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Pagan
Chidren of the Sky God
The following is from: “The A.B.C. of Biblical Archaeology," regarding the evidence of monotheism in ancient times, by Dr. Clifford Wilson MA, BD, MREd., PhD, former Director of The Australian Institute of Archaeology.
MONOTHEISM: MAN’S OLDEST RELIGION
Monotheism was known in very early times. The Egyptian Book of the Dead demonstrates that the Egyptian people originally believed in one great God and not many. With the passage of time, each of the known attributes of the true God were personified as new and individual deities - and so, polytheism developed.
That view is well documented by the famous Egyptologist, Sir Wallis Budge, in his best known text, The Book of the Dead. Following are statements from the Book of the Dead as to the attributes of the true God, selected from The Papyrus of Ani:
"A Hymn To Amen-Ra ... president of all the gods ... Lord of the heavens ... Lord of Truth ... maker of men; creator of beasts ... Ra, whose word is truth, the Governor of the world, the mighty one of valour, the chiefs who made the world as he made himself. His forms are more numerous than those of any god ... "Adoration be to thee, O Maker of the Gods, who hast stretched out the heavens and founded the earth! ... Lord of eternity, maker of the everlastingness ... creator of light ...
"He heareth the prayer of the oppressed one, he is kind of heart to him that calleth upon him, he delivereth the timid man from the oppressor ... He is the Lord of knowledge, and Wisdom is the utterance of his mouth. "He maketh the green herb whereon the cattle live, and the staff of life whereon men live. He maketh the fish to live in the rivers, and the feathered fowl in the sky. He giveth life to that which is in the egg ... "Hail to thee, O thou maker of all these things, thou ONLY ONE. In his mightiness he taketh many forms."
Wallis Budge states: "After reading the above extracts it is impossible not to conclude that the ideas of the ancient Egyptians about God were of a very exalted character, and it is clear that they made in their minds a sharp distinction between God and the "gods"... Here then we have One God who was self-created, self-existent and almighty, who created the universe."
Wallis Budge sees monotheism as the original Egyptian belief corrupted into polytheism. He argues convincingly that the various attributes of the one great God were transferred to become other lesser gods. Budge states: "The truth seems to me to be that the Egyptian religion never wholly lost the monotheistic element which was in it." He suggests a similarity to the monotheism of the Hebrews. Crude polytheism developed in Egyptian history, with increasing numbers of deities. This is an indirect confirmation of a beginning with monotheism - not "many gods".
Other scholars have endorsed the arguments of Sir Wallis Budge, and he himself quotes others. One example is: "As a result of their studies of Egyptian texts, many of the earlier Egyptologists, e.g. Champollion-Figeac, de Rouge, Pierret and Brugsch, came to the conclusion that the dwellers in the Nile Valley, from the earliest times, believed in the existence of one God, nameless, incomprehensible, and eternal." (p.105)
Sir Flinders Petrie, early famous Egyptologist, shared this same conclusion. In The Religion of Ancient Egypt, published by Constable, London, 1908, he wrote: "There are in ancient religions and theologies very different classes of gods. Some races, as the modern Hindu, revel in a profusion of gods and godlings which continually increase, and literally number in the millions. Others ... do not attempt to worship great gods, but deal with a host of animistic spirits, devils, or whatever we may call them ... But all our knowledge of the early positions and nature of the great gods shows them to stand on an entirely different footing to these varied spirits.
"Were the conception of a god only an evolution from such spirit worship, we should find the worship of many gods preceding the worship of one god ... What we actually find is the contrary of this, monotheism is the first stage traceable in theology ...
"Wherever we can trace polytheism back to its earliest stages, we find that it results from combinations of monotheism. In Egypt even Osiris, Isis and Horus, so familiar as a triad, are found at first as separate units in different places: Isis as a virgin goddess, and Horus as a self-existent God.
"Each city appears to have had but one god belonging to it, to whom others were in time added. Similarly, Babylonian cities each had their supreme god, and the combinations of these and their transformations in order to form them into groups when their homes were politically united, show how essentially they were solitary deities at first."
OTHER PEOPLES WERE ALSO MONTHEISTS
Other people were also originally monotheists, knowing of only one true God. The late Dr. Arthur C. Custance wrote a series called The Doorway Papers (Brockville, Ontario, Canada). In Paper 34 he gives evidence to show that this was the case with many such people, contrary to the views of many scholars.
Many of those scholars held to polytheism instead of monotheism because they believed that man has evolved upward in such areas as physical development, social relationships, intellectual capacities, and spiritual understanding.
The truth is that man is the crown of God's creation, originally perfect (before his fall), and having a very clear understanding of the nature of God, Who was in fact his Friend. There was no evolution of religion - in fact there was a devolution of religion, and a falling away from the relationship that it had been possible for man to enjoy.
Dr. Arthur Custance elaborates the argument, and he makes the point that at first scholars examining the records of ancient peoples: "... found themselves dealing with a tremendous number of gods and goddesses and other spiritual powers of a lesser sort which seemed to be always at war with one another and, much of the time, highly destructive."
He further states: "As earlier and earlier tablets, however, began to be excavated and brought to light, and skill in deciphering them increased, the first picture of gross polytheism began to be replaced by something more nearly approaching a hierarchy of spiritual beings organised into a kind of court with one Supreme Being over all." (p. 3)
MONOTHEISM PRECEDED POLYTHEISM
Dr. Custance also quotes other scholars. For instance, he quotes Stephen Langdon of Oxford who wrote in 1931, in Semitic Mythology. Stephen Langdon knew full well that his conclusions would be unacceptable to "the establishment".
Stephen Langdon believed that monotheism preceded polytheism. He made his point very clearly: "In my opinion the history of the oldest civilisation of man is a rapid decline from monotheism to extreme polytheism and widespread belief in evil spirits. It is in a very true sense the history of the fall of man." Stephen Langdon continued to hold that view, five years later,in The Scotsman, November 18, 1936:
"The history of Sumerian religion, which was the most powerful cultural influence in the ancient world, could be traced by means of photographic inscriptions almost to the earliest religious concepts of man. The evidence points unmistakably to an original monotheism, the inscriptions and literary remains of the oldest Semitic peoples also indicate a primitive monotheism, and the totemistic origin of Hebrew and other Semitic religions is now entirely discredited."
”A SINGLE GOD IS WORSHIPPED”
Not all scholars have accepted that approach - it opposes establishment views as to the evolution of religion. However, despite opposing arguments, Dr. Custance shows that subsequent excavations at Tell Asmar (Eshnunna), a few miles south of modern Baghdad, have confirmed Langdon's view.
Once again, Dr. Custance quotes other scholars. One is Dr. Henry Frankfort, in his third preliminary report on the excavation: "In addition to their more tangible results, our excavations have established a novel fact, which the student of Babylonian religions will have henceforth to take into account. We have obtained, to the best of our knowledge for the first time, religious material complete in its social setting.
"We possess a coherent mass of evidence, derived in almost equal quantity from a temple and from the houses inhabited by those who worshipped in that temple. We are thus able to draw conclusions, which the finds studied by themselves would not have made possible.
"For instance, we discover that the representations on cylinder seals, which are usually connected with various gods, can all be fitted into a consistent picture in which a single god worshipped in this temple forms the central figure. It seems that at this early period his various aspects were not considered separate deities in the Sumero-Accadian pantheon."This argument about early monotheism is true of other cultures as well. Dr. Custance quotes from Max Muller, a German scholar who was "one of the best known authorities in this area". He wrote in Lectures on the Science of Language: Scribner, N.Y., 1875: "Mythology, which was the bane of the ancient world, is in truth a disease of language. A myth means a word, but a word which, from being a name or an attribute, has been allowed to assume a more substantial existence. Most of the Greek, the Roman, the Indian, and other heathen gods are nothing but poetical names, which were gradually allowed to assume divine personality never contemplated by their original inventors.
"Eos was the name of dawn before she became a goddess, the wife of Tithonos, or the dying day. Fatum, or Fate, meant originally what had been spoken; and before Fate became a power, even greater than Jupiter, it meant that which had once been spoken by Jupiter, and could never be changed - not even by Jupiter himself.
"Zeus originally meant the bright heaven, in Sanskrit Dyaus; and many of the stories told of him as the supreme god, had a meaning only as told originally of the bright heaven, the Danae of old, kept by her father in the dark prison of winter.
"No one doubts that Luna was simply the name of the moon; but so likewise Lucina, both derived from lucere, to shine. Hecate, too, was an old name of the moon, the feminine of Hekatos and Hekatebolos, the far-darting sun: and Pyrrha, the Eve of the Greeks, was nothing but a name of the red earth, and in particular of Thessaly. This mythological disease, though less virulent in modern languages, is by no means extinct."
Dr. Custance states (p.10) "... However little Muller shared the Christian view of man's spiritual history, he nevertheless admitted freely: "There is a monotheism that precedes the polytheism of the Veda; and even in the invocation of the innumerable gods the remembrance of a God, one and infinite, breaks through the mist of idolatrous phraseology like the blue sky that is hidden by passing clouds." (Quoted from History of Sanskrit Literature)
MODERN "PRIMITIVE" TRIBES AS WELL AS ANCIENT PEOPLE KNOW ABOUT ONE GOD
Dr. Custance relates the concept of monotheism to other early cultures, such as China, Greece and Rome, and the Middle East. He states: "The evidence shows that he (man) began with the true Light and now has his understanding increasingly darkened. The evidence for this among primitive people is to be found in every corner of the world where such people now exist or have existed within recent times. And paradoxically, the more primitive they are, the simpler and the purer is their faith often found to be."
Dr. Custance elaborates these arguments with substantial evidence, touching a wide range of early people.
THE EARLIEST GROUPS HAD A GREATER UNDERSTANDING ABOUT ONE GOD
So-called primitive people had this idea of one great God. Again quoting Dr. Custance: "Without a doubt the most informative work on the monotheism of primitive people is that by Wilhelm Schmidt, which, though originally a many-volumed work in German, was published in 1930 in a condensed English translation as a single volume, "The Origin and Growth of Religion: Facts and Theories".
"Schmidt first traces the history of thinking on the subject of the origin of religion as it developed during the last century. He points out, briefly, that Herbert Spencer was largely responsible for the first evolutionary interpretation of "religion", noting that he anticipated Darwin by seven years, as is shown by his article, The Development Hypothesis, which appeared in The Leader dated 20th March, 1852.
"On the basis of present evidence it is now apparent that Spencer was completely wrong. Spencer held that primitive people began by worshipping ancestors and that as civilization developed ancestors "naturally" were formed into hierarchies, and hierarchies in turn led to ranks, the highest ranks becoming deities."
Thus it becomes clear that many modern scholars are wrong in their ideas about monotheism. Monotheism, not polytheism, was first. Dr. Custance further states: "What Schmidt is able to prove conclusively is that if primitive cultures are grouped on the basis of their cultural level and these groups are then placed in an ascending order, it is found that the lowest groups have the purest concept of God and that as one progresses from mere hunters to food gatherers and storers, to food growers in the form of pastoral nomads maintaining flocks, to food growers in the sense of settled land use, and on up the scale to semi-urban communities, one finds at first a simple faith in a Supreme Being who has neither wife nor family.
"Under Him and created by Him are the primal pair from which the tribe is descended. According to Schmidt we find this form of belief among the Pygmies of Central Africa, the South-east Australians, the inhabitants of North central California, the primitive Algonkins - and to a certain extent the Koryaka and Aimu." This of course goes right against such arguments as that the worship of ancestors was very early in man's religious development. Schmidt further states: "The falsity of Spencer's theory is shown by the mere fact that ancestor-worship is very feebly developed in the oldest cultures while a monotheistic religion is already clearly and unmistakably to be found there ... "It is also unfortunate for Spencer's theory that the highest development of ancestor-worship does not come till the most recent times ..." (Schmidt, op.cit., p. 71) As for animism, it is supposed to have developed from the idea that man had a soul, and that therefore all living things (including plants) had souls or at least an inner reality. Thus man supposedly moved along an evolutionary path of believing that the whole spirit world was personal - leading to both animism and poly-demonism (and the fear of many demons who must be placated). Supposedly this led to the displacement of these many demons by one great power to whom all others must be subservient.
The evidence now available from recovered records does not support this hypothesis that so clearly opposes the Biblical record of one great Being, the true Creator God Who created man in His own image.
Despite many "scholarly" views to the contrary, historical and other records reject animism as the "original" religion and they indicate that Jewish people and others besides Christians have known of the one true God.
That is also made very clear in the writings of a modern writer, Don Richardson. In his book Eternity In Their Hearts, he challenges the smug conclusions of scholars, Huxley, Spencer, Tylor, and others who believed: "They had thoroughly debunked all pretensions about the supernatural origin of religion. Religion, they claimed, evolved mentally just as biological forms evolved physically.
Back on the Kalahari Desert, in the Ituri forest, and innumberable other locations, however; the young anthropologists were getting down to a deeper level of questioning. They would ask the animists: "By the way, who made the world?" and were startled to hear them respond, often with a happy smile, by naming a single Being who lived in the sky.
