There is no actual God. There is only the human conception of God.
So someone had to originally conceptualize God.
Correct!
Yet, that is the main point: humans are no idiots, they are not now and they were not then, so how did it happen and they produced the absurd and entirely ridiculous idea of God?
No one conceptualized God. That is why the history of religion (not the “religious history") is indispensable in understanding the religious matters in depth.
Then somebody came up with narratives about God. And eventually, lots and lots of various narratives, came to be. (You seem quite able to recite many of those narratives.) Historically, those narratives, obviously, served various cultural and societal functions. Still do. But they are all fiction.
As long as people believe that mythology is composed of fairytales, religion will be immortal. As soon as university students are informed of the real history of religion, religion will die in a couple of generations.
There is no actual God. There is only the human conception of God.
So someone had to originally conceptualize God.
Correct!
Yet, that is the main point: humans are no idiots, they are not now and they were not then, so how did it happen and they produced the absurd and entirely ridiculous idea of God?
No one conceptualized God. That is why the history of religion (not the “religious history") is indispensable in understanding the religious matters in depth.
Then somebody came up with narratives about God. And eventually, lots and lots of various narratives, came to be. (You seem quite able to recite many of those narratives.) Historically, those narratives, obviously, served various cultural and societal functions. Still do. But they are all fiction.
As long as people believe that mythology is composed of fairytales, religion will be immortal. As soon as university students
are informed of the real history of religion, religion will die in a couple of generations.
Well the Vatican has already conceded that universal evolution is true. There goes Creationism.
If Mary was a virgin when giving birth to Jesus, how is it possible that Jesus was a male? Without male sperm, any off-spring of the mother's DNA would have to be female, in fact it would be a clone of the mother.
I have been looking for that answer for a long time now. Can you help me out on this one?.
With pleasure!
Goddess Athena was also a “virgin" and she also had a son, Erichthonius, after having been raped by Hephaestus. Mary was raped by Yahweh and had Jesus. So what immaculate conceptions and nonsense are you talking about?
“Virgin" was a title, not the conclusion of an anatomical report. The history of religion is actually the history of humanity but they do not want you to know that history or religion will fade out.
The little girls had been tortured all over the world, as soon as they had their initial menstruation, in order to remain virgin. They were confined in dark places for time periods commencing from a few days to up to seven years. When their ordeal was over, they were given the honorary title “Virgin" which they would keep for life.
If a non-virgin woman was raped by a lord (god) the first child to be born should be killed and it was the duty of the mother to kill it.
At this point myths and legends become real life because people all over the world were killing their firstborn.
If you want to know the procedure by which little girls remained guaranteed virgins so that the lords could rape virgins, read the following.
“The Golden Bough" by James Frazer
Chapter 60. Between Heaven and Earth
3. The Seclusion of Girls at Puberty, page 514 (part 1)
NOW it is remarkable that the foregoing two rules—not to touch the ground and not to see the sun—are observed either separately or conjointly by girls at puberty in many parts of the world. Thus amongst the negroes of Loango girls at puberty are confined in separate huts, and they may not touch the ground with any part of their bare body. Among the Zulus and kindred tribes of South Africa, when the first signs of puberty show themselves “while a girl is walking, gathering wood, or working in the field, she runs to the river and hides herself among the reeds for the day, so as not to be seen by men. She covers her head carefully with her blanket that the sun may not shine on it and shrivel her up into a withered skeleton, as would result from exposure to the sun’s beams. After dark she returns to her home and is secluded" in a hut for some time. With the Awa-nkonde, a tribe at the northern end of Lake Nyassa, it is a rule that after her first menstruation a girl must be kept apart, with a few companions of her own sex, in a darkened house. The floor is covered with dry banana leaves, but no fire may be lit in the house, which is called “the house of the Awasungu," that is, “of maidens who have no hearts."
