A subject I find to be of particular interest is the origin of religion. The question has recently been asked of me, "Does this need to externalize extend from our evolution into our present level of intelligence, or is it a culturally derived phenomenon?"
In order to fully answer the question, from my view, I would first distinguish between those religions which were found within the primitive tribal cultures, which existed for many thousands of years before the culture with which we are familiar today became the dominant one, and those religions which are common to our culture (Christianity, Islam, etc.). I believe that these two groups had different origins, one being resultant of our evolution into our present species, and the other resultant of the mass expansion of a single culture: ours.
Regarding the first group, those tribal, animistic religions of which evidence of ritualism has been discovered to the very foundations of our homo sapien ancestry, I would suggest that the need to explain those phenomena which were inexplicable at the time was inherent in early man. No person at that time understood the causes of weather change, animal behavior, or those things which could be observed in the sky, and in order to reconcile this lack of information with man's obvious exceeding of base animal intelligence, these things were attributed to the influence of outside (externalized) entities, or gods. Our primitive ancestors had obvious advantages over their simpler primate kin, such as more complex reasoning skills, and an ability to deduce future, or past events, based on more than mere immediate sensory input. An ape might see the footprints of another animal in the dirt, but would not consider it to be of any significance. A human, however, would see those same tracks in the dirt, and deduce that an animal whose feet/hooves/paws corresponded to the shape of the track had traversed that area. Humanity had made a great leap forward, (yes, the evolutionary process for this took a great deal of time, but the ultimate effect was rather extraordinary) and was possessed of a need to understand the world, and to give them some idea as to how to interact effectively with it. When mere naked-eye observation was insufficient to explain an occurrence, the need to explain it did not dissipate. The result of this dilemma? Gods.
I've a different opinion on the matter of salvationist religions, which I define as those which purport that the human spirit/soul is inherently flawed in some capacity, and requires a combination of ritual/penance and the intervention of some divine/supernatural being in order to acquire a desirable place in the afterlife. I believe that the popularity, statistically speaking, of these religions has its origins in our culture. When the relatively rapid increase in population produced undesirable side-effects, such as famine and overpopulation, the impoverished, frequently diseased, miserable masses would be, of course, in turmoil, and demand some resolution to this miserable existence. What better solution to this problem than to convince these ignorant masses that their physical lives were unimportant in the grand scheme, when compared to... you guessed it... their spiritual salvation? When, in fact, accepting their pathetic existences, and living them in humility and even gratefulness would help to ensure an immortal existence in bliss after death? Of course, this idea would appeal to these people, who were constantly fearful of every illness, and more aware of their mortality than they were of anything else! Why not? Surely, something must cause their suffering... it is a test of their resilience, and their devotion to their God! One must admit that the convergence of this unpleasant lifestyle and system of belief seems rather convenient. At least, I am of the opinion that this is so.
I am by no means an expert in the subject of history, or of evolutionary theory, but I'm not entirely ignorant of these topics, either. I've read up on several different ideas on this matter (including, you may have noticed, Daniel Quinn's book, "The Story of B"), and so far, these are my conclusions. They are by no means written in stone, and should anyone find that their thoughts on the matter differ from my own, I would quite readily further explore any reasonable presented alternative.
Hail Satan!

The proof is in the pudding, you should eat it slowly.

Good presentation of your post and well thought out. As you are aware your ideas of the origin of religion is not new. Some may say to a extent that yes, people develope these religions for physcological reasons.
I do not however see people developing these religions for the idea of immortalilty. Are there any serious actions that people take to truely live forever? No. They waste time, energy, money and even thier health on a promise. A promise that if you do this or that you will be rewarded. With this blind believe the only thing that is accomplished is a salvery of the mind, nothing more.
People desire to be slaves. No matter how sugar coated it may look.

Tonight when you next dream and experience a world of fantasy made completely real to your experience you will be further conditioning your nervous system and mind.

Now how many people sleep and dream about every twelve to sixteen hours?

Ah.

All of them.

Mystery solved.

Religion and religious experience derive directly from daily human experience.

And always has.

Simple.

People sleep every twelve to sixteen hours? I knew I was missing something!

>>When mere naked-eye observation was insufficient to
>>explain an occurrence, the need to explain it did not
>>dissipate. The result of this dilemma? Gods.

Theism is not a sufficient definition, nor even a necessary component, of religion. First of all, deity wasn't the only kind of purely hypothetical explanation that people had used for natural phenomena. People had other wild explanations for certain things that did not involve personification. However, humans have always had a drive for pattern-seeking, and trying to find rules for these established explanations is where religion really comes in to play (e.g., sacrifice an ox on this particular day, and the next harvest goes well).

