origins of religion.

hi tao eq

its frustrating when you find info along the way then just when you wish to use it, it has gone - i am always doing that :) . good luck with your search!
i would agree that it appears one culture would have spread astrology, i would also think that it crossed cultures too, just as certain elements of the books of the dead have done so without the cultures even meeting. yes, nomads probably had a lot to do with it as you say.
you know science makes all these claims about astrology being incorrect, yet the egyptians knew about the procession of the equinoxes but still continued regardless. secondly it is a matter of perspective, the sun may not go around the earth but to us it does - think of this as like a circle of people with you at the centre, it doesn’t matter how they move only how they relate to you. thirdly and most importantly, all of the arguments against astrology can be resolved if we imagine it as a measure and understanding of time,so that it is the periods of elapsed time that count rather than the movement of the stars. we may then say that astrology is universal and hence the stars and planets will tend towards the workings of these time cycles - this is connected with the synchronicity by which the earth sun and moon correlate. i think you could go anywhere in the universe and see these connections albeit in different translations of the language.
yes i am sure that much info has been destroyed and transformed by successive cultures and religions. i think the hebrews even had a form of astrology at one time, i don’t understand why it was removed - perhaps because of its references to many gods, but one may see it as the workings of a single god if we wish.

thanks
Z
 
Kindest Regards, Z!

_Z_ said:
i think the hebrews even had a form of astrology at one time, i don’t understand why it was removed - perhaps because of its references to many gods, but one may see it as the workings of a single god if we wish.
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It is my understanding the Hebrews did (do) have a form of astrology, even prior to the Babylonian captivity. I am not conversant about it though, you might try asking Bananabrain or Dauer.
 
as far as I know the indo-european and aryan hypothesis favoured by victorian era intellectuals like max muller et al which suggests that all "indo-european" languages are such due to migration from asia towards the west is not upheld by all scholars and many ppl now feel that it is only as a result of western bias that the indo-european hypothesis was given any merit and taken so seriously for so long...

the term indo-european only originated in the victorian era, and was not used everywhere... germans, for instance, referred to our common roots as indo-germanic, and the irish referred to it as indo-celtic...

and so maybe it is ethnocentrism which is responsible for our indo-european hypothesis, not actuality...

yes, the Indus valley bore the fruit of ancient civilisations like Harappa, but ppl now think that maybe Harappa was a late Vedic urban settlement, and maybe not so ancient, after all...

my opinion is that when our ancestors all lived on the one land mass, before the continents where formed, the competition for resources had already ensured that these simians had migrated widely, eventually the continents shifted into almost the position they are in now, and the simians adapted to their enviroments over time to become seperate ppls with the diversity of racial characteristics we have today...

a fox is red in England, yet in the Artic circle his ears are smaller, his fur is white and much thicker, in the Gobi desert his ears are bigger, his fur is sandy... they are all the same species, they are all foxes, but they are different... why should ppl be any different?

astrology smology... man was desperate to make sense of the world, and so he looked to the heavens...

most ancient cultures have the same kind of gods- gods of the sun, gods of the rain, moon, etc, etc... why is that?

astrology and the gregorian calendar do not mix... most primitive ppl eventually came to look to the celestial bodies for portends and signs yet really this came from man's need to mark and define time, to know when it was best to cross a river, to know when it was most beneficial to plant his crops...

a big rock in the sky chooses my fate?

I thought that was my job...
 
francis, hi
yes indo european is very vague.

my opinion is that when our ancestors all lived on the one land mass, before the continents where formed
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i thought the single land mass was millions of years ago, from before man even existed?

why should ppl be any different?
Click to expand...

well a teacher at another forum seamed to think that there is no such thing as race - what he said made sense and also didn’t, but he quoted over 250 different scientific groups that agreed with this suspiciously noble notion. i agree with you though.

astrology smology... man was desperate to make sense of the world, and so he looked to the heavens...
Click to expand...

father time would disagree as would i - i think there is more to time than a simple linear transformation process e.g. fate, connections and synchronicity. do you really believe reality is so concrete? i don’t really want to argue this here as i have just had two nights of cutthroat debating with those of the dawkins faith :p - me Vs loads of them [guess whom won ;) ] heres a small part of my theory of ‘universal astrology’;

