Did the gods (god) create us?

[leo9]

No surprises here...the idea of being punnished in the afterlife for miss-deeds done today or the use of negative reinforcment as a means of political control over a populace is nothing new and was preveleant in allmost every corner of the globe long before monotheism and christianity rose to the stage, predating even agriculture.

Do you have any evidence for this remarkable assertion?

It is well established that almost all known human cultures, back to the dawn of the species, have shown evidence of a belief in some kind of survival after death, as evidenced, in pre-literate times, by ritualistic funerary practices. But there is a world of difference between believing in the survival of the soul, and believing in judgement and damnation.

To take just a quick survey of those religions of which I have some knowledge, the Chinese, the Indians, the Native Americans, the Australians, all the native African cultures I have heard of, and the European Celts, did not believe that the souls of evil-doers went to punishment in the next world.

Some of those believed in reincarnation, and some of those (by no means all) believed that this was affected by one's deeds in previous lives, but that is another breed of cat again. Again, some believed in a special reward in the next world for special heroes, but the rest, good or bad, were all believed to end up in the same place sharing the same existence. This probably includes the Germanic and Scandinavian peoples: there is some evidence that their mythology included punishment of sinners, but it is questionable, as it dates from the period after the coming of Christianity and was recorded by Christian monks.

The Egyptians believed that only the good were admitted to the afterlife, but those who didn't qualify didn't go to Hell: they just stayed dead. Jehovah's Witnesses believe this is what Jesus taught, and they may have a point.

I think most historians of religion trace the idea of punishment in the afterlife to Zoroaster's Persia. From there it spread over the Middle East, and was taken up by the Hebrews. Jesus's recorded statements about the afterlife mostly concern the saved, so people went back to the Old Testament for something about the others, and the rest is history.

[Thorne]

Not to me, but to some people it is god's punishment, and they anguish about what they have done wrong.

Part of the reason for that is that they have been raised to believe that anything bad that happens to them is punishment from God. And to be honest, for some people that concept is far more comfortable than the idea that there is no reason for some things. Some things just happen.

True. But is also means that you cannot off-hand reject what you cannot prove right now.

Agreed. And there are scientists who are studying supernatural and paranormal claims. They have yet to find anything verifiable, however. If they ever do then we may have to change our ideas. I'm not holding my breath, though.

In earlier times, reports of meteorites were rejected, because everybody knew that rocks do not fall out of the sky.

"The Lord cast down great stones from heaven upon them" - Joshua 10:11
Apparently the ancient Jews knew that rocks could fall from the sky. So did the ancient Greeks. They reasoned that the rocks were actually from the ground and had been picked up by winds, but they did know they fell from the sky. While it is true that there was a period during the 18th century when some scientists stated categorically that stones could not fall from the sky, it was hardly a universal belief. After all, stones were seen to fall.

I am not talking about divine writ, but of what people may report that they experience, see, hear - whatever.

Eye-witness testimony has been shown to be one of the least reliable methods of establishing the truth. People's perceptions are sometimes altered by their experiences, beliefs or even wishful thinking.

For example near death or death experiences. If science 'knows' that what people say cannot be true, then it is rejected, no matter what.

Near death experiences have been studied, and found to be not credible. It seems, IIRC, that peoples experiences tend to follow cultural and religious lines. You don't find devout Catholics experiencing the Hindu version of heave, for example. And if I'm not mistaken, scientists have been able to duplicate some of these experiences by stimulating various parts of the brain.

But some might be myth or legend, which I personally think comes from somewhere - even if it can be almost impossible to know what it was from the start.

Maybe some religious texts are the same, a version of something that happened, seen in a religious light.

Of course. I'm not about to claim that these stories are made up out of thin air. There is a basis for them. The universal flood stories, for example, are most probably based upon actual floods which caused tremendous amounts of damage. And in an age when most people rarely went further than a few miles from home, these floods would seem to have wiped out the world.