In New Ireland girls are confined for four or five years in small cages, being kept in the dark and not allowed to set foot on the ground. The custom has been thus described by an eye-witness. “I heard from a teacher about some strange custom connected with some of the young girls here, so I asked the chief to take me to the house where they were. The house was about twenty-five feet in length, and stood in a reed and bamboo enclosure, across the entrance to which a bundle of dried grass was suspended to show that it was strictly ‘tabu.’ Inside the house were three conical structures about seven or eight feet in height, and about ten or twelve feet in circumference at the bottom, and for about four feet from the ground, at which point they tapered off to a point at the top. These cages were made of the broad leaves of the pandanus-tree, sewn quite close together so that no light and little or no air could enter. On one side of each is an opening which is closed by a double door of plaited cocoa-nut tree and pandanus-tree leaves. About three feet from the ground there is a stage of bamboos which forms the floor. In each of these cages we were told there was a young woman confined, each of whom had to remain for at least four or five years, without ever being allowed to go outside the house. I could scarcely credit the story when I heard it; the whole thing seemed too horrible to be true. I spoke to the chief, and told him that I wished to see the inside of the cages, and also to see the girls that I might make them a present of a few beads. He told me that it was ‘tabu,’ forbidden for any men but their own relations to look at them; but I suppose the promised beads acted as an inducement, and so he sent away for some old lady who had charge, and who alone is
allowed to open the doors. While we were waiting we could hear the girls talking to the chief in a querulous way as if objecting to something or expressing their fears. The old woman came at length and certainly she did not seem a very pleasant jailor or guardian nor did she seem to favour the request of the chief to allow us to see the girls, as she regarded us with anything but pleasant looks. However, she had to undo the door when the chief told her to do so, and then the girls peeped out at us, and, when told to do so, they held out their hands for the beads. I, however, purposely sat at some distance away and merely held out the beads to them, as I wished to draw them quite outside, that I might inspect the inside of the cages. This desire of mine gave rise to another difficulty, as these girls were not allowed to put their feet to the ground all the time they were confined in these places. However, they wished to get the beads, and so the old lady had to go outside and collect a lot of pieces of wood and bamboo, which she placed on the ground, and then going to one of the girls, she helped her down and held her hand as she stepped from one piece of wood to another until she came near enough to get the beads I held out to her. I then went to inspect the inside of the cage out of which she had come, but could scarely put my head inside of it, the atmosphere was so hot and stifling. It was clean and contained nothing but a few short lengths of bamboo for holding water. There was only room for the girl to sit or lie down in a crouched position on the bamboo platform, and when the doors are shut it must be nearly or quite dark inside. The girls are never allowed to come out except once a day to bathe in a dish or wooden bowl placed close to each cage. They say that they perspire profusely. They are placed in these stifling cages when quite young, and must remain there until they are young women, when they are taken out and have each a great marriage feast provided for them. One of them was about fourteen or fifteen years old, and the chief told us that she had been there for five years, but would soon be taken out now. The other two were about eight and ten years old, and they have to stay there for several years longer."
In Kabadi, a district of British New Guinea, “daughters of chiefs, when they are about twelve or thirteen years of age, are kept indoors for two or three years, never being allowed, under any pretence, to descend from the house, and the house is so shaded that the sun cannot shine on them." Among the Yabim and Bukaua, two neighbouring and kindred tribes on the coast of Northern New Guinea, a girl at puberty is secluded for some five or six weeks in an inner part of the house; but she may not sit on the floor, lest her uncleanliness should cleave to it, so a log of wood is placed for her to squat on. Moreover, she may not touch the ground with her feet; hence if she is obliged to quit the house for a short time, she is muffled up in mats and walks on two halves of a coco-nut shell, which are fastened like sandals to her feet by creeping plants. Among the Ot Danoms of Borneo girls at the age of eight or ten years are shut up in a little room or cell of the house, and cut off from all intercourse with the world for a long time. The cell, like the rest of the house, is raised on piles above the ground, and is lit by a single small window opening on a lonely place, so that the girl is in almost total darkness. She may not leave the room on any pretext whatever, not even for the most necessary purposes. None of her family may see her all the time she is shut up, but a single slave woman is appointed to wait on her. During her lonely confinement, which often lasts seven years, the girl occupies herself in weaving mats or with other handiwork. Her bodily growth is stunted by the long want of exercise, and when, on attaining womanhood, she is brought out, her complexion is pale and wax-like.
She is now shown the sun, the earth, the water, the trees, and the flowers, as if she were newly born. Then a great feast is made, a slave is killed, and the girl is smeared with his blood. In Ceram girls at puberty were formerly shut up by themselves in a hut which was kept dark. In Yap, one of the Caroline Islands, should a girl be overtaken by her first menstruation on the public road, she may not sit down on the earth, but must beg for a coco-nut shell to put under her. She is shut up for several days in a small hut at a distance from her parents’ house, and afterwards she is bound to sleep for a hundred days in one of the special houses which are provided for the use of menstruous women.
