Do you believe in God???? How about the Devil???

[Scar]

Do you believe in God???? How about the Devil???

There must be an older thread on this topic, I can only assume, but I am not skilled in the ways of finding such a thing...... Hell, I could have even started one myself for all I know :-) Buuuuuut I am curious, do you all believe in the deities which control such an enormous percentage of the world? If you believe in some other form of fantastical super power, please do feel free to delve into that for me/ us.....

I remember clearly the last time I prayed. I had heard of G.O.D. and was afraid of him, despite the fact that I was never raised in the least bit religiously. I think it must have been something my friends told me about, and the fear of god they had in them was passed on to me. I had been mean to my brother, I lied to him or hit him or did some other atrocious thing that as I child I could only assume to be the most horrible thing imaginable.... I was out front my house and I dropped to my knees and begged god not to send me to hell, and apologized for my behavior. I was truly frightened that this act of childish cruelty to my small brother would result in my eternal damnation.....

That may be my one and only experience with praying.... or was I repenting? Not so sure. During 5th and 6th grade I was put in religious school and although I never believed anything they said I sure did like Wednesdays, when we would go to Chapel and sing, sing sing! "I've got a river of life flowing out of me, makes the lame to walk and the blind to see......" I feel fortunate that my family did not raise me religiously. There are certain aspects of Buddhism which appeal to me, probably because I am so much tormented by my thoughts and it is such a peaceful practice, but I have not spent much time investigating even this religion....

So please do share your stories about religion, anyone out there raised super strictly religious?

[Bikerpunk]

I think there's something out there watching over me, but I don't think conventional religions have it right.

Aleister Crowley said it best

YOU ARE YOUR OWN GOD.

[Mr Karl]

If there was a god I doubt he/she/it would admit it

and the devil is just evil with a d put on it

[Evilbink]

OK you might wanna sit down for this one, cause most people I have expressed this too have that reaction. Ready. here goes . .

God and the Devil are just typos. Consider how many times and how many languages and how many people have translated history. If one were to see or hear a story of a good man or an evil man and their deeds how would they write it down, why in their own language and in their own hand writing, with all the unfortunate spelling mishaps we all have.

A sloppy speller or even an uneducated man would and could have easily misread or mispelled and mistaken the word "good" for GOD and just as easily "evil" for DEVIL.

Whats more likely, a story about a good man triumphing over an evil man in the confused and chaotic world, OR a god man triumphing over a devil man.

In my personal opinion if the same people consider the writings of Nostradamus to be credible with all his mispellings, why not accept the fact that maybe, just maybe good/god and evil/devil could have merely been a spelling oversite and not to be taken literally.

[Ace]

Religion is twisted and tricky and varied. In this case, we're speaking of a western, Judeo-Christian monotheistic, interpretation versus all the other religious figures and deities and concepts with no way of knowing which is "right" (if such a thing is possible). The mind boggles at the task. All I guess I have to say on the matter is that I believe in the duality of things: you can't know good without knowing evil, and I suppose I think the same about God and the Devil.

I wasn't raised religiously, I wasn't Christianed/Baptised even though my parents were, and we never attended church as a family at all. I did, however, go to a bible lunch study in grade school, and then at my friend's house (she was a Jehovah's Witness, I endured the bible study largely as a ploy we used so I could play at her house), and I went with my aunt to church. I guess I was rather religious as a youngster, I think because I was pretty unhappy and it was a source of comfort. When I was 11 or 12, I was even more miserable and abandoned the idea, I even tore apart my bible and set it on fire in a pseudo-pagan ritual. I felt awful, and apologized alot...I don't think its right to destroy a bible or a Koran, or any religious text at all. It maybe all nonsense, but I believe in respecting other people's religions, and that extends to their texts and holy places. At any rate, it's a source of comfort to people I can understand, and I can't begrudge anyone anything that harms none and promotes ideals and values that benefit the soul.

There are of course extremists to take shit too seriously and spoil the fun for everyone, but I think I've talked enough on the subject for one post.

[Pull~My~Hair]

A sloppy speller or even an uneducated man would and could have easily misread or mispelled and mistaken the word "good" for GOD and just as easily "evil" for DEVIL.

wow i may be really stupid, but i've never noticed that before

[Bikerpunk]

The languages of the cultures that came up with gods and devils far predated English.

