The story told by the ancients about gods is the same all over the world.
Scholars who have studied mythology, anthropology and psychology acknowledge this fact and regard it as a problem that has to be solved. Joseph Campbell wrote:
And though many who bow with closed eyes in the sanctuaries of their own tradition rationally scrutinize and disqualify the sacraments of others, an honest comparison immediately reveals that all have been built from one fund of mythological motifs, variously selected, organized, interpreted, and ritualized, according to local need, but revered by every people on earth.
A fascinating psychological, as well as historical, problem is thus presented.
Campbell “solves" the problem by inventing an immemorial imagination.
And why should it be that whenever men looked for something solid on which to found their lives, they have chosen not the facts in which the world abounds, but the myths of an immemorial imagination? (Primitive Mythology, Prologue, Page 4)
Compared to the solution offered by psychologists, Campbell’s immemorial imagination is acceptable: an imaginative story was told 40k years ago when the ancestors of modern Eurasians were still in the Near East area, before dispersing towards the West and the East. On leaving the Near East so did the story which had consequently been transmitted from generation to generation, thus surviving until modern times. The story comes in various copies but the copies retain the unmistakable signs of their common origin.
Psychologists, as one might have expected, strive to offer a solution to the problem based on psychological factors. They would very much like to announce that the urge to produce stories about gods is an instinct of humans, a mental imprint, but since the subconscious is involved, which is fed by experience, they invented the archetypes.
According to Carl Jung the archetype and the instinct are polar positives but… one and the same thing! He wrote:
Archetype and instinct are the most polar opposites imaginable, as can easily be seen when one compares a man who is ruled by his instinctual drives with a man who is seized by the spirit. But, just as between all opposites there obtains so close a bond that no position can be established or even thought of without its corresponding negation, so in this case also “les extremes se touchent"
The usual philosophical meaningless verbosity. But, what is really the issue here?
The natives of the American continent, who had no contact with the rest of the humanity for 15,000 years, said that the humans were feeding the heavenly beings, that the heavenly beings were marrying Indian girls and they also mentioned the messengers of the gods (persons who were going to where the “gods" were to inform them of the affairs of the “humans").
The American Indians reached the American continent from places where people were telling the same things about their gods. So, the question is: Were the American Indians unaware of the legends of the other peoples and they independently imagined an identical story, or were they just repeating a story they already knew of?
Campbell was right, of course, because undoubtedly they were relating the story of the … immemorial imagination.
Agnostic scholars, namely Thomson and Dawkins, preach that humanity is “psychologically primed for religion", which means that they insist in supporting Jung’s idea about humans with mental imprints who, independently, produce the same stories about gods… but they do not do the same about mermaids, elves, fairies, vampires, wolfmen, the Bigfoot, the Unicorn etc., etc.
Conclusion!
If it were natural for humans to produce ideas about gods, they would have done so in a primitive way originally with the ideas improving in parallel with the evolvement of their brains. In such a case religion should be considered a serious matter not to be taken lightly and, furthermore, religion could never fade out and be extinguished as it would have been part of human nature.
If, on the other hand, Campbell is right and humans are just repeating an imaginative story produced tens of thousands of years ago, religion is based on a fairy tale and it would die sooner or later, no matter how hard theologians try to keep it alive.
It now becomes obvious the reason obliging religious scholars (and dishonest or idiotic agnostic scholars) to support the archetypes’ theory or humans’ psychological priming for religion; they strive to protect religion!
But there is more to it.
If the story that Campbell detected is not an imaginative one but the report of actual events, then the criminal rapist gods that the ancients were talking about were real people and we are dealing not with the idea of God but with a monumental hoax.
By means of archaeological and scriptural evidence the history of religion can be reconstructed and the God idea be shown for what it is: a monumental hoax based on an archaic joke!
If it were natural for humans to produce ideas about gods, they would have done so in a primitive way originally with the ideas improving in parallel with the evolvement of their brains. In such a case religion should be considered a serious matter not to be taken lightly and, furthermore, religion could never fade out and be extinguished as it would have been part of human nature.Good Topics Dimitrios... Well it is natural for humans to produce ideas about gods. This is a fact. In fact the rest of this paragraph rings out generally true. You agree? The part about being human nature though coincides with the next paragraph here below.
If, on the other hand, Campbell is right and humans are just repeating an imaginative story produced tens of thousands of years ago, religion is based on a fairy tale and it would die sooner or later, no matter how hard theologians try to keep it alive.It seems to me that the concept of religion is a combination of both of these things. The only thing is the two paragraphs both have predictions about religion's longevity. Which I don't think can be answered by either of those extrapolations completely. Humans are obviously doing more than just repeating a story heard 10,000's of years ago. The story evolves.
