Is there a good book on the origins/evolution of religions?
I saw a good movie called "The God that Never was" which detailed how Christian mythology borrowed heavily from previous legends. Similiarly, the DaVinci Code (yes, yes, I know a lot of it is total fiction) did point out how a lot of pagan beliefs were adopted/changed by the church.
So I'm wondering if there is a good comprehensive resource that goes way back and attempts to track the evolution of the major extant and extinct religions?
So I'm wondering if there is a good comprehensive resource that goes way back and attempts to track the evolution of the major extant and extinct religions?
Comments
There's a book called "History of God" by Karen Armstrong that traces Judaism, Christianity, and Islam and their views of God. You also might want to see if you can take a comparative religion class if you have a good local college.
But Nordstrodamus, I've seen that movie too, and unfortunately most of it is crap. You're just not going to find good books with the same themes because so much of that movie is simply not accepted by scholars in this field.
You could do a search on MarcUK here and find some similar stuff though.
Originally posted by BRussell
[B]But Nordstrodamus, I've seen that movie too, and unfortunately most of it is crap. You're just not going to find good books with the same themes because so much of that movie is simply not accepted by scholars in this field.
I know the movie was making some emotional arguments from time to time and I thought the blood ritual connection to the Passion was a bit of a stretch, but where are they playing loose with the facts? I know your not a fundie, so I'm sure you don't mean that the conclusions simply contradict those championed by the pious scholars. The most compelling part was when they detailed all the pre-existing myths that had parallels to the Christian mythology.
His four-volume work The Masks of God covers mythology around the world from ancient to modern. Where The Hero with a Thousand Faces focused on the commonality of mythology (the ?elementary ideas?), the Masks of God books focus upon historical and cultural variations the monomyth takes (the ?folk ideas?). In other words, where The Hero with a Thousand Faces draws more from psychology, the Masks of God books draw more from anthropology and history. The four volumes of Masks of God are: Primitive Mythology, Oriental Mythology, Occidental Mythology, and Creative Mythology.
Of particular interest to me were the descriptions of rituals amongst primitive societies and the gradual evolution of religion along with the gradual evolution of society from hunter-gatherers, agricultural, to "creative." The one thing I'd like to verify are his sources, but that's exceedingly difficult with everything out of print and rare.
Originally posted by BRussell
You could do a search on MarcUK here and find some similar stuff though.
Is that a fact joker boy?
As for Da Vinci, I havn't seen the film, but have recently read the book.
Unfortunately there are 2 things wrong with Dan. Unfortunately for you, there are only 2. I cant comment on all his claims, just the stuff I know about, which as you are aware is the parallel between Pagan astrotheology and Christianity. Or to annoy Frank, Jesus and the Sun.
1) He didn't properly explain what he claims by Jesus' marriage or the bloodline, or maybe he doesn't really know.
2) Either in his ignorance or by pay-off he has potentially caused alot of problems to people doing real research, because no doubt as soon as someone like me starts to talk about stuff, people like you can go "Na Na Na, you just read Brown and are dumb enough to believe in a work of fiction".
I'd bet solely because alot of evidence is/has recently coming to light that the entire historical aspect of Jesus is an utter sham, that he has been paid off to collate this evidence into a work of fiction precisely so that the truth and its messengers are able to be ridiculed as a work of fiction and cranks, so that the ignorami get another few years of control before their house comes crashing down.
You'd think that in a world where every major conflict is the sole result of someone being lied to and deceived about the nature of God, Jesus, religion and spirituality, that you'd all be dying to hear the truth to put an end to this madness and destruction, but you'll all just keep on lapping it up, purely because it's just what you would like to be true.
So Jesus did get married AND there were children AND there is a bloodline. But dont be stupid enough to think that any one of those things are physical or historical entities. They are symbols, motifs and states of mind. Its a shame that people who rag on so much about souls are utterly devoid of one.
Originally posted by Nordstrodamus
I know the movie was making some emotional arguments from time to time and I thought the blood ritual connection to the Passion was a bit of a stretch, but where are they playing loose with the facts? I know your not a fundie, so I'm sure you don't mean that the conclusions simply contradict those championed by the pious scholars. The most compelling part was when they detailed all the pre-existing myths that had parallels to the Christian mythology.