Do keep in mind that ideas transform over time. The horror the Babylonians had of dying and being able to feel their dead flesh burning in the hot desert sands (if not rescued out of their shells by the Gods) turned into the pits of hell, which Christ preached as a place of destruction, and the middle ages saw as a fiery pit full of medieval torture devices. We've reimagined hell as a place where your tortures are psychological - being trapped forever in tedium or unpleasantness.

As for heavens - what was just a great place to hunt became a place where you could worship God and be one with him. Now we reimagined it as a place where your bodily desires (unlimited whiskey and an unending tank of gasoline on Route 66) are made manifest.

[evilstonermonkey]

i am a genuine agnostic - i dont believe in god, but i also dont believe that means it doesnt exist. i figure that if god is real, loving and forgiving then he(/she/it) wont care if i believe in him(/her/it) as long as im a decent enough guy. if it is ral, but not a loving, forgiving god, then it go fuck itself (i say that in the confident knowledge that if that was the case i was already fucked anyway). i dont want to be stuck in heaven with some elitest fuckhead with a god-complex and the power to back it up. the other option is that there is no god and it doesnt matter

[Wynden Nightshade]

I'm not arrogant enough to pretend I have a fucking clue what goes on beyond death...I can tell you my heart stopped when I was 7 and I didn't see any white lights or flames or pearly gates...I try to be a good person...live my life without harming others (unless they deserve it) try to keep balance with this planet I live on...other than that, I hope there is something out there after it all but my senses tend to lean toward oblivion.

[TheDeathKnight]

Atheist...

[P I L O T]

I figure it this way and know that since most religions teach that anyone who speaks "blasphemy" or against the good book or "the lord" and his "son" or whatever you called them are to be put down shut up and put out. etc.

With two BILLION believers in the bible and the word of christ it really is a very not smart thing to sit and say fuck the bible that shit was writin 300 years after JESUS DIED!!!! after the fall of ROME because it was ILLEGAL to do so prior to. Off of word of mouth from stories passed down from generation to generation,.. and in knowing this not only do we know but could imagine just how much a story can be embellished and exaggratted just for the purposeof satisifying and "WOWing" an audience. the fuck they had no TV back then after all, right!?

If the bible written by god thru the divine power of god and the holy spirit and transferred to paper or stone by menwere actually through the ALLL KNOWING ALL CONTROLLING creator of all, MASTER OF THE UNIVERSE.
Then riddle me this batman,.. why is there no mention of a world outside of the society outside of that which exsisted in those times? to those people.
Why is there no mention of INDIA?! Or CHINA?! in the bible? or the huge land masses of austrilia?! THE AMERICAS?! oh I know it's because the bible fake and written by men more so in the favor of kings and queens emperors and rulers of those days to control there wifes, soldiers, children and slaves.

Another Example is when the Spain took over the America's and introduced the Catholic religion to Indians who were prehaps not even indians anymore at that point and these men appointed to run and teach the churches were given bibles written in LATIN and did not always know how to read ,.. and made it up for what worked and beneathed the church later the books were changed to hold truth to what was being thought.

The future belongs to those who control the records or yesterday. Hell Pluto was a planet just a year ago.

But with TWO BILLION FAITHFUL blind followers in the word of christit may be better to play along and smile and just claim to be an agnostic or athiest even,..

I DID NOT SAY THIS

[Mr Karl]

.. why is there no mention of a world outside of the society outside of that which exsisted in those times? to those people.
Why is there no mention of INDIA?! Or CHINA?! in the bible? or the huge land masses of austrilia?! THE AMERICAS?! .

it it does mention other societies...the three wise men from the east,(or kings or whatever)

one mention I did find strange was..'the giants under the earth'

hmmm...been a while since I thought about that shit

[Camby Savelle]

I believe in god and accept jesus in my heart, anything after that and I just don't know.