"Is he good or bad?" was a usual second question. "Good, of course", was the invariable reply. "Show me the idol you use to represent him", the researcher might ask. "What idol? Don't you know that he must never be represented by an idol?"
This of course opposes the teachings of many modern scholars. However, as Don Richardson says: "They began discovering what thousands of missionaries had already known for a hundred years - that about 90% of the world's folk religions are permeated with monotheistic presuppositions.
"They knew, of course, that Huxley, Tylor and the others would be disappointed, not to mention embarrassed. Some researchers may have shelved this aspect of their research to avoid embarrassing their high priests. In any case, these later revelations did not find their way into early textbooks. The result: Anthropology and the public developed a collective "blind spot!" Andrew Lang was alone in protesting the suppression of this contradicting data."
Finally, Dr. Wilhelm Schmidt, an Austrian, set out in the 1920's to compile every "alias of the Almighty" discovered by explorers around the world. It took Schmidt an amazing six volumes totalling 4,500 pages to detail them all! A minimum of a thousand more examples have come to light since then. An approximate 90 percent or more of the folk religions on this planet contain clear acknowledgment of the existence of one Supreme God! Schmidt's classic "Der Ursprung der Gottesidee" (The Origin of the Concept of God) was finally published in 1934.
He pays tribute to Andrew Lang before him for, in anthropologist Gordon Fraser's words, presenting to the public the facts of the matter, when it was almost intellectual suicide to oppose the doctrine of evolution and its high priests. Fraser himself, also spent much of his life extending Lang's and Schmidt's research. G. Foucart's treatment of the subject in the Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics further confirms the conclusions of these three unblinded men: "The nature, role, and characteristics of this universal sky-god may be concealed under the most diverse forms, but he is always more or less recognisable to the historian of religions and always identical in essential definition ... The sky-god has reigned everywhere. His kingdom still covers the whole of the uncivilised world. (He reigns over much of the civilized world as well as under different names.) No historical or proto-historical motive can be assigned as a cause, and neither the migration of races nor the diffusion of myths and folklore affords the slightest justification of the fact. The universality of the sky-god and the uniformity of his essential characteristics are the logical consequence of the uniformity of the primitive system of cosmogony."
"King Solomon said it much more concisely: "(God) has also put eternity in the hearts of men!" Ecclesiastes 3:11, Don Richardson elaborates with tribe after tribe, even showing that there were hymns with theology that was clearly consistent with the fact of one true God. Here is one selection, from the Karen people of Burma:
One aeon - he dies not!
Two aeons - he dies not!
He is perfect in meritorious attributes.
Aeons follow aeons - he dies not!"
Such people actually refer to Him as Creator. Another hymn extolled Y'wa as Creator:
Y'wa created the world in the beginning!
Y'wa appointed everything.
Y'wa is unsearchable!"
Still another hymn conveyed deep appreciation for Y'wa's omnipotence and omniscience, combined with acknowledgment of a lack of relationship with Him:
Y'wa created men anciently;
He has a perfect knowledge of all things!
Y'wa created men at the beginning;
He knows all things to the present time!
O my children and grandchildren!
The earth is the treading place of the feet of Y'wa.
And heaven is the place where he sits.
He sees all things, and we are manifest to him."
It almost seems that such people have the Bible record of creation before them. Don Richardson states: "The Karen story of man's falling away from God contains stunning parallels to Genesis Chapter 1:
He appointed food and drink.
He appointed the "fruit of trial."
He gave detailed order.
Mu-kaw-lee deceived two persons.
He caused them to eat the fruit of the tree of trial.
They obeyed not; they believed not Y'wa ...
When they ate the fruit of trial,
They became subject to sickness, aging, and death ..."
These Karen people had obstinately adhered to their own folk religion dispite high pressured attempts by the Burmese to convert them to Buddhism.
Don Richardson demonstrates that the Greek term Deos (God) has gone through pronunciation/ geographical changes, to be Deos in one area, Deus in another, and Theos in a third. It was only a minor step to Zeus, a major "God" in Greek mythology. The meanings have gradually changed, but the original concept is readily traced to one common source. This world-wide belief in monotheism explains how "illiterate yet practical minded, close-to-the-earth Santa/folk religionists insist so firmly that there is in fact an omnipotent and moral beneficent Creator."
Don Richardson shows that such findings
have "disturbed evolutionists more than any other cultural phenomenon." Evolutionary
theorists hold that the concept of one Supreme Being was reached only after proceeding
through more lowly beliefs such as fetishes, nature gods, and polytheism. They now
find that the more "primitive" the tribe, the more advanced, their ideas about one true
God - monotheism!
Back on the Kalahari Desert, in the Ituri forest, and innumberable other locations, however; the young anthropologists were getting down to a deeper level of questioning. They would ask the animists: "By the way, who made the world?" and were startled to hear them respond, often with a happy smile, by naming a single Being who lived in the sky.
"Is he good or bad?" was a usual second question. "Good, of course", was the invariable reply. "Show me the idol you use to represent him", the researcher might ask. "What idol? Don't you know that he must never be represented by an idol?"
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Psalm 19 1 - 4 --
"The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows His handiwork. Day unto day utters speech, and night unto night reveals knowledge. There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard. Their line has gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world.
You asked what I thought of religious folk traditions which resembled the Judeo-Christian scriptures.
Here you go.
"MONOTHEISM: MAN’S OLDEST RELIGION Monotheism was known in very early times. The Egyptian Book of the Dead demonstrates that the Egyptian people originally believed in one great God and not many. With the passage of time, each of the known attributes of the true God were personified as new and individual deities - and so, polytheism developed."
The one example of Egypt does not allow a global generalization. Many ancient cultures started as polytheistic, including the Greeks, Romans, South Americans, and Polynesians. Mithrasism and Zaroastrianism both started with twin gods, one of good, one of evil. Still other polytheistic religions were "marriages of convenience". As tribes would merge, they would combine their gods.
Going back to the cave paintings of 20,000 - 30,000 years ago, it is clear that early religions were quite polytheistic. No single diety predominates among all the shamanistic paintings on the cave walls.
The fact is that nonne of the world's religions agree on the number of gods, their names, what they look lke, where they live, or what they do. In addition to making it extremely long odds agains any of then aving all the answers, the sheer diversity of beliefs provs there is no such thing as divine inspiration, and without divine inspiration, holy texts do not prove the existance of the gods they describe any more than comic books prove there is a Superman.
BTTT for your interest...
Thanks. Interesting and informative.
Lots of thought required to comprehend all these words about God and The Word.
Wouldn't it just be easier to denigrate the population to the status of animals? People would then not have to hurt their little pointed heads by reading and thinking. The people would also not have to concern themselves with "human rights" as most animals don't worry too much about their "rights" etc. This should give us a more easily manageable population.
I suppose this is what the NEAA has been doing with the Dumbing Down of America.
The one example of Egypt does not allow a global generalization.
There's a myriad of other examples.
CULTURE --- OMNIPOTENT CREATOR SKY-GOD
Chinese --- Shang Ti ("the Lord of Heaven")
Incas --- Viracocha
Gedeo (Ethiopia) --- Magano
Santal (India) --- Thakur Jiu ("the genuine God")
Mbaka (Central Africa) --- Koro
Korea --- Hananim ("the Great One")
Karen (Burma) --- Y'wa
I can keep going, if you like...
Many ancient cultures started as polytheistic, including the Greeks, Romans, South Americans, and Polynesians.
Nope. No culture on Earth "started out" polytheistic. Polytheism is, in all cases, a degeneration from the Ancient Universal Religion -- Monotheism
Mithrasism and Zaroastrianism both started with twin gods, one of good, one of evil.
And neither represents the most ancient religious traditions of those peoples.
Still other polytheistic religions were "marriages of convenience". As tribes would merge, they would combine their gods.
Thus advancing the degeneration into polytheism from Monotheism.
Going back to the cave paintings of 20,000 - 30,000 years ago, it is clear that early religions were quite polytheistic. No single diety predominates among all the shamanistic paintings on the cave walls.
Yes, every culture on earth knew from its cultural infancy -- however you might seek to characterize the various "gods", no idol could possibly represent to Eternal, Creator Sky God.
But, even though these people knew that they couldn't begin to "draw" God, linguists and anthropologists have found Him -- everywhere -- in all the most ancient traditions.
The fact is that nonne of the world's religions agree on the number of gods, their names, what they look lke, where they live, or what they do. In addition to making it extremely long odds agains any of then aving all the answers, the sheer diversity of beliefs provs there is no such thing as divine inspiration, and without divine inspiration, holy texts do not prove the existance of the gods they describe any more than comic books prove there is a Superman.
Yup. False religions, the world over, have invented all kinds of false "gods".
But search back into the infancy of their cultures, the earliest roots of their languages... and you will find the Creator Sky God staring back at you.
In the ancient memory of every culture on Earth.
Yup.
BTTT for your attention
Mithrasism and Zaroastrianism both started with twin gods, one of good, one of evil.
On this one little point, I'm suprised at you. Don't you know that good and evil are dualities, the existence of either depending on the other, and both together making
I find it amazing that there are those who deny God. Don't you guys have enough stress in your lives dealing with the blades and axes of material reality?
India is the world's oldest civilization. It dates back 10,000 years and beyond. It is a civilization which has as its religion Santana Dharma-the eternal faith (now called Hinduism). This religion is monotheistic. It recognizes one God with many faces. One of the more obvious faces is the Tri-God head of Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva.
“The A.B.C. of Biblical Archaeology," regarding the evidence of monotheism in ancient times, by Dr. Clifford Wilson MA, BD, MREd., PhD, former Director of The Australian Institute of Archaeology.
Y'all do good work Down Under.
I quibble about the dates assigned to certain Indian archaeology, but affirm the ancient Monotheism of the earliest Indians....
After the confusion of the tongues at Babel, God has become known by a thousand-and-one names.
But by whatever name, He is known; in the most ancient traditions of every Pagan culture, in the roots of their languages -- His works are remembered.
You asked what I thought of religious folk traditions which resembled the Judeo-Christian scriptures.
Very good.
Many might wish to make this particular understanding of the "one God" to be "derived" through "evolutionary process" of mankind's thinking (over years of changes), rather than an immediate and given knowledge of God in the beginning. We can see that if this one simple kind of knowledge of God was known immediately in the beginning, then the evidence of this kind of knowledge would certainly be there (as you bring out here).
The full and complete revelation of God is given in written form to us in the form of the Bible, which God committed to several authors (40 of them) over a period of thousands of years -- with God making it an *integrated* and *unified message* of His Word. God uniquely made the rest of His revelation to be *anchored* in the reality of *history* -- so that His truth would not be subject to the whims of the mind -- but be part of the "reality" of everyday events with the many people described. This made it so that God's Word could not be subverted or destroyed without destroying the very historicity of mankind itself.
And so, God made His Word to be *not only* propositional statements from either His mind or those whom He guided -- but also, to be part of the very fabric of *history* itself. In this manner, being part of "history" -- His Word is not as easily subverted. Those who try to do so, are more easily exposed this way.
And, even so -- all along, from the beginning, mankind has always been given the knowledge of God's existence, through all that He has made (the created world before us) -- in order that this would drive mankind to look for the true answers of who God is, from God Himself (as He has given to us in full and complete form for our present age in His Word).
And it's plain from reading the Apostle Paul in Romans 1 that the idea that other things are to be worshipped (as we see evidence in mankind's history) is the result of the *corruption* of that immediate, simple and given knowledge in the beginning.
Thanks for giving this article. Are you the author of the article, or does it belong to someone else?
I give a bit of the Apostle Paul's writing, who was one of those 40 authors that God chose to be divinely guided (by Him) to write what God wanted to be given to us.
Romans 1:16-32
16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the
power of God for salvation to everyone who believes,
to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed
from faith to faith; as it is written, "But the
righteous man shall live by faith."
18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven
against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men,
who suppress the truth in unrighteousness,
19 because that which is known about God is evident
within them; for God made it evident to them.
20 For since the creation of the world His invisible
attributes, His eternal power and divine nature,
have been clearly seen, being understood through
what has been made, so that they are without excuse.
21 For even though they knew God, they did not honor
Him as God, or give thanks; but they became futile
in their speculations, and their foolish heart was
darkened.
22 Professing to be wise, they became fools,
23 and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God
for an image in the form of corruptible man and of
birds and four-footed animals and crawling
creatures.
24 Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of
their hearts to impurity, that their bodies might be
dishonored among them.
25 For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie,
and worshiped and served the creature rather than
the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.
26 For this reason God gave them over to degrading
passions; for their women exchanged the natural
function for that which is unnatural,
27 and in the same way also the men abandoned the
natural function of the woman and burned in their
desire toward one another, men with men committing
indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the
due penalty of their error.
28 And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge
God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved
mind, to do those things which are not proper,
29 being filled with all unrighteousness,
wickedness, greed, evil; full of envy, murder,
strife, deceit, malice; they are gossips,
30 slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant,
boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents,
31 without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving,
unmerciful;
32 and, although they know the ordinance of God,
that those who practice such things are worthy of
death, they not only do the same, but also give
hearty approval to those who practice them.
