Originally posted by NANGI
Konnichiwa Maciamo-san!
You misunderstand about polytheism. Polytheism doesn't means having faith in a lot of gods. Polytheism means accepting a lot of god's existence. Polytheist don't believe in all gods. Generally polytheist has main god to believe. It is the same as Japanese, Japanese accept the existence of other gods, but Japanese believe in their ancestor mainly.
I don't agree with that. First, I know lots of liberal Christians (that is monotheists) who accept the validity of other religions. It is called tolerance, not polytheism.

Secondly, in most polytheism, people actually believe in several gods, though they don't necessarily worship them at the same time. Ancient Romans, Greeks or Egyptians turned to the appropriate god in function of what their problem was. If they needed children, they'd venerate the fertility or love god(ess). If they were setting on a long journey, they'd give offering to the traveller's god (Mercury, Hermes...). It has stayed a bit the same with Catholic Christians who worship Saints. So the patron or protector of the travellers is St Julian, who is the equivalent of the Roman god Mercury, or Greek god Hermes. But of course, most people would change god or saint in function of their needs and worries.

The same is true of Hinduism nowadays. Nobody worships Brahman, the Creator, as his role his just that of creator and doesn't help people in their daily lives. If you want money, you'll pray Laxmi, if you need good luck Ganesh, if it's love Krishna might help and if you want to make a revolution or change your life, it's definitely Shiva. Mahayana Buddhism (in Japan, China, etc.) works the same way. Shintoism is a bit different as gods are mostly "kami" of the nature and rarely have a function or even a name. But Hachiman, the god of war, is asked to protect newly wed couples and Inari to help the rice grow. Do you mean that you only worship or believe in one Shinto or Buddhist god ? Which one is it ?