Zonie63
Posts: 2826
Joined: 4/25/2011
From: The Old Pueblo
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quote:
ORIGINAL: HaremEmperor
I've done a lot of reading over the years and some of what I used to read was mythology. Lots of them have similar creation stories. Also, most (if not all) religions are extremely similar, even if they don't believe in the same god/gods. Most of what I know is Christianity. Look at its history. All Christianity was originally one religion, then there was a schism and it divided into multiple sects, and all of that happened in about 1500 years. So if that can happen in so little time, then what about the 5000+ years of humanity? Even in the Bible, God never says he is the only god, he says he is the most powerful and a very jealous god, but never that he's the ONLY one. It even mentions beings that are above angels and archangels, so those could EASILY be all the other gods/goddesses that people believe in. Just saying...
I think when we're talking about humanity, it may go far beyond 5000 years, perhaps 100,000 to 200,000 years (or even possibly more). In trying to consider how early humans must have related to their environment, to nature, to the world and universe which was around them, they wouldn't have immediately known what the sun or the moon were. They may not have assumed them to be "gods" at first, but they might have thought of them as living creatures - just like any of the animals they would have seen around them. Perhaps they might have thought the same about the sea, or a lightning storm, or the wind, or a volcano, or any other phenomenon of nature which we understand on a completely different level nowadays.
All they really would have known at that point is that it was something they couldn't control, something that was more powerful than they were - and they didn't know what it was or where it came from. Human imagination being what it is, is it possible that they may have ascribed a certain sentience and intelligence to the natural phenomena they observed around them? Is it also possible that, as human societies became more politically developed under more complex hierarchies, wouldn't that also be reflected in humans' perception of these same phenomena?
Just as humans eventually developed and understood political concepts related to having a "king" and "queen," the same idea could have been transposed to their imagined hierarchy of "gods" and "goddesses" which they perceive as governing and controlling the various forces of nature which they still didn't understand all that well. We had a god of the sea, a goddess of the moon, a god of the sun, and even a god of war and a goddess of love - along with a slew of other deities and bizarre creatures - titans, medusas, minotaurs, giant beanstalks, and so on.
Of course, it was usually a different set-up of "gods" and "goddesses" depending on which country you were in or which culture or area of the world you grew up in. There would usually be one "god" who would be more powerful than the rest and act as the "chief god," although the other gods and goddesses had free will and didn't always toe the line - which always made life for us mere mortals all the more interesting. Other cultures believed that there was only just a single "god" with a hierarchy of angels instead, and the angels were said to have no free will, except for Lucifer and his followers, as the story goes.
So, instead of having something analogous to a council of village elders or a town mayor with limited powers, the perception of "spiritual authority" then becomes that of an absolute, infallible dictator who controls everything. Humans had already invented the idea of "empire" and "dictatorship," so it would naturally follow that their perceptions of religious hierarchy would follow suit.
I don't know if any of it derives from any original "truth" that somebody figured out at some point. I don't think anyone is any different from anyone else in terms of wondering about the nature of our existence and the deeper questions of "what's it all about." I think it's all just an elaborate form of speculation, guessing, and filling in the blanks with our imaginations - things we hope to be true but aren't entirely sure of.
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RE: Goddess Spirituality/Feminine Divine - 
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