The Pandora cypher.
The hidden way of numbers; the chart below shows how things ‘fall into place’ by an invisible language of sequences.
in order to understand the beginnings of how this universal ‘language’ works, we must first understand that it does not only work in linear time but in all time and that it is entire. All things are not created at
once, if you create all things in an instant then existence would be like a painting of everything, still and unchanging with no room left for new occurrences or evolutions. To create everything one must create as you go – so to say, let us think of it as like a film rather than a still image, thence all things would be created in their ‘place’, often we have to destroy to create anew with one thing replacing the previous. I will use an analogy of boxes to represent this, as i like the idea of things kind of falling into place as time evolves, as if there is an invisible hand that floats over the boxes casting the seeds of time, filling them and taking form within their slot in events; history/coincidence/evolution.
It is not that say the number ‘23’ is all important nor any other number, what matters is ‘number evolutions’; in the evolution of the universe and of energy forms, the simpler natures belong to early numbers e.g. Light has seven [visible] or nine [actual] aspects. Simply put, if you begin an evolution it will follow a pattern simply because it begins [number 1] then progresses, certain natures will fall to their respective numbers and some things will migrate towards given numbers. It is as if a form of magnetism builds around some kinds of events forming polarities in time, these range from the physical to the holistic – after all an event is an event! Here we may begin to see how some [not all] coincidences may be formed of such attractions.

23.jpg


We may now form the next layer and tie event magnetism with the ideas represented in the concepts of ‘a single thought that lasts forever’ the ‘dance the eternal’ and ‘painting masterpieces in the air’ notions [threads].
 
yes, there is an interplay of forces, an established realationship between the zeitgeist, history and individual activity, yet I do still feel that evolution is a basically linear process and man creates only from necessity...

the number 23 means nothing to me, except it shows theres twenty-three of something... if u only have 22 things, you don't need a number 23... yes, of course, 23 was there, in its potentiality, but by itself it is inert and invaluable, it is only when we use it does it become important...

I'm assuming u dig string theory... lol... heavy, man...

with regards to astrology...who determines which celestial bodies are worthy of inclusion?

we can't see Pluto from earth without good equipment, and the ancients did not have it, we then discover it, we include it in the astrology tables, and now we're told that actually, we're down-grading it from planet status... what happens when our sun dies? what will happen to all the Leos?

for something like astrological predictives to be so accurate and infalliable I would expect it's parameters to be relatively constant, otherwise, we are potentially erroneously attributing A to B when it represents an actual unknown A2. If we do not have the capacity to determine the parameters of A2, that is not to say A2 does not exist, just we don't know about it yet...

and, incidentally... tau... I'm a virgo...
 
Lol...ok Francis.....and would you say you are typical of a Virgo?
 
francis, hi
yet I do still feel that evolution is a basically linear process and man creates only from necessity
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it manifests as a linear process indeed, would you not say that causality applies here too and in a universal sense. if you remember my ‘humanaive’ thread, i touched upon this as i feel there are certain things that are specific and others that have a universal nature. humanity is one such thing in the wider sense of the term; here we may thing of human-like creatures being a natural and inevitable aspect of evolution. the human form is simply one of if not the most dextrous form of all forms, thence it follows that it will eventually be arrived at.
i would also say that there is an original state for all things as i believe ‘an empty glass cannot be filled with nothing’, thus in short all aspects of evolution and transformation, along with its included history have there origins and potentials. secondly there are things which occur as a result of other manifestations and this is where fate comes in, it may not be so that everything has its place in the original container of essences - so to say. so here we find existences that arise on the back of created existences yet still have an essence in the universal scheme of things although they don’t have potential in the original state. it is a little like love, two people meet, we may not say that in the original scheme of things they are destined to meet as causality may have an effect on this kind of thing, yet we may perhaps say that the energy which exists between the two lovers - that tingling in the stomach - is eternal like a kind of magnetism by which things eventually meet and coincidence etc, falls into place in such a way as to bring these energies together if not purely by there own volition.

the 23 thing is rather vague - i am still working on that as i agree with what you are saying here. it is the same with fibonacci numbers, it is logical that in a universe of two’s i.e. males and females, then there will follow a birthing sequence that fits to the theory. ;)

with regards to astrology...who determines which celestial bodies are worthy of inclusion?
Click to expand...

i would say all bodies are worthy respectively to their proximity to us here on earth or any given centre. it is simply like a room full of people, the ones nearest to you and the ones that ‘match’ or connect with you are the ones that make a difference. if that room is as large as the solar system then sure pluto is the quit one over in the corner and the zodiac has only genral influence rather than each star thereof having specific influence like a planet would.
when the sun dies there wont be any leo's in this part of the galaxy! but i get your point; if one were born on mars then earth would be a planetary influence so what would you be if born in the time of aries or scorpio? this is why i am beginning to see it purely in terms of time i.e. the part/segment of the year rather than the position of the stars. as i said above the movements of stars and planets are equally affected as we are, yet also effected by forces of the universe. we may equally ask why the earth moon and sun are perfectly positioned for an eclipse to arise? there is i am sure you will agree, some kind of synchronicity arising here.


tao equus
typical virgo eh, he must have everything perfectly so. :p
this points to why i and many others for many thousands of years have believed in astrology, we are not dumb, it just seams that no matter how much we question it, it still persists - and believe me, i have questioned it! :)

.
 
todays Observer, pg 39 (sunday, 20th may, 2007)...

