Thread: Why do we worship ancient gods?

All religion is borrowed. The masses are deceived. There is safety in numbers. The religious clan transcends nations. It is a mechanism to allow you to deny your own mortality.
All religion has its roots in 3 systems:
Animism. Provides the concept of the soul.
Shamanism. Provides the power of miraculous healing.
Paganism. Provides the notion of god(s).
So how does it transmute from one belief system to another?
The use of subtle name changes is a handy tool:
For example,
*Brahma becomes Abraham by moving the trailing 'a' to the front.
*Al-azar-us (the man raised from the dead by the Egyptian Horus) becomes Lazarus (the man raised from the dead by Jesus), with the leading 'a' truncated.
* Chrishna (the Hindu incarnated saviour, and second in the trinity) becomes the Christ of the Christians (also second in the trinity) with the last syllable changed. The life of Christ parodies the life of Chrishna, whose legend was brought west by the Therapeuts and Essenes.
* Venus's pigeon (of Roman paganism) becomes the dove of the Holy Ghost.
* Pagan worship, which included the use of priests, altars, solemn festivals, bells, candles, cushions, holy water and wine, black and white vestments etc. was adopted by the early church.
* Pagan temples were turned into churches.
* The Christian Creed is virtually identical to the Pagan Creed.
If there is any doubt about this, then look no further than St. Augustine, the great pillar of the church:

For the thing itself which is now called the Christian religion, really was known to the ancients, nor was wanting at any time from the beginning of the human race, until the time when Christ came into the flesh whence the true religion, which had previously existed began to be called Christian

This was further backed up by Eusebius:

That which is called the Christian religion is neither new nor strange

Also Origen:

The Christian religion contained nothing but what Christians held in common with heathens: nothing what was new or truly great

And Thomas Paine:

The Christian religion is a parody on the worship of the sun, in which they put a man, whom they call Christ, in the place of the sun and pay him the same adoration which was originally paid to the sun

That's the real clue, because all gods are based upon different powers of the sun.
So Christ was worshipped as the Man in Aquarius, as the fish in Aquarius, as the lamb in Aries, as the lion of Judah in Leo, as the morbid centaur in Sagittarius.
It is no coincidence that his birthday is celebrated just after the winter solstice (to allow for the rebirth of the moon also). It is no coincidence that the birthday of John the Baptist is celebrated at the summer solstice on 24/25th June ('He increases, but I must decrease' says the Baptist of Jesus in John's gospel). And it is no coincidence that Lady Day (the feast of the blessed virgin) is celebrated at the vernal equinox on 25th March, as 9 months later the baby Jesus (the sun) is reborn. The pagan festival of Eastre at the vernal equinox is borrowed and disguised to become Easter, by declaring it to be on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox. Such a disguise is this floating date. Surely someone must have recorded the day of crucifixion. But there again no one ever knew Jesus enough to have written anything about him. No first hand account. No historical record, even by Philo or Josephus. No archeological evidence. Instead the early Christians were charged as sun-worshippers. They prayed to the east. They held their sacred day on Sun-day.
Jesus Christ is a composite of ancient gods. Most notably he is Chrishna, but he is also Mithra, Tammuz, Horus, Apollo, Appolonius of Tyana, Adonis of the Phoenicians, and many others.

Thank you to:
Reverend Robert Taylor, theist turned atheist, and jailed for blasphemy (Devil's Pulpit, Syntagma, Diegesis)
Joseph McCabe, also theist turned atheist.
Godfrey Higgins (Anacalypsis).
Gerald Massey (Natural Genesis).
Thomas Doane (Bible Myths).
and many others.

Ox, I seem to remember you as being a Christian. Has this changed or am I mistaken?

Originally Posted by KALSTER

Ox, I seem to remember you as being a Christian. Has this changed or am I mistaken?

