17 Mar 2024, 3:28 pm
funeralxempire wrote:
DazyDaisy wrote:
Me too. Actually the concept of Jesus Christ and of most deities worshipped before, came out from worshipping the Sun.
Not just the sun, but the handful of things that could directly impact their lives.
The sun, the earth (typically combined with female fertility), storms would often be distinct from the sun (but not always), the sea (at least if they were close to it), male virility, war, volcanoes (if relevant), etc. A popular ancestor is another common one.
Yes, my Hawaiian ancestors worshipped a volcano goddess named Pele as their primary deity along with many other natives deities.
Imagine my ancestors telling the European Missionaries "Dude, that volcano is real!"
https://www.learnreligions.com/pele-haw ... ss-4165798
17 Mar 2024, 3:32 pm
17 Mar 2024, 3:35 pm
17 Mar 2024, 3:41 pm
RedDeathFlower13 wrote:
funeralxempire wrote:
DazyDaisy wrote:
Me too. Actually the concept of Jesus Christ and of most deities worshipped before, came out from worshipping the Sun.
Not just the sun, but the handful of things that could directly impact their lives.
The sun, the earth (typically combined with female fertility), storms would often be distinct from the sun (but not always), the sea (at least if they were close to it), male virility, war, volcanoes (if relevant), etc. A popular ancestor is another common one.
Yes, my Hawaiian ancestors worshipped a volcano goddess named Pele as their primary deity along with many other natives deities.
Imagine my ancestors telling the European Missionaries "Dude, that volcano is real!"
https://www.learnreligions.com/pele-haw ... ss-4165798
Mine have had Oak tree. Even today it not alowed to cut an old Oak tree. People used to prey in front of it and used to carve a cross in. But it wasn't a Christian cross, most ancient people have had it as a symbol much before Christianity. Later on first wooden churches were built close to such trees.
funeralxempire
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17 Mar 2024, 3:46 pm
RedDeathFlower13 wrote:
funeralxempire wrote:
RedDeathFlower13 wrote:
DazyDaisy wrote:
RedDeathFlower13 wrote:
Perhaps every deity is genderless in a way but they take on the gender of whatever a group of people link them to?
Think about the differerence in the Sun and the Moon for example.
The Ancient Greeks saw their moon as a feminine goddess (Artemis) and her brother the sun as a masculine god (Apollo)
Yet in Japan the sun is a female goddess (Amaterasu) and her brother the moon is a male god (Tsukiyomi).
It's easy for me to see how the sun and the moon can be both masculine and feminine. For example the sun nurtures all life on earth like a motherly figure feeding her children, but the moon itself is more gentle in its pretty glow and the phases remind some of the traditional stages of womanhood.
Think about the differerence in the Sun and the Moon for example.
The Ancient Greeks saw their moon as a feminine goddess (Artemis) and her brother the sun as a masculine god (Apollo)
Yet in Japan the sun is a female goddess (Amaterasu) and her brother the moon is a male god (Tsukiyomi).
It's easy for me to see how the sun and the moon can be both masculine and feminine. For example the sun nurtures all life on earth like a motherly figure feeding her children, but the moon itself is more gentle in its pretty glow and the phases remind some of the traditional stages of womanhood.
I like that concept and totally agree with it. Speaking of male and female CONCEPTS as, maybe, forms of yin and yang?
Yes I love how the concept of yin & yang can be applied to so many things.
Like even God and The Devil. One cannot exist without the other.
I feel like The Devil is Christianity's surrogate version of Angra Mainyu.
Even though it's not a major religion anymore, Zoroastrianism has had huge influence on religious development in Eurasia. Messianism, monotheism and dualism are all concepts that originated within it. It might date back as far as 4000 years ago.
It doesn't even need to be a direct influence either, because it's so old that it was more likely to have influenced everything (both Greek and Jewish) that Christianity draws on.
