D.M. Murdock wrote:Thank you for your thoughtful replies. Robert, you make some very good and, yes, profound points throughout. As concerns the philosophical implications of my work, as expressed in CIE, for one, I can state my own motivations in doing this difficult and controversial research, as well as my hopes for the future. Like the climate scientists you mention, I too have hit a bewildering brick wall of ignorance and indifference, despite the fact that the information I'm sharing is so very fascinating.
In my opinion, the implications of this knowledge constitute greater wisdom and less enmity for other cultures - an increasingly important development, as all over the world we begin to rub elbows in closer quarters. What the research eventually demonstrates is that there are continuities within religious ideation that date back to extremely early times and that reflect much about the human psyche in general. These continuities and similarities between religions and cults over the past several thousand years are of great interest to me and have been for many years.
The "continuities within religious ideation" are how the formation of ideas evolves within culture, adapting to new circumstances based on existing precedents. "Ideation" is itself a scientific term, rejecting the traditional claim that religious concepts are delivered from god by divine revelation, and recognizing instead that the hold that ideas gain within a specific culture is a function of how well they have been constructed to serve practical purposes. A key to traditional religious ideation is how a priesthood always justifies its cosmology as providing a unifying narrative for a society, in such a way as to gain respect from the populace for the ability of the seers to see visions that give meaning and common identity.
The contemporary global situation requires ideation that respects disparate sources, ranging from modern science to ancient mythology, in order to dissolve the artificial barriers of emnity that still keep cultures apart. This agenda of synthesis was part of the ancient appeal of Christianity, with Paul's doctrine in Galatians 3:28 that 'there is neither Jew nor Greek, male nor female, slave or free, for all are one in Jesus Christ." Unfortunately, it seems this was read as saying there is only Jew and Greek, while other cultural sources, such as ancient Egypt, were suppressed. Bringing these hidden sources into the cultural mix, together with other suppressed mythemes from non-Western societies, is a task that the USA began with its motto 'out of many, one', but which is only very partially achieved to date.
In some instances, the similarities develop independently, based on observations of human psychology and natural phenomena. In other cases, there is clearly a continuum from earlier mythological and religious strata. Hence, religious origins are multifold, arising independently and derivatively from earlier concepts. I have little doubt that very basic concepts have been passed along with our shared genetic heritage, which appears to have been determined scientifically through DNA studies to have emanated out of Africa, some 50,000 to 140,000 years ago. Again, my ultimate interest is to uncover this "lost religion," so to speak, which eventually resolves itself largely into nature worship, the reason we find it globally.
'Nature worship' can seem an oxymoron for those whose spiritual vision has been formed by supernatural worship. For many believers, worship requires postulation of transcendental entities. On this supernatural model, worship of nature is understood as imagining animist entities in rocks and trees, on the model of how Christianity imagines God the Father as a real personal entity. Yet, looking at ancient Egyptian religion, while there is obviously much supernatural mythology, an alternative reading remains possible, seeing the stories of the gods as allegories for natural forces. If the original worship of nature, somewhat how baboons hold out their palms to the rising sun, is a simple instinctive reverence for nature in itself, and a recognition of primal connection to nature, then all the imaginative narrative that explains reverence by resort to fables of intentional entities hidden within nature is open to the suspicion of being delusory, a constructed explanation built incrementally on top of natural observation.
However, again, there are some very detailed comparisons between religions that seem to have come through more or less direct descent, and I am again interested in tracing those as well. In the meantime, the outcome will hopefully be that increasing numbers of people will become aware of this shared past from remotest times and will become more appreciative of our global heritage vis-a-vis religion and mythology. If we can get beyond religious fanaticism and study the world's cultures dating back into remote antiquity, we can find common ground all over the world, and we need not disparage these past cultures upon which our own is built.
The incremental divisions that have accreted into religious traditions have fossilized into fanaticism. The great value of philosophical deconstruction of these traditions is that their psychological and cultural sources can still be respected while the surface meaning is seen as concealing something deep and vital, albeit often corrupted and degraded by secular motives.
The end result, I hope, is a more mature and less contentious humanity that does not slaughter its own at the drop of a hat - as it turns out, most if not all roads lead to the "Genetic Eve," so to speak, which means we humans are one big family. I do believe much religious ideation points in that direction as well. It was not necessarily my goal to synthesize the world's religions, but I began to notice commonality more than 25 years ago, while studying in Greece. At that time, it was linguistic studies that were leading me in that direction. As we are aware, linguistics and theology often go hand in hand, and the two disciplines provide much indication of how humanity has evolved over the past tens of thousands of years.
The unity of linguistics and theology points to universal synthesis. My favorite example here is how God the Father evolved linguistically from the ancient vedic sky god Dyaus Pita, by way of Zeus Patera in Greece, Jupiter in Rome, and Deus Pater in Christendom. All these western visions of a universal deity have the same linguistic form. Seeing their intrinsic unity is a way towards a more mature understanding of human spirituality.
Considering the global DNA heritage of humanity, there is a vast split in humanity between East and West dating to the eruption of an Indonesian volcano about 70,000 years ago that covered India in ash, separating the exiles from Africa into two groups. This split within the journey of mankind is summarized at
http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/steph ... index.html
Moreover, I'm hopeful that, with the knowledge of the real meaning behind the myths - much of it astrotheological - we can redevelop our appreciation for our natural world, so that we can stop destroying it at a distressing pace. The meanings revealed by studying comparative religion and mythology are not only profound but often important and fascinating, as well as empowering beyond cultural boundaries. Instead of a divisive cult supposedly founded by one person or another of a particular ethnicity, with one or more gods of or favoring the same ethnicity over all others, we find a uniting body of knowledge that was crucial in our survival as a species in very difficulty circumstances: To wit, the knowledge of natural cycles, such as the movements and characteristics of the sun, moon, planets, stars, constellations, etc. In understanding this body of knowledge, which we can call "astrotheology," we can comprehend what the ancients - our ancestors - were trying to and frequently did convey, not as a babbling rabble of primitives but as wise and intelligent observers of their natural world.
The alienation of supernatural religion from actual observation of reality is at the source of the widespread modern indifference to the natural basis of life. This natural basis is understood by science in our origins in the evolution of life on earth and the longer path of evolution of matter in the cosmos. My view is that supernaturalism is the "false prophecy" discussed in the Bible as the primary risk of human destruction. Doctrines such as personal immortality, a spatial heaven, supernatural entities, miracles and apocalyptic rapture conflict directly with scientific observation, but are the object of fervent fundamentalist belief. In considering the ethical question of the conflict between good and evil, the discovery that supernatural religion is basically an unnatural mythical illusion suggests that ethical good has to be grounded in natural scientific truth, making transcendental fantasy a form of evil. Grounding theology in observation of the cosmos therefore provides a basis for profound philosophical and ethical transformation of human culture.
As a neat example of our shared heritage and its astrotheological roots, readers may wish to take a look at the Wiki article on "
Solar deity." The following image, for instance, displays a nice anthropomorphization by Chinese artists of the sun god, Tai Yang Xing Jun by name, illustrating the development globally of representing such entities as distinct ethnic artifacts, yet based on the same general underlying observations of solar movements and characteristics.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... ingJun.jpg
The commonality between Chinese and Western reverence for the sun is unsurprising when the natural source of religious ideation is considered from first principles. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said God makes the sun rise on the evil and the good (Matthew 5:45). The same sun provides light for all humanity. Those who honestly seek to understand what the sun actually is so they and their children may live by its light are good. Those who pretend the sun is something other than it is suffer from delusion, giving rise to all sorts of problems.