AMMON Also AMON; AMMON; AMUN; AMEN "Hidden."
King of the gods of Egypt*. Patron of the Pharoahs. Originally a god of fertility, a local deity of Memphis. Ammon became linked with the sun god Ra through the royal family, becoming Ammon-Ra.
http://www.crystalinks.com/egypt2.html
*Deuteronomy 5:6-7 I am the LORD thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage. Thou shalt have none other gods before me.
Ezekiel 8:9 And he said unto me, Go in, and behold the wicked abominations that they do here.
wicked...
07451 ra`
{rah}
from 07489; TWOT - 2191a,2191c
AV - evil 442, wickedness 59, wicked
25, mischief 21, hurt 20, bad 13,
trouble 10, sore 9, affliction 6, ill 5, adversity 4, favoured 3,
harm 3, naught 3, noisome 2, grievous 2, sad 2, misc 34; 663
Ezekiel 8:15 -18
15 Then said he unto me, Hast thou seen this, O son
of man? turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater
abominations than these.
16 And he brought me into the inner court of the LORD'S house,
and, behold, at the door of the temple of the LORD, between the
porch and the altar, were about five and twenty men, with their backs toward the temple
of the LORD, and their faces
toward the east; and they worshipped the
sun toward the east.
17 Then he said unto me, Hast thou seen this, O son of
man? Is it a light thing to the house of Judah that they
commit the abominations which they commit here? for they have filled
the land with violence, and have returned to provoke me
to anger: and, lo, they put the branch to their nose.
18 Therefore will I also deal in fury: mine eye shall not spare,
neither will I have pity: and though they cry in mine ears with a
loud voice, yet will I not hear them.
==========
>>>This spiral generated by a recursive nest of Golden Triangles (triangles with relative side lengths of 1, phi and phi) is the classic shape of the Chambered Nautilus shell. The creature building this shell uses the same proportions for each expanded chamber that is added; growth follows a law which is everywhere the same. The outer triangle is the same as one of the five "arms" of the pentagonal graphic above.<<<
http://www.intent.com/sg/index.html
>>>AMMONITES and spirals
There is something interesting about the circular form:
Without corners, beginning, or end, its surface causes the eye to constantly wander. With the addition of a spiral the object has added impact.
Take the shape of an ammonite, for instance. The viewer's eye follows its form round and round to the center and then back to the outer perimeter. Through out ages people have always been fascinated by the estethic form questions of the origin of these fossilized victims of our own evolution.
The name itself was first mentioned by the Egyptian sun god Ammon Ra who himself appeared as a ram.
They were among the very first life forms living in the prehistoric oceans some 500 to 65 million years ago. Ammonite fossilization reminds us of the history of our planet and the coming into existance of life.
The last representative of these species is the Nautilus which is still to be found today in the Indian Ocean. <<<
http://www.apropo.de/rn/ammonite/english/index.htm
AMMON
Ammon was one of the many non-Greek gods sometimes identified with Zeus. An Egyptian god associated with the city of Thebes, he had an oracle in Libya whose reputation was on a par with those at Delphi and Dodona. Ammon is the Greek rendering of Amun.
Etymology "Sandy"
http://www.pantheon.org/mythica/articles/a/ammon.html
AMUN
A primordial Egyptian god, whose name means "the hidden one". As the driving force of the invisible breeze he was originally a god of wind and ruler of the air. During the 11th dynasty (2133 - 2000 BC) he became the powerful sun-god of Thebes, where he was worshipped as Amun-Re. Later he was made the supreme god of the entire realm and king of the gods.
http://www.pantheon.org/mythica/articles/a/amun.html
International Year of Thanksgiving 2000...
http://www.un.org/Depts/UNPA/additional/thanks/index.htm
==========
Daniel 6:8 Now, O king, establish the decree, and sign the writing, that it be not changed, according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which altereth not.
Daniel 8:19 And he said, Behold, I will make thee know what
shall be in the last end of the indignation: for at the time
appointed the end shall be.
Daniel 8:20 The ram which
thou sawest having two horns are the kings of Media and
Persia.
But search back into the infancy of their cultures, the earliest roots of their languages... and you will find the Creator Sky God staring back at you.
In the ancient memory of every culture on Earth.
Every culture on earth? Seems an untenable and provable proposition. For a scholar who had a diffrent opinion, and who got the whole ball rolling, check out Frazer's "The Golden Bough".
All the energy expended by zealots on this imaginary god for which there is no proof that he ever existed.The power the 'priest' holds over the mind of man.I see no reason not believe in all the gods man has created,after all,we are an affluent nation and can certainly afford many gods.
Michael Rivero said -->
Mithrasism and Zaroastrianism both started with twin gods, one of good, one of evil.
You said -->
On this one little point, I'm suprised at you. Don't you know that good and evil are dualities, the existence of either depending on the other, and both together making One?
The Bible (i.e., the Word of God) tells us Satan is one of the created beings of the universe, and thus is not a true God, as is the eternally existant one -- who lives outside of the space-time domain of our created existence and universe. God is the only One who inhabits "eternity" -- which is that "timeless" existence -- where even the "physical component" of time that is part of our present universe -- does not exist.
Here are a few spots in the Bible, commenting about Lucifer, the morning star, the Dragon, Satan, the father of lies and the one who was in the Garden of Eden, who deceived Eve and caused Adam and Eve to sin, which then brought judgement upon them and the entire created universe.
This speaks of Satan, that he was a created being, and then -- at a time when unrighteousness was found to be in him. This is the point at which is marked the beginning of unrighteousness and evil in the world, not before this point.
Ezekiel 28:11-19
11 Again the word of the Lord came to me saying,
12 "Son of man, take up a lamentation over the king
of Tyre, and say to him, 'Thus says the Lord God,
"You had the seal of perfection, Full of wisdom and
perfect in beauty.
13 "You were in Eden, the garden of God; Every
precious stone was your covering: The ruby, the
topaz, and the diamond; The beryl, the onyx, and the
jasper; The lapis lazuli, the turquoise, and the
emerald; And the gold, the workmanship of your
settings and sockets, Was in you. On the day that
you were created They were prepared.
14 "You were the anointed cherub who covers, And I
placed you there. You were on the holy mountain of
God; You walked in the midst of the stones of fire.
15 "You were blameless in your ways From the day you
were created, Until unrighteousness was found in
you.
16 "By the abundance of your trade You were
internally filled with violence, And you sinned;
Therefore I have cast you as profane From the
mountain of God. And I have destroyed you, O
covering cherub, From the midst of the stones of
fire.
17 "Your heart was lifted up because of your beauty;
You corrupted your wisdom by reason of your
splendor. I cast you to the ground; I put you before
kings, That they may see you.
18 "By the multitude of your iniquities, In the
unrighteousness of your trade, You profaned your
sanctuaries. Therefore I have brought fire from the
midst of you; It has consumed you, And I have turned
you to ashes on the earth In the eyes of all who see
you.
19 "All who know you among the peoples Are appalled
at you; You have become terrified, And you will be
no more." ' "
This speaks of the end of Satan, which is foretold long ago, and actually was spoken about, for the first time, in the Garden of Eden, at the point which God pronounced judgement.
Isaiah 14:1-23
1 When the Lord will have compassion on Jacob, and
again choose Israel, and settle them in their own
land, then strangers will join them and attach
themselves to the house of Jacob.
2 And the peoples will take them along and bring
them to their place, and the house of Israel will
possess them as an inheritance in the land of the
Lord as male servants and female servants; and they
will take their captors captive, and will rule over
their oppressors.
3 And it will be in the day when the Lord gives you
rest from your pain and turmoil and harsh service in
which you have been enslaved,
4 that you will take up this taunt against the king
of Babylon, and say, "How the oppressor has ceased,
And how fury has ceased!
5 "The Lord has broken the staff of the wicked, The
scepter of rulers
6 Which used to strike the peoples in fury with
unceasing strokes, Which subdued the nations in
anger with unrestrained persecution.
7 "The whole earth is at rest and is quiet; They
break forth into shouts of joy.
8 "Even the cypress trees rejoice over you, and the
cedars of Lebanon, saying, 'Since you were laid low,
no tree cutter comes up against us.'
9 "Sheol from beneath is excited over you to meet
you when you come; It arouses for you the spirits of
the dead, all the leaders of the earth; It raises
all the kings of the nations from their thrones.
10 "They will all respond and say to you, 'Even you
have been made weak as we, You have become like us.
11 'Your pomp and the music of your harps Have been
brought down to Sheol; Maggots are spread out as
your bed beneath you, And worms are your covering.'
12 "How you have fallen from heaven, O star of the
morning, son of the dawn! You have been cut down to
the earth, You who have weakened the nations!
13 "But you said in your heart, 'I will ascend to
heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of
God, And I will sit on the mount of assembly In the
recesses of the north.
14 'I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I
will make myself like the Most High.'
15 "Nevertheless you will be thrust down to Sheol,
To the recesses of the pit.
16 "Those who see you will gaze at you, They will
ponder over you, saying, 'Is this the man who made
the earth tremble, Who shook kingdoms,
17 Who made the world like a wilderness And
overthrew its cities, Who did not allow his
prisoners to go home?'
18 "All the kings of the nations lie in glory, Each
in his own tomb.
19 "But you have been cast out of your tomb Like a
rejected branch, Clothed with the slain who are
pierced with a sword, Who go down to the stones of
the pit, Like a trampled corpse.
20 "You will not be united with them in burial,
Because you have ruined your country, You have slain
your people. May the offspring of evildoers not be
mentioned forever.
21 "Prepare for his sons a place of slaughter
Because of the iniquity of their fathers. They must
not arise and take possession of the earth And fill
the face of the world with cities."
22 "And I will rise up against them," declares the
Lord of hosts, "and will cut off from Babylon name
and survivors, offspring and posterity," declares
the Lord.
23 "I will also make it a possession for the
hedgehog, and swamps of water, and I will sweep it
with the broom of destruction," declares the Lord of
hosts.
Here is where we see that Satan is still allowed presence before the Lord and is allowed to continually make his accusations against the righteous that follow God.
Job 1:6-12
6 Now there was a day when the sons of God came to
present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also
came among them.
7 And the Lord said to Satan, "From where do you
come?" Then Satan answered the Lord and said, "From
roaming about on the earth and walking around on
it."
8 And the Lord said to Satan, "Have you considered
My servant Job? For there is no one like him on the
earth, a blameless and upright man, fearing God and
turning away from evil."
9 Then Satan answered the Lord, "Does Job fear God
for nothing?
10 "Hast Thou not made a hedge about him and his
house and all that he has, on every side? Thou hast
blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions
have increased in the land.
11 "But put forth Thy hand now and touch all that he
has; he will surely curse Thee to Thy face."
12 Then the Lord said to Satan, "Behold, all that he
has is in your power, only do not put forth your
hand on him." So Satan departed from the presence of
the Lord.
In the end, God restores what Satan took away. In the process, Satan is shown to be who he is, as the acuser of the brethren, while God's is proven to be the one and only true God whom we can clearly see that Satan submits to, as he is a mere created being. And in the end Job is restored for what Satan took away.
Job 42:7-17
7 And it came about after the Lord had spoken these
words to Job, that the Lord said to Eliphaz the
Temanite, "My wrath is kindled against you and
against your two friends, because you have not
spoken of Me what is right as My servant Job has.
8 "Now therefore, take for yourselves seven bulls
and seven rams, and go to My servant Job, and offer
up a burnt offering for yourselves, and My servant
Job will pray for you. For I will accept him so that
I may not do with you according to your folly,
because you have not spoken of Me what is right, as
My servant Job has."
9 So Eliphaz the Temanite and Bildad the Shuhite and
Zophar the Naamathite went and did as the Lord told
them; and the Lord accepted Job.
10 And the Lord restored the fortunes of Job when he
prayed for his friends, and the Lord increased all
that Job had twofold.
11 Then all his brothers, and all his sisters, and
all who had known him before, came to him, and they
ate bread with him in his house; and they consoled
him and comforted him for all the evil that the Lord
had brought on him. And each one gave him one piece
of money, and each a ring of gold.
12 And the Lord blessed the latter days of Job more
than his beginning, and he had 14,000 sheep, and
6,000 camels, and 1,000 yoke of oxen, and 1,000
female donkeys.
13 And he had seven sons and three daughters.
14 And he named the first Jemimah, and the second
Keziah, and the third Keren-happuch.
15 And in all the land no women were found so fair
as Job's daughters; and their father gave them
inheritance among their brothers.
16 And after this Job lived 140 years, and saw his
sons, and his grandsons, four generations.
17 And Job died, an old man and full of days.
And here we see that even the disciples Christ are subjected to the same kinds of demands that Satan has done from the beginning in accusing all who believe and trust in God. Satan is granted permission to do what he will in order to try and "prove" his accusations. In the end, though, we see that Jesus prays that we remain strong, through the trials which are subjected by Satan.
Luke 22:31-34
31 "Simon, Simon, behold, Satan has demanded
permission to sift you like wheat;
32 but I have prayed for you, that your faith may
not fail; and you, when once you have turned again,
strengthen your brothers."
