermined by the logical arguments of Parmenides and Plato. Even Aristotle contributed to the undermining of empiricism. He argued against inertia saying that an object dropped from the mast of a ship would fall behind the mast in the opposite direction of the ship’s motion. If he only had climbed to the top of a mast and performed the experiment or asked a mariner to do it he would have discovered that his argument was wrong. These were the roots of the duality that divided the world into two spheres, the one perceived and the one conceived.

The tradition of duality even survived the scientific revolution and empirical spirit of Galileo, Borelli, Brahe, Kepler and Newton. Descartes, himself a mathematician and scientist, whose development of analytic geometry led to Newton’s calculus, divided the world into two domains the material and the spiritual.

Cartesian duality paralleled Plato’s division of the two realms, the material world of every day experience and the realm of Ideal Forms. Like Parmenides who wanted to have an unchanging element in his worldview, Descartes divided the ever changing material world from the spiritual world of Mind, Soul and God and this contributed to the mind-body problem that persists to this day.

Another effect of alphabetic writing and deductive logic is the notion of the linear chain of cause and effect and hence reductionism, whereby all phenomena can be reduced to a simpler or more basic one implying that the whole is merely the sum of its parts just as the alphabet reduces all words to their basic phonemes.

http://www.mdpi.com/2409-9287/2/1/2/htm

(Apparently, invention of phonetic alphabet is also credited with creation of individuality, as well as patriarchy)

[Pandora]

Interesting symbology in Sikh monotheism:
https://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ik_Onkar

———————

https://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_(deity)
https://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allah
Pagan Origins of Judaism
Christine Hayes on El

I was just thinking, could it be possible that the Muslims and Jews are worshipping essentially the same god? I don’t mean in a monotheistic-one-perfect-god sense, but in a sense that their god is a descendant of the same actual historical (abstracted) pagan diety, that at one point had a physical form and specific function.


———————

Christine Hayes also seems to be suggesting the idea of perfect god may have been adopted by Judaism from Western Greco-Roman Platonic philosophy. (Which would put it as late as 400 BC, or during Axial Age).

The eastern idea of Brahman, written down in Sanskrit, was also written down roughly around the time Platonic ideas were being formed in the West.

[Prismatic567]

Language facilitated but it is the background reason as for many other human developments.

The proximate cause is driven by the evolution of reason. This is driven from deeper by 'one-up' and 'leadership dependent' primal instinct within the majority's DNA e.g. mine better than yours - in the face of an existential crisis.

[Pandora]

Philo of Alexandria (20 BCE - 50 CE)
——————-
... back to Christine Hayes - on duels among different interpretations of Divine Law (in 1st century CE) in an attempt to resolve cognitive dissonance.

[Pandora]

On Middle and Neo-Platonism (jumping around a bit here)



Well... I guess it’s like they say - where there’s a will, there is a way!

[Pandora]

Interesting facts from Plotinus’ bio, hinting at Eatern influences...

After spending the next eleven years in Alexandria, he then decided, at the age of around 38, to investigate the philosophical teachings of the Persian philosophers and the Indian philosophers.[6] In the pursuit of this endeavor he left Alexandria and joined the army of Gordian III as it marched on Persia...[~240 CE]

Plotinus

According to Porphyry, in 232, at the age of 28, Plotinus went to Alexandria to study philosophy:

“In his twenty-eighth year he [Plotinus] felt the impulse to study philosophy and was recommended to the teachers in Alexandria who then had the highest reputation; but he came away from their lectures so depressed and full of sadness that he told his trouble to one of his friends.

The friend, understanding the desire of his heart, sent him to Ammonius, whom he had not so far tried. He went and heard him, and said to his friend, "This is the man I was looking for."

From that day he stayed continually with Ammonius and acquired so complete a training in philosophy that he became eager to make acquaintance with the Persian philosophical discipline and that prevailing among the Indians”.[9]

Ammonius Saccas

(Alexandria must have been quite a place at its time)

[felix dakat]

Philo of Alexandria (20 BCE - 50 CE)
——————-
... back to Christine Hayes - on duels among different interpretations of Divine Law (in 1st century CE) in an attempt to resolve cognitive dissonance.

thanks for the link...dovetails with my thesis that it is that the Jesus movement became "Christianity" because Christ did not return quickly as expected. This created the second great crisis in the faith of his followers. The first was, of course, Jesus's crucifixion. A third fact of fateful significance in the development of Christianity was the rejection of Christ by the majority of the Jews and His acceptance by a growing number of gentiles. This acceptance was facilitated by the Hellenization of Judaism and the Gospel and the church's internalization of Greco-Roman style government.