[P I L O T]

it it does mention other societies...the three wise men from the east,(or kings or whatever)

one mention I did find strange was..'the giants under the earth'

hmmm...been a while since I thought about that shit

it says "other societies"? exactly like that? from other societies?

the kings does india even have kings? nad in asia they have emperors not kings.
there was alexander the great whom took over most of asia and I believe he exsisted before the time of christ. I'm not exactly sure but wikipedia could probably answer that.

but consider this,.. how long would three dudes ride,.. to stretch over three continents on horseback with gifts claiming they were following a bright star.

shit maybe they were latin kings those muther fuckers from around the way robbed some fool for his wallet or donkey or whatever and gave it to them.

anyway to come from the east is extremely vague,.. the whole book is,..
taken for what its worth it is a very powerful book filled with laws of man,.. trailed and proven time after time,.. when I was little it was presented to me as a handbook for life,.. considering who many people on this planet live by it, it is good to know it. It helps govern people by teaching them right and wrong tru fear. i remember hearing or reading a passage that claimed god rather be feared than loved cause than god would ahve your respect. and IMO its sad most really do just respect what they fear as supposed to simple respecting for the sake of "do on to others" or "golden rule" but whatever I could ramble for hours on this nonsense.

The Koran I know less of than the bible but also supposedly by GOD himself thru man etc etc blah blah in benefit of who is that entire book?
The Morman read and preach out of there own book. and will tell you a two or two about a thing or two most people have never even heard of.
Why does the bible never talk about societies here. Ex: now claims are that aztec societies date back 5000 years. thats an awfully long time.

Did you know Yale and Harvard fight over who discovered the america's first.
The Spainish or the Vikings. Ex: of the future belongs to those who control history.

blah blah blah

(i have to go shower, etc)

[goodthink]

First, I don't believe in god. I am an atheist on matters of most god concepts, and agnostic on the big question of whether or not any type of god could exist. The fact is there could be something that doesn't conform to any known god paradigm and that could be god. However, I think the chance of there being a god is about .0000000000001 percent or less.

On the issue of the Devil, well, I don't believe in god so obviously I don't believe in the devil, or the whole notion of sin, or good or evil.

On a side note, the Serpent didn't lie in the Garden of Evil. The Serpent told Eve she wouldn't die that day if she ate from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil like God had said would happen. The word God uses for death meant 'execution' as in immediate death at the hand of another. When God found out Eve and Adam had eaten from the tree, the response was, "They are like us now, they have knowledge of Good and Evil, we must kick them from Eden before they also eat from the tree of life and become Gods". And so, you have a jealous god kicking Adam and Eve out of the Garden because he was afraid of competition, and like the Serpent said, God didn't execute them.

Now what is really interesting is that later in the story, the Watchers, a group of angels tasked with watching over man, fall in love with the daughters of men, and they take on human wives, and they offspring become immortals called the Nephiliam. The bible says these are the men of old, the men of ledgends. And God gets so angry man is about to become immortal, he repents (God changes his mind) and destroys the earth with waters and drowns every living thing. God says, 'I will not contend with man forever!" Now if you follow the lineages in the Bible, all the begets and the like, you find that Goliath was part Nephialim, himself.

Now this was a common reading of the Bible before the purge and establishment of one doctrine at Nicea when Church doctrine was established by commitee and through politics. All the dissenting people were killed and books burned. This view is call Mariconism, or can be labelled broadly as Gnosticism.

The idea here is that the God of the Old Testament was a demiurge (like Loki), a false god, a trickster, that created an imperfect world behind God's back, and in turn, tries to bully man into submission to keep man silent.

Anyway..

This isn't to say I am not 'spiritual' if you want to use that word. I am a Buddhist, and being that the question of suffering and how to end suffering for everyone in this lifetime is more important than questions about god, the nature of god, or possible rewards in an afterlife that is neither proven to exist, or can be.

On some of the things mentioned. Devil and Evil and God and Good, are English translations of Hebrew and Greek words. The word God IS actually the Anglo-Saxon word for Good. It is also the Germanic name for "the invoked one" and is decidedly pagan in origin and has nothing, no correlation to the Hebrew word for god El-Shaddai and it's variants which meant, god of the mountain and so on. The word good in Hebrew 'Towb" meant pleasant or pleasing to.. very different words, very precise. The confusion, the apparent connection is only formed in the English transliteration of the Hebrew, and later Greek or Latin versions of the Bible. The same can be said for Devil and evil. The connection is tenuous and not indicative of any real Biblical associations. The word devil comes from the Latin Diablous, which meant slanderer, evil comes from the old English yfel, and the earlier Germanic ubil and meant, inferior, pernicious, or disagreeable. So really you have a Latin word 'Diablous" and a German word, "Ubil" or the English, "Yfel". You can see there really is no connection, and the expressed meanings of each are vastly different.

