Take, say, the core of the established religions today: the Bible. It is basically polytheistic, with the warrior God demanding of his chosen people that they not worship the other Gods and destroy those who do -- in an extremely brutal way, in fact. It would be hard to find a more genocidal text in the literary canon, or a more violent and destructive character than the God who was to be worshipped. So that´s one definition. In the Prophets, one finds (sometimes) a different conception, much more humane. That´s why the Prophets (the "dissident intellectuals" of their day) were persecuted, imprisoned, driven into the desert, etc. -- other reasons included their geopolitical analysis, unwelcome to power. The intellectuals who were honored and privileged were those who centuries later were called "false prophets". (Noam Chomsky)