It is these sorts of components, ritual and dogma, that define religion. Of course, the human need for ritual and dogma is a subject already well-discussed in The Satanic Bible, so I won't bother repeating the other reasons for them here.

>>I've a different opinion on the matter of salvationist
>>religions, which I define as those which purport that
>>the human spirit/soul is inherently flawed in some
>>capacity, and requires a combination of ritual/penance
>>and the intervention of some divine/supernatural being
>>in order to acquire a desirable place in the afterlife.

While most of the world's religions do seem have the dogma of "you and/or the world is flawed, but we know how to fix it", not all of them take the approach you mention. Buddhism, in the purest sense, is not theistic. Their core dogma (the 4 Noble Truths and the Eight-Fold Path), while sometimes manifesting a form of ritualistic penance, do not need theism nor a belief in an afterlife in order to operate.

>> I believe that the popularity, statistically speaking,
>>of these religions has its origins in our culture.

This still begs the question of why so many individuals actively seek out religion. While most "religious" people are simply carrying on with whatever religion their parents forced on them, there are still plenty of people who by their own free will explore what religions have to offer. As for what motivates such people, I think it was explained quite well in "The God You Save May Be Yourself" from The Satanic Bible.

>>Not directly, but don´t they still base their practices,
>>if you will, on egalitarian principles, i.e. all can, all
>>should, for all good, etc. That´d take you back to some
>>form of theism, I´d suppose?

How so? I don't see what those points you bring up have to do with deity.

I don´t know. I can only see some deity behind anything egalitarian.

Plus Buddhism seeks self-less-ness. Why, if for no "hidden/subcounscious" theistic purpose then?

From http://www.buddhanet.net/4noble.htm :

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This deep understanding comes from the previous nine insights. So there is a sequence leading to Right Understanding of things as they are, namely that: All that is subject to arising is subject to ceasing and is not-self. With Right Understanding, you have given up the illusion of a self that is connected to mortal conditions.

--RIGHT UNDERSTANDING

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>>I don´t know. I can only see some deity
>>behind anything egalitarian.

Again, why? And again, there have plenty of groups over the years who presented the idea of "this is what's wrong with you (or the world in general), and here's how to fix it", and didn't include a mention of deity anywhere. Just look at people who've blindly submitted themselves to non-theistic religions, or political ideologies, or race-based philosophies, etc.

>>Plus Buddhism seeks self-less-ness. Why, if for
>>no "hidden/subcounscious" theistic purpose then?

Just read the two lists I mentioned. What makes you think belief in deity is necessary for either of them?

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Can any greater-good really be non-theistic?

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I apologize but answering a question that wasn’t directed to me, but I’d like to mention examples of non-theistic “greater good” delusions.

Many social and political movements and organizations are dedicated to a “greater good” while not having any religious affiliation. Some are even declared atheists.

In Communist countries, people were fed propaganda (not very different form Jehovah witness pamphlets) telling them they were building “a paradise on earth” for their great-grandchildren. Those people knew they would never see or enjoy that magical future, yet they worked themselves half to death for this Utopia.

The guerrillas that infect many countries have the same messianic complex that makes them execute suicidal attacks all in the name of “the cause”.

In both cases, there is no theistic element present, but you see people sacrificing their lives for a “greater cause”. They didn’t even have a promise of being rewarded in the afterlife for their sacrifice.

Sheep doesn’t always need a God to walk happily to the slaughter, some times a nice speech and some color pictures is enough.

If they tried to sleep every 24 hours there would be zero sleep time.

Thanks for your input.

I however do not see it possible for any egalitarian nor self-less based religion to be deity-less principled.

HS!

In my opinion, those people are the same than theistic fanatics. They just change God for "the cause" or "the party" or whathever they choose to sacrifice for. But at the bottom they are all the same, they need to worship something "superior" than themselves.

So they are not really deity-less, they just adore non-conventional deities.

I can't help but want to butt in here

At the heart of Buddhism there is no God, as Bill M said. I'm thinking that you don't know what there is instead. Buddhists believe in an ultimate oneness, not in a sentient God. When a Buddhist strives towards selflessness it does not neccessarily mean "helping others in a selfless manner" as Christians would do, but literally being without a self. See, the ultimate objective is to escape the pattern of life and be reunited with the oneness, which is not a God at all.

