Sam,
I tend to view religions as cultural touchstones, so it is not so much what they profess, but how that node in the larger network interacts with that larger reality.
So as those touchstones, religions are like the grain of sand around which society forms the pearl of its culture. Each stage and generation polishing the previous layers and adding more.
I go into a lot of this in the essay I referenced, but to give some bullet points;
I didn't say monotheism doesn't try to treat its ideals as absolute, probably more the Catholic version than the Jewish, but that is a category error.
You might say ideals are the points of light between the absolute and the infinite.
The pantheistic concept of gods was actually more logical. In that they represented the various such conceptual ideals, metaphors, paradigms, etc that formed the foundations of the evolution of human cognition. Gods of war, love, tribes, youth, wine, joy, death, etc. Democracy and republicanism originated in pantheistic cultures. These various ideas and ideals interacting. Ancient Israel was a monarchy. The Big Guy Rules. Like the religion.
To this ancient state of conceptual evolution, monotheism basically equated with monoculture. One people, one rule, one god. The Torah would seem to be a paean to the trials and tribulations of that original Bronze Age tribe, that essentially formed around that original code of conduct, the Ten Commandments, that through the intermediation of Christianity, became the core of Western civilization. Whatever the events of its origin, it is a basic set of rules, a constitution. As such, a touchstone for society.
The origins of the Christian Trinity go to ancient fertility rites. The young god born in the spring to the old sky god and earth mother. Though by the age of the Olympians, Zeus didn't give way to Dionysus. Tradition prevailed over renewal. Age didn't give way to youth.
Which was why the story of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus had such resonance across the Greek based world.
Though by the time Constantine adopted it as the state religion of Rome, it too had started to calcify, so the monotheism was emphasized to validate the Empire and finish burying any remaining hope for the Republic. While the origins of the Trinity were shrouded by the Holy Ghost, given that renewal business, or women, were frowned on.
The Catholic Church served as the eschatological basis for European monarchy. Divine right of kings, rather than consent of the governed.
When the West went back to democracy and republicanism, it required separation of church and set, culture and civics. Which is somewhat schizophrenic.
So here we are today.
That essay might fill in some other points.
Here is a good book on the evolution of Western Civilization;