33 And he said to Him, "Lord, with You I am ready to
go both to prison and to death!"
34 And He said, "I say to you, Peter, the cock will
not crow today until you have denied three times
that you know Me."
We are subjected to Satan for a while, in his "prowling", but we can resist in the faith that we have in Christ, although we suffer "for a little while...". In the end, Christ will "Himself perfect, confirm, strengthen and establish you"
1 Peter 5:8-11
8 Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your
adversary, the devil, prowls about like a roaring
lion, seeking someone to devour.
9 But resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that
the same experiences of suffering are being
accomplished by your brethren who are in the world.
10 And after you have suffered for a little while,
the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal
glory in Christ, will Himself perfect, confirm,
strengthen and establish you.
11 To Him be dominion forever and ever. Amen.
At this point, the time has come for Satan. It's during the time of the Tribulation (upon the earth) at which point Satan is cast out of the place where he previously inhabited and was able to accuse the brethren day and night.
Revelation 12:10
10 And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying,"Now
the salvation, and the power, and the kingdom of our
God and the authority of His Christ have come, for
the accuser of our brethren has been thrown down,
who accuses them before our God day and night.
Here we see the end of Satan and in that he takes a third of the angels with him in his rebellion against God.
Revelation 12:3-4; 7-17
3 And another sign appeared in heaven: and behold, a
great red dragon having seven heads and ten horns,
and on his heads were seven diadems.
4 And his tail swept away a third of the stars of
heaven, and threw them to the earth. And the dragon
stood before the woman who was about to give birth,
so that when she gave birth he might devour her
child.
[ ... ]
7 And there was war in heaven, Michael and his
angels waging war with the dragon. And the dragon
and his angels waged war,
8 and they were not strong enough, and there was no
longer a place found for them in heaven.
9 And the great dragon was thrown down, the serpent
of old who is called the devil and Satan, who
deceives the whole world; he was thrown down to the
earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.
10 And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying,"Now
the salvation, and the power, and the kingdom of our
God and the authority of His Christ have come, for
the accuser of our brethren has been thrown down,
who accuses them before our God day and night.
11 "And they overcame him because of the blood of
the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony,
and they did not love their life even to death.
12 "For this reason, rejoice, O heavens and you who
dwell in them. Woe to the earth and the sea, because
the devil has come down to you, having great wrath,
knowing that he has only a short time."
13 And when the dragon saw that he was thrown down
to the earth, he persecuted the woman who gave birth
to the male child.
14 And the two wings of the great eagle were given
to the woman, in order that she might fly into the
wilderness to her place, where she was nourished for
a time and times and half a time, from the presence
of the serpent.
15 And the serpent poured water like a river out of
his mouth after the woman, so that he might cause
her to be swept away with the flood.
16 And the earth helped the woman, and the earth
opened its mouth and drank up the river which the
dragon poured out of his mouth.
17 And the dragon was enraged with the woman, and
went off to make war with the rest of her offspring,
who keep the commandments of God and hold to the
testimony of Jesus.
This is the point at which Satan is imprisoned for the 1,000 years that Christ reigns upon this earth, with His Kingdom that He sets up over all the people of the world, ruling from Israel as King of kings and Lord of lords.
Revelation 20:1-3; 7-15
1 And I saw an angel coming down from heaven, having
the key of the abyss and a great chain in his hand.
2 And he laid hold of the dragon, the serpent of
old, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a
thousand years,
3 and threw him into the abyss, and shut it and
sealed it over him, so that he should not deceive
the nations any longer, until the thousand years
were completed; after these things he must be
released for a short time.
[ ... ]
7 And when the thousand years are completed, Satan
will be released from his prison,
8 and will come out to deceive the nations which are
in the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to
gather them together for the war; the number of them
is like the sand of the seashore.
9 And they came up on the broad plain of the earth
and surrounded the camp of the saints and the
beloved city, and fire came down from heaven and
devoured them.
10 And the devil who deceived them was thrown into
the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and
the false prophet are also; and they will be
tormented day and night forever and ever.
11 And I saw a great white throne and Him who sat
upon it, from whose presence earth and heaven fled
away, and no place was found for them.
12 And I saw the dead, the great and the small,
standing before the throne, and books were opened;
and another book was opened, which is the book of
life; and the dead were judged from the things which
were written in the books, according to their deeds.
13 And the sea gave up the dead which were in it,
and death and Hades gave up the dead which were in
them; and they were judged, every one of them
according to their deeds.
14 And death and Hades were thrown into the lake of
fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire.
15 And if anyone's name was not found written in the
book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.
One short last time is allowed for Satan, and then all those who have chosen to follow Satan, instead of God are cast into the Lake of Fire, to be with him and tormented forever -- in eternal separation from God.
In all this -- I think it's clear that there is no duality of gods -- but only the one true God, who rules over all of creation. All others will be cast into the Lake of Fire, to be forever separated from the one true God.
All the energy expended by zealots on this imaginary god for which there is no proof that he ever existed.The power the 'priest' holds over the mind of man.I see no reason not believe in all the gods man has created,after all,we are an affluent nation and can certainly afford many gods.
Man has, indeed, created many "gods".
And pre-dating all of them, in every culture on Earth, is the far more ancient Uncreated, Eternal Creator Sky God.
Everywhere.
I know it would be far more convenient for the evolutionist if, investigating the earliest religious traditions and linguistic roots of every folk religion on earth, they didn't always find the One Creator God staring back at them.
But there He is.
Every culture on earth? Seems an untenable and provable proposition. For a scholar who had a diffrent opinion, and who got the whole ball rolling, check out Frazer's "The Golden Bough".
How's about we instead read something a little more comprehensive -- like the single most comprehensive work ever done on the subject?
Finally, Dr. Wilhelm Schmidt, an Austrian, set out in the 1920's to compile every "alias of the Almighty" discovered by explorers around the world. It took Schmidt an amazing six volumes totalling 4,500 pages to detail them all! A minimum of a thousand more examples have come to light since then. An approximate 90 percent or more of the folk religions on this planet contain clear acknowledgment of the existence of one Supreme God! Schmidt's classic "Der Ursprung der Gottesidee"
Dr. Custance relates the concept of monotheism to other early cultures, such as China, Greece and Rome, and the Middle East. He states: "The evidence shows that he (man) began with the true Light and now has his understanding increasingly darkened. The evidence for this among primitive people is to be found in every corner of the world where such people now exist or have existed within recent times. And paradoxically, the more primitive they are, the simpler and the purer is their faith often found to be."
BTTT for your attention
Glad you liked.
I'm just glad God made His plan simple to confound the wise.
Amen!!!
28 clicks of Bible quotes. That's excessive.
Check out Thinking Gal's #16. Is this the Golden Triangle you were talking about? The link is very good too.
28 clicks of Bible quotes. That's excessive.
They're integrated from beginning to end and form a mere "highlight". It's about as simple as you can get in one post, and carry it from beginning to end.
It shows Satan as not being an alternate god in a duality of gods of the universe, but rather as a mere created being. God exists outside of His creation and outside of the physicality of "time" (as it's part of the "physics" of the existence of the universe). So, this shows God exists (in His being) outside of sin and evil as shown in the created universe (and as Satan was the one who brought it into a created, perfect universe, just as he was perfect, too).
Thus, in the end, God brings "creation" back to its perfect state again, in such a way that Christ is the One who performs the necessary "sacrifice" to enable it to be so -- and maintain the righteousness of God.
Thus, it doesn't appear to be too excessive to me. Perhaps you're just not understanding the significance. The authority for this doesn't come from my own ideas, thus the quotes are there to show where they do come from. Most would never look it up directly, themselves. Here they have it directly. It serves its purpose that way.
But, of course, to continue on the point of whether its excessive, versus the basic message itself -- would then become excessive.
How's about we instead read something a little more comprehensive -- like the single most comprehensive work ever done on the subject?
This seems rather silly, since the comprehensive nature of a work is no indication of quality or veracity. The Golden Bough encompasses 12 volumes and 1000's of pages. Does this make it somehow more valid?
I don't put any particular value on Frazer's work more than any other I've read, but the point I am trying to make is that it is foolish to rely on any one source, when what we are dealing with is history and people's (admittedly scholarly) opinions of it.
I appreciate your treatise, but if God is the source of all Good, He must be the source of all Evil, without which there would be no such thing as Good, as we know it with our finite minds. God is the source of all things in Heaven and Earth. Satan is not the source of Evil, he merely uses it for his purposes.
Well ... yes, I suppose. I think the reason it had been on my mind for a year or so is because I'd picked up a book on the solving of Fermat's last theorem by a scientist clearly put out by the notoriety A.W.? (spacing his name at the moment) received for his proof.
Pithy thing which started with Pythagorus and worked its way to the present where he also credited the work of several contemporaries. In the historical progression, Fibonacci was featured, of course, as was the Nautilus example and a couple other instances (both figurative and from nature) of the "Golden Triangle" I first asked about.
The fact is that nonne of the world's religions agree on the number of gods, their names, what they look lke, where they live, or what they do. In addition to making it extremely long odds agains any of then aving all the answers, the sheer diversity of beliefs provs there is no such thing as divine inspiration, and without divine inspiration, holy texts do not prove the existance of the gods they describe any more than comic books prove there is a Superman.
The sheer NUMBER of incorrect math equations PROVES
that Elsie didn'r write them all! An ALL-POWERFUL Elsie would make them all agree! (IMHO)
Don't worry........ If I were a betting sort, I'd put MY money on the probability that Toot didn't read the 28 snips, but merely panned thru with glazed eyes.....
(Now if you DO take the time to check all the math, you'll find one that IS right!)
HHMMmm......... I'm wonder what he's getting at..............
I appreciate your treatise, but if God is the source of all Good, He must be the source of all Evil, without which there would be no such thing as Good, as we know it with our finite minds. God is the source of all things in Heaven and Earth. Satan is not the source of Evil, he merely uses it for his purposes.
Well, I personally can't know where sin and unrighteousness come from, since I wasn't here at that time. So, I'm definitely limited to taking God at His Word. And that's about as far as I can go. Any more than that and it's speculation on our parts, since no person who is reading this, today, was "there" at that point in time a long time ago.
All I can point to is what God says -- and to this part specifically.
Ezekiel 28:13-15
13 "You were in Eden, the garden of God; Every
precious stone was your covering: The ruby, the
topaz, and the diamond; The beryl, the onyx, and the
jasper; The lapis lazuli, the turquoise, and the
emerald; And the gold, the workmanship of your
settings and sockets, Was in you. On the day that
you were created They were prepared.
14 "You were the anointed cherub who covers, And I
placed you there. You were on the holy mountain of
God; You walked in the midst of the stones of fire.
15 "You were blameless in your ways From the day you
were created, Until unrighteousness was found in
you.
Now, from what we have heard from God's own words about creation, and in that everything was created perfect and was pronounced perfect (at that time) -- to this point where we have this quote that says Satan was the "cherub who covers" and he was "blameless" (from the beginning of his own creation) -- this indicates that sin and unrighteousness started with Satan, not with God. This is very specifically pointed out by God.
----------
As a sort of side issue (in a way) is the word "evil" -- in that this word can refer to the "calamity" that God sends upon the earth in His various judgements. This is not what is referred to here as the "unrighteousness" that is found in Satan.
God can bring "evil" (as it means the calamity resulting from the judgement of God upon "unrighteousness") -- and this, in and of itself (according to the Bible) is not "unrighteousness" in God in delivering this judgement.
Satan can also bring this kind of "evil" (which is that kind of calamity upon mankind) -- but this stems from his "unrighteousness". And in mankind, sin comes from this kind of unrighteousness -- and it results in "evil" upon this earth.
God has already clearly stated that this unrighteousness is not part of Him (so emphatically stated in His Word), and that the creation was made perfect and declared perfect in the beginning. And then God identifies the very source of unrighteousness. And then He also goes on to say (in the end) that all unrighteousness will be removed (along the results of it, sin and evil and death) -- when "all things are made new" (seen and stated in Revelation).
That will be when God restores creation back to its original condition -- once again.
You're too immersed in sin and evil -- as we all are in this "present state" of creation, which is in "bondage to sin" and is in "decay" -- to recognize fully that God has no part of creating that unrighteousness. We can only take God at His word -- or -- call Him a liar. And He says He will restore all things to the way it was (as He made it and declared it) in the beginning.
This seems rather silly, since the comprehensive nature of a work is no indication of quality or veracity. The Golden Bough encompasses 12 volumes and 1000's of pages. Does this make it somehow more valid? I don't put any particular value on Frazer's work more than any other I've read, but the point I am trying to make is that it is foolish to rely on any one source, when what we are dealing with is history and people's (admittedly scholarly) opinions of it.
No; my point is that although, to quote one review of Frazer,
While highly influential in its day, The Golden Bough has come under harsh critical scrutiny in subsequent decades, with many of its descriptions of regional folklore and legends deemed less than reliable
The primary problem of looking at Frazer as a source is that he's primarily interested in cataloguing similarities of religious traditions, not in seeking out their earliest roots. His work was rooted in Spencer's hypotheses, and the data are arranged around that theme; and yet Schmidt's work of a half-century later thoroughly debunks Spencer: Yes, polytheism and animism and belief in magic are found in a variety of ancient traditions, but what predates that animism, that polytheism? Ancestor worship? Totemism?
