Thank you for the thoughtful article Dr...
One quibble though, in your assessment of Egyptian polytheism as divorced from matter, this is a common misunderstanding. The Egyptian gods were seen to be directly identified with the material world as Ra was seen to be the sun in actual fact (although there was more to him in the same way that there is more to my body). This idea was in fact criticized by the Neo-Platonic philosopher Salustius who stated that this view was foolish except if it was meant that the gods were the objects venerated by the Egyptians (idols but also astronomical objects and various natural forms) in the same way that a sun's ray was said to be a part of the sun. I should also point out that Cicero in his book "On the Nature of the Gods", States that there are many theories on the nature of the gods and that one of the most often repeated was that the gods were those things in nature deemed good as with the rain and Zeus and that the myths and beliefs around the gods are mere allegories, something partly mirrored in Salustius.
I mention this because while I understand that you wrote what you did for sake of brevity, the development of religion is really not as cut and dry as you state above. There are both animistic elements in Egyptian religion and monotheistic elements (Atum as ultimate creator). I mention this because there may be some real useful insights to be gleaned from this inquiry with regard to philosophy and a way to infuse soul and spirit back into matter by following the development of religious ideas back to their roots in the ancient past without reductionist simplification.
Best regards,
Rob
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