(November 11, 2011 at 10:20 am)Rhythm Wrote: Agricultural societies painted agricultural gods as their benefactors, nomadic societies preferred "transportation gods"(be they horses, or sea gods, or what have you) warrior cultures opted in for warrior gods. Some societies that developed into what we call "civilizations" incorporated all of these into their pantheons as they engaged in each activity(though their pantheons were still heavily weighted in favour of whatever they were primarily engaged in).
Agricultural societies are too young to be taken into account when seeking the origin of the idea of god.
You seem to prefer the philosophical approach to the subject of the idea of god but for the ancestors the story of the gods was the story of humans and for this reason solid proof is needed as it is History we are dealing with.
You wrote: Furthermore, man had already spread himself across the globe before we even begin to see traces of organised religious observance or structured myth. Long before near eastern culture and myth emerges.
50,000 years ago Homo sapiens sapiens from south Africa arrived in the Near East.
They remained there for a few thousand years, mated with Neanderthals and then the products of the interbreeding spread across the globe. Therefore Near Eastern culture and myth comes first (the oldest figurine of the Great Mother known dates to between 35,000 and 40,000 years ago with Virgin Mary being today’s Great Mother goddess).
By 40,000 years ago those who left Near East for Europe were already in Europe.
As regards organized religion, based on what we know about Egyptian religion and priesthood, it is approximately 15,000 years old.
Gods are 50,000 years old.
(November 11, 2011 at 10:20 am)Rhythm Wrote: Sun gods where the sun shines…
The most famous of the Sun-gods is the Egyptian Ra (or Re). I hope you agree with this.
That famous god is also a famous fake produced by the Egyptian clergy. We are lucky enough to have original, unmolested hieroglyphic texts and thus we know who Ra was before been disguised into a Sun-god by the priesthood.
Isis, who wanted to take the place of Ra at the head of the gods, managed to have a snake bite the old god and when he could not bear the pain any longer handed his authority over to her.
In Chapter 17 of the Book of the Dead Ra performs circumcision to himself.
Goddess Athena of the Greeks, whom the philosophers present as a goddess of wisdom, is actually a fully armed woman decided not to let any god rape her. An old myth has her killing her father who attempted to rape her, skin him and wear his skin.
Mythology is naïve only when we are naïve enough not to see that the last edition of each myth has degenerated into a fairy tale.