As for the wisemen. The wisemen, first of all, aren't numbered. The Bible just says wisemen, not 3 wisemen. Secondly the wisemen came from what is modern Iran to see Herod about the prophecy that the King of the Jews was born, and on a side note, it took them 2 years to reach Herod after Jesus was born, because Herod ordered that all males 2 years and under be killed.

Also, it has been throughly established that Jesus, if he was real, was born in the spring, not winter.

[Black Spiral Dancer]

I believe that humans are infact the hybrid race descended from a primate race cross bred with aliens that wanted to see how they could fuck things up.

How else could you explain the human race's total detachment from nature?

[sickybuaaaaa]

No.
I do not

[kellie]

Nope.

[Bikerpunk]

I believe that humans are infact the hybrid race descended from a primate race cross bred with aliens that wanted to see how they could fuck things up.

Dude, uh, that's scientology

[keiko]

i have to believe in the devil. his wicked step sister calls her self my mom. and by that logic there's gotta be a god somewhere out there, right?

~K

[Bikerpunk]

Not necessarily.

The amount of evil in the universe is constant. A decrease in evil in one aspect of the universe gets counterbalanced by an increase in evil in another part of the system.

[Black Spiral Dancer]

Dude, uh, that's scientology

No, I don't follow Scientology. I believe that Scientology is based around a bet made in a bar in the 50's that L Ron Hubbard couldn't set up his own religion.

[Black Spiral Dancer]

I'm more what you would call a Lapsed Atheist. I'm not sure I don't don't believe in anything anymore.

[Bikerpunk]

I'm more what you would call a Lapsed Atheist. I'm not sure I don't don't believe in anything anymore.

I'm a militant atheist. I don't believe in God, and neither do you.

Scientology says that humans are bodily hominid descendants of clams....

but that in the soul (or thetan) perspective, they are combined with the innate soul (thetan) of the human + a bunch of alien ones.

[Mr Karl]

I'm a militant atheist. I don't believe in God, and neither do you.

Scientology says that humans are bodily hominid descendants of clams....

but that in the soul (or thetan) perspective, they are combined with the innate soul (thetan) of the human + a bunch of alien ones.

you seem to know a lot about scientologists

[YoungSoulRebel]

Do you believe in God???? How about the Devil???

While I'm sure well-intended, this question in and of itself excludes a considerable portion of the population. Frankly, world religions cannot wholly be summed up by the "God/Devil" dichotomy of Christianity. While Christianity may be dominating in the the Amerikas, Europe, and Australia, it is also hardly the only religion in those parts of the world. Consider the following faiths that break the "God/Devil" mould of Christianity:

Zoroastrianism: Probably the oldest monotheistic religion in the world. In fact, close examination of Zoroastrian mythos (from the ancient Greek for "sacred texts", and by the way, "mythology" means "the study of sacred texts") reveals that Judaism is actually a sort of "offspring faith" of Zoroastrianism, meaning that Christianity is Zoroastrianism's grandchild and Islam is its great-grandchild. Zoroastrianism has also been described as "ditheistic" in that it recognises two equally powerful, well, "forces" that can guide the fates men create for themselves. Without getting too esoteric, everybody, at some point or another (in Zoroastrianism) needs one of these two forces of Creativity and Destruction, but most people ultimately decide to serve one or the other. The most famous Zoriastrian in history, after Zoroaster (or Zarathustra, depending on the transliteration), was Freddie Mercury.

Judaism: Being Jewish is in vogue lately. Judaism is probably the closest of all other "monotheistic" religions to its ancestor, Zoroastrianism. There is no Jewish concept of "Hell" -- when you die, your soul just goes to the land of the dead. The greatest virtue of Judaism is seeking wisdom and leading a good life through the knowledge given to the Jewish people by G-d.

