Gods and Demons

In Karen Armstrong's A History of God, Armstrong talks about the fact that monotheism was an unusual creation, but - further - that the refutation of other gods was a practice unique to Christianity. This is a point reiterated by Jeffrey B. Russell in A History of Witchcraft, in which he discusses paganism and the vilification of non-Christian deities.

Armstrong's point was that early Christians denied the very existence of other entities besides their god. Russell observes that what began as a denial - a policy that obviously needed revision - became a tendency to coopt:
And now Christian theologians made another important identification: the demons that the sorcerers were calling up were the pagan gods. Jupiter, Diana, and the other deities of the Roman pantheon were really demons, servants of Satan. As Christianity pressed northward, it made the same assertion about Wotan, Freya, and the other gods of the Celts and Teutons. Those who worshipped the gods worshipped demons whether they knew it or not. With this stroke, all pagans, as well as sorcerers, could be viewed as part of the monstrous plan of Satan to frustrate the salvation of the world. This was the posture of most theologians and church councils. Yet at the same time popular religion often treated the pagan deities quite differently, transferring the characteristics of the gods to the personalities of the saints. (39-40)
Since they couldn't eliminate other gods by denying their existence, Christian authorities instead labeled them either demons or, it seems, saints. Those whose myths could be refigured to include God and Christ were deemed acceptable, those who defied the kind of authoritarian strictures promoted by Christianity became its enemies.

What is perhaps most interesting is that we can clinically identify this move in historical circumstances (December 25th is the birthday of Mithras, for instance, and has nothing whatsoever to do with the birth of a nice Jewish boy in Bethlehem except for the fact that the Church needed a good day for its celebration), but that we as a society continue to cling to the religious elements that have so clearly been coopted as though they are empirical truth. Yet more evidence of our ability to believe in whatever we want despite the facts that contradict it waving small flags directly underneath our noses.

Human society is a fascinating melange of a variety of long- and short-term traditions that have given us enormous intellectual wealth, but that doesn't mean it's a good idea to wholesale believe in them simply because your mother told you to. Look first, people, then leap. Or, better yet, keep your fool feet planted firmly on the ground unless you've put on the safety harness first.