Optimally, yes. But there is dogma in science as well. And sometimes who says something is more important than what is said.

True again. There are those who have established themselves through their work as being experts. If you're going to joust against those windmills you have to make sure you have proof. And science works slowly sometimes. Many discoveries, especially those which overturn established theories, have the same problems as religions: those making extraordinary claims must provide extraordinary evidence.

How do you distinguish between 'miracles' and 'do not know yet'?

The first thing you have to do is find a real miracle. Then you study it, dissect it, learn about it. That will usually solve the problem.

Can you show me a miracle that hasn't been explained?

But as long as each person keep their beliefs as something individual and do not try to invade others with it, it does not matter.

I've said exactly the same thing. But look around you. Here in the US, for example, our money says, "In God We Trust". Our Pledge of Allegiance states, "One nation under God." Religious groups are continuously attempting to change the laws which separate Church and State. These are not the actions of people keeping their beliefs to themselves.

[Thorne]

Yes, and in some cases it's necessary to beat them to death.

Gods!!
I do not believe that this is religion, unless the people were insane from fear of hell! If not, I think they were just insane.

I recommend that you look up the book mentioned in that entry, "To Train Up a Child" and see what that's all about. Some of the techniques used by the authors would make Torquemada blush. And remember too that the phrase, "Spare the rod and spoil the child" comes from the Bible.

[denuseri]

Do you have any evidence for this remarkable assertion?

"It is well established that almost all known human cultures, back to the dawn of the species, have shown evidence of a belief in some kind of survival after death, as evidenced, in pre-literate times, by ritualistic funerary practices. But there is a world of difference between believing in the survival of the soul, and believing in judgement and damnation.

To take just a quick survey of those religions of which I have some knowledge, the Chinese, the Indians, the Native Americans, the Australians, all the native African cultures I have heard of, and the European Celts, did not believe that the souls of evil-doers went to punishment in the next world.

Some of those believed in reincarnation, and some of those (by no means all) believed that this was affected by one's deeds in previous lives, but that is another breed of cat again. Again, some believed in a special reward in the next world for special heroes, but the rest, good or bad, were all believed to end up in the same place sharing the same existence. This probably includes the Germanic and Scandinavian peoples: there is some evidence that their mythology included punishment of sinners, but it is questionable, as it dates from the period after the coming of Christianity and was recorded by Christian monks.

The Egyptians believed that only the good were admitted to the afterlife, but those who didn't qualify didn't go to Hell: they just stayed dead. Jehovah's Witnesses believe this is what Jesus taught, and they may have a point.

I think most historians of religion trace the idea of punishment in the afterlife to Zoroaster's Persia. From there it spread over the Middle East, and was taken up by the Hebrews. Jesus's recorded statements about the afterlife mostly concern the saved, so people went back to the Old Testament for something about the others, and the rest is history.

Just those things written by others throughout history about the subject good Sir. Smiles.

Here is something from one of them:

"Although the word hell comes from Hel, the Norse* goddess of death, hells appear in the beliefs and mythologies of many cultures. Common features of hells include burning heat or freezing cold, darkness (symbolizing the soul's separation from light, goodness, and truth), physical agony that represents spiritual suffering, and devils or demons who torment the damned.

Hinduism is based on the belief that each soul lives many, many lives. A soul may spend time in any of 21 hells to pay for wrong actions during a lifetime, but eventually that soul will be reborn in the world.

In the Jain religion, which is related to Hinduism, sinners go to a hell called bhumis, where demons torment them until they have paid for whatever evil they committed in life.

In many myths, hell appears as a place of punishment and suffering after death.

There are numerous versions of Buddhism with various ideas of hell. Some Buddhists still follow the traditional belief of up to 136 hells. The hell to which a dead soul goes for punishment depends on the person's actions in the most recent life. Some Buddhist doctrines speak of the karmavacara, the realm of physical and sensory perceptions, as a series of hells. The Chinese belief that souls are punished after death to pay for sins or errors committed during life combines some Buddhist ideas with elements of traditional Taoist Chinese mythology.