If it were natural for humans to produce ideas about gods, they would have done so in a primitive way originally with the ideas improving in parallel with the evolvement of their brains. In such a case religion should be considered a serious matter not to be taken lightly and, furthermore, religion could never fade out and be extinguished as it would have been part of human nature.We have to re-examine something here. The term "human nature". That term can generally be applied to the act of sneezing, the presence of theater in society, or domestic violence.(I know other animals sneeze too-but you get the point I hope.) The human brain is evolving. But how slowly? Or how fast? Do we include in the "history" of our brain's evolution all the stuff we have learned over the millenia? No of course not. We include in the history of our brain's evolution the best science can answer in the development of the machine itself as a processing organ. A computer so to speak. An evolution from a more "animal" brain to the brain we all know and love today. So what do we know about the timeline of the origins of the concept of religion as it is overlayed on the timeline of the human brain's mechanical evolution? In other words, we're protohumans already beginning to form kernels of the god concept? I don't think we know this. Anyways, what is human nature? Certainly it is behavioral things that are hardwired into our brains. Pair bonding, grooming, social networking etc.. Is it more? Yeah I think so. Humans don't like to be wet and cold. That's human nature. How about this one...? Humans can conceptualize their own mortality and also fear it? Is that human nature? Yes it obviously is.
It seems to me that the concept of religion is a combination of both of these things. The only thing is the two paragraphs both have predictions about religion's longevity.Correct! Religion however is the product of chance. In your comment you stopped short of the two last paragraphs: If the story that Campbell detected is not an imaginative one but the report of actual events, then the criminal rapist gods that the ancients were talking about were real people and we are dealing not with the idea of God but with a monumental hoax. By means of archaeological and scriptural evidence the history of religion can be reconstructed and the God idea to be shown for what it is: a monumental hoax based on an archaic joke!
Humans are obviously doing more than just repeating a story heard 10,000's of years ago. The story evolves.Yes, the story evolves naturally, i.e. from a report of an actual event to legend, to myth, to fairytale, and unnaturally when taken up by theology.
I gotta fly out the door for work here in a minute.
No I don’t think the idea of religion can be traced as an evolving story that originated from actual human events of malice.
Perhaps one religion, but not the whole religion/god timeline.
Frankly I see the root causes of religion most likely in proto-humans. And that was also the beginning of science as well.
Namely, sentient animals observing the natural world and trying to find answers for natural phenomena.
I think that religion represents intellectual dis-integrity of the highest order. OTOH, I am convinced that humans are pre-disposed to be religious. Whether someone becomes or remains religious, seems to me to, primarily, be a developmental issue, also.
No I don't think the idea of religion can be traced as an evolving story that originated from actual human events of malice. Perhaps one religion, but not the whole religion/god timeline.A research can show that the origins of religion (stories about gods) can be traced back 40k years and that the cause was indeed deeds of human malice. For starters, you have to take into consideration the information provided and the theory proposed in the following article: https://www.academia.edu/7022266/Mother_of_gods
Frankly I see the root causes of religion most likely in proto-humans. And that was also the beginning of science as well. Namely, sentient animals observing the natural world and trying to find answers for natural phenomena.You are insulting humanity because no ancient people ever deified natural phenomena (for lack of the idea of gods). That was the work of philosophers and theologians. Anyway, I have a little quiz for you: Today’s priests are believed to be the representatives of the gods/God and they started their “carrier" as messengers of the gods, as intermediates between humans and gods. The messengers of the gods are mentioned by almost every ancient culture that features stories of gods. Now, the messengers of the gods were also unanimously regarded by the ancients as gods themselves (the god Hermes is the most famous messenger of the gods). The question is: when do you think that the people stopped regarding the representatives of the gods as gods? I can help you a little bit by assuring you that to the ancients the gods were normal human beings living on earth killing and raping (the killings are mentioned in the Tanakh (the Hebrew Bible) but the raping events are there attributed to the patriarchs. Raping gods we find in the older texts.
Just noting, that’s a link to your article. You are listed as an “independent” researcher.
You are insulting humanity because no ancient people ever deified natural phenomena (for lack of the idea of gods). That was the work of philosophers and theologians.Didn't the Egyptians have a Sun god? Ra, I believe? And my premise goes way more ancient than that. I might be misunderstanding you here.
The question is: when do you think that the people stopped regarding the representatives of the gods as gods?That's an interesting question, but surely it wasn't a singular event. By the time thought's like that petered out there were many religions spread out around the globe. Even into the 19th Century(maybe 20th) the Russian Tsars were assumed to be divinely chosen. I know that's not the same thing exactly, but it illustrates the idea that people slowly are ridding themselves of Divine Messengers etc..