I previously stated that when I was growing up, I was indoctrinated into the Church as vulnerable young person. Religion preys on the vulnerable in society. I later became an atheist. About 8 years ago I started going to the Catholic church after the loss of a loved one. I can't deny that the church is nice and that goes for many people in it. However, I was also aware that what I was experiencing was pagan in origin. When I enter, I dip my fingers in 'Holy Water'. That is pagan. I see the white vestments of the priest. I see the altar, the candles. I make the sign of the cross, which is a solar symbol. I inhale the 'Holy Smoke'. All these have been borrowed from paganism. I take the Eucharist and am led to believe that bread and wine has been transubstantiated into the actual body and blood of my saviour. This is of course pagan too, and based on the belief that by so doing you can actually bring your god down to earth.
In fact I quite enjoyed reliving the ancient religion, but don't try to tell me that Christianity is anything other than a system borrowed and scrambled from other faith systems. Animism developed into paganism and shamanism. This was borrowed by Hinduism, then Buddhism, Jainism and Confucianism. Catholics are fond of saying that Protestants borrowed most of their their rituals, but Catholics themselves borrowed just about everything from Judaism and paganism.
The ancient pagan priests who took religion into Asia almost certainly came from Africa, and they were black. Chrishna means the black. Early depictions of Buddha suggest that he too was black (black statues with woolly hair and thick lips), and there have been many buddhas, not just one. There are many parallels between Christ and Chrishna, between Christ and Buddha, between Christ and Horus and even between Christ and Apollonius of Tyana.
But my original question was why do we still worship these ancient gods?
If we challenge the priests who have been granted the authority to spread this pagan nonsense, and who will save souls while living in relative luxury, then we can be charged with blasphemy or incitment to religious hatred. In the case of Mohammedism, now jokingly referred to as Islam, our very lives could be at risk.
And what is religion anyway other than a replicating idea which infects minds like a virus in the form of a memeplex with all its defensive mechanisms to keep the faith alive.
I have returned to atheism and really I find it quite liberating to do so.

This is a "scientific study of religion" forum. You have not presented your case in a scientific manner. Merely finding similarities or coincidences between one religion and another does not demonstrate that they are related.

I am just guessing here, it would be nice to have an actual anthropologist evaluate my observation, but, anthropology has naught but inductive example to base deductive reasoning upon?

Cool. Must have had you confused with sox then.

Originally Posted by GiantEvil

I am just guessing here, it would be nice to have an actual anthropologist evaluate my observation, but, anthropology has naught but inductive example to base deductive reasoning upon?

Being an actual anthropologist, I'd love to answer your question. But could you elucidate first? Anthropology is a very broad subject by itself, including ethnography, paleoanthropology, archaeology, etc. -each of these facets also being further subdivided into their own disciplines (lithics, cognitive archaeology, feminist culture, Melanesian ethnography, etc).

Anthropologists use both induction and deduction to arrive at provisional conclusions. As do researchers in all other sciences. Sometimes data provide researchers with the capability to make certain inferences (induction) which can then be tested to eliminate possibilities (deduction) and arrive at probable conclusions.

I believe you have answered my question.

Originally Posted by SkinWalker

Sometimes data provide researchers with the capability to make certain inferences (induction) which can then be tested to eliminate possibilities (deduction) and arrive at probable conclusions.

I'm thinking that there are no "for all x" proofs when reconstructing the past, just best guesses based on weight of evidence.

P.S. I was thinking historical anthropology (paleoanthropology, archaeology, etc..) as opposed to contemporary anthropology (feminist culture, Melanesian ethnography, etc...).

Sometimes I suppose it's a little of both. For instance, there is a good body of evidence regarding lithic production for paleo humans. We can say, empirically, that certain lithic strategies were used by certain periods of time and space. We can even say, empirically, much about how these lithics were created (percussion, pressure, hammering, centripital flaking, etc.). But we have to infer much about the use of the individual lithics as tools or weapons. Such inferences are based on modern ethnography, experimental archaeology (basically hafting stone tools to handles and chopping wood, skinning deer, etc.) and so on.