[Pandora]

Those were some interesting times. I keep getting surprised by a realization of just how much free time some men must have had at the time to come up with all these ideas. Actually, I’ve always suspected that a potential birthplace of philosophy might have been a market place where men sat all day and gossiped about all kinds of bullshit. Well...that’s just my impression anyway.

[felix dakat]

Those were some interesting times. I keep getting surprised by a realization of just how much free time some men must have had at the time to come up with all these ideas. Actually, I’ve always suspected that a potential birthplace of philosophy might have been a market place where men sat all day and gossiped about all kinds of bullshit. Well...that’s just my impression anyway.

Well yeah. I read that Socrates talked about the need for σχολή or leisure as the precondition to philosophizing and argued that it was hard work and a benefit to the community.

This is based on Christine Hayes' lecture:

Christianity was born of the clash between Judaism and Greco-Roman culture. This clash can be illustrated pointedly in the conflict regarding the meaning of Divine Law. Yale Professor Christine Hayes discusses this here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-sv09t15hg&app=desktop

The characterization of Divine Law as utterly rational and in harmony with nature was widespread throughout the Hellenistic world of late antiquity. This created a cognitive dissonance for the Jews who's Divine Law didn't look like the Greco-Roman definition of Divine Law but rather more like human law grounded in the will of a sovereign that doesn't necessarily conform to truth and has irrational aspects. This was particularly true of the impurity laws, the dietary laws and the laws concerning circumcision which became an embarrassment to the Jews.

Philo bridged the divide by equating Mosaic law with divine natural law and transferring to it the characteristic attributes of divine natural law which were that it was rational, true, universal, immutable, and unwritten. To accomplish this task he used the allegorical method extensively.

Paul accepted the basic Greco-Roman dichotomy between divine natural law on the one hand and human positive law on the other hand. However his response to the incongruity between biblical and classical conceptions of Divine Law was the opposite of Philo's.

Paul represented the Mosaic law as particular temporary, non-rational and not conducive to virtue. Hayes argues that Paul's representation of the Mosaic law in positive law terms was a strategic accommodation to his gentile audience. Particularizing the Mosaic law enabled Paul to argue that it did not obligate Gentiles, who's entry into "God's community" was required if the end-time visions of the prophets were to be fulfilled, was affected through faith.

[MagsJ]

Didn't Philosophy naturally arise with the beginning of the thought process? although I do think that the raging hormones of youth does cloud better judgement and deeper thought processes.

I doubt it needed to be invented, but a nice thought of men (and women) contemplating whilst cotching.

[felix dakat]

Didn't Philosophy naturally arise with the beginning of the thought process? although I do think that the raging hormones of youth does cloud better judgement and deeper thought processes.

I doubt it needed to be invented, but a nice thought of men (and women) contemplating whilst cotching.

"Cotching" is new to me. How about this: Philosophy is a feedback loop in which language reflects on itself. Human beings are the host organism for this symbiotic memetic process.

[MagsJ]

Didn't Philosophy naturally arise with the beginning of the thought process? although I do think that the raging hormones of youth does cloud better judgement and deeper thought processes.

I doubt it needed to be invented, but a nice thought of men (and women) contemplating whilst cotching.

"Cotching" is new to me. How about this: Philosophy is a feedback loop in which language reflects on itself. Human beings are the host organism for this symbiotic memetic process.

..sounds good to me. an evolutionary process, of which some think we are ready to move on from.

I'd say that cotching is the English version of jamming, but one still potters around finding things to do to appease an active mind.. energy levels permitting.

[felix dakat]

Didn't Philosophy naturally arise with the beginning of the thought process? although I do think that the raging hormones of youth does cloud better judgement and deeper thought processes.

I doubt it needed to be invented, but a nice thought of men (and women) contemplating whilst cotching.

"Cotching" is new to me. How about this: Philosophy is a feedback loop in which language reflects on itself. Human beings are the host organism for this symbiotic memetic process.

..sounds good to me. an evolutionary process, of which some think we are ready to move on from.

I'd say that cotching is the English version of jamming, but one still potters around finding things to do to appease an active mind.. energy levels permitting.

Yeah an evolutionary process that began when a hominid was infected by an alien life form that generated the language meme. So you're saying if Tom Petty had been a Brit he would have sang "you're cotching me?"

[MagsJ]

Yeah an evolutionary process that began when a hominid was infected by an alien life form that generated the language meme.

So.. according to the above, language can be acquired independently? and would alien life forms practice, or even have, a religion? or is this phenomenon a random one, based on mathematical probability?

