Or perhaps you should stop giving merit to baseless Christian apologetic nonsense, like Urmonotheismus.
If you read more "in-depth" you will see that Urmonotheismus is pretty much entirely discounted by religious historians that have no agenda.
Adam and Eve
- Thread starter one_raven
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Or perhaps you should stop giving merit to baseless Christian apologetic nonsense, like Urmonotheismus.
If you read more "in-depth" you will see that Urmonotheismus is pretty much entirely discounted by religious historians that have no agenda.
Or perhaps you should stop giving merit to baseless Christian apologetic nonsense, like Urmonotheismus.
If you read more "in-depth" you will see that Urmonotheismus is pretty much entirely discounted by religious historians that have no agenda.
There is other literature out there, thats just the first one I remembered; I know from personal knowledge that Hinduism is based on early monotheism. The information on Chinese, Native American and Japanese religions is also available if you look for it.
The Arya Samaj for instance is a revival of Indian monotheism.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arya_Samaj#The_10_Principles_of_the_Arya_Samaj
The tree of knowledge was there for men and women to develop their will to dare to resist that which is beyond the realm of God. The tree of knowledge was to allow men to develop through millenia and have power of will grow because they knew that they could go against God's will but they choose not to. It is development of consciousness, unfortunately Adam and Eve gave in to the lust and they have given us the consciousness we have now...incomplete and small.
You are going to have to convince me of that.
First, you will have a hard time proving that the Vedas is older than 1500 BCE.
Second, you will have to prove that it was intended to be interpreted as a monotheistic text. There are many (including may Hindus) that will disagree with you.
Third, any "history" the Vedas speaks of, is hardly relevant, because much of the stories were told as revelations that came part and parcel. In other words, I could come and say, "This is the truth, may thounsands of years ago there was this God..." and history starts with my words, not the God from many thousands of years ago that I just revealed the "history" of.
Believe me, I HAVE looked for it.
I have been looking for over 25 years.
I am not saying it is not possible, but I am saying that what religionists claim and what historians can verify are often very different things.
I have met Hindus who claim that the story of Hanuman is not only real, but happened one million years ago.
That doesn't mean that history supports those claims.
As I said the first time you said that:
It wasn't the "Tree of Knowledge", it was the "Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil".
Are these Hindus Vedic scholars? Do you have a link? I have met Indians who study the scriptures and I have never heard anything of the sort. For most Indians, religion is a cultural paradigm and not a scholastic endeavor.
Also, I would be interested to know if there were any records before the Rig Veda.
By the way, monotheism is not simply the belief that there is a main, top or creator God in the pantheon - it is the belief that there is only one God.
Various belief systems in Hinduism (covering monotheism, polytheism, panentheism, pantheism, monism and atheism)...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinduism#Concept_of_God
Various belief systems in Hinduism (covering monotheism, polytheism, panentheism, pantheism, monism and atheism)...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinduism#Concept_of_God
Sure, just like the three *cough* gods in Christianity.
The "three *cough* gods in Christianity" have nothing to do with this.
First of all, the Trinity was invented by the Roman Catholic Church in 325 AD at the First Council of Nicaea, and the Christian ideal of monotheism predates the Trinity by at least 300 years.
Secondly, the whole Christian monotheism idea was based on the Jewish monotheism, which was based on the Hebrews picking ONE God from the Gods they acknowledged existence of - which, of course, has it roots in Abraham's Sumerian polytheism.
And whats to say that the current change in Christianity (from Abrahams monotheism) does not reflect how monotheism is altered by political reformists into polytheism?
I notice even atheists prefer paganism to monotheism; perhaps they feel it dilutes the religious fervor? If so, the apparent powers enjoyed by "high priests" and "saints" would be one reason why monotheism would give away to polytheism.
But I am sure you are aware that they are a minority.
All of known history, for one.
Or, perhaps it is closer to human nature to acknowledge multiple Gods.
Perhaps it doesn't matter why the "prefer" this over that, as we are discussing the history of monotheism over polytheism, not current social trends.
Actually, much of the reason for saints (in the Christian world) is the adoption of the Gods in polytheistic religions to convince them to convert.
Most of the saints and holidays found in the Christian "pantheon" were adopted from the people of the lands they conquered and can easily be traced difrectly back to them.
Yes. Because the Roman Catholic Church conquered most of the known world in it's heyday.
Still, that says nothing, as the roots of Christianity can be traced back to Polytheistic Sumerian people.
I think you are missing the point.
Abraham's Monotheism started with Ibrahim's Polytheism.
Umm and then descended into present day trinity, mormonism, and what not.
So why couldn't that be a repeating pattern?
As I said, all the history I have read states that is not the case.
Show me reliable, valid sources which state otherwise.
Do you mean history or opinion? There is a difference. e.g. look at Buddhism.
Logic would dictate that simple leads to complex.
The pattern seems to be an occasional eruption of monotheism from a background of polytheism, holding for a while and then slowly acquiring a variety of sub-gods and becoming more like its poly forbears.SAM said:
We have no major monos without immediate poly roots, known by inspection and recent history. We do seem to have a few polys with any mono roots well buried in time.
So which is simple, which complex?SAM said:
We note that languages, for example, tend to "simplify" over time, in many respects.