And that's just one single aspect of a single branch of anthropology.

More related to the topic, there's quite a bit of related archaeology and ethnography that looks at religious evolution and Religion in general that is both empirical as well as inferential. There are some things we can say with empirical certainty (like ancient humans possessed the cognitive ability for abstract thought, eg. 32,000 years ago); but there are some things that we must infer based on the empirical data, deriving trends and probabilities (like ancestor veneration might have been a motivator for the severed and plastered heads of Neolithic Jericho).

One of the things I've just started my graduate research are the Paleolithic and Neolithic figurines which some have inferred to be evidence of a "Mother Goddess" mentality to about 7,000 years ago. My developing thesis is that this hypothesis is wrong if based on the data. I'm correlating figurine data from a very wide swath of time and space with an intent to perform some multivariate statistics on them and see what predictions can be made.

Originally Posted by SkinWalker

One of the things I've just started my graduate research are the Paleolithic and Neolithic figurines which some have inferred to be evidence of a "Mother Goddess" mentality to about 7,000 years ago. My developing thesis is that this hypothesis is wrong if based on the data. I'm correlating figurine data from a very wide swath of time and space with an intent to perform some multivariate statistics on them and see what predictions can be made.

When you have a completed paper you will post a link on the Forum's here I hope?

Sure. If anyone is inclined, they can follow me at Academia.edu.

I intend to post any publications or papers I produce there as they happen. My paper on Cranial Modification in the Ancient World is there and it seems to get a lot of traffic.

Originally Posted by Harold14370

This is a "scientific study of religion" forum. You have not presented your case in a scientific manner. Merely finding similarities or coincidences between one religion and another does not demonstrate that they are related.

Science is based on hard evidence. Religion is based on blind faith.
Fortunately we can employ the science of logic and probability to ask the question: Just who were ya Jessie?
* You were the King of the Jews, but Saviour of the Gentiles.
* You were a dark skinned, brown eyed, black curly haired little man, and not the white skinned, blue eyed, golden haired, imposing pin-up boy of pious artists through the ages.
* You had no regard for the welfare of animals when you cast out demons into swine and let them duly drown in the river. I think we can be assured that maladies are not caused by demons.
* You were most probably an itinerant magician who fooled the public with simple conjuring tricks like turning water into wine.
* When the soldiers came to arrest you, your so faithful disciples ran away and left you with a semi-naked young man. (Mark 14:50) These days we can probably infer what happened there.
Your story is cobbled together from a whole host of sources, all of which pre-dated you:
* Like Horus, you were virgin born on the 25th December.
* Like Horus, you taught in the temple when 12 years old.
* Like Horus, you were a teacher who had 12 disciples.
* Like Horus, you were baptised in a river.
* Like Horus, you gave a sermon on the mount.
* Like Horus, you healed the sick,
* Like Horus, you raised a man from the dead.
* Like Chrishna, you were in danger of death in infancy.
* Like Chrishna, you were descended from a royal line.
* Like Chrishna, you were meek and mild.
* Like Chrishna, you were called 'Lord'.
* Like Chrishna, you had been the object of prophesy.
* Like Chrishna, you spent your life working miracles and preaching.
* Like Chrishna, you rose from the dead and ascended into heaven.
* Like Chrishna, you descended into hell.
* Like Chrishna, you wrote nothing down, but left your doctrines to be preached by your disciples.
* Like Mithras, your birth was accompanied by shepherds.
* Like Tammuz, you died with a wound in your side, rose again after 3 days and left the tomb open with a rock rolled aside.
* Like Apollonius of Tyana, you were an itinerant miracle worker and preacher.
* Like Apollonius of Tyana, you were credited with prophesies, exorcisms, cures and raising the dead.
* Like Apollonius of Tyana, you went off into the wilderness to encounter demons.
* Like Elisha, you fed a large crowd with an impossibly small amount of food.
And so on and so forth, ad nauseam, to take in many other characters from antiquity.
Over 20 centuries and 100 generations, billions have been fooled and the 'faith' has been kept alive by ignorant authoritarians, most of whom have long since gone and whose molecules lie concealed in the earth or are drifting up in the heavens, but whose memory lives on in the form of demigods or saints of this pagan mystery religion.

