"Monotheism and Its Discontents" (1992) Summary and Analysis

Monotheism, or worship of what Vidal calls "the sky-gods," is at the corrosive heart of many of our world's evils. Worship of the sky-gods has produced endless wars, discrimination against blacks and women, despoilation of the environment, and totalitarianism. Vidal's judgment: "The great unmentionable evil at the center of our culture is monotheism. From a barbaric Bronze Age text known as the Old Testament, three antihuman religions have evolved—Judaism, Christianity and Islam. These are sky-god religions. They are, literally, patriarchal—God is the omnipotent father—hence the loathing of women for 2,000 years in those countries afflicted by the sky-god and his earthly male delegates."

Vidal notes that African slaves brought to the United States were allowed to organize "heavenly sky-god churches" as a surrogate for earthly freedom, while the...