So you're saying if Tom Petty had been a Brit he would have sang "you're cotching me?"

I am not familiar with the original song, but the word is out of context here... "we're cotching" or "you're cotching with me" works.

[felix dakat]

Yeah an evolutionary process that began when a hominid was infected by an alien life form that generated the language meme.

So.. according to the above, language can be acquired independently? and would alien life forms practice, or even have, a religion? or is this phenomenon a random one, based on mathematical probability?

So you're saying if Tom Petty had been a Brit he would have sang "you're cotching me?"

I am not familiar with the original song, but the word is out of context here... "we're cotching" or "you're cotching with me" works.

Terrance McKenna proposed "that the transformation from humans' early ancestors Homo erectus to the species Homo sapiens mainly had to do with the addition of the mushroom Psilocybe cubensis in its diet, an event that according to his theory took place in about 100,000 BCE (which is when he believed that the species diverged from the Homo genus)." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terence_M ... _evolution

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCFAzPl1QmE

[Xunzian]

The whole premise here seems pretty shaky.

Like, post Sea-people and bronze-age collapse I could see people basically going, "Who cares about the conflicts between our various cults? We just got our asses handed to us. Let's band together, we can worry about the particulars of the cult later, and just do this. El, Yawheh, whatever-the-fuck-else, let's just do this *then* we can argue about it."

Naturally, those kinds of calls for unity are normally made by the second most powerful faction in the face of an enemy. They use that conflict to solidify their power. No need to involve alphabets into it, though because of the Bronze Age collapse we get the same timing.

Of course, the real answer is that the sea-people brought a monotheistic religion with them because, coming from the sea, they worshipped Chthulu. This also nicely explains why the monotheistic gods of levant are such psychopaths and why various gnostic movements tried to reimagine them as evil gods. It's a cultural memory of the chthulu invasion.

Duh

[Pandora]

The whole premise here seems pretty shaky.

Yes, the alphabet theory is interesting theory but it leaves quite a few things unexplained for me. For instance that the same effect could have been achieved through geometry, as it did with Islamic art here: Alhambra geometry and
Sacred geometry of Islamic art). Islamic art is said to have been influenced by Plato’s ideas, who, in turn, was influenced by Pythagoras. So, it seems that it could also have been just as well, the abstraction of mathematics, rather than phonetic alphabet. In fact, for an illiterate populace, meditation on such “sacred” geometry that would have presented itself throughout their waking lives might even have been easier and more effective. But perhaps the answer lies in an indeph exploration of the background context around developments of such things (economic, political, and social), and that would require a lot of historical digging and piecing of events together, and one would need to be as much of a historian as a philosopher.

———

I explored the drug use theory as well, and thought of mentioning it as a possibility, but decided not to, because at the time, I felt that it might move the research in wrong direction (i.e. developments and transformations of ancient cults - which is a big topic on its own). But according to my research, Plato and Aristotle (and likely Pythagoras) were both initiates into Eleusinian mysteries, which would also bring the use of psychedelic drugs into the picture.

Eleusian Mysteries

Philosophers who used drugs

Greek Mystry cults

The problem I have with the drugs theory is that if that were true, that experience would likely be encouraged for other people (the holy communion), and that means that we would be using psyhadelic drugs in our religious rituals as well, but we don’t. In fact, in Islam, even alcohol is strictly forbidden. If drugs were the cause (or an inspiration), why were they not passed on as well?

[Xunzian]

It's become on-trend because of Westworld, but I've had a soft-spot for the bicameral mind. It's just so fucking crazy, so it's a lot of fun.

Drugs do have a strong cultural component. The hashish/vodka line gets used a lot by Russian historians because of how different cultures are on different parts of the line.

Part of their use is ritualizing their usage. Sure, Islam forbids alcohol, but Alawites have rituals where intoxication is mandatory (similar to the Jewish Purim ritua only they do it like every month. That might actually explain Assad's foreign policy, but I digress). It's also a good way to create separate groups. Christianity is the oddball here because it rejected that ritualization. I think it was Chesterton who said that the only reason why you open your mind is to close it again. Iconoclastic ideologies usually exist just long enough to mix things up before they become ritualized again. It's easy to create a teleological narrative with the benefit of hindsight. Plenty of other "shake 'em up" religions. But the region for Christianity is all wrong for psychedelics.

[timg]https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/03/Pschoactive_Psilocybe_distribution.png[/timg]

Humans emerging as thinking humans in Ethiopia would appeal to a lot of Hoteps I know. I should share that with them, I'd never really looked at a map. But not really relevant to monotheism.