Islam: Monotheistic. People are either believers or unbelievers, unlike the popular U$ Christian dichotomy of "you either serve God or you're serving the Devil". I've actually read the Q'ran, just to see what the big deal was. A lot of passages can be taken to mean just about anything, but it is worthwhile to note that while there are a lot of restrictions on Islamic women in how to dress and act, there are just as many restrictions on the dress and behaviour of Islamic men (and Islamic "fundamentalists", whose leaders are men, play down that last bit way too much), and unlike Christianity, Islamic women are, in fact, explicitly allowed freedom to education, and are explicitly allowed to divorce their husbands.

Hinduism: The only polytheistic religion ("many gods") to survive with unbroken traditions despite attempts of Christian crusaders to convert them. As with Zoroastrianism, there are different forces at work in the world, but these forces exist in the presence of many Gods and Goddesses. Depending on the sect (yes, there are as many Hindu sects as there are Christian ones, maybe even more), there may or may not be a concept similar to the Christian "hell", but most Hindu sects seem to lack such a concept.

Shinto: Basically, Japan's polytheistic religion. Similarly to Hinduism, it has survived unbroken despite attempted mass conversions. While the pantheon (collection of Gods and Goddesses) and mythos are different, many concepts are basically the same in all polytheistic faiths.

Buddhism: an off-shoot of Hinduism. Buddhist beliefs vary greatly. Some sects have adopted Chinese Gods and Goddesses, while others have retained worship of the Hindu pantheon. Other sects are more monotheistic. The core goal of Buddhism is to seek serenity and wisdom.

Wicca, Neo-Paganism, and Polytheistic Reconstructionist faiths: A relatively new religious movement (and I specify "movement" because the faiths that fall under this umbrella are either inspired by, based on, or attempts to revive or "reconstruct" ancient European faiths). Like other ditheistic and polytheistic faiths, "Pagan" faiths often acknowledge two or more forces at work in the universe. Very rarely are any of these forces more "good" or "evil" than the others -- they just are these forces, they simply exist, and many people feel drawn to one or two or a few of these forces more than the others. These forces are often interpreted as being Gods or Goddesses. A few exceptions, such as certain branches of Dianic Wicca, are more explicitly modelled after Christianity or monotheism in general, in that there is believed to be one Goddess who has many forms, and sometimes "masculine" energies are seen as "descructive" or "Dianic devils", though most Dianics seem to prefer concentrating their efforts on Goddess worship and generally ignore male Gods, and many simply see masculinity as "benign" or "neutral" and concepts of "evil" as things created by society. Many pagans, in general, simply believe that the concept of "evil" is human-created and does not exist in the natural world. The thing that separates Pagans from Atheists is the fact that Pagans either have Gods and Goddesses, or the acknowledge some kind of Divine "force" within the universe, or they simply venerate nature and the natural world.

[QUOTE=Scar]...do you all believe in the deities which control such an enormous percentage of the world? If you believe in some other form of fantastical super power, please do feel free to delve into that for me/ us.....[QUOTE]

I'm an Hellenic Polytheist. I practise Hellenismos, a term coined by Emperor Julian for (ancient) Greek Polytheism. Emperor Julian is best known as the last great pagan/polytheist Roman Emperor, and really made many efforts to get people back into polytheism. Obviously, his efforts failed, or at least they did during his lifetime.

There are some people in modern Greece who insist that Hellenismos has survived "underground" since Julian, but there is no way to probe this, and many religious scholars suggest that, at best, what is referred to as "Hellenismos" by many modern Greeks is actually revived Neoplatonism, which actually enjoyed a brief revival in the 17th and 18th centuries. Basically, the modern practises by many Greek polytheists in Greece just don't match up to what ancient Greeks like Herodotus and Plutarch actually wrote of the religion, nor does it match up with what anthropologists have been able to piece together with 99% certainty.

Still, there is a strong Hellenic reconstructionist movement in North Amerika and Europe. If you want a good idea on what I practise and believe, the academic book, Greek Religion by Walter Burkert is excellent, and the Neokoroi and Hellenion websites are good, too. Also, if you want a good idea on the many mythos of the ancient Greeks, Theoi.com and Perseus Project are probably the best sites there are for ancient sources.

