Frederic Lamond: the essence of monotheism

Is the following excerpt nonsense, or a flash of genius?

Until 3,000 years ago, all religions were pantheistic and polytheistic as Hinduism, Taoism and Shinto still are. They tolerated the religions of other tribes and cultures, recognising in their worship the same divine energies as their own, albeit with different names.
      Why then did patriarchal, monotheistic religions arise in the Middle East 3,000 years ago, and spread in their Christian forms throughout Europe and then on to the European colonised overseas territories during the last 1,500 years? Why did these monotheistic religions fight so fiercely to eradicate nature worship in the lands they controlled? Why did Christianity promote a dualistic antagonism between the spirit and the flesh, with only the former conceived as being in the "image of God"?
      . . . . the answer came to me in a sudden flash of insight. The evolution of the universe and especially of life on earth has been the product of a dialectical antagonism between two forces of nature:
      One is the highly conservative power of love, which seeks to maintain all living species and ecological equilibria just as they are at any given point in time, and is embedded in the genetically inherited instincts of all living species, including humanity. This power is generally represented by one or more goddesses and fertility gods in those religions that anthropomorphise cosmic and earthly energies.
      The other, a force of destructive creation, which seeks forever to upset existing equilibria in order to create new and more highly evolved forms and species. In a universe in which the total amount of energy is constant and can neither be added to nor reduced—although it can be converted to matter and back again—neither God nor man can create anything without destroying something else. This is the power the Jews call Jehovah, the Christians—God the father, Muslims—Allah and Hindus—Shiva.
      Power is neither evil nor undesirable. If only the force of love existed, the universe would never have moved from its original state of undifferentiated nothingness. But if only the force of destructive creation existed, the whole universe would be like the Sun: an endless series of thermonuclear explosions creating new elements, but which last only a few microseconds before dissolving again in the fiery furnace.
      We owe the process of evolution on earth—in which continents, mountains, plants and animals have appeared and live actively long enough to experience their own life, but which can also slowly evolve in succeeding generations—to the ongoing delicate balance between these two antagonistic cosmic forces.

Lamond thus agrees with Simone Weil and other Marcionites that the God of the Old Testament is, contrary to orthodox Christian opinion, not the God of love at all; but Lamond differs radically from the modern Marcionites in that, having recognized God's terrifying character, he does not reject Him as the figment of a primitive religious imagination. To Lamond, such a God seems necessary to the existence of the universe as we know it. At this point Lamond's position is reminiscent of that of the "social Darwinists". He seems to be indicating a way by which apparently absolutely irreconcilable views of the nature of the cosmos might be brought into some kind of agreement.

Lamond's "flash of insight" came shortly after his initiation into the Wiccan religion in 1957 (a few years after witchcraft was legalized in Britain). I obtained the excerpt via the Nepalese blog Elahar.

". . . . Thus says the Lord of hosts, 'I will punish what Amalek did to Israel in opposing them on the way, when they came up out of Egypt. Now go and smite Amalek and utterly destroy all that they have; do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.'"
      . . . . But Saul and the people spared [King] Agag, and the best of the sheep and of the oxen and of the fatlings, and the lambs, and all that was good, and would not utterly destroy them . . . .
      The word of the Lord came to Samuel: "I repent that I have made Saul king; for he has turned back from following me, and has not performed my commandments." (I Samuel 15.)