The thesis of the film, as I recall, was that Jesus did not exist, and that parallels between the life of Jesus and others (e.g., Mithras) are a large part of the proof. But many of those parallels are acknowledged attempts to make the transition from Roman paganism to Christianity easier (e.g., changing the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday, celebrating Christmas on Dec. 25) and have no deeper significance. Other parallels are either coincidence or just archetypal "hero" traits that were probably assigned to Jesus by authors trying to buff up Jesus' credentials (e.g., the virgin birth).
More generally, just as a non-scholar who has been interested and read a lot of those types of books, I just don't see many focusing on the kinds of claims made in that movie, whereas the more sensationalist sources that claim "Christianity is a big deception!" do focus on those things. I'm not saying it's not interesting, I'm just saying that if you go from that movie - or the DaVinci Code for that matter - to more serious scholarship, you'll find a big difference. I say that only as a warning because I've been there.
Originally posted by MarcUK
Is that a fact joker boy?
Haha, I wondered if I could draw you out of hiding.
You'd be the best one to give Nord some good book advice - wasn't there one you mentioned here that you had read about these same parallels that Nord is talking about?
Originally posted by segovius
They were Zoroastrians. That is a well known fact.
Hmm? It's a fact that three Zoroastrians came to visit Jesus when he was born? How did they know he was going to be the founder of a religion? I think anything written about Jesus that refers to events before he was about 30 were just made up by the authors.
It traces the emergence, in early Christianity, of the idea of "Satan" as a powerful entity in its own right, a kind of "equal and opposite" to God.
That was quite a different matter than previous notions of a "satan" as something like "an obstacle", more of a quality of opposition than a supreme lord of evil, and certainly in stark contrast to earlier traditions which offered up a pantheon of variously attributed gods and demi-gods, most of which exhibited qualities of both "good" and "evil", or simply unfathomable weirdness.
Of course, this notion of a starkly bifurcated world comprised of the "armies of light" and "the armies of darkness" had enormous repercussions on the subsequent history of the west, since the idea that a rival peoples might be "doing the work of Satan" created an unprecedented opportunity for literally demonizing "the enemy".
Cleansing the earth of Satan's minions is a different matter from beating up on the barbarians or overwhelming the outlanders.
Originally posted by BRussell
Hmm? It's a fact that three Zoroastrians came to visit Jesus when he was born? How did they know he was going to be the founder of a religion? I think anything written about Jesus that refers to events before he was about 30 were just made up by the authors.
It's rather odd that God made a sign that only the 'evil disciples of Satan' - those Sun-Worshipping Astrologers, of the day could follow to find his son, who apparently stands completely against everything they stand for, yet they failed to turn him over to someone, who equally would not want the boy Krishna upsetting the status quo.
Yet against the impossible scenario requiring infinite miracles - given the easy one, in which that Herod is a personification of 'Night time', the 3 wise men are 'astronomical' bodies, and that Jesus is the Sun, who cannot be turned over because the Sun always rises, that the virgin Mary is the new moon, that there are 12 disciples who equate to the 12 signs of the zodiac, that Jesus' ministry follows the same pattern of events as played out as the sun travells round the zodiac, that there are 4 gospels that equate to the four signs that themselves are the basis of the cross symbology, that even the word 'Holy' is derived from the word that means 'sun rays', that the extremely obvious book of revelations that has all the wingers in a state of morbid expectation of doom, being entirely a work of astrology - given all that, and a hundred other happy coincidences you pretend to tell me that there are virtually no scholars who know this, and those that do are a joke...You're more hilarius than Grabowski squared SDW.
Considering when the story was written, some 2000 years ago, knowing that at that time everyone was worshipping some aspect of the Solar divinity in which the whole plot was played out in the sky, and characters were assigned to various stars, planets and the sun/moon, and considering the Jesus story parallels and pillaged all the other sun-worshipping religions, and considering you need nothing more to explain the entirety of the Gospels except an understanding of 2000 year old astrology, religion, symbolism and philosophy, I might wonder how strong the crack is that modern Krishnians are smoking in order for them not to recognise the foundations of their whole reason for being.
Infact, given how easy and obvious it is to find out, I suggest the best book you can read on the subject is Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.
*Shrugs*
Originally posted by THT
I'd recommend Joseph Campbell's seminal work, The Masks of God. From Wiki:
snippity
ere the descriptions of rituals amongst primitive societies and the gradual evolution of religion along with the gradual evolution of society from hunter-gatherers, agricultural, to "creative." The one thing I'd like to verify are his sources, but that's exceedingly difficult with everything out of print and rare.