No, if you go back far enough, you run into Uncreated, Eternal, Creator-Sky-God Monotheism.
You always run into Eternal Creator Sky God Monotheism.
In every corner of the globe.
Excellent post. Thank you.
Peace,
Wonderful post.
Here we see the end of Satan and in that he takes a third of the angels with him in his rebellion against God.
Revelation 12:3-4; 7-17
You believe this to be prophetical rather than an historical observation? I thought Satan's heavenly rebellion occurred prior to earths creation and that the 1/3 of heaven that was cast out with him is correspondingly represented on earth now as angel - imp; cherubim - devil; seraphim - demon; archangel - i don't know what, or some such nomenclature.
You're most welcome. It'll be in my bookmarks, for reference.
No, if you go back far enough, you run into Uncreated, Eternal, Creator-Sky-God Monotheism.
I actually have gone back that far, in my own study, and I have not found that which you claim I should have
You always run into Eternal Creator Sky God Monotheism.
In every corner of the globe.
Again, you make an all-encompassing claim that is not justified, to only my own experience, but also in abiding in logic in general.
You have not cited any source that supports the 100% factor that you still espouse.
Your sources say "sometimes" or even "most of the time", yet you leap into "all the time, without exception". Your sources do not justify your conclusions.
I actually have gone back that far, in my own study, and I have not found that which you claim I should have Again, you make an all-encompassing claim that is not justified, to only my own experience, but also in abiding in logic in general. You have not cited any source that supports the 100% factor that you still espouse. Your sources say "sometimes"
A flat-out falsification. You know that the statements in the above article are, uniformly, far stronger than “sometimes”. This idea -- “sometimes” -- is an attempt to introduce blatant fabrication into the debate.
or even "most of the time", yet you leap into "all the time, without exception". Your sources do not justify your conclusions.
Really?
"There are in ancient religions and theologies very different classes of gods. Some races, as the modern Hindu, revel in a profusion of gods and godlings which continually increase, and literally number in the millions. Others ... do not attempt to worship great gods, but deal with a host of animistic spirits, devils, or whatever we may call them ... But all our knowledge of the early positions and nature of the great gods shows them to stand on an entirely different footing to these varied spirits.
"Were the conception of a god only an evolution from such spirit worship, we should find the worship of many gods preceding the worship of one god ... What we actually find is the contrary of this, monotheism is the first stage traceable in theology ...
"Wherever we can trace polytheism back to its earliest stages, we find that it results from combinations of monotheism.”
This was documented by Schmidt, and “A minimum of a thousand more examples have come to light since then”, taking the proportion to over 90% of the world’s folk religions traced back to the Creator Sky God.
There are less than 10% of folk religions remaining which have not yet been traced back to the Ancient Universal Monotheism. This does not mean that these traditions lack an ancient, original belief in a Creator Sky God; only that anthropology is hardly a “finished science”. In those (now in excess of 90%) cases where anthropologists have managed to trace back the Folk Religion in question to its earliest roots, well... "Wherever we can trace polytheism back to its earliest stages, we find that it results from combinations of monotheism".
Interesting.
Agree with bigsur that it's impossible to prove how EVERY culture began regarding god. Claiming every culture worshipped the skygod is impossible to prove, as not all primitive cultures are recorded. Further, I think there is strong evidence for early polytheism in many cultures...N & S American tribes, Celts, Norse.
Also, you have not strongly defined "monotheism". Your article begins by claiming the Book of the Dead affirmed the true monotheistic nature of Egyptian relion:
"A Hymn To Amen-Ra ... president of all the gods ... His forms are more numerous than those of any god
This prayer affirms itself the existence of many gods, however Amen is declared their leader, similar to Zeus in the Greek pantheon. You seem to imply that as long as one god stands above others in a hierarchy, this equals monotheism.
This is definitely not the monotheism espoused by Christianity. There is one god, with 3 manifestations. NO OTHER GODS.
You seem to claim that all early cultures worshipped the god of the OT.
This is a new-age viewpoint, and would not be acceptable to Orthodox Jews. It would be heresy to claim that Brahma is a devolution of Jehovah. The OT declares a revelation to a chosen people...this is not expanded to the general populace until the arrival of Christ, according to mainstream Christian dogma.
If anything, the similar descriptions of a creator god by various religions points to a shared myth structure...whether this is biological, psychological, or oral tradition is the question.
Note this applies to the NT as well, as my original question to you concerned the similarites between the lives of Christ and Krshna. Your thesis that god is a spark in the mind of primitive mand, which devolves over time, doesn't fit with this case. By the time of the Vedas, which describe the life of Krshna, Hindu theology was polytheistic. And the Krshna account was 500 years at least before Christ. And as Michael Rivero noted with Zoroaster, 200-300 years before Christ.
Finally, the issue is odd for Christians, as the bible states pretty clearly that unless you profess Christ to be your savior, you're gonna burn in hell. This isn't too comfortable a line to take, with people like Gandhi on the other side of the fence, as well as the countless neighbors, relatives and friends we all to be good, conscious, responsible individuals, who don't happen to be Christians.
You believe this to be prophetical rather than an historical observation? I thought Satan's heavenly rebellion occurred prior to earths creation and that the 1/3 of heaven that was cast out with him is correspondingly represented on earth now as angel - imp; cherubim - devil; seraphim - demon; archangel - i don't know what, or some such nomenclature.
Yes, it's prophetical and hasn't happened yet. The rebellion has happened already (obviously so), but the judgement of the casting of Satan and his rebellious angels down to earth has not happened yet.
Just think of it as a long "trial" in the heavenlies, in which Satan not only accuses those in Christ, but also implicitly is accusing God of unrighteousness (listen to what He says to Eve). God could judge immediately, but restrains Himself and is long-suffering so that all who will accept Christ have that opportunity -- the many generations who were yet to be born at the time.
And so, we see that Satan still has a place in Heaven, from which he can still accuse those on earth, before the Lord.
We see -- in New Testament -- that He is still doing that. He accuses the brethren before the Lord. So, you see, Satan has to be there, in Heaven, accusing before the Lord, to do that. He does that "officially" you might say. And many people are given into the hands of Satan for "testing" just as Job and Peter were. It's like being cross-examined in court, you might say. He's the prosecution. The Judge is God and our Redeemer and "Advocate" is Jesus Christ, and we are the living witnesses to God (or to Satan).
But, there is finally a time at which -- "no longer a place found for them in Heaven." Before that point in time -- we see with Job, Satan was going back and forth from Heaven to earth, while accusing the brethren.
At a certain point in time Satan is cast down. The question might be raised as to why it is at a *particular time*? What happened?
Well, it's probably when the Antichrist steps into the Temple of God and the Holy of Holies and makes the declaration that He is God, as the Antichrist (as a man) is probably (at that point) "possessed" by Satan when making that declaration. That's probably what causes the immediate judgement by God, and which leads to verse Revelation 12:7-9. Satan, at that point, committed the ultimate in his rebellion, and that gets him cast out of Heaven, along with his followers.
7 And there was war in heaven, Michael and his
angels waging war with the dragon. And the dragon
and his angels waged war,
8 and they were not strong enough, and there was no
longer a place found for them in heaven.
9 And the great dragon was thrown down, the serpent
of old who is called the devil and Satan, who
deceives the whole world; he was thrown down to the
earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.
My guess is prior to that, Satan's rebellion was not "complete", but still he was working unrighteously against God. At this point it becomes complete. And it's at this point that the full judgement of God is about to come down on him, his evil angels and those who are still left upon the earth (as they have previously rejected Christ).
The time is significantly marked as happening right after verse 6, where we are told a place is prepared for Israel, for 1,260 days. It's right then, that Satan and angels are cast down.
It's at verse 10, which is at the mid-point of the Tribulation, that time that Jesus said to flee immediately.
10 And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying,"Now
the salvation, and the power, and the kingdom of our
God and the authority of His Christ have come, for
the accuser of our brethren has been thrown down,
who accuses them before our God day and night.
Matthew 24:15-22
15 "Therefore when you see the abomination of
desolation which was spoken of through Daniel the
prophet, standing in the holy place (let the reader
understand),
16 then let those who are in Judea flee to the
mountains;
17 let him who is on the housetop not go down to get
the things out that are in his house;
18 and let him who is in the field not turn back to
get his cloak.
19 "But woe to those who are with child and to those
who nurse babes in those days!
20 "But pray that your flight may not be in the
winter, or on a Sabbath;
21 for then there will be a great tribulation, such
as has not occurred since the beginning of the world
until now, nor ever shall.
22 "And unless those days had been cut short, no
life would have been saved; but for the sake of the
elect those days shall be cut short.
Daniel 8:9-12; 23-26
9 And out of one of them came forth a rather small
horn which grew exceedingly great toward the south,
toward the east, and toward the Beautiful Land.
10 And it grew up to the host of heaven and caused
some of the host and some of the stars to fall to
the earth, and it trampled them down.
11 It even magnified itself to be equal with the
Commander of the host; and it removed the regular
sacrifice from Him, and the place of His sanctuary
was thrown down.
12 And on account of transgression the host will be
given over to the horn along with the regular
sacrifice; and it will fling truth to the ground and
perform its will and prosper.
[ ... ]
23 "And in the latter period of their rule, When the
transgressors have run their course, A king will
arise Insolent and skilled in intrigue.
24 "And his power will be mighty, but not by his own
power, And he will destroy to an extraordinary
degree And prosper and perform his will; He will
destroy mighty men and the holy people.
25 "And through his shrewdness He will cause deceit
to succeed by his influence; And he will magnify
himself in his heart, And he will destroy many while
they are at ease. He will even oppose the Prince of
princes, But he will be broken without human agency.
26 "And the vision of the evenings and mornings
Which has been told is true; But keep the vision
secret, For it pertains to many days in the future."
Daniel 10:30-45
30 "For ships of Kittim will come against him;
therefore he will be disheartened, and will return
and become enraged at the holy covenant and take
action; so he will come back and show regard for
those who forsake the holy covenant.
31 "And forces from him will arise, desecrate the
sanctuary fortress, and do away with the regular
sacrifice. And they will set up the abomination of
desolation.
32 "And by smooth words he will turn to godlessness
those who act wickedly toward the covenant, but the
people who know their God will display strength and
take action.
33 "And those who have insight among the people will
give understanding to the many; yet they will fall
by sword and by flame, by captivity and by plunder,
for many days.
34 "Now when they fall they will be granted a little
help, and many will join with them in hypocrisy.
35 "And some of those who have insight will fall, in
order to refine, purge, and make them pure, until
the end time; because it is still to come at the
appointed time.
36 "Then the king will do as he pleases, and he will
exalt and magnify himself above every god, and will
speak monstrous things against the God of gods; and
he will prosper until the indignation is finished,
for that which is decreed will be done.
37 "And he will show no regard for the gods of his
fathers or for the desire of women, nor will he show
regard for any other god; for he will magnify
himself above them all.
38 "But instead he will honor a god of fortresses, a
god whom his fathers did not know; he will honor him
with gold, silver, costly stones, and treasures.
39 "And he will take action against the strongest of
fortresses with the help of a foreign god; he will
give great honor to those who acknowledge him, and
he will cause them to rule over the many, and will
parcel out land for a price.
40 "And at the end time the king of the South will
collide with him, and the king of the North will
storm against him with chariots, with horsemen, and
with many ships; and he will enter countries,
overflow them, and pass through.
41 "He will also enter the Beautiful Land, and many
countries will fall; but these will be rescued out
of his hand: Edom, Moab and the foremost of the sons
of Ammon.
42 "Then he will stretch out his hand against other
countries, and the land of Egypt will not escape.
43 "But he will gain control over the hidden
treasures of gold and silver, and over all the
precious things of Egypt; and Libyans and Ethiopians
will follow at his heels.
44 "But rumors from the East and from the North will
disturb him, and he will go forth with great wrath
to destroy and annihilate many.
45 "And he will pitch the tents of his royal
pavilion between the seas and the beautiful Holy
Mountain; yet he will come to his end, and no one
will help him.
Daniel 11:1-4
1 "Now at that time Michael, the great prince who
stands guard over the sons of your people, will
arise. And there will be a time of distress such as
never occurred since there was a nation until that
time; and at that time your people, everyone who is
found written in the book, will be rescued.
2 "And many of those who sleep in the dust of the
ground will awake, these to everlasting life, but
the others to disgrace and everlasting contempt.
3 "And those who have insight will shine brightly
like the brightness of the expanse of heaven, and
those who lead the many to righteousness, like the
stars forever and ever.
4 "But as for you, Daniel, conceal these words and
seal up the book until the end of time; many will go
back and forth, and knowledge will increase."
So, when he's cast down to earth -- Satan knows he only has a short time, at that point. He knows it's 1,260 days from then. He knows that precisely, from prophecy.
Revelation 12:12
"For this reason, rejoice, O heavens and you who
dwell in them. Woe to the earth and the sea, because
the devil has come down to you, having great wrath,
knowing that he has only a short time."
