reply to post by JacobNH
First off, I'll reject no ego-stroking if someone wishes to do it. But you're right, I don't need it. I'm content in my understanding of things as
they are, and I have no resentment towards advancing and changing my conceptions of reality, so long as ample evidence and proof is presented. That
being said, I do intent to delve into your claims which include some of my favorites: polytheism, panspermia, paganism, monotheism, the trinity and
the like.
I'll preface this by letting you, and anyone else reading, know that theology is one of my strong suits. I prefer the study of faith and spirituality
far more than the pursuit of science and psychology. I also understand that all of them go hand-in-hand with each other. So I'm able to see the
parallels among them. So, here we go:
God does not have various names in Tanach texts. The various terms you brought up (Elohim, Adonai, Ab, El,
etc) are also each their own words.
Ab for instance means "father" so it is like saying "God the father," not the "Father God". Adonai means lord, so this usage would be when the
Jews were saying "The Lord, God." On and on. A simple dictionary reference to these Hebrew terms will supply you with their meanings. Wikipedia also
does so nicely too.
Religious history does, in some ways, follow your claims. At a certain point in the time-line. Religious belief develops something like this:
Ancient Bear Cults of the pre-humans. One belief is that early man would see these bears enter caves for entire months, and then re-emerge. Giving the
belief that the bear had some kind of mystical power to regenerate itself.
Slowly these nomadic bands formed communities and the local outcast came to known as a Shaman, or Medicine Man. This person was believed to be able to
communicate with worldly spirits - a system called Animism - to secure good fortune and health for the community.
Shamans eventually formed a very tribal priest-craft. These groups of Shamans then worked to ensure the survival of the community by praying to
creator gods who often times came not from outer-space but from within the Earth. These early forms were called Pagan, Heathen and occasionally
polytheistic in the sense of Native Americans.
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As these impermanent settlements found stable living grounds they formed city-states and eventually cities. This brought the rise of the first great
civilizations: Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece and the like. Religion in these cultures also evolved.
In Egypt the polytheistic gods first started as very animal-based figures. The Jackal, the Hawk, etc. Earth-bound. Then as Pharaohs warred and Egypt
was united a thirst for an afterlife became reality. This brought a new generation of Gods. Some of these were related to the stars - but only as a
means for constructing tombs and pyramids to house the bodies of the dead. Finally, these deities in their final evolutions came to represent luminary
spheres like the sun and moon.
Mesopotamian belief is a bit different. They have 3 races of gods over many, many generations. The Igigi are sky-dwelling gods who live in the clouds.
The Annunaki are Earth dwelling monster-gods who live in the woods, ground, seas and such. The Nephelim are demonic and cthonic deities who live under
the world.
The mythology of Mesopotamia carries intense outer space overtones, but none of these space deities are benign towards the human race. Quite the
opposite. The space-dwelling Igigi actually wish mankind to be destroyed. It is the Annunaki who spare them. Oannes, a sea god actually teaches all of
Mesopotamia culture, farming, architecture and the like before going to try and convince the Igigi to spare us.
Unfortunately, Mesopotamia did not believe in any type of "afterlife" so there was no way, in their eyes, for us to meet our sky fathers even if
they did exist.
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Onto the belief that all life originated in outer space. This belief is called panspermia, and to a lesser extent exogensis. However, it states
nowhere that such extraterrestrial life need be alien in nature. Meaning that the development of these "seeds" of life in outer-space could have
evolved through natural cosmological principles and simply crash-landed on Earth with one of the various meteorites that collided with our planet.
If you'd like to believe an alien race germinated these seeds and sent them here, that's OK. If you'd like to claim this as the truth, you need to
also present your evidence to not only me, but all of the scientific community. Panspermia is not a rejected scientific theory, but it is by no means
accepted. Less excepted when alien life as the creator of these seeds is proposed.
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Concerning my pursuit for some kind of truth, in a sea of lies and misinformation: who's to say something ShadowNinja, Unity 99 or others on here
says isn't true? Maybe they do have some kind of insight into a small portion of reality. In that hope I continually encourage them to prove their
claims in an attempt to extract any truth, however small, from such.
So, my conclusion? This:
Words have meanings. Study of them will reveal those meanings. Many names for God simply refers to honorific titles he was given by the Jews (Father,
Lord, Protector, Wrath/fire, etc).
Could the "we" in Genesis mean that Abraham and his monotheism actually had multiple divine beings? Yes. Abraham came from the Mesopotamian
city-state of Ur. He was a polytheist trying to redefine the religion.
Could all life be from outer-space? Panspermia suggests so, exogensis as well. I think it's possible. Making the claim "life comes from space"
means "aliens made us" is a non sequitur. It does not follow without more substantiating evidence.
I apologize for the long post, but I wanted to respond to all your inquiries.
~ Wandering Scribe