Definition
Polytheism is the worship of many gods, usually each with a specialised domain — war, harvest, healing, fertility, the sea — and limited reach. The Sumerian, Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Norse, Aztec, Hindu, Yoruba, and Shinto pantheons are all variants of the same broad form. No single deity is taken to be omnipotent or omniscient; each operates inside a divine division of labour.
Harari points out that polytheism is more tolerant than its monotheistic rivals tend to be. If many gods exist, one more is plausible; another people's deities can be quietly absorbed, identified with the home pantheon, or simply left alone.
Why it matters
How it works
A polytheistic religion assigns each major domain of human concern to one or more gods, and devotion is correspondingly modular. A sailor prays to the sea god, a farmer to the harvest god, a soldier to the war god — and the same person, in different moods, prays to all three. Each cult has its own temple, calendar, priesthood, and offerings; the system as a whole is loose, layered, and accommodating.
Harari treats this looseness as a strength. A polytheistic society can grow, absorb, and recombine without the doctrinal crises that monotheism faces. Its weakness, in his telling, is the absence of a universalist mission strong enough to organise civilisations at imperial scale — a role that monotheism, money, and empire stepped in to play.