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Patrician Atheist Here,

The attempt to indoctrinate me into Christianity never worked. It just never took as I was a heretic from the very beginning who resisted the religion due to both a lack of interest and my natural bullshit detector. Christianity simply never made any sense to my logical mind – just like every other superstition – and one of the things that has always stuck out is the dubiousclaim that Christianity is monotheism or, rather, the much ignored or actively denied polytheism of it all.

Quite simply, Christianity in its many forms has overt polytheistic tendencies at best and is full-fledged polytheism at worst. Its so-called supreme mover of the universe has a large supporting cast and I will be providing evidence to bolster the assertion that Christianity is indeed a religion that promotes “belief in or worship of more than one god or deity.” And a deity, or god, in this case is the one with a lower case g, meaning a being or object that requires human worship and is believed to have more than natural attributes and powers, and specifically, one controlling a particular aspect or part of reality usually from some domain outside of the natural world.

Also, as a disclaimer before I introduce my evidence for Christian polytheism, I understand that Christianity is a massive religion and there are many sects. So each piece of evidence I present may only apply to a certain specific sect, or groups of sects, and not to others or Christianity as a whole – and then again, it could very well apply to the whole unreasonable religion. Having said that, and made it clear that I understand not all Christians necessarily believe in all of the items of evidence I will be presenting, hopefully that will mitigate uninformed reactionary comments – hopefully.

My argument will work its way to the most damaging evidence - as I see it - with the final piece of evidence presented arguably being the most persuasive and damaging. We’ll start with what I classify as being minor gods or deities in Christianity – saints.

The main type of saint I will address is that of the Catholic brand – of which there are thousands. And it has to be noted that while I am focusing specifically on Catholic saints to advance my argument Eastern Orthodox sects and others also boast these celestial beings worthy of praise and worship in hope of divine favors. Specifically I will focus on the patron saints, a group of special protectors and guardians over, or advocates for, a specific area of life and reality – which is a crucially important point to make in order to prove they are at the very least minor gods or deities.

For example, St. Joseph of Arimathea is the patron saint of gravediggers. St. Apollonia is the patron saint of dentists. St. Dismas is the patron saint of theft and theives. St. James the Greater is the patron saint of hatmakers, rheumatoid sufferers, and laborers – not to mention the country of Nicaragua. There are patron saints for virtually everything and many Catholics – and others – pray to them for help and guidance in a specific area.

This makes patron saints minor deities, or minor gods if you will, as they have superhuman, supernatural powers that they may use to manipulate the reality of the natural world from some magical place based outside of it if prayed too and revered as gods. Want to be a more efficient and successful grave digger? Pray to St. Arimathea. Want to pray for the well being of Nicaragua? St. James the Greater has got your back.

Even the more watered down definition of a saint – such as a saint simply being anyone who has ascended to Heaven and is in the presence of God – is still a minor deity of sorts, as the deceased is believed to have reached life after death and is a form of spirit the religious often think they can converse with. And I can’t tell you how many times I have heard religious family members of mine, and many other people I know or have run into by chance, invoke a dead relative as almost a minor deity and/or claim the deceased’s spirit was responsible for some significantly fortunate event in their life, or even something trivial like winning 20 bucks on a scratch ticket. Such behavior simply reeks of polytheism in denial and is very much like the Ancient Roman tradition by which the spirits of a family’s ancestors were revered and prayed too in order to guide and protect the family.

While on the topic of spirits, my next piece of evidence for Christian polytheism is angels and demons – two classes of minor deities – one allegedly good, one evil, and two groups of beings which, it can be argued, are former humans who were transformed after death (again, depending on what brand of Christianity we are talking about). These minor gods function as the minions of God and Satan, respectively. The angels are even part of the celestial hierarchy and there are different orders, triads or spheres composed of nine angelic choirs - the most influential variation of which comes from Pseudo Dionysius’ writing The Celestial Hierarchy. And the various angels in these groups all have special areas over which they are protectors and guardians over, or advocates for, in heaven, human lives and/or the natural world – much like the patron saints. In this way they are certainly tools or pawns of God, but they are also minor supernatural players and thus minor deities or gods who are given such capabilities to do tasks for God as spiritual intermediaries between him and humans.

Demons, on the other hand, are malevolent spirits who work for and do tasks for Satan as minor gods or deities under him. There is also a hierarchy of demons, courtesy of the inquisitor Father Sebastien Michaelis – though like that of angels there are several different classifications and Michaelis’ does not stand uncontested and is not universally accepted by all of Christiandom. These servants of Satan are believed to have so much power in the natural world so as to be able to corrupt and even possess humans to make them evil, and this belief is so real and prevalent in some Christian communities that exorcisms are actually utilized. The Catholic Church and other contemporary Christian sects also believe angels and demons are authentic supernatural beings with power over human lives and the natural world in terms of their respective divine superiors.