So please do share your stories about religion, anyone out there raised super strictly religious?

I was raised in a Catholic household, but never really considered myself Catholic. I never went through Confirmation, and at that time, my father and I came to this agreement -- I had to just attend some kind of Christian services, so I went to Quaker meeting house with my step-mother.

I first learned of the ancient Greek religion, interestingly, from a nun. I grew up poor, and the nuns and layteachers at my Catholic school knew this, so they would often give me books from the school library that had become somehow damaged and replaced. They never offered me anything with missing pages or the like, just things that were too damaged to keep in the library -- missing paperback covers, broken hardback covers, dark but readable coffee stains, etc...

One of the Sisters offered me a copy of D'Aulaire's book of Greek Myths, it was a hardback that was missing the back cover. I took it at first because I loved the paintings that illustrated the book. When I read it, I fell in love with the mythos and had to read more.

As an older teenager who had found nothing of value to him in Wicca or neo-Druidism, and in a really self-destructive stage in his life, I aligned myself with Satanism. It never really fit. I share few, at best, beliefs and ideas with other people who called themselves "Satanists" and, basically, my inability to get along with these people brought me to a point where I was questioning my beliefs and, for a time, identified as "agnostic".

After coming to a more constructive frame of mind, I've become reunited with the Greek Gods I privately venerated in my youth and, to my delight, have discovered what my pre-Internet days could not: There actually is a community of people worshipping the ancient Gods in an "ancient but updated and relevant" context, who believe that the Gods of ancient Hellas are real, and who don't waste their time bad-mouthing Christians or other Pagans.

I'm a much happier person now.

[YoungSoulRebel]

Hinduism: The only polytheistic religion ("many gods") to survive with unbroken traditions despite attempts of Christian crusaders to convert them.

Make that "the only polytheistic religion from what is known to the West as "the cradle of civilization", which I'm defining loosely here.

[Bikerpunk]

you seem to know a lot about scientologists

I **LOVE** Operation Clambake

[evilstonermonkey]

thanks heaps rebel, im always interested in learning about religions nd mythology. while i knew a lot of what you included, i also learnt a few interesting points as well. while im looking up the sites you reccomended, i would be interested in hearing your view of the Hellenic faith and is tenets.

[goodthink]

Zoroastrism did influence Judaism greatly. It was after the Diaspora of the Jews when Babylon released the Jews from captivity.

Until that time, satan was a lower-case entity, in that satan was like a lawyer, an advocate who brought charges against creation in the service of god, see Job. The idea of duality, that is, for there to be good you must have evil, the 2 must constantly battle and be equal, was a Zoroastrian idea. after the Diaspora, satan becomes Satan, the opposite of God. And then duality enters Judaism and Christianity, but not really Islam.

What is interesting is that the Jews, themselves, were highly polytheistic as a people. Yahweh was originally one of many gods in a pantheon the Jews worshiped. In the original Temple of Solomon, offerings were made to other gods, most noticeably Asherah, Yahwah's wife. Manasseh set up Asherah poles in the temple, and the judge Gideon was ordered to cut them down by God. During the time of Josiah, the Temple and high places of Israel were purged of the other gods (Baal and Asherah) and all the poles taken down, burned and the altars smashed. Although reacted quite well, there are still places in the bible where Yahweh calls together the council of the gods and the like.

Monotheism entered Judaism through the Egyptians however, with the cult of Ra much, much earlier in the 1300s BCE, but the Jews always resisted the idea in some way.

The Jews were a very porous people. Originally nomadic shepherds they settled on the ruins of other civilizations and took on their customs and rituals. At archaeological sites, for example, you can see how pottery sherd's were finely made, then a disaster occurs, and then you have the Jews crudely making similar items once they settled into the ruins.


The stuff about buddhism is largely wrong. Buddhists don't worship any gods. Gods are immaterial and have no particular significance. In fact, in buddhism the gods generate karma and must bow to the dharma if they too are to are to reach Nirvana. Sure there are paths, like the Tibetans (which is it's own branch of Mahayana called Vajrayana) that has devas and gods, but they are symbolic of various virtues and vices and not real deities in any sense of the word. Vajrayana is said to be the fastest route to enlightenment, but a teacher is required to lead one through it, precisely because people mistake the gods and devas and various signs as having substance when, in fact they do not.