Continues on next post.
Points for picking an anthropologist with some credibility.] But I think you’re cherry picking his work and making it fit the theory you have. His stuff is 100 years old, and even he predicted it would be absorbed into the larger scientific work of discovery of primitive cultures and archaeology.
Yes, it is genetic. Here it is again, I think this is an important clue as to ancient *god figures*. It can be seen today in the behavior of Chimps and is still common today in modern man, just in a more sophisticated way.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMjTSJR3M6M
With pleasure!
Goddess Athena was also a “virgin" and she also....were killing their firstborn.
If you want to know the procedure by which little girls remained guaranteed virgins so that the lords could rape virgins, read the following.
[“The Golden Bough" by James Frazer
Chapter 60. Between Heaven and Earth
3. The Seclusion of Girls at Puberty, page 514 (part 1)
NOW it is remarkable that the foregoing two rules...which are provided for the use of menstruous women.
I'm beginning to think you are just using this forum as an outlet to to tell depraved stories.
What does any of this have to do with origins of religions/god concepts?
You're getting a little perverted in my opinion.
Goddess Athena was also a “virgin" and she also had a son, Erichthonius, after having been raped by Hephaestus...
Since Athena is my favorite goddess, I cannot allow this slander to pass. Every version of the myth I have ever read recounts Hephaestus' ATTEMPT to rape Athena, which she successfully fights off, his seed falling on the ground. Thus Erichthonius' mother is taken to be Gaia, the Earth. Athena merely raised the child out of compassion. Now carry on.
Not gods. The figure portrayed is the Mother of gods and men.
Gods were also born by common women impregnated by “gods". The hybrid offspring was judged and depending on the decision of the judges he could be a son of god, a demigod, a man, or a subhuman creatures deserving execution.
Those who survived, and especially those admitted as sons of gods, were honouring the Mother because apart for having given life to them she had given them the form that guaranteed survival.
Gods started off as stars and animals and then became part animal and part human.
All opinions are respected provided that they are based on some evidence. Your opinion is based on a study of yours or on someone else’s work?
But we find no proof of gods in the early religions.
Then they were not religions.
We still have religions today without gods and they don't seem to be having the kind of trouble the deity religions are having.
These are silly philosophies, not religions. Buddhism is a godless religion based on the gods of Hindism with Buddha as God. Ridiculous!
I really like the idea that you are looking into the history of religion. History is the key to understanding the past.
Thank you!
My timelines on the 15K are a little different than yours. The American Indians had Red Ochre and Sky burials. So the first religions were without gods. It is imposable to say when gods came to North America. It may have been sometime afterword.
I suggest that you read the mythology of the American Indians. The basic themes are the same with the mythology of the ancient Near East.
According to the ancient text, man was created by Mid-Wives. We don’t know if the Mid-Wives were Upper or Lower Gods. Ref, Rig Vega.
That is correct! Mid-wives are mentioned in the Tanakh too but they were common women. Do you have the relevant reference in the Rigveda?
I agree that the “gods" were a race of humans.
Then you are an advocate of Euhemerism, as I am myself, and I am glad to having met you.
From what I can comprehend is that this race may have been wiped out by a plague or something. Leaving open the possibility of another branch of humans. This was after they had domesticated man. Regardless, they must have been known as the people of knowledge. Because the word "god" then changed to represent “Knowledge". As far as location, India is where the Gods lived.
You brought together many important themes in the space of a few lines!
We have to take those themes one by one.
What happened to the race of the gods?
According to the myths and the ancient texts their slaves revolted and had them leave the land. We know that originally they lived among their creatures (the hybrids they produced in their image) and that later moved to the top of the mountains and from there they went to live in the sky. That, however, is the version of the story according to the messengers of the gods. The truth, according to my opinion, is that they left the land going north.
As regards the location, where do you base your assertion that they lived in India?
The way the story of the gods was dispersed proves that the land where they lived is the land from where Eurasians spread towards the East and the West: the Near East.