There's kinda only two ways to square a perfect, all-knowing, all-powerful, all-present and all-capable God and an imperfect world. Either good-god didn't create the physical world, bad-god did, or good-god did but bad-god is constantly corrupting it. Most forms of Christianity went with the latter and handwaves the weakness this implies as good-god punishing people because of original sin.
A very interesting theory. I've long believed all religions can be traced to each other.
I wouldn't go as far as to suggest all of them can be tied together, but certainly a whole lot of Eurasian ones, and that influence reaches Africa as well.
Indo-European religions share a lot of common features and almost certainly didn't evolve in a vacuum, meaning they almost certainly have influence from and have influenced their various neighbours over time.
That said, some peoples have largely existed in a vacuum from major Eurasia civilizations, meaning they've largely avoided exposure to anything influenced by anything influenced by all sorts of major innovations that occurred in other parts of the world. Like, the Americas, Australia would be good examples prior to contact, but even very isolated pockets of the world today.
But that doesn't mean they haven't had enough of their own innovations to have no resemblance with how things were when their ancestors became separated from most everyone else.
17 Mar 2024, 3:49 pm
DazyDaisy wrote:
RedDeathFlower13 wrote:
funeralxempire wrote:
DazyDaisy wrote:
Me too. Actually the concept of Jesus Christ and of most deities worshipped before, came out from worshipping the Sun.
Not just the sun, but the handful of things that could directly impact their lives.
The sun, the earth (typically combined with female fertility), storms would often be distinct from the sun (but not always), the sea (at least if they were close to it), male virility, war, volcanoes (if relevant), etc. A popular ancestor is another common one.
Yes, my Hawaiian ancestors worshipped a volcano goddess named Pele as their primary deity along with many other natives deities.
Imagine my ancestors telling the European Missionaries "Dude, that volcano is real!"
https://www.learnreligions.com/pele-haw ... ss-4165798
Mine have had Oak tree. Even today it not alowed to cut an old Oak tree. People used to prey in front of it and used to carve a cross in. But it wasn't a Christian cross, most ancient people have had it as a symbol much before Christianity. Later on first wooden churches were built close to such trees.
Very fascinating! And trees play an important role in many old religions too. There's often a "tree of life" or "tree of knowledge" found in many religions.
17 Mar 2024, 3:52 pm
funeralxempire wrote:
I wouldn't go as far as to suggest all of them can be tied together, but certainly a whole lot of Eurasian ones, and that influence reaches Africa as well.
Indo-European religions share a lot of common features and almost certainly didn't evolve in a vacuum, meaning they almost certainly have influence from and have influenced their various neighbours over time.
That said, some peoples have largely existed in a vacuum from major Eurasia civilizations, meaning they've largely avoided exposure to anything influenced by anything influenced by all sorts of major innovations that occurred in other parts of the world. Like, the Americas, Australia would be good examples prior to contact, but even very isolated pockets of the world today.
But that doesn't mean they haven't had enough of their own innovations to have no resemblance with how things were when their ancestors became separated from most everyone else.
Good point, but there's so many interesting coincidences found in almost every religion I think that if nothing else they reflect on the way that humans observed their surroundings and evolved over thousands of years.
funeralxempire
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17 Mar 2024, 4:03 pm
17 Mar 2024, 4:06 pm
funeralxempire wrote:
DazyDaisy wrote:
funeralxempire wrote:
DazyDaisy wrote:
Me too. Actually the concept of Jesus Christ and of most deities worshipped before, came out from worshipping the Sun.
Not just the sun, but the handful of things that could directly impact their lives.
The sun, the earth (typically combined with female fertility), storms would often be distinct from the sun (but not always), the sea (at least if they were close to it), male virility, war, volcanoes (if relevant), etc. A popular ancestor is another common one.
Also, totally agree. Maybe Sun was the supreme deity..
