Recently I have done a lot of deep thinking into the human species, not so much where it came from and where it's going to; these questions are impossible to answer. But more so how the human species acts and re-acts to certain situations and stimuli. Then I sort of came to an interesting, not what I will call a conclusion as not enough research has been put into it, but what I could call a plausible conclusion. Assuming the Bible is as old as it claims to be, then we are going back millennia whenever the human species was at a very primitive stage in evolution and is safe to assume that people were unknowing of the reasons behind certain activity which today can be explained easily or is even common-knowledge. Take for example, that when the first batteries were discovered, that the electric shock delivered was believed to be that of a religious experience, given the discoverer's ill-knowledge of electricity. (1) Now if we relate this back to the early days formation of the Bible and, maybe not specifically the Bible but in-fact religion itself, it is more than evident what the cause of this farce that we call religion, is. Religion as we know it today has been blown out of all proportion from its, in my opinion, original intention. And that was to explain to the people at the time; the reason for natural occurrences. It was possibly around this time when people began to question existence to the meaning of life and how certain, seemingly non-human occurrences (tidal waves, etc) came to. It was the ruling time of the Romans -- let's remember here, the most influential empire in history -- even more so than the British. The Romans needed to answer these questions or else they would reap the havoc that can be caused by the masses -- as to why such a powerful ruler of the whole world had no answer to the, seemingly at the time simple question, of its very existence -- and should it not be able to answer, it must be removed and replaced with something that can answer. IE, the people would remove the Roman rule in favour of one with better answers to impossible questions. The Romans needed a way to settle the restless crowd. Somebody, whom we will never know, came to the idea of a way to explain nature and make a lot of money in doing so and solidify the ideals of an entire nation to think in one way, which a totalitarian nation, such as the Romans, could only dream of being in control of -- all in one way. Religion. This so far is my opinion. People wished to know how life formed on Earth. People wished to know how certain, now known, with scientific proof occurrences, happened. The nation was becoming too large for even the Romans to handle with martial-law alone. Many unexplainable occurrences, such as the battery, needed to be explained or-else the masses would wonder how such people could rule a World if they cannot explain such an experience. And it was this very experience which helped them lead the masses to believing that unexplainable (due to ill-knowledge) occurrences happened due to the hands of God and this God was to be loved and feared at the same time, as he is your leader and best friend but also your greatest foe should you question him. The exact mindset that a totalitarian leader wants his masses to assume. My plausible conclusion; God, the Bible and Religion; are nothing more than explanations for things which could not be explained at the time and God, the Bible and Religion have morphed in further ways than the Romans could ever have intended or even imagined. What started as mind control has now turned into religion. And more importantly; God is Nature. As Nature is what could not be explained, given their ill-knowledge; and thus; blamed on God. Opinion is greatly welcomed. 1. http://peswiki.com/index.php/PowerPedia:Electric_battery_history
I agree with the basic idea you have that religion was a way to explain things that were unexplainable at one time. Very plausible and many people have this view.
Well... The roman empire was already really old, and there was already mesopotamia and greek empire living before then. Man and Science weren't SUPER primitive.. and Romans were pagans. They hated the idea of this new ideas that the Jews were talking about of this single creator. i like your one citation
Accualy the single creator thing wasn't something the jews did first. In ancient eygypt there was a pharoah who told everyone there was only one god who created us.
Yes, Akhenaten. He tried to get the population to believe solely in Aten, and see himself as being an earthly embodiment of the god. It didn't catch on, and most of his inscriptions and statues were later defaced. To the OP, as above, he bible isn't millenia old and there have been powerful civilisations well before the Romans by at least 3, 000 years. Did you ever go to the IOM Bob? MelT
Religion is not the only entity that has claim over the idea of God. You cannot think you know, thought and words cannot encapsulate the absolute, for by its obvious nature it is un-encapsulable.
I wish I could know what my cat thinks about all the things in my house. If I had never grown up with all of the man-made things we have it would be a trip just to see a towel.
The original intention of religion was to control the masses and direct their attention from earthly oppressors's and instead turn their attention to some magical-perfect-world that they would get to go to when they died. Religion is a horrible lie.