Campbell's great but a teensy bit old-fashioned when it comes to anthropology. Any 'proper' study of the history of religion has to have a lot of neurophysiology and hunter-gatherer art and ritual in it, I think.
David Lewis-Williams 'The Mind in the Cave' is good. Neil Bennun's 'The Broken String' is very interesting. I don't know if there is the exact book you're looking for... I'll consort with clever people who know more than me...
Originally posted by segovius
Sometimes, listening to all this 'astro-insanity' can give one a very useful insight into history.
I often get a glimpse of the mindset where one could feel the urge to go on the rampage burning such heretics at the stake for example.
Too right!
Astro-insanity? seems to be a real problem these days. So many people are radicalized on this Astro-insanity? from birth, and grow up thinking its serious enough to justify killing people or perverting Science to give glory to the movement of the Sun and planets.
Every time a bomb goes off for God, every time a wanker of a president goes on TV asking for God to bless the nation who are actively killing thousands of civilians, every time a Cretinist goes on an evangelizing crusade against evolution, is because some gullible person has been lied to about the real nature of God. God==Astrology, and for the sake of mankind, anyone who takes it seriously practically deserves to be burned.
So Sego, who shall we start with?
Originally posted by MarcUK
Too right!
Astro-insanity? seems to be a real problem these days. So many people are radicalized on this Astro-insanity? from birth, and grow up thinking its serious enough to justify killing people or perverting Science to give glory to the movement of the Sun and planets.
Every time a bomb goes off for God, every time a wanker of a president goes on TV asking for God to bless the nation who are actively killing thousands of civilians, every time a Cretinist goes on an evangelizing crusade against evolution, is because some gullible person has been lied to about the real nature of God. God==Astrology, and for the sake of mankind, anyone who takes it seriously practically deserves to be burned.
So Sego, who shall we start with?
haha
It was humor I hope
Fellows
Originally posted by Fellowship
haha
It was humor I hope
Ditto.
Originally posted by Outsider
Religions don't 'evolve'. They get Intelligently Designed.
Ha!
Originally posted by Fellowship
haha
It was humor I hope
Fellows
well of course its humour
No need to argue with Sego, because he's one of the bloodline of the children of Jesus.
Its a shame we have differences with our ideas, because once you accept many things, like the astrology and suchlike behind the basis of religion, there is still a message and philosophy that (and I say this a bit reservedly) regardless of how it originated is still very much valid and worthwhile.
I guess the nature of human conscience or soul is one of the very few things that hasn't changed much over the last few thousand years, and the pathways to 'good' souls was pretty much worked out by the pagan philosophers of antiquity, the collections of which were collated into the story of Jesus, where the foundational stories were created by contemplating astro-events.
Actually I think its a shame, that Christianity doesn't recognise its roots in Astrology. We have in Astrology a universal truth that unites every religion and every spiritual person on earth, and recognition of this might go a long way to reconciling the antagonism in the world by being fearful and suspicious of people with different worldviews.
Much as the Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Persians, Babylonians all worshipped Gods of different 'Names', the underlying truth is that all these Gods had their parallels in their respective cultures, originating from a common source, namely the astrology or astronomy and they all mostly recognised this, and religious tolerance was to a level you won't find in even some of the most liberal countries today.
As it is, Christianity is little different in the sense that these Gods live on today, the mind-fuck that followed Christianity's conception and subsequent perversion into a system of repression and control, is the intentional forgetting of these universal parallels, into a system of thought that only causes much suffering and anguish, by proclaiming all other systems, evil and worthless.
Virtually all forms of Christianity and monotheism in particular are in unison with the teaching that 'Satan' will deviously try to create a wedge between people so that they cause destruction to themselves, Yet it is this stubborn refusal to accept that underlying common truth in Astrology that is a major wedge between people of differing religious bents. And every single one of these groups rely's on the superiority complex to keep its converts, and denigrate the opposition. Why have suspicion and contempt for people, because they might call Jesus, by a different label? Apollo, Dionysus, Osiris, Mithra, Krishna - all these labels mean, and are Jesus, so why the problem and the divisive wedge between cultures, because they have a different label for the same idea?
Is it really clever to have distrust and contempt for people because you are too ignorant and arrogant to learn that what person X has labelled one idea, has a different label from what person Y has labelled the SAME idea?