And then we see, that Israel is protected during that time -- quote verse 14.
Revelation 12:14
And the two wings of the great eagle were given to
the woman, in order that she might fly into the
wilderness to her place, where she was nourished for
a time and times and half a time, from the presence
of the serpent.
And then in verse 17, we see an enraged Satan going to war and persecute the rest of them who are Christians, in the rest of the world.
Revelation 12:17
And the dragon was enraged with the woman, and went
off to make war with the rest of her offspring, who
keep the commandments of God and hold to the
testimony of Jesus.
There will probably be many saved at this time -- as there has been the preaching of the Gospel to the whole world, and the people who are in the midst of the Tribulation can see for sure that they are there and what is happening. This will lead many to repent (who haven't before) and they will be saved. That's why we see *many* coming out of the Great Tribulation at that time.
Rev 7:9-17.
9 After these things I looked, and behold, a great
multitude, which no one could count, from every
nation and all tribes and peoples and tongues,
standing before the throne and before the Lamb,
clothed in white robes, and palm branches were in
their hands;
10 and they cry out with a loud voice,
saying,"Salvation to our God who sits on the throne,
and to the Lamb."
11 And all the angels were standing around the
throne and around the elders and the four living
creatures; and they fell on their faces before the
throne and worshiped God,
12 saying,"Amen, blessing and glory and wisdom and
thanksgiving and honor and power and might, be to
our God forever and ever. Amen."
13 And one of the elders answered, saying to me,
"These who are clothed in the white robes, who are
they, and from where have they come?"
14 And I said to him, "My lord, you know." And he
said to me, "These are the ones who come out of the
great tribulation, and they have washed their robes
and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.
15 "For this reason, they are before the throne of
God; and they serve Him day and night in His temple;
and He who sits on the throne shall spread His
tabernacle over them.
16 "They shall hunger no more, neither thirst
anymore; neither shall the sun beat down on them,
nor any heat;
17 for the Lamb in the center of the throne shall be
their shepherd, and shall guide them to springs of
the water of life; and God shall wipe every tear
from their eyes."
And so -- yes, it is yet to come. It happens within that last 7 years prior to the final return of Christ.
I certainly buy the idea of the sky-father being universal or nearly so. Chesterton has an excellent discussion about this in The Everlasting Man, by the way. And my own reading about many ancient religions confirms it fairly well. But the picture is not quite as simple as this article makes it out, in my opinion.
The thing is, meanings don't stand still in lots of these countries and traditions. Names last longer than what they mean, as stories about them change, or two entities are blended into one, etc. There is also enourmous "syncretism", as one religious tradition borrows from another one, often a much later one, and tries to incorporate essential aspects of a later doctrine into their own stories or ideas.
I can give an example. In the article, the writer discussed Zeus, who in late Greece was a ruler god and sky god. And yes, the name itself is related to more general words for "god", to other languages, etc. But Zeus was also probably an historical person, a mere man. From the island of Crete, where in ancient times there was a tomb of his, legends about his birth there, etc. I'm not making that up, you can find it mentioned prominently in church fathers like Clement of Alexandria and Augustine. And mythologically, Zeus was said to have overthrown older gods. The later-greek "original" sky god was Uranus (a latinized translation of the greek name).
So, there was a word for god, which probably came from other languages and thus from earlier civilizations farther east. There was an original sky-god in greek traditions too, and that name wasn't Zeus. And there was a king on crete who was a powerful man and had tales told about him, and doubtless ancestor worship toward him, given the age of the practices and places about him on crete.
And what probably happened in that case is that later, they all blended into the later understanding of Zeus as sky-god. The similarity of the name of the king tales were told about, to the imported word for "god", was suggestive. The nature of the god the imported word was talking about in other, more eastern civilizations, was closer to their own sky-god idea. The king gave his name to the foreign god; that name for the sky-god idea took over from the greek name for the same idea; a bit of myth was added about a change in the rulership of the gods passing rule to "Zeus". End result - a sky-god name that is near sanskrit for god but nearer the name of a dead king from crete, with the stories told about him mixed of sky-god things, king stories, and change of rule in heaven.
My point is that things get more messy than the article goes into when you look at particular cases - ancestor worship cases and spreading or syncretism do matter sometimes, etc.
You also get cases where one tradition is older than another, but the content has been modified later by a foreign tradition. That is, A first, then B elsewhere, bits of B influence A and make it C. You look at C and it has an origin older than B, and contains doctrines seen in B. It is real easy to wrongly conclude that B got it from a unified and old A=C foreign tradition, or to miss the old A content that lacked the syncretic, later additions. In other words, deciding that two traditions interacted is a lot easier than figuring out which one influenced the other and when.
None of which contradicts the universality of a sky-father idea. It just shows there is more going on and things can get rather messy, and some things are pretty hard to know for certain, and blanket claims like "ancestor worship isn't relevant" etc probably aren't realistic. Most permutations you can think of, probably happened somewhere sometime. In spite of that complexity, though, there is indeed good evidence for, and no sound reason against, the idea that "sky-father" is a nearly universal main deity in one way or another.
Further, I think there is strong evidence for early polytheism in many cultures...N & S American tribes, Celts, Norse.
yup.
And before that polytheism: Monotheism.
Also, you have not strongly defined "monotheism". Your article begins by claiming the Book of the Dead affirmed the true monotheistic nature of Egyptian relion: "A Hymn To Amen-Ra ... president of all the gods ... His forms are more numerous than those of any god This prayer affirms itself the existence of many gods, however Amen is declared their leader, similar to Zeus in the Greek pantheon. You seem to imply that as long as one god stands above others in a hierarchy, this equals monotheism.
If His worship pre-dates theirs; if He is regarded as their Creator; if (as in so many cases) they are little more than developments of Names for, or Attributes of, the Creator God; Then yes.
The Hebrews affirmed other "heavenly beings"; they have been called "angels and demons" and other names as well, and also have been called "gods"; but, as in the Primitive Monotheism of all cultures, the "gods" were created by the Eternal Creator God (Him who is called in the Hebrew tongue YHWH), of whom "You shall have no other gods before Me".
This is definitely not the monotheism espoused by Christianity. There is one god, with 3 manifestations. NO OTHER GODS.
The Scriptures alternatively refer to the Canaanite gods as "false gods", "other gods", and "demons":
"You shall not follow other gods, any of the gods of the peoples who surround you" (Deuteronomy 6:14)
The defining characteristic of monotheism isn't whether or not you call the Lesser Heavenly Beings "gods" or "angels", but whether or not you Affirm that All Things are Created by the Supreme God, including any lesser "gods" or "heavenly beings" or "angels", and the Affirmation that only the Creator God is worthy of Worship.
An Idea which is affirmed in the Ancient Primitive Monotheism found pre-dating all later corruptions, in every culture, in every corner of the globe.
You seem to claim that all early cultures worshipped the god of the OT.
No. I affirm that every tribe of Man, passing down their father's knowledge of what had gone before, knew of God in the infancy of his respective culture, for Man was still not long descended in his Fall.
And this hypothesis fits the evidence with enormous predictive capacity.
This is a new-age viewpoint, and would not be acceptable to Orthodox Jews.
You're wrong.
Orthodox Jews affirm that each of Noah's three sons did worship the Creator God.
As they would affirm that, as the oral traditions of God passed down from Noah's sons to their sons and grandsons became progressively more corrupted, God established a written Record of Himself among a particular Tribe of the sons of Shem.
It would be heresy to claim that Brahma is a devolution of Jehovah.
No. It would Affirm that the people of India are Sons of Noah, no matter how much their Monotheism has become corrupted without the benefit of the Revealed Record that is Torah.
The OT declares a revelation to a chosen people...this is not expanded to the general populace until the arrival of Christ, according to mainstream Christian dogma.
The Revelation is of a Right Relationship with the Creator God, and the Character of the Creator God.
The existence of the Creator God is not the primary subject of Revelation. His existence was known (by all sons of Noah... progressively corrupted as Time passed) prior to Torah. This is why, when the LORD spoke to Abraham, Abraham -- before the recording of the Torah -- knew Who was talking to him.
His great-great-[insert several greats]-grandfather Noah had worshipped this same God.
If anything, the similar descriptions of a creator god by various religions points to a shared myth structure...whether this is biological, psychological, or oral tradition is the question.
Not really a question. More a difficulty for those who wish to avoid the unpalatable (to them) Conclusion:
G. Foucart's treatment of the subject in the Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics further confirms the conclusions of these three unblinded men:
"The nature, role, and characteristics of this universal sky-god may be concealed under the most diverse forms, but he is always more or less recognisable to the historian of religions and always identical in essential definition ... The sky-god has reigned everywhere. His kingdom still covers the whole of the uncivilised world. (He reigns over much of the civilized world as well as under different names.) No historical or proto-historical motive can be assigned as a cause, and neither the migration of races nor the diffusion of myths and folklore affords the slightest justification of the fact. The universality of the sky-god and the uniformity of his essential characteristics are the logical consequence of the uniformity of the primitive system of cosmogony."
The knowledge of the Creator God was once universal, because Man had once known God.
But, over time, they “exchanged the glory of the Incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures” -- Romans 1: 23.
Note this applies to the NT as well, as my original question to you concerned the similarites between the lives of Christ and Krshna. Your thesis that god is a spark in the mind of primitive mand, which devolves over time, doesn't fit with this case.
That’s because that’s not my thesis. My thesis has nothing to do with “a spark of the primitive mind”. As Foucalt notes, that explanation for Universal Primitve Monotheism is frankly silly.
My thesis for Universal Primitive Monotheism is the one which Foucalt affirms as the one more consistent with the Rule of Logical Parsimony: Preserved Oral Tradition.
By the time of the Vedas, which describe the life of Krshna, Hindu theology was polytheistic. And the Krshna account was 500 years at least before Christ. And as Michael Rivero noted with Zoroaster, 200-300 years before Christ.
Belial, it’s not just the Krishnas. God promised Man that the progeny of a Women would conquer Evil as far back as Genesis 3:15 (before the Flood); so the Expectation of a Promised Messiah, while correctly recorded in the Hebrew Scriptures (enjoying as they do the benefits of Divine dictation), is found in so many cultures as to necessitate an entire sequel essay on the subject.
But the Expectation of Messiah, a somewhat more complex tradition in explanation than the simple concept of a Creator God, is not as well preserved as is the fundamental Truth of Eternal Creator-God Monotheism.
Finally, the issue is odd for Christians, as the bible states pretty clearly that unless you profess Christ to be your savior, you're gonna burn in hell. This isn't too comfortable a line to take, with people like Gandhi on the other side of the fence, as well as the countless neighbors, relatives and friends we all to be good, conscious, responsible individuals, who don't happen to be Christians.
They are all descendants of Noah.
Their traditions remember the Creator God, and their Fall from Him.
And in many cases, they remember the promised “seed of Woman” who would “crush the head” of the Serpent.
We proclaim to them His Holy Name.
And restore to them the Faith of their ancient Fathers -- Faith in the One God, the Creator and Redeemer.
None of which contradicts the universality of a sky-father idea. It just shows there is more going on and things can get rather messy, and some things are pretty hard to know for certain, and blanket claims like "ancestor worship isn't relevant" etc probably aren't realistic. Most permutations you can think of, probably happened somewhere sometime. In spite of that complexity, though, there is indeed good evidence for, and no sound reason against, the idea that "sky-father" is a nearly universal main deity in one way or another.
I didn't mean to deny the effect of syncretism; and I thought that the authors of the above article did affirm it's (quite common) incidence in anthropology.
I don't think that they at all dismissed it's importance in tradition-forming, I think that they just wanted to make sure that they did establish the fact of its subsequence to, post-dating of, the original Primitive Universal Monotheism.
Sorry, #46 and #47, "Foucart", not "Foucalt"; did not catch the typo in my proof-read.
The James Spader character in the original Stargate movie looks at a bungled translation from hieroglyphics and fusses, "Some of you people are still using Budge!"
E. A. Wallis Budge and Flinders Petrie are very, very, very old guard in Egyptology. You wouldn't cite Alessandro Volta as an authority on electric current, would you? Don't know that you're wrong, but your choice of authorities looks weak. Neither of these men would now be cited as an authority on predynastic Egypt.
My problem is in your statement re: given to us in the bible. It wasn't given to me in the bible, it was given to a bunch of other people in another time and in another country a long time ago, and then other guys decided what we needed to know and put that down on paper. Not good enough for me.
God comes to me through love which drives my actions and words and feelings and thoughts..\
The James Spader character in the original Stargate movie looks at a bungled translation from hieroglyphics and fusses, "Some of you people are still using Budge!" E. A. Wallis Budge and Flinders Petrie are very, very, very old guard in Egyptology. You wouldn't cite Alessandro Volta as an authority on electric current, would you? Don't know that you're wrong, but your choice of authorities looks weak. Neither of these men would now be cited as an authority on predynastic Egypt.
Yes, it could appear as one minor failing with this article; save that I would submit that Dr. Wilson, a former director of the Australian Institute of Archaeology, is probably a good judge (better than you or I) as to on which subjects of Egyptology Budge may continue to be regarded as a competent Authority.
