The Dilemma: You’re chatting with a cute girl at a party, and she calls herself a pantheist. You want to ask a good follow-up question, but your limited knowledge of Greek prefixes has gotten you all flustered.

People You Can Impress: Pagans, wiccans, Hindus, Buddhists—pretty much everyone except Christians, Jews, and Muslims

The Quick Trick: Poly means “many”; pan means “all.” So if you’re looking to worship a bunch of things, go with polytheism. If you want to worship everything, go with pantheism.

The Explanation:
Very simply, polytheism is the belief in multiple deities, and pantheism is the belief that God is everything and everything is God. While the polytheist may believe in Zeus and Hera, the pantheist probably believes in Zeus and Hera and every other deity as part of the primary force in all things.

But the simplicity of this difference masks a world of confusion. Take Hinduism, which is usually considered to be a polytheistic religion because it contains enough gods to pack the Rose Bowl. However, many Hindus are not polytheistic. They view all gods as manifestations or aspects of the one Supreme God, which is every bit as monotheistic as the Christian belief in the Trinity. However, some Hindus are pantheistic, believing that just as all the various gods are aspects of the one true God, so is everything else in creation. Wait. So who’s on fi rst? (Aside from Vishnu, Ganesha, Shiva, Brahma, and Lakshmi.)

In reality, the problem stems from a desire to boil down religious traditions into something simpler than they are. It’s true, for instance, that most Buddhists don’t believe in any gods, ergo no word with theist in it applies to them, but the Buddhist belief that everything in the cosmos has “universal Buddha nature” is sorta pantheistic. Accusations of pantheism are frequently leveled against mystical sects of monotheistic religions, like Kabbalah in Judaism, Sufi sm in Islam, and Gnosticism in Christianity.

All in all, you’re well advised never to label a people pantheistic or polytheistic unless they identify themselves as such. Although both words have clear meanings, the actual application of them exposes the diversity within all religious traditions.

Polyamory vs. Polygamy

Polyamory means that you’re part of a long-term sexual relationship that involves more than two people; polygamy means you’ve made it official with a wedding. (Or multiple weddings, actually.) Polyamory is legal in the United States, and, in fact, its proponents claim there are thousands of happily polyamorous Americans. Polygamy is illegal, although prosecutions are rare.

Polygamy itself comes in two poly-varieties: Polygyny means having more than one wife or female mate at a time and is also the shortest word in the English language containing three y’s. Polyandry means having more than one husband or male mate at a time.

Sure, but is there such a thing as panamory, for those of us who literally want to do it with everything? Not yet, but be patient. Polyamory didn’t become a popular word until 1990; panamory can’t be far behind.