Yet monotheism remains the default cultural assumption.

Logically a spiritual absolute would be the essence of sentience from which we rise, not an ideal of wisdom and judgement from which we fell.

The Ancients were not ignorant of monotheism, but that was how they understand monoculture. One people, one ruler, one god.

Democracy and Republicanism originated in pantheistic cultures, as that was how they defined the multitudes of factors and factions in society. The Romans adopted Christianity as the Empire solidified and any remnants of the Republic were shed. When the West went back to more populist forms of government, it required the separation of church and state, culture and civics.

Yet the long shadow of monotheism dominates as we have come to believe ideals should be universal, rather than unique, leading to quite a few absolutist ideologies, built on simplistic and limited priorities.

Given nature is cycles of expansion and consolidation, as with the social expansion of liberalism and the civil and cultural consolidation of conservatism, when both sides of the cycle see themselves on the road to nirvana and the other side as misbegotten fools, the larger problems are ignored.

Which is to say the cobwebs in the cultural attic are profuse.