Before Christianity gave its own meanings to the concepts of heaven and hell, the pagan peoples of Europe imagined the dark side of the afterlife. The Norse pictured Hel, the corpselike goddess of death, as queen of a grim underground realm populated by those who had died of sickness and old age. This view of hell involves a dread of death and a horror of the cold, dark, decaying grave, but it does not suggest a place of punishment. (though it still sounds like a not so fun place to go)

The Greek underworld was divided into three regions: Hades, Tartarus, and Elysium. Most of the dead went to the kingdom of the god Hades. In the deepest part of the underworld, a terrible dark place known as Tartarus, the very wicked suffered eternal punishment at the hands of the Furies. The third region, Elysium or the Elysian Fields, was where exceptionally good and righteous people went after death.

The image of hell as a place of torment for sinners emerged fully in the Persian mythology based on the faith founded in the 500s B . C . by Zoroaster. According to Zoroastrian belief, souls are judged after death at a bridge where their lives are weighed. If the outcome is good, the bridge widens and carries them to heaven. If they are judged to have been evil, the bridge narrows and pitches them down into a dreadful hell. Those whose lives were an equal mix of good and evil go to a realm called hamestagan, in which they experience both heat and cold.

The early Hebrews called their afterworld Sheol and pictured it as a quiet, sad place where all the dead went. By around 200 B . C ., under the influence of Zoroastrianism and other belief systems, the Jews had adopted the idea of judgment for the dead. The afterworld became a heaven for the good and a hell for the wicked.

Images of hell in Chinese myth are a blend of Buddhist scriptures and Taoist beliefs. Such images enlivened books about fictional journeys to hell, such as Travels in the West , which gave readers an unsettling glimpse of possible future torments. Sinners descend to the base of the sacred mountain, Meru, to undergo a set period of punishment in one hell or in a series of hells. When they have paid for their sins and are ready for rebirth, they drink a brew that makes them forget their past lives. In some accounts, a wheel of rebirth lifts them to their next life, while in others they are thrown from a bridge of pain into a river that carries them onward.

According to the Maya, the souls of most of the dead went to an underworld known as Xibalba. Only individuals who died in violent circumstances went directly to one of the heavens. In the Mayan legend of the Hero Twins, told in the Popol Vuh, Xibalba is divided into houses filled with terrifying objects such as knives, jaguars, and bats. The twins undergo a series of trials in these houses and eventually defeat the lords of Xibalba. The Aztecs believed that the souls of ordinary people went to an underworld called Mictlan. Each soul wandered through the layers of Mictlan until it reached the deepest level."

[Thorne]

So basically what we're saying here is that, after at least 10,000 years of "revelation" from the gods, people still have no idea what the afterlife is supposed to be like, or even if there actually is one?

Hmph! And those same people will scoff at science because we can't prove or disprove the existence of extra-terrestrial life, and we've only been looking for less than 50 years. Without benefit of divine revelation.

Hardly seems fair, does it?

[MMI]

Well who are you blaming? Is it the gods for failing to make themselves clear, or Man for failing to understand. Likewise, will mankind miss the presence of aliens because he's to stupid to recognise one unless it says "Take me to your leader."

[Thorne]

Well who are you blaming? Is it the gods for failing to make themselves clear, or Man for failing to understand. Likewise, will mankind miss the presence of aliens because he's to stupid to recognise one unless it says "Take me to your leader."

I don't blame anyone.

As for missing aliens, that's a hard one. Obviously, the closer alien life forms are to ourselves, the easier it will be to recognize them. So far as we know there is no non-organic life here on Earth. Could there be such life out there, somewhere? If so, how do we recognize it? If we don't does that make us stupid or just lacking the knowledge to recognize it?

Of more interest to me, regarding the current topic, is how religious people will react if we ever do discover intelligent life out there, especially if it is radically different from us. And even more especially if it is also more technologically advanced than we are. Can people who believe that we are made in God's image reconcile their religion with a more advanced form of life which is obviously not made in that same image?