Just noting, that's a link to your article. You are listed as an "independent" researcher.That is correct! I’ve already stated that I had been studying the history of religion for 25 years. What is there in that page in academia.edu site is the product of that study. As for “independent"… I was lucky in having escaped a university’s brainwashing. :D
I think that religion represents intellectual dis-integrity of the highest order. OTOH, I am convinced that humans are pre-disposed to be religious. Whether someone becomes or remains religious, seems to me to, primarily, be a developmental issue, also.You understand that you may not form an opinion on the origins of religion while not knowing the history of religion.
You are insulting humanity because no ancient people ever deified natural phenomena (for lack of the idea of gods). That was the work of philosophers and theologians.Didn't the Egyptians have a Sun god? Ra, I believe? And my premise goes way more ancient than that. I might be misunderstanding you here. Ra as a sun god is an invention of the priesthood (read about king Akhenaten and the religion he imposed for a while on Egypt). According to popular legends Ra was the principal god whom goddess Isis managed to succeed by having him bitten by a snake. All the supernatural and spiritual attributes that the gods are endowed with, is the work of theology and the clergy. If you read world mythology for a while you’ll soon came to realize the above fact.
The question is: when do you think that the people stopped regarding the representatives of the gods as gods?That's an interesting question, but surely it wasn't a singular event. It is a main theme in the story of the gods. When the gods were living on the earth as common people, the messengers were also common people only of the tribe, clan or race of the gods (of the ruling elite). When it was said that the gods climbed a ladder each and went to live in the sky, the messengers were supposed to use the same ladders to ascend to the sky in order to talk with the gods. When little by little the gods became immaterial heavenly beings, the messengers remained common people but they also retained their ancestry as gods, and hence all the emperors claiming to be sons of gods (not to forget George Washington whom the ruling elite of the States presented as a god ascending to the sky).
By the time thought's like that petered out there were many religions spread out around the globe.The gods were said to have ascended to the sky by using ladders more than 15k years ago because the American Natives knew of the “existence" of heavenly gods. Besides, the texts that impart the information that the gods climbed to the sky by ladders are 4,500 years old: https://www.academia.edu/6955695/The_making_of_heavenly_gods
Even into the 19th Century(maybe 20th) the Russian Tsars were assumed to be divinely chosen.He who would look directly at the face the emperor of Japan, should once commit suicide. The reason was that the emperors, as the gods, should be considered creatures superhuman. Do not forget that the gods created humans in their image! Naturally, there came some point in time that “gods" and “humans" looked alike and one could not tell who was god and who was man (in the epics of Homer when a beautiful woman or a handsome man is seen in the street, no one knows whether s/he belongs to the race of gods or not).
I know that's not the same thing exactly, but it illustrates the idea that people slowly are ridding themselves of Divine Messengers etc..Not Divine Messengers, just messengers of gods. There was nothing divine about gods before they were transformed into immaterial, ghostly spirits. :D
I’ll take a moment to read your study…
I looked through the first pages.
I’ve heard it said those naked lady figurines could have been nothing but cheap porn.
I know they are looked upon as priceless antiquities now, as beautiful objects of art but…
We find alot of them. It would have taken someone less than an hour to carve those.
Just like today…pornography is uber-alles.
The ancient landscapes were probably littered with those figurines.
That’s why we find them all over…on different continents too.
Those were the Hustler Magazines of the day perhaps.
That’s why the figurines have the exaggerated genitals and extra plump etc…
They were ancient porn. That’s the most likely explanation. They’re found in all the continents.
If I’m not mistaken some are found to have masturbatory “orifices” built in to them.
I scrolled through many more pages of your study.
It’s all ancient porn!!
You are insulting humanity because no ancient people ever deified natural phenomena (for lack of the idea of gods). That was the work of philosophers and theologians.Didn't the Egyptians have a Sun god? Ra, I believe? And my premise goes way more ancient than that. I might be misunderstanding you here. Ra as a sun god is an invention of the priesthood (read about king Akhenaten and the religion he imposed for a while on Egypt). According to popular legends Ra was the principal god whom goddess Isis managed to succeed by having him bitten by a snake. All the supernatural and spiritual attributes that the gods are endowed with, is the work of theology and the clergy. If you read world mythology for a while you’ll soon came to realize the above fact. So, we see things differently, let's acknowledge that. There is some assumption you are working with here that I don't get. Maybe it's a valid assumption, that's not an insult. When I read this I thought, of course Ra is an invention of the priesthood, who else would have invented him? Likewise, it's all the work of theologians and clergy. You could go back a few steps before there were formal jobs like theologian and clergy, but somebody made those things up sometime. There is some other concept of "god" you are implying here, but I don't know what it is.
I scrolled through many more pages of your study. It's all ancient porn!!I was at work when I first scrolled it. I scrolled quickly. I don't see anything in this "research" other than chronicling. A nice list, but not much more. He makes a connection from one set to an Egyptian set, based on hair style and boob type. I guess he's saying this was passed from that earlier culture. I would put this research in the same bucket with the Zeitgeist movie.