Points for picking an anthropologist with some credibility.] But I think you're cherry picking his work and making it fit the theory you have. His stuff is 100 years old, and even he predicted it would be absorbed into the larger scientific work of discovery of primitive cultures and archaeology.
What is of value in his work is the reports of the customs and practices that the imperialists encounter while conquering the world. His ideas are quite naïve, becoming silly when he says that the ancients did not know that babies were the result of sex.
I did not quote the entire chapter on the Seclusion of the girls because it would have required another couple of posts and I thought that nobody would read it.
The ancient Greek myth of Danae, who was secluded in a room where she could not see the sun, and who eventually was raped by a god, proves that the ancient Greeks were also treating the young girls in the same way. Why did the people all over the earth practice that inhuman custom? Why were they killing their firstborns? Why were they artificially deforming the skulls of their infants? Why were they purifying themselves?
To satisfy the gods so that the gods will not punish them!
To them the gods were not silly heavenly ghosts impregnating women by sending them flowers. Who the gods were? Why can’t science tell us the actual history of religion?
Goddess Athena was also a “virgin" and she also had a son, Erichthonius, after having been raped by Hephaestus...
Since Athena is my favorite goddess,…
I am glad to hear that!
I cannot allow this slander to pass. Every version of the myth I have ever read recounts Hephaestus' ATTEMPT to rape Athena, which she successfully fights off, his seed falling on the ground. Thus Erichthonius' mother is taken to be Gaia, the Earth. Athena merely raised the child out of compassion. Now carry on.
First of all, Athena was not supposed to be some perverted girl wishing to be virgin for ever. She was armed (as her Egyptian counterpart Neith was) so that no god could rape her. She had a son and when I say Hephaestus raped her is because that creature was too small and too ugly for her to fall in love with him.
Pallas was not the name of a Giant, it was the name of a god, Athena’s father, who attempted to rape her and she killed him, skinned him and wore his skin.
That myth, that Pallas was Athena’s father, we know from Latin authors, not from Greek ones. The ancient Greeks had exterminated their own clergy to the last priest but he who would insult the gods would face capital punishment. It is understandable that they did edit all the insulting to gods myths.
As for Hephaestus seed, not all versions have it falling on earth, I remember that there is a version of the seed falling on the leg of Athena and she wiping it off. :bug:
Yes, it is genetic. Here it is again, I think this is an important clue as to ancient *god figures*. It can be seen today in the behavior of Chimps and is still common today in modern man, just in a more sophisticated way.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMjTSJR3M6M
Write4U, are you serious with that?
You bet I am serious, the first acknowledgement of an unseen enemy from above (a god) and a display by the Alpha that he would protect his family from this unseen enemy.who was making loud noises (just like he had when trying to impress other males with rolling the can and making loud noises to show his power), then the lightning (from above), another scary thing thrown by this unseen enemy, and lastly the water (from above) that was thrown dowm and madet him and his family miserable.
This behavior stems from the *fight or flight instinct* when threatened. But he stood his ground, because he was lord of that territory. Who were some of the first gods? Zeus and Thor (thunder amd lightning. Does that not strike you as significant?
This may have been a small glimpse from 60-70 thousand years ago, which still goes on today with prayer for salvation or in a draught, prayer and sacrifice to an "unseen presence* for a number of purposes. Praying to a unseen God is common today still for something that is needed at any given time. Blood sacrifice to appease the gods, ritual, pomp and circumstance. We just do it now in a more sophisticated way. But the act of acknowleding a powerful being up above has been around a long long time, before modern man appeared.
You have to read between the lines to see the remarkable similarities of early hominids and modern man. Not much has changed..
If you think this is farfetched (in history), yes it is, and has become part of our *mirror neural network* and our belief in gods.
You think this Alpha chimp was just playing in the rain for fun? Think about it, and then you can easily fill in the blanks timewise from then to now. The *fight or flight* instinct goes back millions of years. It is all part of the evolution of worship or fear of the unseen. Do you think the chimp knew about how weather fronts form? To him, some unknown being was doing something that made him fearful and angry.
Have you read the book, which explains the missing details in full?
Goddess Athena was also a “virgin" and she also had a son, Erichthonius, after having been raped by Hephaestus...