That said, yes, Schmidt's work is far more comprehensive than is that of Budge:
Finally, Dr. Wilhelm Schmidt, an Austrian, set out in the 1920's to compile every "alias of the Almighty" discovered by explorers around the world. It took Schmidt an amazing six volumes totalling 4,500 pages to detail them all! A minimum of a thousand more examples have come to light since then. An approximate 90 percent or more of the folk religions on this planet contain clear acknowledgment of the existence of one Supreme God! Schmidt's classic "Der Ursprung der Gottesidee" (The Origin of the Concept of God) was finally published in 1934.
He pays tribute to Andrew Lang before him for, in anthropologist Gordon Fraser's words, presenting to the public the facts of the matter, when it was almost intellectual suicide to oppose the doctrine of evolution and its high priests. Fraser himself, also spent much of his life extending Lang's and Schmidt's research. G. Foucart's treatment of the subject in the Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics further confirms the conclusions of these three unblinded men: "The nature, role, and characteristics of this universal sky-god may be concealed under the most diverse forms, but he is always more or less recognisable to the historian of religions and always identical in essential definition ... The sky-god has reigned everywhere. His kingdom still covers the whole of the uncivilised world. (He reigns over much of the civilized world as well as under different names.) No historical or proto-historical motive can be assigned as a cause, and neither the migration of races nor the diffusion of myths and folklore affords the slightest justification of the fact. The universality of the sky-god and the uniformity of his essential characteristics are the logical consequence of the uniformity of the primitive system of cosmogony."
So Schmidt published about when Budge died. The news of Brunton's second exacavation of a pre-dynastic settlement was then six years old. (Petrie found the first one at Naqada in 1896.) My humble point is that most of the work in predynastic archaeology to date has been assimilated since the people you cite wrote what they wrote. I'm not sure what the verdict would be now. One thing that comes out with study is that when you say "predynastic Egypt," you're not talking about a single monolithic culture at all. You find several cultures, especially if you start contrasting Upper Nile and Delta settlements. Generalizations look risky.
Brunton's second exacavation of a pre-dynastic settlement
"Brunton's excavation of a second pre-dynastic settlement," idjit!
A flat-out falsification.
Nope.
You know that the statements in the above article are, uniformly, far stronger than “sometimes”.
Nope. This idea -- “sometimes” -- is an attempt to introduce blatant fabrication into the debate.
I'd like to think that you are not purposefully misinterpreting my statements.
You have stated that 100% of these Ur-cultures are based in monotheism. However, the sources you cite, at best, put the figure around 90%. Which is it going to be, professor? Even if a population falles between 90.00000001% abd 99.99999999998%, this isn't splitting hairs and it isn't the 100% that you claim it represents. I have no stake in this, I am simply pointing our where your argument has, somehow, taken wings of it's own, far beyond that of it's originator(s)>
Really?
Yes.
This was documented by Schmidt, and “A minimum of a thousand more examples have come to light since then”, taking the proportion to over 90% of the world’s folk religions traced back to the Creator Sky God.
I see. Without any stated original population, at the bare minimum, he is comfortable stating that 90% of them were any one way. I am not.
There are less than 10% of folk religions remaining which have not yet been traced back to the Ancient Universal Monotheism. This does not mean that these traditions lack an ancient, original belief in a Creator Sky God; only that anthropology is hardly a “finished science”.
Hardly a finished science is correct, since you have quoted a handfull of sources, a paucity of quotes, and seem to hinge a conclusion on them, despite a copious body of research not in keeping with the conclusions of those you cite.
In those (now in excess of 90%) cases where anthropologists have managed to trace back the Folk Religion in question to its earliest roots, well... "Wherever we can trace polytheism back to its earliest stages, we find that it results from combinations of monotheism".
This grows pendantic. Wherever we find christianity, we find polytheism and monotheism as well. So what? The contention that, somehow, all early cultures were monotheistic remains under debate and far from proven, although I welcome any further comments to the contrary.
This is an outstanding series of posts. They are lacking in but one significant component sir, requisite to the insatiably curious for which I sue your indulgence.
Can you supply a supporting bibliography?
My problem is in your statement re: given to us in the bible. It wasn't given to me in the bible, it was given to a bunch of other people in another time and in another country a long time ago, and then other guys decided what we needed to know and put that down on paper. Not good enough for me.
Jesus gave this example of a rich man and Lazarus, where the rich man, finding himself in "this place of torment" begged to have his brothers on earth warned so that they would not end up as he did. He asked that Lazarus be sent to warn them.
Luke 16:27-31
27 "And he said, 'Then I beg you, Father, that you
send him to my father's house --
28 for I have five brothers -- that he may warn
them, lest they also come to this place of torment.'
29 "But Abraham said, 'They have Moses and the
Prophets; let them hear them.'
30 "But he said, 'No, Father Abraham, but if someone
goes to them from the dead, they will repent!'
31 "But he said to him, 'If they do not listen to
Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be
persuaded if someone rises from the dead.' "
And so it is -- those who refuse the Word of God (as it has been given to us through God, as He committed to the nation of Israel) -- those very same would not believe anyone, even if it comes from someone who has been raised from the dead to tell them directly.
You refuse at your own peril, and no one else's.
As Jesus said in Matthew 4:4
He answered and said, "It is written, 'Man shall not
live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds
out of the mouth of God.' "
And as closing remarks to the Bible, Jesus says in Revelation 22:16-21, the very last verses in the Bible --
16 "I, Jesus, have sent My angel to testify to you
these things for the churches. I am the root and the
offspring of David, the bright morning star."
17 And the Spirit and the bride say, "Come." And let
the one who hears say, "Come." And let the one who
is thirsty come; let the one who wishes take the
water of life without cost.
18 I testify to everyone who hears the words of the
prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God
shall add to him the plagues which are written in
this book;
19 and if anyone takes away from the words of the
book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part
from the tree of life and from the holy city, which
are written in this book.
20 He who testifies to these things says, "Yes, I am
coming quickly." Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.
21 The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all. Amen.
I'm sure God will bring this particular portion to your remembrance, at that future time, if you reject them now.
Mithrasism and Zaroastrianism both started with twin gods, one of good, one of evil.
That's a fuzzy area, but this whole topic is fuzzy. In Z. and M. the gods of good and evil were created by one god who preceded all. I think his name was 'Zurvan' and I think he also called 'Time'. This whole topic is fuzzy. Why doesn't the christian-jewish-muslim belief in angels make them polytheisms? It's an arbitrary decision. The muslims consider themselves the strictest monotheists, yet they believe in djinnis. I have a muslim roommate and he believes in them.
The request above appertains to a particular interest. I am looking for data that discuss the origins of the Babylonian goddess, Ishtar and traces continuity to the Minoan godess, Gaea (aka Gaia). As I understand it they are identical personages and the latter directly traceable to the former. Such references or a particularly useful repository would be particularly helpful.
Thank you.
The Radio show, the stones cry out is one of my favorites!! Thanks!
I have a question about the study of these ancient religions. Monotheism is not what sets apart Jewish tradition from others. It is God's promises and his personal relationship with his people that sets it apart.
Is there anything in this study that addresses God as a promise maker and keeper ? Or anything that shows these mono-gods as personal ?
Thanks for the good article.
One very important issue which was just barely hinted at in this article is the idea of PROGRESS. Indeed, for most modern people, it is not just an idea, but even a faith -- albeit a false and idolatrous one. The idea of progress is one of the central beliefs of the enlightenment philospophers, and actually pre-dates Darwin. Darwin's evolutionary theory fits right in, of course.
Faith in the desirability and inevitability of "progress" has become the central belief of our age. The entire project of science and technology are both premised upon it and are looked upon as "exhibit A" in support of the faith. Just about every government program introduced in at least the past hundred years has been justified as "progress". Name the field of human endeavor -- education, arts and culture, even religion -- and you see that field dominated by people who believe that humankind is destined "every day and in every way to become better and better", and they are actively engaged in putting into effect an agenda which they presume will facilitate the realization of such progress.
There is only one little problem: It isn't so.
"Progress" is a myth, an illusion, a conceit.
To be sure, there has been CHANGE throughout human history, in each and every field of endeavor. And certainly some changes are for the better. Left unacknowledged by the apostles of progress, however, is the fact that all to frequently when change occurs, it is a change for the worse.
There is nothing inevitable about human progress. In fact, it is quite possible for human societies to regress rather than progress. It has in fact happened numerous times. For example, in Jane Jacobs' book Cities and the Wealth of Nations, she cites an isolated community in the Southern Appalachians where the people have gradually abandonded the skills and technologies of their ancestors. She also mentions examples of primative tribes on remote islands who no longer know how to make boats, although obviously their ancestors must have possessed this skill. If it happened to them, it could happen to us as well.
Even at best, most of us would have to admit that "progress" is something of a mixed bag. Yes, our modern technology has given us better health and longer lives, as well as plenty of cool trinkets and toys to play with. It has also given us a half-million abortions per year, sky-high illegitimacy and divorce rates, and a host of other social pathologies and moral degeneracies.
The scriptural world-view is not that mankind is continuously getting better and better, but rather is continuously getting worse and worse. In brief: the world is going to Hell. And it is trying to get there as quickly as possible.
Fortunately -- for those of us who believe -- God Himself has provided a remedy through Christ. Note that this is nothing which was the product of an enlightened human "progress". On the contrary, it has seemed to be the disciples and advocates of such "progress" who have been the greatest opponents of Christ and His followers throughout history. In spite of them, and due solely to God's grace and not to any meritorious action on our part, the Gospel has managed to spread around the entire world anyway -- perhaps the best example of true "progress" that has ever been or will be in human history.
supporting bibliography?
Probably in the book from which this is excerpted -- from the article header:
The following is from: “The A.B.C. of Biblical Archaeology," regarding the evidence of monotheism in ancient times, by Dr. Clifford Wilson MA, BD, MREd., PhD, former Director of The Australian Institute of Archaeology.
You'd have to do the leg-work on this one; I don't own the book, just c&p'ed from the sourced link.
So Schmidt published about when Budge died. The news of Brunton's second exacavation of a pre-dynastic settlement was then six years old. (Petrie found the first one at Naqada in 1896.) My humble point is that most of the work in predynastic archaeology to date has been assimilated since the people you cite wrote what they wrote. I'm not sure what the verdict would be now. One thing that comes out with study is that when you say "predynastic Egypt," you're not talking about a single monolithic culture at all. You find several cultures, especially if you start contrasting Upper Nile and Delta settlements. Generalizations look risky.
Again, the above article is not lifted from Schmidt himself. Rather, it is a recent overview of Universal Primitive Monotheism in which Schmidt's treatise of 60 years ago is re-affirmed as correct, and consistent with "a minimum of a thousand" more examples which have come to light since Schmidt.
“The A.B.C. of Biblical Archaeology," regarding the evidence of monotheism in ancient times, by Dr. Clifford Wilson MA, BD, MREd., PhD, former Director of The Australian Institute of Archaeology.
Who, we may presume, did not earn his laurels on the making of judgments deemed "hasty".
You have stated that 100% of these Ur-cultures are based in monotheism. However, the sources you cite, at best, put the figure around 90%. Which is it going to be, professor? Even if a population falles between 90.00000001% abd 99.99999999998%, this isn't splitting hairs and it isn't the 100% that you claim it represents. I have no stake in this, I am simply pointing our where your argument has, somehow, taken wings of it's own, far beyond that of it's originator(s)
No, it hasn't.
Wherever -- meaning the set of all places the action has been taken -- we can trace polytheism back to its earliest stages, we find that it results from combinations of monotheism.
The remaining (less than) 10% of Folk Religions which are not known to include a Supreme God at their earliest roots are not included in the set of "Folk Religions which have been traced back to their earliest roots". Lack of knowledge of a primitive culture's earliest beliefs does not constitute "Evidence Against" a contention of Universality.
Both of the following statements are supported by all Evidence currently available on the subject:
"All primitive cultures have a word for 'dirt'" (not currently "known", but only because not all Primitive languages have been translated. However, All established evidence supports the contention)
"All primitive Folk Religions have as their ultimate Root a primitive Eternal-God Monotheism" (not currently "known"', for largely for the same reason as the former. All established evidence supports the contention).
In neither of the above cases does Absence of Evidence represent Evidence of Absence.
In the extreme, no statement past Cogito Ergo Sum may be "known" by anyone. "All primitive cultures have a word for dirt" and "All primitive cultures have an ancient Monotheistic tradition" just represent examples of statements which are Known to be consistent with all established evidence.
Sum ante cogito est.
A man was sleeping at night in his cabin when suddenly his room filled with light and
the Savior appeared. The Lord told the man he had work for him to do, and showed him
a large rock in front of his cabin. The Lord explained that the man was to push against the
rock with all his might.
This the man did, day after day. For many years he toiled from sun up to sun down, his
shoulders set squarely against the cold, massive surface of the unmoving rock, pushing
with all his might. Each night the man returned to his cabin sore, and worn out, feeling
that his whole day had been spent in vain.
Seeing that the man was showing signs of discouragement, the Adversary decided to
enter the picture by placing thoughts into the man's weary mind:
"You have been pushing against that rock for a long time, and it hasn't budged. Why kill
yourself over this? You are never going to move it."