Unsurprisingly, a significant framework for the hierarchies of both angels and demons came from the Bible, which is my next piece of evidence even though I rather dislike using it for anything. Unfortunately, it is THE book of Christian mythology. And while its frequent mention and acknowledgement of the existence of other gods is not necessarily polytheism it sure doesn’t help the monotheism claim. Mercifully for Christianity, I am only going to focus specifically on Genesis 1:26-27 to support this portion of my argument for Christian polytheism. The King James Version of this selection of the Bible reads:

And God said, Let US make man in OUR image, after OUR likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

The most conspicuous parts of this text are undoubtedly the use of the words US and OUR, which both imply polytheism as God clearly appears to be speaking to other deities who are similar in nature and appearance to him – regardless of whether they are of lesser, equal or greater power – quite simply it is a polytheistic account of creation. And I have seen no convincing evidence God is speaking in the majestic plural, or royal “We,”whereby an authoritative figure refers to him or herself in the third person and speaks on behalf of others who are under their authority. In fact, just the opposite is true as it had not yet been invented when this was written.

If God is speaking or referring to some sort of heavenly court of angels, that simply brings back the minor deities referenced to earlier into the equation. If he is speaking to other supernatural beings then it is also automatically polytheism. What this cannot be taken as an example of, however, is God speaking to other members of the Trinity as the concept of a triune god had not been revealed, or rather invented, yet.

And the Holy Trinity is my next piece of evidence for Christian polytheism. On a number of occasions I have pointed out the contradiction of a triune deity, and thus the Christian god, because this tortured reasoning essentially states that God, the Holy Spirit and Jesus are all the same person and not the same person all at the same time – a blatant contradiction that boils down to the logic of “God impregnates the alleged Virgin Mary as a ghost to impregnate her with himself, because he is his own father, and then kills himself to save us from himself.” Completely absurd.

Nonetheless, there is an undeniable polytheistic element to it and we need only to focus on the part that asserts God, the Holy Spirit and Jesus Christ are separate and distinct supernatural figures and deities with very specific functions and roles. And quite simply, for the rational mind it is “an either or” proposition when it comes to the trinity – either God is one being or there are at least three major gods of Christianity. No appeal to the power of God being able to do anything he wishes suffices or is satisfactory to a logical mind. If God is the only major divine being, fine – we still have angels and saints and demons – and if there are three primary gods to Christianity we simply add more deities to the already packed Christian pantheon. In either event, the ridiculous concept of the holy trinity either aids or does nothing to diminish my argument that Christianity is not monotheism, but polytheism in denial.

As for my final piece of evidence it regards a former angel and figure previously mentioned – Satan, or the Devil. This mythological figure is arguably the second or fourth major god of Christianity, depending on what you think of the holy trinity. And he appears to be close to as powerful, or even at least as powerful, as God.

Satan holds great supernatural power over the natural world and is in constant combat with God for control of it – which is rather embarrassing for God having to fight over control of a world and over humans he himself supposedly made. Because the devil not only has the power to make bad things happen in the world (like God) but he is responsible for human possessions in which he or his agents can corrupt or make people evil – because if a person is not possessed by some minor demon they are possessed by the king of demons. And God’s typical response to his followers when possessions are suspected is “you’re on your’re own; you got this.”

And the exorcist specialists reenter the picture again because their supposedly Supreme deity needs to be begged to protect his followers from this rival god. And let’s not forget that in Isaiah 14:13-15 Lucifer tries to be like God and is cast out by god only to become the very thing God had cast Lucifer out of heaven for aspiring too – being a major god. And this subsequently begins their rivalry as virtually equal divine beings.

In this struggle between evil and slightly less evil – which Christianity is dependant on for survival because otherwise what is the point of the religion without a clear and present bad guy - Satan has a very specific supernatural, or rather divine, function and role. He is God’s nemesis and, quite frankly, to be the nemesis of God you have to possess the powers of a deity, or else you are not much of an opponent or threat to the works or another deity, which is why Satan is a major deity of Christianity – or at the very least a very prominent minor one – though I lean definitively towards the former.

Frankly, the Christian assertion Satan is not a god is like saying Hades is not a god in Greek mythology. And the Christian logic that “Satan is not a god, or deity, he is the devil” is inherently flawed and a little like me saying "I am not a human I am an atheist" – but it is even worse and more nonsensical than that because Satan is the Devil and Lucifer, for that matter. And whatever name you call this mythology character, him being a god is not mutually exclusive to that name. Christianity can claim it is monotheism and worships one Supreme Being all it wants, but the facts depict quite a different picture altogether.

In the end, the case is strong for Christian polytheism using rational processes. In spite of this, I can already hear attacks on my credibility because I am not a quote unquote an “official expert in theology,” which is rather the pro-league of just making nonsensical shit up and wrapping it in pseudo-intellectual speech and is much like saying I am not a professional bullshit artist. And my low opinion of theology can be summarized by a quote attributed to an unknown individual which defines theology as “the study of elaborate verbal disguises for non-ideas.” Of course, my definition of theology is “the study of elaborate verbal disguises for contrary-to-logic, irrational and categorically stupid ideas.”

My argument may not be entirely proper as far as theology goes – and I take great pride in this as a rationalist – but it does use the only tools that give a damn in the natural world we live in: logic and unflinching reason. And these tools tell me Christianity is polytheism in denial. You can surely decided for yourself.