Gee ox, I don't suppose you would want to cite a source or two maybe?

This is more in the nature of a rant than a science topic.

I don't mind comparisons when they're actually based on something and there's at least a somewhat plausible path from one to the other.

Take the very first one:
* Like Horus, you were virgin born on the 25th December.

I doubt anyone can produce a solid reference for the day Jesus was born from any of the four canon gospels or the dozens that were rejected.

Originally Posted by Lynx_Fox

I doubt anyone can produce a solid reference for the day Jesus was born from any of the four canon gospels or the dozens that were rejected.

That's because the Jesus story is a fable of the sun, which sinks to its lowest point on 21st December, but the ancients believed its birthday was 3 days and 3 nights later, to allow for the rebirth of the moon also, on 25th December. So the early Christians, who were sun-worshippers, plagiarised the heathen festival of Sol-Invictus for their own saviour, which was the sun. There is no date for Jesus's crucifixion either, and this should fall on the 21st December, but was shifted to Good Friday, which is 3 days and 2 nights before his supposed resurrection on Easter Sunday. This was moved to this date by the founding fathers to cover up the obvious solar connection, and stays as a floating date to further obscure its relation to the vernal equinox. No Christian can explain the reason why Christ was in the tomb for 3 days and 3 nights when he was crucified on Friday but rose on Sunday.
Few of the faithful are aware of this fact, but when I once put it to a priest he readily admitted these obvious connections.
It should be remembered that the terms Christ, Our Saviour, Our Lord, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour are epithets which were applied to the sun, to Bacchus, Apollo, Adonis etc. in the system of idolalatry or heliolatry of the ancients.
There is a willingness to be deceived on the part of the many.

The clergy themselves avoid discussion and controversy because they consider religious truth so obvious as not to need discussion. The Christian teacher uses reason as far as he can to support his views, but the moment that reason refuses any support - the moment its stream is turned against him, then reason is denounced, and pronounced as imperfect, and indefensible views instantly become matters of faith, and above reason.

Yes, religion really does resist scientific enquiry this way.
A theologian turned scientist, and then preaching atheism can be jailed for blasphemy, as was the case with Rev. Robert Taylor, but a scientist turned theologian, such as John Polkingthorne cannot suffer this fate when preaching the anomalies, contradictions and absurdities which a 100 generations of humankind have been led by the nose by sanctified knaves into a 1000 different sects.
Examine the PAGAN CREED, and compare it to the APOSTLES CREED, which of course was not written by the apostles, but wastes 5 minutes of valuable earth time in Catholic churches every Sun-day:

I believe in God the Father, maker of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ born of the virgin Electra, who was struck by a thunderbolt (ie crucified), was dead and buried, he descended into hell, on the 3rd day rose from the dead, he ascended into heaven where he sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty, from where he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.
I believe the Holy Ghost, the Holy Catholic Divinity, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the immortalities of the soul and the life everlasting.

Perhaps as an alternative to this fatuous nonsense may I suggest Ox's Creed :-D

I believe in the revelation of science to describe all things visible and invisible, but of what cannot be known, I am content to be ignorant, and when I have no knowledge I have no faith. I will not bind myself to my state of mind today, because it is my duty to become wiser tomorrow. I will never surrender my own consent, nor require the consent of another, to anything that cannot be proved by evidence or demonstated by reason.

Originally Posted by ox

Originally Posted by Lynx_Fox

I doubt anyone can produce a solid reference for the day Jesus was born from any of the four canon gospels or the dozens that were rejected.