"diamonds tell tale of comet that killed off the cavemen" (Robin McKie, science editor)

... scientists are suggesting that a comet exploded over the earth 13, 000 years ago creating a hail of fireballs that set fire to most of the northern hemisphere, destroying primitive stone age cultures and populations of large animals such as the mammoth and the mastadon, and causing dramatic cooling that lasted about 1000 yrs and seriously disrupted the early human civilisation semerging in europe and asia..

"the magnitude of this discovery is so important" says James kennett, of the university of california, as "it explains three of the highest-debated controversies of recent decades"...

these are-the sudden dissapearance of the first stone age ppl of america, the dissapearance of mammoths throughout europe and america and the sudden cooling of the planet, an event known as the Younger-Dryas period...
 
Francis king said:
todays Observer, pg 39 (sunday, 20th may, 2007)...

"diamonds tell tale of comet that killed off the cavemen" (Robin McKie, science editor)

... scientists are suggesting that a comet exploded over the earth 13, 000 years ago creating a hail of fireballs that set fire to most of the northern hemisphere, destroying primitive stone age cultures and populations of large animals such as the mammoth and the mastadon, and causing dramatic cooling that lasted about 1000 yrs and seriously disrupted the early human civilisation semerging in europe and asia..

"the magnitude of this discovery is so important" says James kennett, of the university of california, as "it explains three of the highest-debated controversies of recent decades"...

these are-the sudden dissapearance of the first stone age ppl of america, the dissapearance of mammoths throughout europe and america and the sudden cooling of the planet, an event known as the Younger-Dryas period...
Click to expand...

This news item rang bells from something I read a while back and sure enough it's the same folk involved in these claims.

Research News: Supernova Explosion May Have Caused Mammoth Extinction
 
Kindest Regards, Francis!

As a fellow Virtigo, I would like to chime in if I may.
Francis king said:
as far as I know the indo-european and aryan hypothesis favoured by victorian era intellectuals like max muller et al which suggests that all "indo-european" languages are such due to migration from asia towards the west is not upheld by all scholars and many ppl now feel that it is only as a result of western bias that the indo-european hypothesis was given any merit and taken so seriously for so long...

the term indo-european only originated in the victorian era, and was not used everywhere... germans, for instance, referred to our common roots as indo-germanic, and the irish referred to it as indo-celtic...

and so maybe it is ethnocentrism which is responsible for our indo-european hypothesis, not actuality...
Click to expand...
While I wasn't aware of this you speak of, I am not surprised. I have stumbled on similar phenomena dealing with certain historical issues in certain regions of Asia. There is a form of oneupmanship between competing cultures, over things like who came on the scene first. A great deal is cultural bias and propaganda, a sincere scholar must watch for such.

Now, while I am not usually of the notion to use the term "Indo-European," I would be remiss if I were to say I have never used the term. Even so, it is used (if taken in a generic sense) to imply a specific time, place and peoples and their contributions to the world as a whole. If translated in that light, and not used as some form of silly cultural ego-stroke, I feel it is OK. Certainly a great deal of the old anthropology texts use this term quite a bit, even if it might now be out of favor for the reasons you mention.

Quickly, regarding the "Aryan controversy," referring to the ancient peoples of the Steppes who came down into India in antiquity, I have two quick things to say from a cursory look a while back:

#1. These are not the same Aryans the Germanic peoples would later emphasize and idealize, these are a completely different people and culture in place and time.

#2. The only serious contention I saw regarding the Aryan invasion of India was by Indian scholars with a vested interest in their own cultural "purity" and bias. By and large those who were trying to decipher the matter in a neutral manner from what sparse evidence there is, were inclined to believe an invasion took place.

Francis king said:
my opinion is that when our ancestors all lived on the one land mass, before the continents where formed, the competition for resources had already ensured that these simians had migrated widely, eventually the continents shifted into almost the position they are in now, and the simians adapted to their enviroments over time to become seperate ppls with the diversity of racial characteristics we have today...
Click to expand...
Well, like was mentioned elsewhere by one of the others, Pangea broke up even before the dinosaurs disappeared. Looking at the material Vajra linked to I noticed that there is some hint that the islands surrounding Australia may have been linked in the very recent (until 50 thousand years or so) past. And of course the infamous speculated land-bridge across the Bering Sea, and the less well received possibility of a North Atlantic crossing at the foot of the glacier. People in antiquity were certainly mobile, more so I believe than our texts give credit. While it is likely true that the shape and format of the continents may have been quite different two hundred thousand years ago, Pangea was already long broken and disbursed.