[leo9]

Just those things written by others throughout history about the subject good Sir. Smiles.

Here is something from one of them:

"
Hinduism is based on the belief that each soul lives many, many lives. A soul may spend time in any of 21 hells to pay for wrong actions during a lifetime, but eventually that soul will be reborn in the world.

In the Jain religion, which is related to Hinduism, sinners go to a hell called bhumis, where demons torment them until they have paid for whatever evil they committed in life.

In many myths, hell appears as a place of punishment and suffering after death.

There are numerous versions of Buddhism with various ideas of hell. Some Buddhists still follow the traditional belief of up to 136 hells. The hell to which a dead soul goes for punishment depends on the person's actions in the most recent life. Some Buddhist doctrines speak of the karmavacara, the realm of physical and sensory perceptions, as a series of hells. The Chinese belief that souls are punished after death to pay for sins or errors committed during life combines some Buddhist ideas with elements of traditional Taoist Chinese mythology.

I stand corrected, I wasn't aware that either of those religions had that element as well as rebirth.

Before Christianity gave its own meanings to the concepts of heaven and hell, the pagan peoples of Europe imagined the dark side of the afterlife. The Norse pictured Hel, the corpselike goddess of death, as queen of a grim underground realm populated by those who had died of sickness and old age. This view of hell involves a dread of death and a horror of the cold, dark, decaying grave, but it does not suggest a place of punishment.

Because, as I said, it wasn't a place of punishment: whether you went there wasn't about virtue but heroism. (It's been said that the main reason Christianity caught on in Northern Europe was that it offered everyone a shot at heaven, not just the heroes.)

The Greek underworld was divided into three regions: Hades, Tartarus, and Elysium. Most of the dead went to the kingdom of the god Hades. In the deepest part of the underworld, a terrible dark place known as Tartarus, the very wicked suffered eternal punishment at the hands of the Furies. The third region, Elysium or the Elysian Fields, was where exceptionally good and righteous people went after death.

I'm familiar with this, which is why I didn't instance the Classical civilisations.

The image of hell as a place of torment for sinners emerged fully in the Persian mythology based on the faith founded in the 500s B . C . by Zoroaster. According to Zoroastrian belief, souls are judged after death at a bridge where their lives are weighed. If the outcome is good, the bridge widens and carries them to heaven. If they are judged to have been evil, the bridge narrows and pitches them down into a dreadful hell. Those whose lives were an equal mix of good and evil go to a realm called hamestagan, in which they experience both heat and cold.

The early Hebrews called their afterworld Sheol and pictured it as a quiet, sad place where all the dead went. By around 200 B . C ., under the influence of Zoroastrianism and other belief systems, the Jews had adopted the idea of judgment for the dead. The afterworld became a heaven for the good and a hell for the wicked.

Which is, in more detail, what I said.

According to the Maya, the souls of most of the dead went to an underworld known as Xibalba. Only individuals who died in violent circumstances went directly to one of the heavens. In the Mayan legend of the Hero Twins, told in the Popol Vuh, Xibalba is divided into houses filled with terrifying objects such as knives, jaguars, and bats. The twins undergo a series of trials in these houses and eventually defeat the lords of Xibalba. The Aztecs believed that the souls of ordinary people went to an underworld called Mictlan. Each soul wandered through the layers of Mictlan until it reached the deepest level."

As I said, not an afterlife of judgement and punishment.

So, I accept I was mistaken about India and China. That still leaves a lot of "corners of the globe" that didn't believe in punishment for sins after death, and still doesn't offer any evidence for your assertion that this belief was so universal that it predates agriculture. As I said, the fact that Stone Age cultures apparently believed in life after death in some form doesn't tell us what form they imagined, and certainly doesn't give us any reason to believe they had already evolved the beliefs that your quoted authority dates to the late Iron Age.

