Polytheistic means multiple Gods. These Gods are to be complete individuals, like us.
What makes you think that they aren't "complete" like us? Surely not that one little quote from Krishna? That could be interpreted in many different ways.
As many believe the Devas are basically the arms and legs of the Supreme God, you can't say that Hinduism is exclusively polytheistic, which your words are implying.
So what? The lesser gods in other polytheistic religions could just as well be considered the "arms and legs" of the supreme deity. Every pantheon has a supreme deity, just like every human society has a leader at the top of the dominance hierarchy.
The Devas aren't individuals like us. They, according to the Scriptures, recognize that they are but parts of the Supreme, not individuals.
Oh, nonsense. Even humans have characterized themselves as "arms", "legs", and "eyes" of a ruling potentate. That is an old metaphor, and you are reading way too much into it. The Sanskrit word "deva" correctly translates into its cognate forms in other Indo-European languages--"deus" in Latin and "theos" in Greek.
I'm aware of that. I'm also aware that Zeus is sometimes referred to as the King of the World, not just of the Gods.
Right. The so-called "pagan" religions were quite varied and quite polytheistic. Hinduism derived from the same polytheistic origin. It did not go through a henotheistic stage, as did the Abrahamic tribal religion. It has not strayed so far from its roots that one can really call it a monotheistic tradition.
In fact, angels DO have control over certain aspects of reality, as per the modern thinking of them. Different Saints are also patrons of different places and ideas, from my understanding, which also fits the definition.
I think that you are really splitting hairs to try to defend a point that is ultimately way too fine a point. Angels and saints existed because monotheism evolved out of polytheistic traditions that needed to provide some continuity for converts. Romans had lesser gods where Christians had patron saints. Not really a huge distinction, except that Christians were laboring under the requirement to have only one god, following the Jewish (and Greek/Achaemenid) trend. Hence, lesser gods got replaced by "messenger" angels and saints. The Trinity was not a new idea, having come into being in roughly the 3rd century, long after the Hindu concept of "trimurti" had been introduced in the Greek and Roman empires.
Yet, despite this, we do not call them "gods".
"deva" = "god". You don't acknowledge that translation, but all Sanskrit dictionaries do.
And Hinduism faced this same evolution.
Not quite the same, but no one can deny that the predominate theistic tradition in the world today favors monotheism.
...and therefore, it's accurate to say that many Hindus are polytheistic, while not defining Hinduism as polytheistic.
You can certainly define certain schools of Hinduism as polytheistic. But you can't define the whole solely based on a certain amount of parts.
I am not "defining" Hinduism. I am describing it as it is--a tradition that promulgates belief in the existence of many gods. All you are saying is that all those different gods spring from a single source, which does not contradict the fact that there are still many gods.
I've never seen that. From what I've seen, there's harmony between the various sects. Maybe not among the people, but only a few Sages that I'm aware of have actively criticized other viewpoints.
"Maybe not among the people..." Well, those are the people who really keep the religion going, not a bunch of isolated "sages", most of whom spend their time trying to convince the masses to follow their own prescriptions.
So, basically, we completely ignore the educated point of view, and only define a religion or collection of religions based on the uneducated masses?
Nonsense. There are plenty of educated conservative Hindus, just as there are many educated conservative Christian theologians. You exaggerate the harmony. Like any vibrant religion, Hinduism is full of competing ideas about the direction the religion should take. Monotheism has had a strong influence on Hinduism, especially as the religion came through a rather long period of influence from dominant Muslim and Christian invaders.
No, argumentum ad numerum is the fallacy that a proposition is true because many people believe it is true. That is different from the claim that the heart of a religious or political movement is determined by numbers of adherents. I am not claiming that polytheists or monotheists are right, only that it seems ridiculous to claim that a religion with the huge number of gods found in the Hindu tradition is NOT polytheistic. That strikes me as absurd. It requires something more than a mere bald faced claim, and I'm glad that you have risen to the challenge of trying to defend the idea. I am quite happy to debate the issue.
Of course the educated Hindus don't represent the only point of view. I'm not claiming that. I'm saying that neither do the uneducated masses.
We are in violent agreement on this, but I do not believe that all educated Hindus would claim that their religion is monotheistic. Monotheism is the belief that there is one and only one god. Hindus believe that there are many.
...what does that have to do with anything?
The Buddhist tradition, which arose in reaction to the vedic tradition, is also essentially polytheistic today because the majority of adherents believe in the existence of gods, even if they take a different attitude about how people should behave towards those gods.
They are all One God, masquerading as different gods. This is what many of the Sages have taught.
"Many" sages? What does that mean? The vast majority? How would you know this? Have you done a survey of sages? I have no trouble with the idea that all gods are fundamentally different aspects of the same overarching "God". That is quite different from monotheism, which is the doctrine that there aren't any lesser gods acting in place of the Big One.
