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Roots of Religion

Ingledsva

HEATHEN ALASKAN
Thanks. :) If you have access to a library that has this book, or are so inclined as to order one if you're intrigued by early Christianity, Elaine Pagels who is a professor of religion at Princeton wrote a book some time ago called The Gnostic Gospels. What is particularly revealing in this work of hers which broke the ground of this to the public mind, is how in the early Christian movement it was not some single idea that got spread out from a single source as a whole cohesive body of teachings, which then later "heresies" crept in and corrupted. Not at all. That is a created myth, termed by one scholar whose name escapes me at the moment as the "Great Story". The "Great Story" goes that Jesus descended from heaven with his message fully intact, taught his disciples, who then became the sources of authority for the message, who then trained the bishops of Rome, who then held the teaching as pure and true and fought against errors that crept in...

I really enjoy Pagels books. Adam, Eve, and the Serpent, - and - The Origins of Satan - are other interesting books by her.

You also might like some of Bishop Spong's books, such as - Born of a Woman.

Or Maybe Matthew Fox - such as - Original Blessings.

If you want the more interesting take on the movement of religion, myth, sacred languages, and alphabets, read THE WHITE GODDESS by Robert Graves.

And everyone interested in religion and myth should read THE GOLDEN BOUGH by James Frazer.

And of course - anything by Joseph Campbell. The HERO WITH A THOUSAND FACES, THE POWER OF MYTH, etc.

*
 

mystic64

nolonger active
There is the idealistic reality and there is the real reality. Kirran amd Windwalker, you guys are both right and I am wrong and I apologize.

Quote=Windwalker:
"I'm actually a little surprised that someone who identifies as a mystic does not see the key to this. I can't recall who the person who said this was, though it is attributed to Meister Eckhart (the person was referencing Eckhart). He said, and rightly so, "Theologians may quarrel, but mystics the world over speak the same language." Do you not see that the key is the experience of unitive consciousness?"


Sir, you are a learned experienced mystic and an esteemed mystic on this message board and other message boards. I am just a fellow running around loose. And sir, you and I do not speak the same language, so therefore there is no way that I am a mystic :) . Oh well :)
 

Whiterain

Get me off of this planet
Iraq mostly.. Some sadistic Sumerian King thought Piety was a good way to keep slaves and field worker in line thinking there was a Man in the sky ready strike em down for not completing their labors.
 

Sunstone

De Diablo Del Fora
Premium Member
Yes, but I suspect the possibility that some religions were purposely created to control the masses.

Good point! But religions need not necessarily have been purposely invented to control the masses in order to have stumbled in that direction over time, more or less through trial and error. Yet, however they arrived at, among their other functions, becoming tools of the social order, I think it's certain that some religions did end up with that function.
 

Sunstone

De Diablo Del Fora
Premium Member
Any thoughts?

In my opinion, you lay out some pretty good thoughts. I think, though, that you are mostly concerned with the role a certain kind of mystical experience (perhaps most often interpreted as an experience of deity) has had to do with the origin of religions. Please correct me if I am wrong.

That experience -- or at least its interpretations -- seems to vary a bit from culture to culture, and from individual to individual, but I agree with you that there also seems to be something of a core experience. At least, we can look at the various experiences, see commonalities between them, and count those as the core experience. Whether anyone ever actually has a pure core experience is an interesting question.

Years ago, I was rather eager to find commonalities between these experiences. Today I am still struck by the commonalities, but I am also much less likely to discount or gloss over the differences.

I have also become aware over the years that religions, apparently, have more than one root. I believe the first is the mystical experience that I think you're talking about. But there is also a growing body of science concerning a second root. Namely, the origin of religion in such things as agent detection, etiology, Theory of Mind, and other natural functions of our brains. From what I gather, there might be up to twenty or thirty such functions which, each and jointly, help to predispose us to religiosity of one sort or another. The important thing here to recognize about that second root of religiosity is that it is essentially non-mystical.

In bringing up these two roots of religion, I by no means want to neglect things that, while not at the roots of religion, nevertheless shape the religions we have: Things like social factors, economic factors, etc.
 

Kirran

Premium Member
Wonderfully put Sunstone. I am in agreement with you. I just think the mystical experiences are one of the key grains of sand around which the crystals form in the super saturated solution :)
 

Sunstone

De Diablo Del Fora
Premium Member
Wonderfully put Sunstone. I am in agreement with you. I just think the mystical experiences are one of the key grains of sand around which the crystals form in the super saturated solution :)

I'd suggest that most of our positive notions of deity (e.g. "God is love") are ultimately derived from mysticism, while most of our negative notions of deity (e.g. "God is punitive") are ultimately derived from that second root I spoke of.
 

Kirran

Premium Member
I'd suggest that most of our positive notions of deity (e.g. "God is love") are ultimately derived from mysticism, while most of our negative notions of deity (e.g. "God is punitive") are ultimately derived from that second root I spoke of.

Hmm, yes, I think I'm basically on board with that.

With the proviso the two roots overlap one hell of a lot and feed into each other.
 

mystic64

nolonger active
I'd suggest that most of our positive notions of deity (e.g. "God is love") are ultimately derived from mysticism, while most of our negative notions of deity (e.g. "God is punitive") are ultimately derived from that second root I spoke of.

Sir, I like the way that your explainations are going. The factors envolved that have nothing to do with the mystic experience :) . To me it has always been that everything started with somebodies mystic experience, but because of your approach to this subject I am beginning to see that it does not absolutely have to be that way. The foundation programming to most everybodies personality programming is the permission to feel power (not vulnerable). A person or an animal that begins to feel vulnerable will begin to get sick and if it continues they will die, and this is even if their reason for feeling vulnerable is not reality based (they are not actually under any threat, they just think that they are). Thus a belief in "a power" that is greater than they are, with of course this power being on their side :) , gives them permission to feel power/not or less vulnerable. And this "a power" does not have to be based on anything that is real. The important thing is that one thinks that it is real and if one can convince others that it is real also, then one of course can feel even safer about the whole thing. So I guess from this I would have to say that the "roots" of a given religion does not have to be based on something that is real and that the maintenence of a given religion also does not have to be based on something that is real even though it did start out with something that was real. That concept has constantly been a problem with my sorting things out as a mystic. Part of it is real, but at the sametime there is a part of it that is something that I have created with my mind to feel safe/not vulnerable because of the fears that lie in the foundations of my personality programming. And I would speculate that if it is possible for me to be doing this that it is also possible for others to be doing this, or to have done this :) . Sir, I have not studied what you have studied, but relative to what I have explored as a part of myself, your explainations do seem to have meaning to me.
 
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