Thursday, February 2, 2012
Religion?
So after reading Weston's reference to Ridgeway's idea that religions began as ancestor worship, I would have to say that I and not sure if I agree with Ridgeway. I wanted tO share a personal anecdote. My dad is te religious one of my immediate family. He always prays briefly to his small mantle set up with pictures and wood figurines of te various gods of Buddhism. However on the adjacent wall is a picture of my deceased grandfather. My dad doesn't pray to him, but he always pays his respects after he prays. I don't think it is ancestor worship, but simply reverence like the idea of someone visiting a grave.
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Ancestor worship is a good idea though, I think. I would think the idea of where does someone go when they die would spark the the creation and thinking of religion. It would make sense that they'd first think that the people would have some significance in the after life and then they created gods later
I definately think honoring ancestors is worthy worship, but I don't think praying to them is necessary. I do understand how religion developed from ancestral worship though. Weston makes some valid arguments in saying that early religions are all related and come from the same roots. I notice many similarities between my religion, Jainism, and Buddhism and Christianity.
This idea of ancestor "reverence" goes very far back, not to say thats how religion started. The Romans displayed idols of their ancestors in the entry way of their homes. It is obvious that the Romans prayed to many different gods, so I dont think they necessarily "worshiped" their ancestors but merely prayed to them. I dont know if ancestor worship is where religion came from but it is certainly plausabile
I saw this documentary (think it was "cave of forgotten dreams") about french cave paintings awhile back and was totally reminded of it reading yalls posts. basically they've found diety figures dating way back before written language in france, during the ice age. I think neanderthals (which is even further back) even buried their dead with little charms or figurines meaning they belived in afterlife in some form - otherwise they wouldnt bother with funerals. I dissagree with the ansestor worship idea, but I think ansestor worship goes waaay back. Here's why I think that: so in that movie they found paintings and also little figurines that seemed to be part-human-part-animal furtility figurines. I think some elements of "creator" or "fertility" gods predated ancestor worship; early humans for sure buried the dead and though there's no real way to know how much they valued their ancestors, they did create diety figurines that have been found in very early grave sites. I don't think you can have anscestorworship without beliving in afterlife because then your ancestors would be dead and unable to advocate for you. If there's the afterlife peice you get into a lot of questions about human existance like why is there afterlife, then you get into stuff like why is it that some years there's more food than others, where did people come from etc? The fact that there's afterlife and fertility figurines suggests early religion to me, not ancestor worship but who knows really.
this is totally as second post:
I think that maybe, because people really all came from mesopotainia, that some elements of early culture that grew there were retained and changed gradually over time as people migrated. I'm not saying this definatly true by any means, but maybe the elements of an early, universal religion/culture that were retained and changed are the incredibly similarties that crop up between early cultures and today - like maybe the fisher king thing... who knows.
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