
Originally Posted by
valhalla
Actually Christians DO believe in magical pagan practises but they try to condemn them harshly. For them magical seemingly phenomena, telepathy, telekinesis, and divination are seen as problematic and terrorizing types of issues and preach avoidance of these things. Further, the concepts of Sin are derived from earlier concepts from Eqyptian religions and usually are discussed in terms of personal morality. Magic for them is one one side of the spectrum to be ignored as wishful thinking, like Harry Potter type stuff, harmless and amusing, all the way up to ligit worship of demonic forces.
Lots of beliefs, ritual, and practises in monotheism is derivative of mystery cults starting in Mesopotamia, Eqypt, India, Greece and progressing well into the middle ages.
Some religions such as Gnosticism condemn Monotheistic Abrahamic religions as worshiping a kind of demonic force called Yahweh whose true nature is called the demiurge, a force of within nature that is not the true God. For them the truth can be know in revelatory flashes of insight available to each and every person.
Christianity, Judaism and Islam have all both progressed Civilization at times and also held it back at times and both of these at the same time at times.
The scientific materialists are themselves derived from 13th Century spiritual alchemists. Although Science really has solved many once thought of supernatural problems. It has reached several puzzling frontiers in science that can no longer use reductionist thinking to solve.
So its all a complex mishmash really. Ever evolving.