Actually, in Buddhism, Gods are considered to still be another part of the rat race that is trying to ultimately escape like humans, almost like just another level of incarnation. They are closer to humans than they are to being truely supreme beings. And oftentimes any Gods acknowledged in Hinduism or Buddhism are really just "manifestations" of all the different facets of life and the universe.

So I hope that helps you in the differentiation

Mastiva

Yadda, yadda, yadda.

I agree with you for the most part.

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(Christianity, Islam, etc.). I believe that these two groups had different origins, one being resultant of our evolution into our present species, and the other resultant of the mass expansion of a single culture: ours.

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This however I do not agree. I believe that the gods that Egyptians severed made up the oldest religion on earth. Just as in my biology class in high school, they told me they think our common ancestries came from Africa. Seeing as some historians date thousands of years BC to the Egyptians, I truly believe they are the oldest civilization on earth. The King James Bible or the Christian Bible itself, as much as I hate it, tells a great theory of man's existence throughout the ages. I like to interpret it as more of a history book than a story book. The Old Testament where genesis comes from is taken from the Hebrew scrolls called the Torah, and various other collections of Hebrew writings. The bible first starts out with it's hocus pocus bullshit story of how God created the earth, but after that says something useful. It talks about Mesopotamia and the tribes of Israel(Israel was not even in existence yet) and how they were starving. Groups of the Jews went into Egypt to get food, but became enslaved. Eventually the Egyptians enslaved the Jews. Then you have Moses freeing from them, crossing a river and wandering through the desert till he gets to a spot along the Mediterranean sea. This is where Israel is founded. Now aside from all the other crap that takes place in the bible, these locations suggest that the Jews and the Egyptians co-existed because they ran into each other. When Jesus was born in Jerusalem in Israel he went through his little rebellion against the Jews and King Herod for breaking the Sabbath Laws and they killed him for it. Claiming relevance to being the son of God he founded Christianity. That alone says that all of Christianity had at least the basis of Judaism. The Romans existed at the time Christianity was mad because they conquered Jerusalem before Jesus was born. It is very possible the religions of India, China, and Russia were also established before Christianity from Jews or other people that migrated out of Africa spreading over the world. Nevertheless traces of the Judaism scrolls and writings from Christianity have been found in the Muslim bible called the Quran. This leads me to believe that Christians and Muslims are both descendants of the Jews as many other theologians agree. Yahweh was the Jewish name for their deity, God was the Christian name, and now the Muslims call it Allah. Same deity, different rules.

I do agree that the Muslims stayed in Europe while the Christians(the bulk of our ancestors) migrated to North America, but we do have a common origin.

Aside from that, reasoning for the origins of religion are pretty much made for control over people. Those who were organized with reading and writing, that could speak the same languages, could use it to dictate reasoning to the people to explain the so called phenomena you speak of. One reason I believe the laws were first written down was because one man could not dictate enough to the people what to do in disputes. Moses went up into Mount Sinai, with his priests and scribes, and came down with his ten commandments. The reason was because everyone kept asking him what to do, where to get food and water while they were wondering through the desert. He claimed higher authority to God so people would listen to him and follow the laws. When one religion was not good enough for the people, and they thought they could do better, they moved on and made a new one. Even Satanism itself sets “Statements”, “Rules”, and “Sins”. It explains the “phenomena” as being “dark forces”. Sure Bill was right in saying that not all religions have to have a deity, but I would say that the earliest religions were based upon gods. At least the ones we have with definite recorded history are. Look at many states such as Italy today, where there is still no separation of Church and state. They are the hierarchy of the sheep ruled by the Vatican Catholic Church. It is pretty much the same way with Christianity and America anyway with our bullshit “Ethical Policies”(completely biased toward Christianity). I am fucking sick of living in a “nation under God” with “God given rights”. So there you have my argument. Religion was made for control.

You might want to do some more research. You have some noticeable errors here in your post.

>>I however do not see it possible for any egalitarian nor
>>self-less based religion to be deity-less principled.

Then I suggest researching Therevada Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, Jainism, subsets of Unitarian-Universalism, or even the Star Wars movie series. Not every "higher power", let alone every remotely metaphysical concept, is necessarily tied to a deity. Ya gotta stop thinking in terms of the religion your parents exposed you to.

Maybe these concepts are more complex than I realised. Thanks for your inputs.

HS!

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Groups of the Jews went into Egypt to get food, but became enslaved. Eventually the Egyptians enslaved the Jews. Then you have Moses freeing from them, crossing a river and wandering through the desert till he gets to a spot along the Mediterranean sea.

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I don’t think the Jews even wandered close to Egyptian territory... it's all fairy tales. Moses? There is more evidence of a Historical Mickey Mouse than a Moses.