Sometimes (like Ra). Other times it's the storm god. YHWH was a storm god initially. Zeus, Indra, Marduk, Jupiter and Perun too.
Odin is associated with war, magic, wisdom and frenzy, but not with the sun. Lugus might be the Celtic equivalent.
Often times the highest god wasn't worshipped at all, and was seen as too distant or primordial to worship or pray to.
And then we have New Age religions worshipping primordial she-devils like Lilith! Some even worship Eris the "bad" Goddess of Chaos (Discordism)
funeralxempire
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17 Mar 2024, 4:07 pm
RedDeathFlower13 wrote:
DazyDaisy wrote:
RedDeathFlower13 wrote:
funeralxempire wrote:
DazyDaisy wrote:
Me too. Actually the concept of Jesus Christ and of most deities worshipped before, came out from worshipping the Sun.
Not just the sun, but the handful of things that could directly impact their lives.
The sun, the earth (typically combined with female fertility), storms would often be distinct from the sun (but not always), the sea (at least if they were close to it), male virility, war, volcanoes (if relevant), etc. A popular ancestor is another common one.
Yes, my Hawaiian ancestors worshipped a volcano goddess named Pele as their primary deity along with many other natives deities.
Imagine my ancestors telling the European Missionaries "Dude, that volcano is real!"
https://www.learnreligions.com/pele-haw ... ss-4165798
Mine have had Oak tree. Even today it not alowed to cut an old Oak tree. People used to prey in front of it and used to carve a cross in. But it wasn't a Christian cross, most ancient people have had it as a symbol much before Christianity. Later on first wooden churches were built close to such trees.
Very fascinating! And trees play an important role in many old religions too. There's often a "tree of life" or "tree of knowledge" found in many religions.
Oaks were sacred to a lot of Indo-European storm gods. Zeus and Perun being two examples.
funeralxempire
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17 Mar 2024, 4:11 pm
RedDeathFlower13 wrote:
Good point, but there's so many interesting coincidences found in almost every religion I think that if nothing else they reflect on the way that humans observed their surroundings and evolved over thousands of years.
Definitely.
RedDeathFlower13 wrote:
And then we have New Age religions worshipping primordial she-devils like Lilith! Some even worship Eris the "bad" Goddess of Chaos (Discordism)
It's interesting how they seem to prefer minor figures over say Isis, Freya or Hera.
Although afaik Discordism is a bit of a parody religion.
17 Mar 2024, 4:13 pm
funeralxempire
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17 Mar 2024, 4:15 pm
RedDeathFlower13 wrote:
funeralxempire wrote:
DazyDaisy wrote:
Me too. Actually the concept of Jesus Christ and of most deities worshipped before, came out from worshipping the Sun.
Not just the sun, but the handful of things that could directly impact their lives.
The sun, the earth (typically combined with female fertility), storms would often be distinct from the sun (but not always), the sea (at least if they were close to it), male virility, war, volcanoes (if relevant), etc. A popular ancestor is another common one.
Yes, my Hawaiian ancestors worshipped a volcano goddess named Pele as their primary deity along with many other natives deities.
Imagine my ancestors telling the European Missionaries "Dude, that volcano is real!"
https://www.learnreligions.com/pele-haw ... ss-4165798
Yeah, imagine the opposite, trying to explain to people the awesome force in their midst wasn't really worthy of worship but this abstract foreign concept must be worshipped and also says they need to do everything we (the new comers) say or they'll face overwhelming violence.
DazyDaisy wrote:
^^^ @FZE, I really admire your ability to say so much in a very few words. And to easily point out what could be the most reasonable bottom line. Dualism is the closest to my comprehension of all those creative & destructive processes we call God..but there's always a space to contemplate and think the other ways.
I always worry I use way too many words, but also too much jargon in the hopes of being concise.
17 Mar 2024, 4:19 pm
funeralxempire
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17 Mar 2024, 4:27 pm
17 Mar 2024, 4:38 pm
