Architectural Designs

If humanity had chosen Atenism as its monotheism of choice, would our history be less conflict-strewn?

By the middle of the 18th dynasty of the New Kingdom, the Egyptian polytheistic priestly hierarchy had been a burden on society for 17 centuries, and controlled a third of the wealth of the nation. The revolutionary leader and Pharaoh Akhenaten, together with his queen Nefertiti, made a courageous and brave attempt to do away with this burden. They declared that only one god existed, the Aten or the disc of the Sun, and that the only way to worship the Aten was through them, thus disempowering the polytheistic priesthood. » Akhenaten – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akhenaten » Nefertiti – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nefertiti » Aten – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aten The positive benefits of the Atenism revolution in reducing religion to sun worshipping are reflected in the artistic and architectural artefacts of this great leap forward for humanity. For instance, in temple design, gone are the dark, enclosed holy-of-holies rooms accessible only to high priests, hidden away behind a succession of intimidating enclosing walls; temples to the Aten were open to the sun above, and open to all the citizens. In art, gone are the rigidly narrow priest-sanctioned depictions of flat gods and powerful people, to be replaced by a relaxed, flowing humanism depicting the everyday life of the royal family and their citizens. In his ‘Great Hymn to the Aten’, Akhenaten (meaning "living spirit of Aten") portrays the sun as the giver of all life, and places great emphasis on the diversity and holiness of all living things. » Atenism – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atenism » Great Temple of the Aten – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Temple_of_the_Aten » Atenist art – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amarna_art » Great Hymn to the Aten – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Hymn_to_the_Aten Unfortunately, Akhenaten's ideas were way ahead of his time, and the polytheistic priesthood's counter-revolution not only restored their power and privilege, but deleted what they called 'The Heretic' from history, making him the first known unperson. His son Prince Tutankhaten ("Living Image of Aten") became Pharaoh Tutankhamun ("Living Image of Amun"). Akhenaten's concept of humanistic monotheism was later bastardised by Moses in adapting the polytheistic Canaanite pantheon to a single God™, Yahweh, to serve his own narrow tribal ends. But if we imagine a speculative alternate history, in which... • the Egyptian people challenge and defeat the priesthood's counter-revolution • Atenism becomes humanity’s primary monotheistic religion (so no Judaism, Xtianity, or Islam) • where that which we worship can be seen every day by everybody (weather permitting) • Atenism becomes: — state religion of the Roman Empire — common religion of Russia, Europe, the Middle East, Northern Africa, and the Americas ...would the last 3,300 years have been more peaceful than they were in our actual reality?

Public Comments

1. Not by much, because wars are generally about economic and resource domination. Religion is just used as thing to rally around. If they did not have religion, then they would have found something else to define the conflict. @Lenny. "If they did not have religion" as a religious reason to fuss over....
2. No God is your Creator and there is NO life without Him. When you take away God evil runs rampant with no control.
3. No. With or without religion humans are reduced to savagery when resources are scarce.
4. 　You did start you query with "If", therein leaving option to allow other unperson to step in to play, humanity itself would not choose anything mentioned, ... 　But, If imagined as so the diverted path was played out, peace as entailed would only be within that environment or cultured habitat, all other life cultures would not follow suit, many humans on planet earth existed prior to Egyptian rule, And with 3000 years or so be more, their vision of peace would be corrupted by this version of peace, and two peaces, can only make a mis-rite, 　In probability, more so not, the chaotic fractal diversification of humans would still divvy upon industrialization and invention, first to find, first to conquer, even now for what is, will crash and reign havoc amongst the masses, and if humanity plays a part, it will see as a whole the wrongs of it all, ..
5. Funny that all of the answers so far misread the questions and assumed that you are asking about AtHeism (denial of God) while your question was about AteNism (particular religion attempted by one Pharaoh in Egypt, but failed). I doubt that it would make any difference.
6. Religion has very little to do with wars in reality. The primary goals of wars is, and always has been, money, resources, or power. This is the law of history and Human nature. There would be very little difference no matter what religion is dominant. It is likely that an Islam counterpart would've arisen somewhere and the exact same trend would have occurred in Europe. Religions cause about as much dispute as sports teams or politics. Unless the religion poses a direct threat, they do not motivate wars or conflict.