"allah" the stone god!

[S.A.M.]

According to Zweemer, author of The Origins of Religion, the oldest traditions were of one supreme God and other beliefs came later.

 

[Vega]

FYI, here are some thoughts to consider in light of what you were saying about "all these 'gods' "...

...concerning the eating of things offered to idols, we know that an idol is nothing in the world, and that there is no other God but One.

For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth (as there are many gods and many lords), yet for us there is one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we for Him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and through whom we live.

*** What am I saying then? That an idol is anything, or what is offered to idols is anything?

Rather, that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice they sacrifice to demons and not to God, and I do not want you to have fellowship with demons.

Oh no not another fundamentalist!

 

[Vega]

According to Zweemer, author of The Origins of Religion, the oldest traditions were of one supreme God and other beliefs came later.

How old is "old"???

 

[Photizo]

Oh no not another fundamentalist!

Now thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest the savour of his knowledge by us in every place.

For we are unto God a sweet savour of Christ, in them that are saved, and in them that perish: To the one we are the savour of death unto death; and to the other the savour of life unto life.

 

[S.A.M.]

How old is "old"???

The oldest known representations are the aboriginal cave paintings of Australia, supposed to be around 50,000 years old (which seems weird to me, since I thought the aboriginals of Australia were only 40,000 years old); however, the origin of all religious thought (e.g. in native Americans African aborigines, etc) point to the presence of a "head honcho" who supervises the other "gods".

 

[Vega]

Now thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest the savour of his knowledge by us in every place.

For we are unto God a sweet savour of Christ, in them that are saved, and in them that perish: To the one we are the savour of death unto death; and to the other the savour of life unto life.

May I remind you that this topic of discussion is not about biblical doctrine.

 

[Vega]

The oldest known representations are the aboriginal cave paintings of Australia, supposed to be around 50,000 years old (which seems weird to me, since I thought the aboriginals of Australia were only 40,000 years old); however, the origin of all religious thought (e.g. in native Americans African aborigines, etc) point to the presence of a "head honcho" who supervises the other "gods".

Interesting! would you care to expand on that please?

 

[Photizo]

May I remind you that this topic of discussion is not about biblical doctrine.

May I remind you, you were talking about gods and fundamentalists...I had something to add to the conversation along those lines.

 

[S.A.M.]

Interesting! would you care to expand on that please?

Its called urmonotheismus

Urmonotheismus, the German for "primitive" or "original monotheism" is a hypothesis first defended by Austrian anthropologist, Catholic priest and member of the Divine Word Missionaries Wilhelm Schmidt (1868–1954) in his Der Ursprung der Gottesidee appearing from 1912, opposing the "Revolutionary Monotheism" approach that traces the emergence of monotheistic thought as a gradual process spanning the Bronze and Iron Age Religions of the Ancient Near East and Classical Antiquity.

Schmidt's hypothesis was controversially discussed during much of the first half of the 20th century. In the 1930s, Schmidt adduced evidence from Native American mythology in support of his views (High Gods in North America, 1933). By the 1950s, the hypothesis was effectively refuted, and its proponents of Schmidt's "Vienna school" rephrased it to the effect that while ancient cultures may not have known "true monotheism", they at least show evidence for "original theism" (Ur-Theismus, as opposed to non-theistic animism), with a concept of Hochgott ("High God", as opposed to Eingott "Single God").

i.e.

"In all these [primitive African] societies, without a single exception, people have a notion of God as the Supreme Being." This is true of other primitive religions as well, many of which have a High God or God which reflects a basic monotheism."

 

[Vega]

May I remind you, you were talking about gods and fundamentalists...I had something to add to the conversation along those lines.

I was indeed talking about "gods" but not from a doctrinal point of view.
Please add your views relevant to the topic only.

Theological threads are a few floors down if you decide to fully engage in them!

 

[Photizo]

I was indeed talking about "gods" but not from a doctrinal point of view.

Is that so...were you just making up your information concerning 'gods' on the fly...shooting from the hip so to speak?

 

[S.A.M.]

Is that so...were you just making up your information concerning 'gods' on the fly...shooting from the hip so to speak?

Please quit spamming this discussion.:bugeye:

 

[S.A.M.]

Here is some more information, but I haven't checked it for accuracy:

When the cuneiform literature first began to reveal its message, scholars of cuneiform and Egyptian hieroglyphics soon found themselves dealing with a tremendous number of gods and goddesses, and demons and other spiritual powers of a lesser sort, which seemed to be always at war with one another and much of the time highly destructive. As earlier and earlier tablets, however, began to be excavated and brought to light, and skill in deciphering them increased, the first picture of gross polytheism began to be replaced by something more nearly approaching a hierarchy of spiritual beings organized into a kind of court with one Supreme Being over all. One of the first cuneiform scholars to acknowledge the significance of this trend was Stephen Langdon of Oxford, and when he reported his conclusions he did so with a consciousness of the fact that he would scarcely be believed. Thus he wrote in 1931: (2)

I may fail to carry conviction in concluding that both in Sumerian and Semitic religions, monotheism preceded polytheism.... The evidence and reasons for this conclusion, so contrary to accepted and current views, have been set down with care and with the perception of adverse criticism. It is, I trust, the conclusion of knowledge and not of audacious preconception.