That's because the Jesus story is a fable of the sun, which sinks to its lowest point on 21st December, but the ancients believed its birthday was 3 days and 3 nights later, to allow for the rebirth of the moon also, on 25th December.

More speculation. I asked for solid references. Where are these in the gospels or any other writings from early Christianity? Is there any support by the Roman historians suggesting a sun-god connection? Or anybody else? While your ideas sound plausible they also seem unsupported.

Originally Posted by Lynx_Fox

More speculation. I asked for solid references. Where are these in the gospels or any other writings from early Christianity? Is there any support by the Roman historians suggesting a sun-god connection? Or anybody else? While your ideas sound plausible they also seem unsupported.

Religion stands on safe ground. It is inaccessible to scientific research. Jesus' image cannot be recovered. He is further protected because he wrote nothing down. Even his followers were illiterate. Much is concealed in the vernacular, much is lost in time. What we have are mostly translations or translations of translations. The Church breathes a huge sigh of relief.
But when we employ the scientific tools of logic and probability, we can at least uncover most of the real truth. All truth is safe and nothing else is safe.
I quoted some references in my first post on this topic.
Clues lie in the Bible, but why only Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. If those are true then why aren't the apocryphal books also? In particular the Church would not like you to know about the contents of The Protevangelion and The Gospel of Nicodemus. They would be upset if you read books by the Rev.Robert Taylor (The Devil's Pulpit, The Diegesis and The Syntagma). They would be distraught if you quoted from James Bonwick's Egyptian Belief, or The Angel Messiah of Buddhists, Essenes and Christians by Ernest de Bunsen. They bank on you not to read your way through the weighty Anacalypsis by Godfrey Higgins. And Bible Myths and Their Parallels in Other Religions by Thomas Doane, along with many others are probably on the Vatican's banned list. Some of these are available as ebooks.
So where do we begin? Well how about our old friend John the Baptist?
What do we know about this miraculously born man. Born to Elizabeth in her old age, he was later executed by Herod. (Was that the same Herod who died in 4BC?)
His birthday is celebrated on 24th/25th June, exactly 6 months before the birthday of Christ. We know for sure that he was 6 months older than Christ because it says so in Luke 1:36, and this is also stated in the Catholic Encyclopedia, should any ambiguity lie.
'He who comes after me ranks above me' (John 1:15).
'He must increase, but I must decrease', John says of Jesus (John 3:30).
Yes indeed, the sunlight does increase from the 25th Dec. to 25 Jun, and then it starts to decrease.
Jesus is the Son in the sign of Aquarius, pouring his stream of water into the mouth of the great southern fish (Chaldean legend of Oannes). Jesus is then swallowed by the fish-god in Pisces. He is the gentle lamb in Aries, when the sun is meek and mild.
But then: "From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of Heaven suffers violence and the violent take it by force". Now the decreasing sun moves through the signs of the violent lion (Leo), the stinging Scorpion (Scorpio), the devil of November and December (Sagittarius and Capricorn).
John the Baptist is not in the wilderness, he is in the zodiac! Where is the wilderness in Judea anyway?
The 12 apostles of Jesus were fishermen, represented in the zodiac from Aries to Pisces.
If we assume that Jesus is the only virgin born saviour, we are wrong. This accolade can also be given to Chrishna, Buddha, Horus, Lao Tsze, Confucius, Zoroaster, and among many others even to Plato and Pythagoras.
If we assume that only He was crucified, then think again. See 16 Crucified Saviours by Kersey Graves.
The God of the Israelites, who is spoken of as being invisible, is never spoken of as being inaudible. He cannot be seen, but he can always be heard. Was this imposter really revealed by the Bible?

Originally Posted by ox

Originally Posted by Lynx_Fox

I doubt anyone can produce a solid reference for the day Jesus was born from any of the four canon gospels or the dozens that were rejected.

