polytheism

Samakov recalled one incident near the town of Tokmok where an angry crowd tried to cut down several sacred trees, accusing the people visiting them to pray of engaging in “shirk,” or polytheism, considered the worst sin in Islam.

Pagan polytheism in ancient Rome was dizzyingly complicated, the gods seen as constant companions who hovered over the city’s mortal residents from birth to death, communicating with them incessantly but obliquely from their temples and shrines.

Derived from African polytheism and ancestor worship, the faith revolves around the idea that spirits, rather than one God, intercede in the daily lives of humans and can be conjured by dance, music, snakes and other practices.

Moses' motive, Freud hypothesized, was to preserve a sect of the ancient Egyptian religion which rejected polytheism and only worshipped the sun god, Aten.

“That feels like it’s really specific to L.A. as a cosmopolitan city. Greek polytheism is all about the ability to absorb other gods, and there is an inherent cultural exchange that’s a part of that.”