Since Langdon took the view that the Sumerians represent the oldest historic civilization, he added:

In my opinion the history of the oldest civilization of man is a rapid decline from monotheism to extreme polytheism and widespread belief in evil spirits. It is in a very true sense the history of the fall of man.

Five years later in an article which appeared in The Scotsman, he wrote: (3)

The history of Sumerian religion, which was the most powerful cultural influence in the ancient world, could be traced by means of pictographic inscriptions almost to the earliest religious concepts of man. The evidence points unmistakeably to an original monotheism, the inscriptions and literary remains of the oldest Semitic peoples also indicate a primitive monotheism, and the totemistic origin of Hebrew and other Semitic religions is now entirely discredited.

http://www.custance.org/old/evol/2ch1/2ch1.html

 

[Photizo]

Please quit spamming this discussion.:bugeye:

"Physician, heal thyself."

 

[S.A.M.]

One more:

“China, India, Egypt, and Greece all agree in the monotheistic type of their early religion. The Orphic hymns, long before the advent of the popular divinities, celebrated the Pantheos, the Universal God. The odes compiled by Confucius testify to the early worship of Shangte, the Supreme Euler. The Vedas speak of ‘one unknown true Being, all-present, all-powerful; the Creator, Preserver, and Destroyer of the universe.’ And in Egypt, as late as the time of Plutarch, there were still vestiges of a monotheistic worship. ‘The other Egyptians,’ he says, ‘all made offerings at the tombs of the sacred beasts; but the inhabitants of the Thebaid stood alone in making no such offerings, not regarding as a god anything that can die, and acknowledging no god but one, whom they call Kneph, who had no birth, and can have no death. Abraham, in his wanderings, found the God of his fathers known and honored in Salem, in Gerar, and in Memphis; while at a later day Jethro, in Midian, and Balaam, in Mesopotamia, were witnesses that the knowledge of Jehovah was not yet extinct in those countries.’”[130]

http://www.worldspirituality.org/primitive-monotheism.html

 

[Vega]

Well as for "Wilhelm Schmidt" he was an ordained roman catholic priest at the time. So fitting facts to support monotheism would be quite a religious duty to self assure others including himself.
The primitve monotheism theory is quite interesting but remember there are civilizations like harappa and moinjodaro that predate sumerian civilization by at least 10000 years.

 

[S.A.M.]

Well as for "Wilhelm Schmidt" he was an ordained roman catholic priest at the time. So fitting facts to support monotheism would be quite a religious duty to self assure others including himself.
The primitve monotheism theory is quite interesting but remember there are civilizations like harappa and moinjodaro that predate sumerian civilization by at least 10000 years.

Hmm sure, could you tell us anything about the religions of the Harappans?

 

[Vega]

Harappans probably exercised some sort of goddess worship. There is, however, some sort of male god (maybe) that has the head of a man with the horns of a bull. In addition, we believe from various artifacts that the Harappans also may have worshipped natural objects or animistic forces, but the circumstances of this worship can only be guessed at.

Harappans were eventually supplanted by waves of migrations of Indo-Europeans. These new peoples, however, did not seem to adopt the religious practices of the Harappans, so it is not possible to reconstruct Harappan religion through the religion of the Vedic peoples, that is, the Indo-Europeans who constructed the rudimentary Indian religion represented by the Vedas.

Harappan writing was a pictographic script, or at least seems to be; as of yet, however, no one has figured out how to decipher it or even what language it might be rendering. The logical candidate is that the Harappans spoke a Dravidian language, but that conclusion, which may not be true, has not helped anybody decipher the script. Like the rest of Harappan civilization, the writing was lost to human memory after the disappearance of the Harappans.

 

[maxg]

They were Semitic-speaking peoples migrating to that region who brought the knowledge of their gods with them!.

Actually, the Sumerians were not a Semitic people although their language took on some Semitic influences from the Akkadian people (who were).

See
http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Sumerian+language

The religion of the region may also have had some Akkadian/Semitic influences but the basic belief system and dieties pre-dated those influences.

 

[S.A.M.]

Harappans probably exercised some sort of goddess worship. There is, however, some sort of male god (maybe) that has the head of a man with the horns of a bull. In addition, we believe from various artifacts that the Harappans also may have worshipped natural objects or animistic forces, but the circumstances of this worship can only be guessed at.

Harappans were eventually supplanted by waves of migrations of Indo-Europeans. These new peoples, however, did not seem to adopt the religious practices of the Harappans, so it is not possible to reconstruct Harappan religion through the religion of the Vedic peoples, that is, the Indo-Europeans who constructed the rudimentary Indian religion represented by the Vedas.

Harappan writing was a pictographic script, or at least seems to be; as of yet, however, no one has figured out how to decipher it or even what language it might be rendering. The logical candidate is that the Harappans spoke a Dravidian language, but that conclusion, which may not be true, has not helped anybody decipher the script. Like the rest of Harappan civilization, the writing was lost to human memory after the disappearance of the Harappans.

This is all speculation; nothing is known about the Harappan religion.