Thread: The Gods

Originally Posted by Darkmatters

I'm transferring this here form a different thread because I think it fits in better here:



Exactly - Jesus (or God) and Satan, the good cop / bad cop argument for being a good little clone and not thinking too much about how things work, just obey what you're told.

If you're interested in this stuff, you should read Frazer's Golden Bough - Wikipedia page on it.

Essentially the devil was a Christian re-interpretation of various Pagan nature gods and demi-gods like Pan, but taken from their rightful place in the nature cults and made the personification of evil instead. And the Jesus myth follows a line of similar myths of demigods like Heracles, born of the union of a god with a virginal mortal woman.

And the centerpiece of this mythology is the idea that by Original Sin mankind has been forever separated from nature, and can now only be cleansed of sin by accepting Jesus (and incidentally accepting the whole mythology associated with him).

** edit **

I want to add, that most people consider this extremely demeaning. First let me say, this is merely an anthropological investigation into the origins of myths, including the Christian myths.

And second, it does not devalue the power of those myths at all.

As Jung taught us, myth comes from the collective unconscious and mythological figures are full-blown archetypal forms in all their power and glory. Being expressions of powerful parts of the deepest regions of the psyche, they have far more power than any thought or idea we're capable of generating consciously. So, while the Gods are indeed creations of man in a sense, we actually are more properly their creations, since the collective unconscious is older and far more powerful than any individual human consciousness. Projections from this deep realm are so powerful and primordial that we have no choice but to see them as something outside ourselves and much larger than us. The realization that Gods and Heroes come from inner space rather than outer is no more than a relocation of the powerbase.

So, to say that Gods are the creation of Man is not the same as saying "people just made them up" or "invented" them. The gods welled up unsummoned from depths too powerful to be controlled. And the Bible is not, as some claim, a work of science fiction, but rather a deep exploration of that Archetypal realm, though in somewhat distorted form in order to try to make the Archetypes conform to human ideals, which they refuse to do. And Archetypal form cannot be controlled or cleaned up to make it more presentable... if it represents something primal and powerful it will appear red in claw and fang like a nightmare creature and nothing can change that. Thus perhaps the Yaveh of the Old Testament in his brimstone and fire mode, and the New Testament's attempts to re-write and censor him into a kinder gentler God.

I read the Wikipedia page and this looks like a VERY interesting book to me. I wanna read it lol. I gotta find me a copy... Thanks Darkmatters!

Originally Posted by Solarflare

win

mine just says atheist and my blocked my parents from viewing it

they added me on fb :///////

Well aren't you a rebel.

Originally Posted by Darkmatters

As Jung taught us, myth comes from the collective unconscious and mythological figures are full-blown archetypal forms in all their power and glory. Being expressions of powerful parts of the deepest regions of the psyche, they have far more power than any thought or idea we're capable of generating consciously. So, while the Gods are indeed creations of man in a sense, we actually are more properly their creations, since the collective unconscious is older and far more powerful than any individual human consciousness. Projections from this deep realm are so powerful and primordial that we have no choice but to see them as something outside ourselves and much larger than us. The realization that Gods and Heroes come from inner space rather than outer is no more than a relocation of the powerbase.

This.

Also, on the related topic :

God was created in our ancestor's imagination.