That's because the Jesus story is a fable of the sun, which sinks to its lowest point on 21st December, but the ancients believed its birthday was 3 days and 3 nights later, to allow for the rebirth of the moon also, on 25th December. So the early Christians, who were sun-worshippers, plagiarised the heathen festival of Sol-Invictus for their own saviour, which was the sun. There is no date for Jesus's crucifixion either, and this should fall on the 21st December, but was shifted to Good Friday, which is 3 days and 2 nights before his supposed resurrection on Easter Sunday. This was moved to this date by the founding fathers to cover up the obvious solar connection, and stays as a floating date to further obscure its relation to the vernal equinox. No Christian can explain the reason why Christ was in the tomb for 3 days and 3 nights when he was crucified on Friday but rose on Sunday.
Few of the faithful are aware of this fact, but when I once put it to a priest he readily admitted these obvious connections.
It should be remembered that the terms Christ, Our Saviour, Our Lord, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour are epithets which were applied to the sun, to Bacchus, Apollo, Adonis etc. in the system of idolalatry or heliolatry of the ancients.
There is a willingness to be deceived on the part of the many.

That was a decision made by the Catholic church later on, because there was already a holiday.

Once the religion got going I'm sure a lot of things got co-opted into it.

Originally Posted by Lynx_Fox

I don't mind comparisons when they're actually based on something and there's at least a somewhat plausible path from one to the other.

Take the very first one:
* Like Horus, you were virgin born on the 25th December.

I doubt anyone can produce a solid reference for the day Jesus was born from any of the four canon gospels or the dozens that were rejected.

What we can discern from the gospels is that it was tax season, whenever that was. Probably the spring, because it would seem unwise to demand that people travel in the winter.

Originally Posted by kojax

What we can discern from the gospels is that it was tax season, whenever that was. Probably the spring, because it would seem unwise to demand that people travel in the winter.

Nobody likes paying taxes, hence this appropriate time for the incarnation of God on Earth. Well, he wouldn't do it in the holiday season would he? What about the gold, frankincense and myrrh? Whatever happened to that? Was it declared for tax purposes? Would have been the holy relic of holy relics.

Originally Posted by KALSTER

Cool. Must have had you confused with sox then.

There's only one sox

Hey folks, newbie here. I was raised Catholic, followed a career in science (current grad student in Medicinal Chemistry), and while for many years I basically disagreed w/the Church on many topics, still considered myself Catholic. Over the past couple of years, more in depth questioning led to further undermining of the "beliefs" I once held. Currently, if asked, I'd probably have to claim agnostic or perhaps atheist...jury is still out on that one. In response to Ox, I do recall from bible school days that even the Church admits that the actual birth date of Christ was unknown. The "Church Year" was dictated by a council long after the alleged birth/death/resurrection of Christ. Many of the Christian practices and holidays find roots in pagan traditions. The catechism I read as a child claimed that pagan ways were adopted, and re-purposed so-to-speak, so as to teach the pagans about the "true" God. Of course, this led to problems and even the Gospels show debates btw Apostles on whether pagans were supposed to follow Jewish traditions, etc.

I like the tax joke, by the way.

My b/f showed me a documentary I'll need to find the link to. I found it highly thought provoking, as it demonstrated the correlations between Christianity, and older pagan religions. The narrator mentioned a sun cycle or something...not sure what to make of that. Personally, I wonder, if all the religions go back to some caveman sitting in a cave making up stories around a campfire...WTF?! That was one seriously creative caveman (or woman) More importantly, why on earth would I lean on mystic interpretations of the universe when science tells me a whole lot more and can at least be proven or dis-proven? These are simply my personal thought meanderings.

As for citing stuff...I'm WAY more versed in science than religion, so sorry I don't have references and stuff.