Then you have paths like zen, the transmission of the dyana which have no recognition of any god. When Sidhartha was asked about the existence of gods he was silent. The issue is immaterial. All that matters is whether or not one can stop their own suffering or the suffering of others.

And I have to stress this greatly, no one worships the Buddha as a god. Buddhist sutras say, "if you see the Buddha walking down the road, kill him".

Hinduism, itself isn't pure either. When the Aryans invaded, they put many of their gods into the Hindu pantheon and virtually destroyed the original native gods. Gods like Vishnu for example are Aryan. But that occurred a long time ago, so I guess you could argue this synthesis of 2 cultures into 'Hinduism' constitutes a pure polytheistic tradition in some way. But like the Jews, and Christians and Muslims, their relgion is a hybrid of other religious traditions.

Something that isn't mentioned is the likely influence of the cult of Mithras on Christianity, it slowly fell out of favour around 50AD, but it is widely argued that Mithras and Jesus share the same mythos.

[YoungSoulRebel]

thanks heaps rebel, im always interested in learning about religions nd mythology. while i knew a lot of what you included, i also learnt a few interesting points as well. while im looking up the sites you reccomended, i would be interested in hearing your view of the Hellenic faith and is tenets.

Well, basically, in and of themselves, the Gods and Goddesses honoured in ancient Hellas are predominantly benign -- "good" and "evil" are human concepts, and even Gods and Goddesses that are associated with things that are uniquely human, such as music and literature, are still things that have neither "good" nor "evil" connotations until humans put those connotations there, and even those human connotations are subjective.

I'm also one of the Hellenic polytheists who puts a lot of importance in the concept of predestined fate. Not everybody who honours the same pantheon in even the same reconstructionist methodology is going to have the same beliefs -- kind of like how Hinduism has a lot of sects, the four main "organisations" in Hellenismos are Hellenion, Neokoroi, Elaion, and YSEE -- the first three are predominantly Amerikan, and YSEE is the major group coming from Greece. Hellenion is kind of... hrmm... Well, their religious focus, like the other groups, is Reconstructionist in methodology, but rather "all encompassing" in its spiritual focus. Neokoroi's (which is from the ancient Greek for "temple sweepers/keepers" -- some people interpret this to mean that Neokoroi members believe "we are all priests", but most interpret that to mean "we are the keepers of the faith") members (myself included) place a lot of importance on mysticism. Elaion (which means, I'm not kidding, "olive oil") specifically eschews mysticism and places more importance on piety and non-mystic ritual, as well as living "honourably".

Community is important to my religious principles, though mass organisation is not.

[Mr Karl]

lordy, lordy ................religions are just machines built by the few to control the many

every last one of them

thank god I'm a heathen

[evilstonermonkey]

while i agree (and follow the same faith as you ), Mr Karl, one has to admit that if religion wasnt twisted and abused it would be a wonderful thing. in theory 'thou shalt not kill' is great, unti its somehow translated by bigots to read 'thou shalt kill all who disagree with you.'

thanks for the info, rebel.

[VoltaireBlue]

so i didn't read anyone's responses... just came to put my own .02 in for whatever it's worth.. I think they are both different aspects of the same entity.

[evilstonermonkey]

i believe that if they exist, they would be, yes. voltaire. has anyone read the short story 'murder mystery' by neil gaiman? i quite like its take on the whole lord/luc ifer thing.

[Mr Karl]

well, put into the position of the great power that be, who wouldn't be both?

[goodthink]

Isa 45:7

[evilstonermonkey]

Isiah 45:7 -
I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these.

intrestin, pilgrim. thanks for pointing that one out.

[Black Spiral Dancer]

You can't believe in God if you don't believe in the Devil. You can't have Good without Evil, otherwise whatever is not as good as something else becomes "New Evil" or "Evil Light", for those of you wanting to cut back on evil in your diet.

[Cafe_Post_Mortem]

"My dear brothers, never forget, when you hear the progress of enlightenment vaunted, that the devil's best trick is to persuade you that he exists!"

Maybe that's not quite how the quote goes, but it seems right so I run with it.