Probably a better vector for understanding are henotheistic/Kathenotheistic movements. In polytheistic cultures, you see various gods glomming onto other gods, becoming the same god, adopting a foreign god, separating into separate gods, etc. It's an easy rhetorical move to escalate that and say only one god counts and it's my god. Going back to the arbitrary rules thing, there is a sociological term for it but it's escaping my mind right now and my google-fu is weak today. But separating out your cult has strong advantages. That way you've basically got one line of authority as opposed to multiple lines. While not strictly monotheistic, that's basically what happened with Zoroastrianism. And, if you read between the lines a little and allow yourself some leeway since it's in the distant past, it also does a fair job explaining the El/Yahweh fusion god you get in Judaism.

I like that reading, but it has it's own retroactive teleology to it. When people start talking about it, things like the Norse religion(s) come up and, yeah, the they match is pretty perfectly. But the only versions we have are post-contact with Christianity and (importantly) after Christians had basically kicked their butts. So of course they Christianized their religion. And that's when it wasn't being written down by Christian monks for the purpose of proselytizing when it was 100% about Christianizing the religion.

Greek thought played a big role in all this when Christianity comes onto the scene but the neoplatonics are way late to the monotheism game. Alphabet at least makes more sense because it's roughly contemporaneous. And alphabet is, as we all agreed, tempting but super shaky.

Same thing with drugs. Why would drugs make you think of one god and not many? I've encountered all sorts of crazy beings on trips. If I were a total melt-head shaman who had to trip balls as an occupation, I don't see why I'd just think of one as opposed to a lot. Granted, that's an atheist's view. If there is just one god and psychedelics provide a channel to that god, then eventually you are gonna get it right. But that doesn't seem real to me for obvious reasons.

It's tricky man.

[Karpel Tunnel]

If drugs were the cause (or an inspiration), why were they not passed on as well?

I may not be respondnig to the right why, but...

Drugs and shamanism and other ecstatic practices lead to lay priests. (some ecstatic practices go through lineages, like some parts of ecstatic hinduism, say, but in general the tools are available to minimum apprenticeship and absolutely outside the bureaucratic processes loved by the Abrahamis religions).

it's not in the best interests of bureaucracies to let just regular old members be experts and groundbreakers. It's like selling a shirt that lasts and stays in fashion for a brand fastion designer. You're out of work.

Also there are creative people, and there are the people who cluster around them, wanting them to repeat what the did before, to write sequels, new albums or novels in the same style.

[felix dakat]

From what I understand monotheism was a later development. Cuneiform developed in Sumer and the alphabet came from Greece. Both of these were polytheistic cultures. Am I missing something?

[MagsJ]

From what I understand monotheism was a later development. Cuneiform developed in Sumer and the alphabet came from Greece. Both of these were polytheistic cultures. Am I missing something?

I would say, that religion took advantage of human physiological developments, i.e. language... religion, to me, has always seemed to be about community/safety-in-numbers, and not something that is instigated by our physiological developments at all, but rather takes advantage of them, by creating the cult that is religion.. and by creating monotheism, even more so.

One God, one pot of gold to one, rather than shared between the many, then enforce that one religion and you have a monopoly on religion and therefore on those religious offerings, ergo The Vatican and all its riches.

[MagsJ]

Terrance McKenna proposed "that the transformation from humans' early ancestors Homo erectus to the species Homo sapiens mainly had to do with the addition of the mushroom Psilocybe cubensis in its diet, an event that according to his theory took place in about 100,000 BCE (which is when he believed that the species diverged from the Homo genus)." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terence_M ... _evolution

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCFAzPl1QmE

Many species ingest many psychedelics.. as well as alcohol in the form of fermented fruits lying on forest floors, but yet they remain far less advanced than we in terms of overall global dominance, and I am sure that we are not the only creatures that eat Psilocybe cubensis, so what about they?

The catalyst for our change could be a multi-pronged affair.. a condition that change usually occurs under.. when conditions are just right to fuel a need.

[MagsJ]

Edited:

From what I understand monotheism was a later development. Cuneiform developed in Sumer and the alphabet came from Greece. Both of these were polytheistic cultures. Am I missing something?

I would say, that religion took advantage of human physiological developments, i.e. language... religion, to me, has always seemed to be about community/safety-in-numbers, and not something that is instigated by our physiological developments at all, but rather takes advantage of them, by creating the cult that is religion.. and by creating monotheism, even more so.

One God, one pot of gold to one, rather than shared between the many, then enforce that one religion and you have a monopoly on religion and therefore on those religious offerings, ergo The Vatican and all its riches.