Just seen this ox's statement:

Early depictions of Buddha suggest that he too was black (black statues with woolly hair and thick lips), and there have been many buddhas, not just one

In early Buddhist Era there is no statue of Buddha. The statue typically depicts the place of major event in Buddha's time, such as where he attained enlightenment. Later on they were influenced by western (Greek's) practice making statutes of people, so they started building statue of Buddha.
Also note that Buddhism is not about worshiping any gods. Buddha did not preach people to worship him in order to go to heaven. He told people about the nature of life, and how to live with it.

There are many references to the Black Buddha on the web and in books. The theory is that black shamans left Africa (probably the Nile region) and spread their knowledge into Asia. Although we never know how many, we can say that there were many Buddhas. The most famous one is reputed to have left his wife and child to seek refuge in the forest. Is this the action of a spiritual superhero? The truth about Buddhism can be unravelled with reference to the puzzling nature of Buddha's actions and teaching. Buddha states that even the 'gods' are on the wheel of birth and death. So they can't really be gods then in the way we would expect. We can imply that Buddha entered the forest to seek the company of fellow shamans who indulged in drug mysticism, for the forest contained plants which had healing properties as well as hallucinogenic properties. Maladies could be cured by administering drugs from the right plants, and the dosage was determined by the patient's astrology. This is the great link between drugs and astrology, and Buddhism is replete with astrological significance. Hallucinatory drugs can also be used for divine revelation. So there you have it: the 'gods' were names of sacred plants and their effects. We can suggest that the main hallucinatory drug was the Soma. This is believed by some to be the Fly Agaric (Amanita Muscaria) mushroom which grew in birch and pine forests. It grew without seed, springing up overnight, and this enhanced its reputation for divine powers. Mantras sacred to the gods were written on birch bark. This is almost certainly the expanation behind the belief in death and rebirth (reincarnation). It appears to explain the notion of 'karma' also. This psychic performance indicator was probably related to success in the liberation of the mind through the drug. Failure, and you are doomed to become an animal or even a plant. Your next dose of Soma had better be an increased one! Success, and all things appeared enlarged (macroscopy) and 'on fire'; hence the Fire Sermon. But only successful shamans and the well-off could afford drugs, and here began the history of homeopathy. The poor could at least drink the urine of the shaman in the hope that it contained a residue of vital medication. The followers of the Dalai Lama were reputed to catch and consume his excrement. Even Gandhi was supposed to have drunk the urine of the holy cow as the powerful Psilocybe Cubensis mushroom grew on the cow's faeces. And so the wisdom of the Buddha was obtained from drug myticism. The Buddhist meditation of blocking out thoughts was connected to its initiation ceremony.

Buddhism does not resort to drug to reach enlightenment. There is nothing about using drugs in Buddha's preaching.
Astrology is not supported either. Buddha even preached against it.

Don't know about Dalai Lama's followers, but I would like to see the information that is more solid than 'reputed to'.
Gandhi is a Hindu. Also the information should be more solid than 'was supposed to'.

Originally Posted by ox

In fact I quite enjoyed reliving the ancient religion, but don't try to tell me that Christianity is anything other than a system borrowed and scrambled from other faith systems. Animism developed into paganism and shamanism. This was borrowed by Hinduism, then Buddhism, Jainism and Confucianism. Catholics are fond of saying that Protestants borrowed most of their their rituals, but Catholics themselves borrowed just about everything from Judaism and paganism.

Christians (at least Mormons) would counter that their religion existed from the beginning, and that all these "precursors" are just early perversions of an originally pure faith. That's why they're similar but not identical. I don't agree with this rationale, but it is a fairly valid one for faith based belief.

From a scientific perspective, of course it's just like with evolution vs. creationism. There's a clear pattern of development from a starting point to a finishing point. It makes more sense to assume that religion started where you're suggesting.

Also, there's very little doubt that early Christianity co-opted as much as it could from existing religions so as to sew its hold on Europe more easily. For example, Christmas is very unlikely to be the time of Jesus Christs' birth because his parents were visiting Bethlehem to be taxed, and I highly doubt the Romans would have placed their tax season in the middle of Winter. Easter on the other hand, coincides with the Jewish Passover both in scripture and very nearly in practice. In Hispanic culture it's actually called "Pascua".