I know this doesn't ad to the point of this topics. I just wanted to warn you about interpreting mythology as history.

Remember the Bible contains equal amounts of History, Fact and Pizza.

The article is as full of bullshit as the Bible.

It has been historically proven than there was never a large Hebrew population living in Egypt in the times of the Pharaohs. And even if a bunch of them lived there, they weren’t prisoners who needed to escape. The whole thing is a myth.

Slavery was not an important part of Ancient Egyptian culture. Rich people owned other Egyptians as slaves and servants, but the concept of a “slave race” didn’t exist.

Keeping an entire population captive as slaves would be absurd and even counterproductive in Egypt, where the Pharaoh could just re-route of the entire country workforce to his pet construction projects during flood time. (Jews building pyramids for the Pharaoh, that’s another myth, this time %100 Hollywood-made)

Archaeological evidence shows those tribes didn’t come from Egypt across the dessert. They lived in the same territory for several generations until they unified and started calling themselves Hebrews.

There is even a documentary where some famous Archeologists talk about this evidence, and mention the political and religious dilemma that this discovery implies, since it officially proves wrong one of the most famous passages of the Bible.

No offense, but do you have any sources? Because this is not what I have read, and I have looked for it for a good hour.

Without you getting all worked up into a rabid and defensive frenzy, you said:

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I believe that the gods that Egyptians severed made up the oldest religion on earth.

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Seeing as some historians date thousands of years BC to the Egyptians, I truly believe they are the oldest civilization on earth.

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It is very possible the religions of India, China, and Russia were also established before Christianity from Jews or other people that migrated out of Africa spreading over the world.

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I’m extremely curious as to where you procured the information that led you do these conclusions?

Put simply;
Did you do your homework?

This is not just a recent thing for me. For some reason I was fascinated with the Egyptians as a child and I began studying them when I was 4 years old. I was amazed at how gaudy they were. I loved all their possessions and the fact that they would bury their dead in gold sarcophagus’s and masks. One particular Pharaoh that has always been my favorite since a child was king Tutankhamun. I have always admired his lovely gold burial mask. I want to own it some day. He was murdered(they think) when he was 19 years old. Getting back to the point, the Predynastic Egypt was dated by wikipedia at 3500 BC. That was 5506 years ago. If you click on the hyperlink you can also scroll down the bottom of the page where it talks about the timeline of the history of mankind.

Also if you look at pharaoh Ramesses II's profile on wikipedia you will see that he was a leader of the Hittites. The Jews claim the Hittites in this passage as if they were their own in the old testament book of exodus. This is why I believe they were with the Jews and that the Egyptians kept them as slaves. The Hittites did have a war, which it talks about in Ramesses II’s profile that resulted in a peace treaty. Wars do not happen because everything is going great.

As far as this :

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It is very possible the religions of India, China, and Russia were also established before Christianity from Jews or other people that migrated out of Africa spreading over the world.

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Well as far as that goes you can look at this article. It dates some Chinese writings back to tombs 4500-2500BC.

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The pottery inscriptions, they said, reflect sacrificial rites at that time, just as other ancient writings did. For example, the pictograph "nan" looks like people forming an altar to worship a young tree, signifying the rite of praying to the god of the land for good harvests.

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This makes them possibly even older theists than the Egyptians. All I know is that the Egyptians are much more well known in our culture than any other so that is why my guess resides with them.


The Mask of Pharaoh Tutankhamun

Hail King TuT!
Hail Satan!

There are Mesopotamian cultures that predate the Egyptians.

Mesopotamian Timeline


HS!

Ahh the world wide web, where you can find a site that says just about anything to suit your needs.

Here is site that claims that humans were created by Twinkies. http://www.geocities.com/SouthBeach/Pointe/6500/scripture.html

Here is a site that claims that humans were created by martians. http://www.crystalinks.com/ancientastronauts.html

Wikipedia saying basically the same. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zecharia_Sitchin

Although I have found Wikipedia to be an invaluable source for trivial bits and pieces of information, such as “how to speak 733+” or “what is a pirate?”, I don’t feel that it is a satisfactory replacement for real live books. There are also outright errors in Wikipedia, and it should not be used as a sole source of reference when researching anything of great importance. If you sited something published by a major university such as Cambridge or Oxford, people might be more inclined to take you seriously. I wish you success in your efforts.

You're very right. I have also seen Egyptologists discuss the topic of "hebrew slaves" before.

The Egyptians also built their own pyramids, using payed professionals for the job. No slaves or hebrews were used.

