| appolose said:
Making up God to explain things we don't understand seems a bit far-fetched to me. Why would anyone guess that there was a being behind natural occurences? Why would he have guessed there was some guy living in the storm clouds throwing the bolts of lightning? Wouldn't he have just assumed it was the cloud? |
Animus, Latin for soul, the ancients believed that everything that moved had a soul. The wind moved, the sea moved, and all animals moved so they had souls causing them to do so. The souls, or beings, that controlled the wind, sea, Earth, Moon, Sun, and stars was cause for worship. Humans had no control over these things, but whatever did was must have been very powerful and worthy of worship. Thats why the first religions gave duties to each god. God of wind, god of the sea, god of the river, and so forth.
Humans created these ideas of god (gods), so it was only natural to give them characteristisc that we have. That is why God (gods) has a personality, wants, desires, relationships, and can even have children.
Marduk, king of the Babylonian gods, is where the Hebrews got the idea of God from, as well as their creation sroty. Marduk became king of the gods after he defeated the evil, rebelious gods (Satan and friends). He then created earth in 6 days, feasting on the 7th, and creating man in the image of the gods. That is why the Bible says that 'God created man in our image', because He is referring to the other gods in the Bablyonian story.