The ancient pagan priests who took religion into Asia almost certainly came from Africa, and they were black. Chrishna means the black. Early depictions of Buddha suggest that he too was black (black statues with woolly hair and thick lips), and there have been many buddhas, not just one. There are many parallels between Christ and Chrishna, between Christ and Buddha, between Christ and Horus and even between Christ and Apollonius of Tyana.
But my original question was why do we still worship these ancient gods?

Clearly, ancient gods are harder to subject to scientific scrutiny than modern gods are.

If we challenge the priests who have been granted the authority to spread this pagan nonsense, and who will save souls while living in relative luxury, then we can be charged with blasphemy or incitment to religious hatred. In the case of Mohammedism, now jokingly referred to as Islam, our very lives could be at risk.
And what is religion anyway other than a replicating idea which infects minds like a virus in the form of a memeplex with all its defensive mechanisms to keep the faith alive.
I have returned to atheism and really I find it quite liberating to do so.

This is an interesting question. Maybe even deserves its own thread. Why indeed is it considered nigh unto a hate crime to call into question or openly mock another person's superstition? How will anything improve if we're not allowed to call people to account for their mistakes? Assuming universal fallibility is much better than assuming universal infallibility. Assuming every religion to have been decreed by an all knowing God because it would hurt peoples' feelings to suggest otherwise puts us in the rather awkward position of having to rubber stamp ideas without regard for their basis in science or fact.

Originally Posted by kojax

This is an interesting question. Maybe even deserves its own thread. Why indeed is it considered nigh unto a hate crime to call into question or openly mock another person's superstition? How will anything improve if we're not allowed to call people to account for their mistakes? Assuming universal fallibility is much better than assuming universal infallibility. Assuming every religion to have been decreed by an all knowing God because it would hurt peoples' feelings to suggest otherwise puts us in the rather awkward position of having to rubber stamp ideas without regard for their basis in science or fact.

I suspect that superstition is just like anything else - it evolves! As a child I remember wondering if I had been baptised. If I hadn't then I wouldn't be going to heaven. Eventually I found my baptism certificate and was quite relieved. But now I understand that according to some authoritarians, you need to have been baptised in the right way and not the wrong way, and that by the true church, and not one of the false ones. I assume that baptism has its origins in the washing of sacred plants at the correct astrological time and in the right way. I mean, come on, is anyone arguing that an unbaptised person is doomed for all eternity?
The Catholic faithful raise their chances of salvation by partaking in the sacred Eucharist. The consuming of sanctified bread and wine as the body and blood of the saviour is most probably a reference back to the nectar of the sacred mushroom. Certainly the Eucharist was a ritual that pre-dated Christianity. The Buddhist nirvana is probably a reference to the ecstasy of the psychedelic experience.
Each religion declares its own superiority, and is sensitive to criticism from elsewhere. Only the initiated can ascend to heaven. In the case of the Jehovas I understand that heaven is limited to 160K souls, all of them Witnesses of course. In the case of the Christadelphians it is something like 4k only. Only a similar few Plymouth Bretheren can be saved. Now that's what I really call superstition because they spend their lives in what appears to be a joyless dread.
Woe betide you if you say the Lord's Prayer wrongly. Say it backwards and you invoke the devil. Contrast the Catholic 'Our Father who art in heaven' with the Anglican 'Our Father which art in heaven'. I would go for the Anglican one myself because the 'Father' is a reference back to when man worshipped the sun. The magical incantation 'Abracadabra' is believed to be just that. There is even a link back to the penile mushroom Amanita Muscaria and its red tip. This reminded the shamans of the redness of the setting sun and the way it plunged its penile body into the womb of the earth.
While superstition today appears to be in decline, it is thanks to science. But it probably will always be present as an archetype of the fossil philosophy that is religion.