Since Athena is my favorite goddess, I cannot allow this slander to pass. Every version of the myth I have ever read recounts Hephaestus' ATTEMPT to rape Athena, which she successfully fights off, his seed falling on the ground. Thus Erichthonius' mother is taken to be Gaia, the Earth. Athena merely raised the child out of compassion. Now carry on.
Thank you for that clarification.
What on earth is a *New Atheist*???
Something like a *Reborn Christian*?
“New Atheists" is the term the agnostics use for themselves.
Do you identify yourself as what?
Theist
Agnostic
or Atheist?
I am an atheist who believes in meta-physics, I believe in a Mathematical Universe. A purely abstract mathematical function, which is causal to everythig we experience. Plato was on the right path with his Platonic solids. I can accept that as a true explanation of how the universe works, because we *know* that's how it works..
Watch this presentation, which explains HOW it all works. No ghoulies , ghosties, and things that go bump in the night.
http://video.pbs.org/video/2365464997/
If Mary was a virgin when giving birth to Jesus, how is it possible that Jesus was a male? Without male sperm, any off-spring of the mother's DNA would have to be female, in fact it would be a clone of the mother.
I have been looking for that answer for a long time now. Can you help me out on this one?.
With pleasure!
Goddess Athena was also a “virgin" and she also had a son, Erichthonius, after having been raped by Hephaestus. Mary was raped by Yahweh and had Jesus. So what immaculate conceptions and nonsense are you talking about?
“Virgin" was a title, not the conclusion of an anatomical report. The history of religion is actually the history of humanity but they do not want you to know that history or religion will fade out.
Well Vyazma, set the record of Athena straight, so we are left with Mary. So was Jesus born from a virgin or not? If not and Mary conceived from impregnation by a male, then where does the divine aspect comes into the story?
It's just a made up story from wishful thinking., IMO.
Goddess Athena was also a “virgin" and she also had a son, Erichthonius, after having been raped by Hephaestus...
Since Athena is my favorite goddess,…
I am glad to hear that!
I cannot allow this slander to pass. Every version of the myth I have ever read recounts Hephaestus' ATTEMPT to rape Athena, which she successfully fights off, his seed falling on the ground. Thus Erichthonius' mother is taken to be Gaia, the Earth. Athena merely raised the child out of compassion. Now carry on.
First of all, Athena was not supposed to be some perverted girl wishing to be virgin for ever. She was armed (as her Egyptian counterpart Neith was) so that no god could rape her. She had a son and when I say Hephaestus raped her is because that creature was too small and too ugly for her to fall in love with him.
Pallas was not the name of a Giant, it was the name of a god, Athena’s father, who attempted to rape her and she killed him, skinned him and wore his skin.
That myth, that Pallas was Athena’s father, we know from Latin authors, not from Greek ones. The ancient Greeks had exterminated their own clergy to the last priest but he who would insult the gods would face capital punishment. It is understandable that they did edit all the insulting to gods myths.
As for Hephaestus seed, not all versions have it falling on earth, I remember that there is a version of the seed falling on the leg of Athena and she wiping it off. :bug:
So no divine conception from a god. Well that's a relief. Today we lock up peope who claim that they were raped by the devil or some other demon.
But then why call Jesus the *son of God* ?
Not gods. The figure portrayed is the Mother of gods and men.
Gods were also born by common women impregnated by “gods". The hybrid offspring was judged and depending on the decision of the judges he could be a son of god, a demigod, a man, or a subhuman creatures deserving execution.
Those who survived, and especially those admitted as sons of gods, were honouring the Mother because apart for having given life to them she had given them the form that guaranteed survival.
Gods started off as stars and animals and then became part animal and part human.
All opinions are respected provided that they are based on some evidence. Your opinion is based on a study of yours or on someone else’s work?
But we find no proof of gods in the early religions.
Then they were not religions.
We still have religions today without gods and they don't seem to be having the kind of trouble the deity religions are having.
These are silly philosophies, not religions. Buddhism is a godless religion based on the gods of Hindism with Buddha as God. Ridiculous![/b]
Oh, the prejudicial hubris. No wonder religions have been at war for thousands of years. As Carlin said, it all comes down to "My God has a bigger dick than your God"
... As soon as university students are informed of the real history of religion, religion will die in a couple of generations.
Now that is a bold assertion. If it were only true. But in case it is, why not make "The Real History of Religion" into a multi-episode video special, in order to reach more than just university students?