Why Monotheism Leads to Theocracy
At Slate, Joshua Keating provides an excerpt of a working paper by University of Connecticut economists Metin Cosgel and Thomas Miceli that looks at the causal link between monotheism and theocracy. “[B]ecause a polytheistic religion has multiple gods, the populace will be divided in their loyalties,” Cosgel and Miceli write. “In contrast, a monotheistic religion requires worship of a single god whose power to legitimize the ruler is necessarily more concentrated.”