Polytheism vs Monotheism

After reading this great Guardian article by Suzanne Moore about trust it occurred to me how the virtues of trust and loyalty are compromised in multi-cultural societies.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jan/14/charlie-hebdo-add-faithophobia-to-my-crimes

In terms of loyalty one should remember that all religions in their development had to be disloyal to the one they believed in previously. So the virtue of loyalty has been sacrificed.

Living in a multi-cultural society with differing monotheistic faiths must certainly puts the virtue of trust in harm's way as well.

Believing in something without evidence is problematic but to be pragmatic about it it would seem that to believe in many Gods like the Romans and Greeks did would be preferable for a society that claims to believe in just one God and tolerates the rest.

Consider for example whether polytheism or monotheism is better. Doing so it reminds me just how silly all religions really are but it makes for a good thought experiment. Believing in many Gods is as useless as believing in only one God. That's given. However, believing in one God in today's multi-cultural society is probably much worst than believing in many Gods. This is because of what cognitive dissonance brings to the equation.

When we think that faith is a virtue and believe in one God it creates a situation where one may tolerate another's religious faith but one won't trust that believer. There is a cognitive dissonance created where trust in the other person is lacking because the other person doesn't have the same faith as you do, as much as one might claim there is trust. People confuse tolerance for trust. In a diverse society with multi-monotheist faiths trust must be at a deficit. Consider Islamic adherence in Europe and North America. They're in a minority in a society that claims they tolerate them.  Indeed they may tolerate them but they won't trust them. They must constantly feel threatened.

 Faith is not a virtue but that's not obvious to most. Believing in nonsense must sacrifice the virtues of trust and loyalty. No wonder our society today is under threat.  If we must have religion bring back polytheism.