User:Alastair Haines/Discreet location

What is understood by words for god varies across cultures and has sometimes changed dramatically at various times. Buddhism challenged various ideas in Hinduism, the montheism of Judaism challenged its polytheistic neighbours, and in european history, the Roman Empire officially adopted Christianity under Constantine I, later becoming its centre, but being challenged itself during the Reformation.

A simple view of the history of religion as an evolutionary process was proposed in the 19th century— from animism to polytheism to monotheism, with some believing theism, atheism or agnosticism to be the most advanced approach. Such views are no longer widely current either in the study of religion, nor in philosophy. Analytic philosophy widely considers speculative metaphysics to be outside the reach of epistemology and scientific scrutiny. Comparative religion notes distinctive idiosyncracies across major religions that are better explained by close historical scrutiny, rather than appeal to a simplistic theory.

Nonetheless, animist religions are common among preliterate societies, many of which still exist in the 21st century. Typically, natural forces and shaman spiritual guides feature in these religions, rather than fully fledged personal divinities with established personalities. It is in polytheism that such deities are found, Hinduism being the largest current polytheistic religion. Animist religions often, but not always, attribute gender to spirits considered to permeate the world and its events. Polytheistics religions, however, almost always attribute gender to their gods, though a few notable divinities are associated with various forms of epicene characteristics—gods that manifest alternatingly as male and female, gods with one male and one female "face", and gods whose most distinctive characteristic is their unknown gender.

In the philosophies of several polytheistic traditions, a primal, "high" God is postulated as source of the lesser gods (and demi-gods) of the pantheon. In some religions, like Buddhism, such philosophising goes further, considering ultimate reality to transcend pantheons of gods, without proposing a high God in their place. Buddhism considers anihilation or nirvana to be ultimate reality, and the desire for existence to be the wrong-headed heart of human misery. European nihilism since the 19th century may owe a debt to western thinkers discovering Buddhist ideas from that time of increased trade with the East.

Nonetheless, a hegemonic western conception of metaphysics, influenced strongly by Judaism and Christianity is identifiable in European literature from Greek and Roman authors through to the present, such that English language betrays an inherent bias towards monotheistic thought. Where animist languages may not even have words for personal deities, but rather a nuanced vocabulary of spiritualism, and polytheistic cultures have lexis suited to articulating relationships between deities in a pantheon, some modern English speakers only recognize alternatives such as God, gods or no God, being unfamiliar with Buddhism and animism.

When considering the literature of the world's religions and metaphysical philosophies, the diversity of the underlying conceptions of the spiritual realm is foundational to appreciating any points of comparison. Comparison of views of the gender of spiritual entities is no exception. Each religion or philosophy needs to be understood in its historical, social, linguistic and philosophical context. Thus, matters of gender do apply to animism, but not in the foundational way they do in polytheism and monotheism. Additionally, since animism is largely associated with preliterate societies, we are dependent on the ethnographies of cultural anthropologists rather than documented scriptures. Shinto is a notable exception.