This gave the man the impression that the task was impossible and that he was a failure.
These thoughts discouraged and disheartened the man. "Why kill myself over this?" he
thought. "I'll just put in my time, giving just the And that is what he planned to do until
one day he decided to make it a matter of prayer and take his troubled thoughts to the
Lord.
"Lord" he said, "I have labored long and hard in your service, putting all my strength to
do that which you have asked. Yet, after all this time, I have not even budged that rock by
half a millimeter. What is wrong? Why am I failing?"
The Lord responded compassionately, "My friend, when I asked you to serve me and
you accepted, I told you that your task was to push against the rock with all your strength,
which you have done. Never once did I mention to you that I expected you to move it.
Your task was to push. And now you come to me, with your strength spent, thinking that
you have failed. But, is that really so? Look at yourself. Your arms are strong and
muscled, your back sinewy and brown, your hands are callused from constant pressure,
and your legs have become massive and hard. Through opposition you have grown much
and your abilities now surpass that which you used to have. Yet you haven't moved
the rock. But your calling was to be obedient and to push and to exercise your faith and
trust in My wisdom. This you have done. I, my friend, will now move the rock."
At times, when we hear a word from God, we tend to use our own intellect to
decipher what He wants, when actually what God wants is just simple obedience and
faith in Him....By all means, exercise the faith that moves mountains, but know that it is
still God who moves the mountains. Just P.U.S.H!
When everything seems to go wrong,...P.U.S.H.!
When the job gets you down,...P.U.S.H.!
When people don't react the way you think they should,...P.U.S.H.!
When your money is short and the bills are due,...P.U.S.H.!
When you want to curse them out for whatever the reason,...P.U.S.H.!
When people just don't understand you,...P.U.S.H.!
P.U.S.H - Pray Until Something Happens!!
You can add Astarte and Artemis to the "Ishtar" look-alike list. Cultural diffusion. I hadn't heard Gaia in such a list before, nor did I know the Greek Gaia tradition came from the Minoan. It would be helpful if someone would crack Linear A or some other clue could be found as to who the Minoans even were, what kind of language they spoke, and where they came from before they were on Crete.
In the extreme, no statement past Cogito Ergo Sum may be "known" by anyone. "All primitive cultures have a word for dirt" and "All primitive cultures have an ancient Monotheistic tradition" just represent examples of statements which are Known to be consistent with all established evidence.
Sum ante cogito est.
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Private Reply | To 66 | Top | Last ]
Sum = I am. Ante = before. Cogito = I think. Est = is.
Ergo, I am before I think is. Isn't it obvious?
I know of one tale about the origins of the Minoan Civilization told by that wacko TV preacher (and Stanford Ph.D. historian) Dr. Gene Scott. I used to watch the guy occasionally 20 years ago for laughs and to listen to his rantings on ancient history, which I found fascinating (Is he still alive BTW?). There was a particularly good tale he told that went like this:
As we all know, after Joseph was kidnapped to Egypt he came to make it big in the Egyptian government as a high level bureaucrat. Over time, the natural forces of money and nepotism being what they are, the Israelites had virtually taken over the operation of Lower Egypt and started building temples to this all-powerful God of theirs. The local poobahs and merchant plutocracy were pretty upset about it and started complaining to the Pharoah indicating an Israeli cabal against his rule. After deciding that they were a threat, Pharoah gave out orders to get rid of this overly-ambitious clique (I guess it wouldn't be the last time, but then the Israelites tell it differently.). Those he caught, he pitches into slavery. Those with the dough go splitsville to wherever they can get a boat to take them.
Among the Israelites who escaped were supposedly (I took Dr. Scott with a saline mouthwash) two brothers, Zara and Faras. One went to Anatolia (Troy), the other to Minos.
Scott had lots of such lore. He said that Israelites became the Celts, settled the along the Iber River in what is now Spain, and also made it to the New World (as is confirmed by the diffusionist lexicographers). His theory goes that the languages given to the Apostles were selected to inform the Lost Tribes of God's New Deal. (All FDR-loathers just winced.) Dats Allah kin recall. Pretty interesting though.
I fall across an occasional Gaia tidbit once in a while. I file them all to be later used as an intellectual stun-gun on the eco-droolers. Hence the questions. Sorry for the interruption, but it was fun.
My recollection is that in latin construction one puts the active verb at the end, though with a series of pronoun inclusive verbs I wasn't so sure. The posting was to translate: "I am is before I think", I think.
I have my old 7th and 8th grade Latin text that was so cryptic that one would have to start all over to get anything out of it. (Horrible book) Dats it. Elsewhither ahda gottit rot.
When the lost Israelites became Celts they also switched from a Semitic to an Indo-European language. Just trying to blend in, I guess! :)
Of course the verb at the end goes! Now I can't imagine why I confused felt.
Some people doing analysis of ancient non-Greek-looking place-names in the Greek islands try to trace the Minoan ancestry to Asia Minor. They find similarities to an ancient language there called Luwian (itself somewhat related to the neighboring Hittite). But it's the barest trace evidence, at a level that could be dismissed as coincidence. Similarities in words happen. A handful of such makes an interesting speculation, no more.
Of course the verb at the end goes! Now I can't imagine why I confused felt.
You are taking a REALLY seroius risk getting me started with that kind of joke. :)
I try to view history as considerably messier than is usually told. English as a language: WHAT A MESS! Thusly I am inclined to believe that when such runaway cheeses come to town that there is already a functioning enterprise. There are business deals with the locals to be cut that usually involved somebody's daughter (or wife), there are numerous merchants and local enclaves that mush together over time.
It is therefore quite dangerous to say such things as, 'These people came from Annatolia, or Egypt, or whatever'. It works if you are writing a thesis and have to support it to get that tenured chair, but the process is really destructive to a synthetic view of history. It's one of the reasons people appreciate Burke so much. He lends the reality of individual human motivation to history and traces the geneological syntheses of ideas. As a pitfall, the approach has the tendency to miss the catalytic singularity. It takes all kinds, just like anything else.
Thank you all for doing all that research that is free to me for the perusing!
Among all these deep thinking philosophers, along comes an American anesthetist turned amateur archaeologist who finds a multitude of evidence for the identity and nature of the one true God and the silence from the world is deafening.Or more fitting, the world sleeps under the drug of "rejection" of a God not to their liking. See http://www.anchorstone.com/wyatt/.
The foolish things of the world do indeed confound the wise.
Thanks for the flag, Uriel. Got this tagged for later study.
Most welcome.
I too will have to read it when I get some time. Thanks for the bump.
A conclusion reached by induction does not make a fact. With your type of reasoning, evolutionary theory becomes a fact also.
A conclusion reached by induction does not make a fact.
No; just a hypothesis supported by all available evidence.
With your type of reasoning, evolutionary theory becomes a fact also.
Well, even to be "a hypothesis supported by all available evidence", evolutionism would have to be doing considerably better than it is now.
Evolutionism -- even granting some of the favored "evidences" as accurate, which I do not necessarily grant -- has nowhere near the weight of catalogued evidence which supports Universal Primitive Monotheism... just IMHO.
A sidebar: Velokovsky (sp) compiled a comparative in which he suggested the names Yahweh (Hebrew), Yahu (Amerindian), Yowe (Jove, Greek...early pronunciation), and others had similar imitative origins.
I have no quarrel with your hypothesis as long as it is not stated as fact. I do find it interesting that the evolution from monotheism to polytheism fits in with the model of evolution(ism) in that it is a progression from simple to more complex.
I have no quarrel with your hypothesis as long as it is not stated as fact. I do find it interesting that the evolution from monotheism to polytheism fits in with the model of evolution(ism) in that it is a progression from simple to more complex.
Funny, how pretty much every evolutionist who ever theorized on the subject figgered that Humans would "evolve" from the simple (animism) through the more intellectually-involved (polytheism) to the most intellectually-involved (monotheism).
Now, if you believed in a Fall, you would expect Man to move from the Truth (Monotheism) to the Lie (Polytheism), or even the bigger Lie (atheism). And, historically, he has.
Which goes to show you how willing people are to fit the data to their hypotheses.
Which goes to show you how willing people are to fit the data to their hypotheses.
Nope.
The Hypothesis predicted the data... falling away from Monotheism into polytheism and idolatry... thousands of years ago.
I'm sorry that the data gathered today affirms the prediction which was made by that Hypothesis some 3,000 years ago; I know it makes you uncomfortable, but there's really nothing I can do about that.
Well, if you liked the other thread, you'll like this one too.
Matter of fact, would you keep an eye on this thread for me? "Nebullis" is currently trying to wrestle away from the obvious implications of Ancient Universal Montheism; much as I'd like to stick around and debate him, I've FReeped too much by far already today.
It seems to me that your hypothesis is that the prediction : "falling away from Monotheism into polytheism and idolatry... thousands of years ago " is true. You cite sources to support this hypothesis then declare the hypothesis as absolute fact. The prediction may very well be true. I have some difficulty with your application of reasoning to support that.
As for discomfort, perhaps you have picked up on some that I wasn't aware of. Thank you for pointing that out. You seem to think it has something to do with the actual content of your hypotheses. I don't know. I rather think it has something to do with your presentation of hypotheses as fact. This leads to polemics (on my part) but not debate.
As for discomfort, perhaps you have picked up on some that I wasn't aware of. Thank you for pointing that out. You seem to think it has something to do with the actual content of your hypotheses. I don't know. I rather think it has something to do with your presentation of hypotheses as fact. This leads to polemics (on my part) but not debate.
Fine, and, I should add, well-met on your part. In fact, on reviewing the thread, I am of the opinion that your criticism and bigsur's were much the same; but argued a little differently... in bigsur's case, I was able to argue (IMO, correctly) that insufficient data in 10% of cases cannot be treated as being negative data against a Hypothesis of Universality... rather, that data set is acknowledged-to-be-insufficient, and therefore *not included* in the set of established-data under consideration. That said, however, while I did not specifically state that Ancient Universal Monotheism was an established "fact", it's apparent that that impression could have been as easily taken from my posts as the intended "universally-supported-hypothesis"; so your request for clarification did have to be admitted.
And, of course, the jump from Universal Primitive Monotheism to *my Judeo-Christian brand* of Monotheism is an admitted leap of logic; while I think that it's entirely reasonable that it should be reassuring to Orthodox Jews and Fundamental Christians that their beliefs happen to be entirely consistent with the Universal Primitive Monotheism which I take to be well-evidenced, it's certainly not exclusive of other sociohistorical possibilities which could be theorized as being consistent with Ancient Monotheism.
Sorry I couldn't stick around and pick up some slack, but I had to get ready for work just about the time I saw your post to me. However, I agree: this is an excellent thread, too, and I have saved it for further reading offline.
Thanks again for all your hard work and perseverance. :)
Later...
Amazing, how pagan cultures rememberd God, at least a little, and then forgot Him, and became who they are. . .
Amazing, how pagan cultures rememberd God, at least a little, and then forgot Him, and became who they are. . .Yes!! Buuuuuut... what I find amazing is, rather, how much so many Primitive Monotheists have remembered...
The omnipotent is Y'wa; him have we not believed.
Y'wa created men anciently;
He has a perfect knowledge of all things!
Y'wa created men at the beginning;
He knows all things to the present time!
O my children and grandchildren!
The earth is the treading place of the feet of Y'wa.
And heaven is the place where he sits.
He sees all things, and we are manifest to him."
"Y'wa formed the world originally.
He appointed food and drink.
He appointed the "fruit of trial."
He gave detailed order.
Mu-kaw-lee deceived two persons.
He caused them to eat the fruit of the tree of trial.
They obeyed not; they believed not Y'wa ...
When they ate the fruit of trial,
They became subject to sickness, aging, and death ..."
This... from the ancient traditions of the Karen tribe of Burma!!
This is great! Is all this collated in book form somewhere? I mean, to get it here free is just not fair. . .
This is great! Is all this collated in book form somewhere? I mean, to get it here free is just not fair. . .
Not one, but Three notable collections, actually:
The massive Original:
Finally, Dr. Wilhelm Schmidt, an Austrian, set out in the 1920's to compile every "alias of the Almighty" discovered by explorers around the world. It took Schmidt an amazing six volumes totalling 4,500 pages to detail them all! A minimum of a thousand more examples have come to light since then. An approximate 90 percent or more of the folk religions on this planet contain clear acknowledgment of the existence of one Supreme God! Schmidt's classic "Der Ursprung der Gottesidee" (The Origin of the Concept of God) was finally published in 1934.
The Fresh-and-Updated recent revisitation and reconfirmation of Schmidt's original:
“The A.B.C. of Biblical Archaeology," regarding the evidence of monotheism in ancient times, by Dr. Clifford Wilson MA, BD, MREd., PhD, former Director of The Australian Institute of Archaeology.
And the (only 223 pages, but excellent) version for interested lay-people (including collections of not just Monotheistic traditions, but Messianic prophecies):
the writings of a modern writer, Don Richardson. In his book Eternity In Their Hearts
Most welcome!!
For #67, thank you.
bump
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