ABZU wrote:

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Here is a site that claims that humans were created by martians. http://www.crystalinks.com/ancientastronauts.html

Wikipedia saying basically the same. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zecharia_Sitchin

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Too bad there are plenty of these sites online on "alternative" archaeology, especially Sitchin and other pseudoscholars who dupe the gullible.

". . .he's just another nut making a living selling books that treat folks to a tale they want to believe in."
---Rob Hafernik (on Sitchin)

You're completely sure that they built 100% of all their structures without slavery? And once again... no sources of where this information came from is citied. No articles... no nothing. Great Magazines Tha_Pig... and the articles it talks about hebrew enslavement are where?

The whole point of my first post was simply to contrast this quote in the first place :

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(Christianity, Islam, etc.). I believe that these two groups had different origins, one being resultant of our evolution into our present species, and the other resultant of the mass expansion of a single culture: ours.

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After my guess and a few ignorant comments, I gave a crappy source and came to the conclusion :

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It was simply just an educated guess and where the white light religions came from. My point being that given the information I gave, the Xtians and Muslims have the same ancestors : The Jews.

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Then ABZU sidetracked me asking :

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Put simply;
Did you do your homework?

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To which I replied and gave a logical explinations for my ideas and gave semi-credible sources. I see no one else bringing anything to the table other than "Oh I've read that before so I must be right and he must be wrong".

Now if you want to discuss these topics like Erohraz_Obsidian's comment :

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There are Mesopotamian cultures that predate the Egyptians.

Mesopatamian Timeline

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Of course there were people before the egyptians, but what I claimed was that they were the first "civilization". You can take what makes the definition of a "civilization" to a different post. I really don't care to debate with one-pump, off topic comments.

Until you have any other arguments with credible sources, I have not standed corrected; however, I am willing to change my theories if you can come up with the goods.

Okay. You have got me there. I will agree with you that slaves were not used to build the pyramids. For that there is substantial evidence.

As for the topic of the Hebrews being enslaved by the Egyptians at some point, which was my main argument, you have still not made a valid opposition.

The pyramids of Giza, talked about in the article Archilles cited, where made around the 26th century BC.

Menkaure's

Is one of the three pyramids of Giza that I cite as a source from wikipedia.

The problem with this is that the Hebrew enslavement was supposedly an estimated 1300 years later to what they think was under the reign of Ramesses II.

So I remain with my question

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and the articles it talks about Hebrew enslavement are where?

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Thank you for saying that! God or diety in religions such as Buddhism or Hinduism is a quality of being rather that a personal being. Many of us in Satanism talk about the Dark Force/the Black Flame which essentially is diety or "the divine" when seen as a quality of being.

I like to think of God, diety, the divine, the Dark Force, Satan (whatever name you call it) as the creative power back of all creation. It is something we don't yet understand, but religions hint at with their myths of Gods, Goddesses, Devils and other supposed metaphysical beings. Perhaps the divine is the strings of Superstring Theory or maybe it is the vibration of the strings or something else that causes the strings to vibrate. It is sheer awesome power/intelligence that we use in ritual to bring about our desired effects.

But a God, as in a conscious, thinking being that created and/or sustains the universe and meddles in the affairs of humanity, is just a product of human imagination to explain that which was not understood.

One needs not complicate the idea of religion. Its not a scholarly or overly intillectual topic.

Religion is a combination of two of the most basic, inherent human needs. 1) The necessessity to validate, or understand one's existence, aka purpose. "I am important, I have meaning. I am my own God. I control my destiny. Music is why I live. Art is why I live. Sex, Food, Nature, Children, Animals, etc.. is why Im here, I will be more than this when my physical body dies or My physical body is meant to be enjoyed to its fullest while it exists. I have a destiny.. etc".. Each and every one of you in here believe this to some degree. Its basic ego. We all have purpose, if only within our own minds. Its difficult to believe that we are just talking bags of flesh, slowly rotting, no more or less important than the next multi-celled organism, here just because, existing just because.. but this only covers spirituality. Religion comes into play with 2) Human kinds need to socialize. No living thing on earth exists in pure isolation. Basic primates will deteriorate physically, mentally if held in solitary confinement. Men go crazy. Even the most anti-social of human beings still, to some extend, need some kind of 3rd party stimulation from other human beings. Even if nothing more than a biological dependence upon one another for survival of the species.

The need to understand one's place in the world + The need for Social Contact will always = Religion.

Religion will never, ever, ever die, no matter how sophisticated or intelligent mankind becomes, because our egos, our need for stimulation and answers will never die. Until we are able to find the answers, we will create them.