the origins of religion

a reply to: gosseyn

As far as I've been able to discern from my own research, aside from native spirituality, the religions of the world originated from a Golden Age in Ancient India, where the sacred science of Brahmavidya formed the very cornerstone of their civilization, as a first cause in everything, including the affairs of people.

The Jews were a wandering Aryan (meaning civilized) Caucasian tribe who'd settled in that region, who Plato and others involved in ancient historical study, referred to as the Calani, before moving to the area of Ur, where Abraham was born, who's very name may be a derivative of I-Brahmin and from which Jerusalem was then built as the centerpoint of a society in relationship with God.

Even Jesus' statement of "I and the father are one" seems to reflect the ancient Hindu idea of Atma and Brahma as two sides of the same coin where "Atma and Brahma are one".

So the world religions morphed out of an honest inquiry into the deep nature of Being, which gave rise to Taosim, Confucianism, Buddhism, and later Judaism, and Islam, but sprang from a deep meditation as to the underlying nature of reality and the role and place of the Human Being as a consciously aware observer in relation to the Godhead.

In ancient times, the religious pursuit was also a philosophical one in pursuit of Virtue as the good life lived well and in congruent alignment with the whole of it all, even unto the Godhead of which we're an intrinsic part, perhaps even made to be in relationship with as if standing right next to it once the wall of the ego-self was removed or rendered transparent. This viewpoint also appears to have informed Jesus in his understanding of the true nature of the human being in relation to God as the first cause (Father) and the all-in-all.

But yes, you would need to have harnessed agriculture in order for there to be time for such a practice to be pursued via meditation and yoga.

I don't have the time to do it, but there's a lot of evidence to support this hypothesis including a layering on of the Jewish mystical tree of life onto the chakra system as it was understood according to these ancient practitioners and sages.

In other words the world's religions did not come about merely as a personification of the forces of nature but via a deep inquiry into the very heart of reality wherein our fundamental relationship to the absolute, eternal Godhead, was understood, experientially, and where Virtue was the highest aim as the very basis of civilized life and the well being of society, at all levels.

It is therefore exceedingly ignorant and juvenile to presume that religion was invented by man as a control mechanism, even though it might have been later hijacked in that way and for that purpose.

Part of the problem arose with Aristotle, who sought to codify and categorize everything for the purpose of institutionalizing academia. That threw us out of paradise right there, by setting us apart from Virtue as the highest pursuit of life for man in relation to God and turning that pursuit into a dialectic or a debate about Virtue.

Newtonian materialism and the view of the universe as an impersonal machine with the human being set apart, then removed us once again form the center and the source of life, until that is the predominantly held view to this day.

As to some of the events of the Old Testament, it's hard to say if that was God, God, or agents, powers, principalities, ancient aliens etc. interfering in the course of civilization yet, paradoxically, doing God's work by creating a prophetic frame through which the Teacher appeared to perform a Great Work as a type of immovable cornerstone of reason and logic based upon the true wisdom of that originating Golden Age, a big part of which involved a repudiation of ancient Egyptian systems of organization that placed the Pharaoh at the apex of the pyramid, a place that man isn't really mean to assume, if everyone is to be in relationship with God, as the basis of human Virtue, humility, lovingkindness etc. Such top-down structures lead to oppression and corruption. The Bible can in many ways been seen as God's own fight against the domination system of the ages, even unto the present day.

In more "modern" times, aside form Jesus, I think that the struggle of King David best exemplifies the nature of the relationship, and the tension with a world gone mad. If you take the time to read the Psalms, you'll understand what I mean by that.

A very deep inquiry into the basis of the precepts of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount" also lays the foundation for the type of reason and logic involved whereby he certainly spent a great deal of time in deep thought and contemplation to come into this realization, and put it into words that people might understand.

Sadly, in many ways, "religion" in the modern sense of the word, has lost it's original context and frame of reference where there's a rational basis for faith, and the understanding that there are certain obligations that arise from the fact that we all share the same one ground of being and becoming, in God.

P.S. the meaning of the word "Religion" is - to rejoin.

a reply to: AnkhMorpork

Good story. Made-up, though.

Religion comes from the Latin word ligare, 'to bind'. A bit more than hust 'joining together'.

a reply to: cooperton

Relocating, capturing, and enslaving Elephants is not a relevant analogy for a father disciplining a son

Says who? Why not?

So you're implying that discipline serves no purpose for the child?

That is correct.

people have killed for what they thought was protecting the truth

Unfortunately for you, you shall not be martyed today. You'll have to get your faith-frottage another way.

a reply to: Astyanax

RE-ligion.

But taking what you've offered at face value, doesn't it all depend on what is bound, and what is loosed, and why?

a reply to: AnkhMorpork

What is bound is a mind to an ideology.

Nasty stuff, ideology.

originally posted by: cooperton
You sound like a child when he is upset that his daddy took away his toys for the sake of discipline.