Francis king said:
a fox is red in England, yet in the Artic circle his ears are smaller, his fur is white and much thicker, in the Gobi desert his ears are bigger, his fur is sandy... they are all the same species, they are all foxes, but they are different... why should ppl be any different?
Click to expand...
I like the way you think on this. ;)

Francis king said:
astrology smology... man was desperate to make sense of the world, and so he looked to the heavens...

most ancient cultures have the same kind of gods- gods of the sun, gods of the rain, moon, etc, etc... why is that?

astrology and the gregorian calendar do not mix... most primitive ppl eventually came to look to the celestial bodies for portends and signs yet really this came from man's need to mark and define time, to know when it was best to cross a river, to know when it was most beneficial to plant his crops...
Click to expand...

I don't think astrology at the beginning was about soothsaying and fortune telling. As you hinted, and somewhat supported by Frazer in "the Golden Bough," ancient civilizations based their beliefs, rites and rituals on the harvest. Prior to agriculture is anybody's guess, but after the advent of agriculture, we have some pretty good ideas that various civilizations were into what we now call sympathetic magic. Looking to the cycle of birth / death / (re)birth... they developed their spiritual practices to (I think) first commemorate, and then with time and superstition manipulate the natural order of things.

Sacrifice was offered to the god(s) of water and/or rain, sacrifice was offered to make the barren fields of late winter fertile, sacrifice was offered of the harvest to appease the spirits involved, and so on.

The astrological connection at first was a matter of coordination and commemorization. Later, again as the reasons behind the concepts grew vague and superstition clouded understanding (so that ceremony became rote instead of rite), astrology became associated with things far afield of its original intent...particularly among those in the cities who no longer took part in the agricultural practices and so no longer had any intimate ties to the land and the cycle of nature.

My rambling two cents.
 
Francis king said:
todays Observer, pg 39 (sunday, 20th may, 2007)...

"diamonds tell tale of comet that killed off the cavemen" (Robin McKie, science editor)

... scientists are suggesting that a comet exploded over the earth 13, 000 years ago creating a hail of fireballs that set fire to most of the northern hemisphere, destroying primitive stone age cultures and populations of large animals such as the mammoth and the mastadon, and causing dramatic cooling that lasted about 1000 yrs and seriously disrupted the early human civilisation semerging in europe and asia..

"the magnitude of this discovery is so important" says James kennett, of the university of california, as "it explains three of the highest-debated controversies of recent decades"...

these are-the sudden dissapearance of the first stone age ppl of america, the dissapearance of mammoths throughout europe and america and the sudden cooling of the planet, an event known as the Younger-Dryas period...
Click to expand...


Interesting...may also explain 'fire and brimstone.'
 
i am not very knowledgable about the break-up of the land mass and must do some research!... any links or insights, preferably delivered in simple terms which I can understand, with as few numbers as possible, would be most gratefully recieved.... ? basic timeline for me, anyone? no rush, like...
 
Francis king said:
i am not very knowledgable about the break-up of the land mass and must do some research!... any links or insights, preferably delivered in simple terms which I can understand, with as few numbers as possible, would be most gratefully recieved.... ? basic timeline for me, anyone? no rush, like...
Click to expand...

This is a good site providing simple animations:
Plate Tectonics
 
hi, lunamoth

Interesting...may also explain ‘fire and brimstone.’
Click to expand...

interesting point! i have often wondered why people even considered having to appease the gods with sacrifices etc. in one sense people probably thought that the world was ‘given’ to them so thanks was necessary, but the 'fire and brimstone' is probably what made people think they needed to do a lot more to placate the gods, including human sacrifice. talking of which a native s.american was speaking on a documentary about the maya culture, he was quite convinced that this ‘chore’ [human sacrifice] was sometimes taken up gladly by people whom were fatally/badly injured or diseased. he said that before modern medicine life could be tortuous in the extreme, thus a ‘noble death’ in battle or by sacrifice - noble?! - was prefered. enemy prisoners accepted their fate as sacrificial victims, because they too presumed upon the hunger of the gods and the necessity of sacrificial appeasement. in ancient china human sacrifice was a part of the earth mother cult and specifically to do with ancestral worship [i’ll dig up a link], as presumably it was for the ancient britons and the carthaginians [both also earth mother cultists, in the main].

i wonder what it is that links the mother with death, one would have thought it logical that the mother is conducive to birth, nurturing and hence life?

 
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