[MMI]

@ Thorne

I think the religions affected by that problem could very well point out that as God has no physical form, "in His own image" must have referred to His spiritual likeness.

[Thorne]

I think the religions affected by that problem could very well point out that as God has no physical form, "in His own image" must have referred to His spiritual likeness.

I'm sure you're right. The religious dogma quite probably refers to spiritual image rather than physical. Especially when the religious leaders began converting people who looked quite different from themselves.

BUT! I'm pretty sure your average religious person thinks of his god as being just like him, in form if nothing else. How many Renaissance artists would have been able to sell their works if they had portrayed Jesus as a 1st century Jew? Would the Sistine Chapel have been considered as beautiful if God had been painted with Negroid or Mongoloid features? No, I rather think that Michelangelo would have more likely burned at the stake as a heretic.

For better or worse, we make our gods in our own images.

[denuseri]

Actually I believe that most people today do not libe under any such assumptions as to him being some kind of scandnavian looking deity.

Thinking that "they" all do etc would be the continuation or propogation of yet another negative stereotype about ones contemporary yet religious peers would it not?

What some think the Christian God looked like when he walked among us:

http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_jcfa.htm

The Bible never gives any physical description of Christ. The closest thing we get to a description is in Isaiah 53:2b, “He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to Him, nothing in His appearance that we should desire Him.” All this tells us is that Jesus’ appearance was just like any other man's – He was ordinary-looking. Isaiah was here prophesying that the coming suffering Servant would arise in lowly conditions and wear none of the usual emblems of royalty, making His true identity visible only to the discerning eye of faith.

Isaiah further describes the appearance of Christ as He would appear as He was being scourged prior to His crucifixion. “His appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any man and his form marred beyond human likeness” (Isaiah 52:14). These words describe the inhuman cruelty He suffered to the point that He no longer looked like a human being (Matthew 26:67; 27:30; John 19:3). His appearance was so awful that people looked at Him in astonishment.

Jesus was a Jew, so he likely had slightly darker skin dark eyes, and darker hair than most of his caucasian indo-european decended cousins from the colder latitudes. In other words he probabely looked just like all the other jews in his area at the time wchich means he was primaraily persian/phonecian in appearence.

This is a far cry from the blond-haired, blue-eyed, fair-skinned Jesus portrayed in many modern pictures or pictures derived from certian periods of westrn european art and just as far off from the artwork portraying him as african or oriental.

However:

One thing is clear: if it were important for us to know what He really did look like, Matthew, Peter and John, who spent three years with Him, would certainly be able to give and would have given an accurate description, as would His own brothers, James and Jude. Yet, these New Testament writers offer no details about His physical attributes.

[Thorne]

if it were important for us to know what He really did look like, Matthew, Peter and John, who spent three years with Him, would certainly be able to give and would have given an accurate description, as would His own brothers, James and Jude. Yet, these New Testament writers offer no details about His physical attributes.

That's quite true. Then again, these New Testament writers don't always agree on the details that they do report on.

[denuseri]

I have the same problem from any two news stations when watching them reporting the weather Thorne.

I also seem to find the same problem of inconsistancies in lots of historically translated texts that I come accross from a wide variety of scources (not just biblical reaserch).

And to boot...I see the same issues with scientific findings and their oft differing conclussions.

[Thorne]

I have the same problem from any two news stations when watching them reporting the weather Thorne.

I also seem to find the same problem of inconsistancies in lots of historically translated texts that I come accross from a wide variety of scources (not just biblical reaserch).

And to boot...I see the same issues with scientific findings and their oft differing conclussions.

All true, beyond question. Yet how many of these sources are held by their believers to be the self-proclaimed Word of God? It's not the fact that there are errors which upsets me, but the fact that the believers proclaim the bible to be without error.

[denuseri]

No different imho that what one side of claim-a-tolgists in science say about another faction who believes differently than their sect does about whatever the topic is at the time, be that climatology, cosmology, or paleotology etc etc the list goes on and on and on.