My father disciplined me when I was a child.

But he didn't discipline me by beating me, killing me, or my family, or asking me to murder my brother, or commit genocide.

Discipline serves a purpose - you can either learn from it or ignore it. Ignoring it will cause you to stumble on the same issues in the future.

My father also didn't discipline me for eating meat on Fridays, or if I had fallen in love with a member of the same sex. He also didn't go round and kill the first born of every family that may have done wrong to him or myself.

He realised such ridiculous things were exactly that - ridiculous.

Your God, however, is a homophobic, self-admiring, bullying megalomaniac. You have nothing to stand on in your argument.

Feel free to live you life under a made up deity's tyrannical rule. It's not for me.

originally posted by: noonebutme

My father disciplined me when I was a child.

But he didn't discipline me by beating me, killing me, or my family, or asking me to murder my brother, or commit genocide.

So I assume he did things that did no long term harm to your being. He probably disciplined you by withholding material objects from you (which he gave you anyway), raising his voice, and other clever means to get the point across that he was trying to make. To the child, this may have seemed brutal, but the father knew in this scenario that the child's toys and temporary feelings were something that had to be compromised to teach the child a lesson.

So too with the heavenly Father - the flesh counts for nothing, it is the spirit that gives life. When the flesh/psyche is punished it is for the sake of the development of the soul. A child may not realize it as such, but a Good Father knows how to discipline His child and the child should trust such judgement.

Your God, however, is a homophobic, self-admiring, bullying megalomaniac.

You have it all wrong - Love God and Love other people are the two main commands. Have you ever read the words of Jesus or the most recent Covenant?

Feel free to live you life under a made up deity's tyrannical rule. It's not for me.

Again, if you knew what the Father knew you would realize His discipline and His commands are Just:

"My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you."

So many assumptions made in this thread.

Why would ancient man be afraid of the dark?? He was born in it and lived in it.

Why would an eclipse be an unexplained event?? Ever try growing a food surplus without knowing the cycle of the seasons?

By the time we were growing plants we would have seen no less than 20-28 million eclipses (no less than 4 per year)

Neolithic/agricultural age started around 10-15,000 years ago

Man appeared 5-7 million years ago

"Modern Man" supposedly appeared 200,000 years ago

Do you really think that you (a human) would just sit around for 190,000 years. If we "existed for 200,000", we were just walking around being confused by light and darkness sniffing trees and running from rhinos.

if you are religious Gen 4:22 "And Zillah, she also bare Tubalcain, an instructer of every artificer in brass and iron: and the sister of Tubalcain was Naamah"

Tubalcain was an instructor of every artificer in iron?? At the earliest we started using iron around 3000 BC Iron Age proper didn't start until 1200 BC when we figured out how to smelt it.

So what?? Well how can a guy who died before(maybe after) the great flood be a artificer of something that didn't appear before the Neolithic age(7-12,000 year lifespan) had ended??

I'll tell you how - we do not understand our origins or our religions origins. The history you believe has been tampered with.

But just because people use religion for evil does not make religion evil. Just like guns, fire, cooked meat and knives aren't evil, and depending on what kind of day you are having you might need any of them to pick you back up and get you moving again.

originally posted by: fatkid
So many assumptions made in this thread.

Why would ancient man be afraid of the dark?? He was born in it and lived in it.

Night time was cold, and dangerous because they didn't see the predators coming. Much harder to survive at night.

Do you really think that you (a human) would just sit around for 190,000 years. If we "existed for 200,000", we were just walking around being confused by light and darkness sniffing trees and running from rhinos.

Who said they sat around ? And today there are still very few hunter-gatherers, like the Jarawas for example. They are the living proof that it is possible to exist for so long without feeling the need to domesticate plants or animals. If you don't develop agriculture or livestock breeding, it's not necessarily because you're stupid, but it might be because you don't need it. There are different theories on how and why agriculture emerged..

a reply to: gosseyn


Yes it is darker at night, got it.

Nobody used the word stupid, and 400 people living on a semi-secluded island, (the same island had English speaking natives on it) are in no way a good base for the study of development for 7 billion humans.

That "hunter-gatherer" had a flash light, and I know it says "you guys went to a place that very few people have ever been" but in the same video there are litterally boat loads of people on vacation to go for tourism. They also talked about using money to buy cakes sugar and clothes.

And the government has laws in place to keep them in their current state of living, "to preserve them"

That isn't nearly the same as prehistoric man, it is just sensational video editing,

But let us suppose that people who were Stone Age from Africa did exist on an island chain off the coast of India, how did they get there??

By boat? Seems like they lost that technology they once had, which only helps my point.

Maybe they walked there and this was the greater land mass of Lemuria and the giant island was swept away during an ages old cataclysm, before the cataclysm they lived closer to the shoreline down the mountain range until they had to flee from rising rides.

What I really see are people being exploited by their own government in order to attract tourist.

But we will all believe what we want.