| Kasz216 said: I agree with the "god's will for humanity to not need him" I'm going to disagree however witthat as a theme to all religions... it may be in western modern current religions... that's not the case for all religions, or even most.
For example, most Paganistic societies. The god's there weren't really any rules so much as a "don't screw with us, we'll do what we want" type dynamic. Zues for example was more like the big brother who would sleep with your girlfriend then kick your ass if you got upset about it. |
Most paganistic societies, in the "BC" side of history, were actually quite advanced. The Romans and the Greeks supposedly had quite a bit of knowledge (including medical knowledge) that is now lost. I would argue that those societies had already progressed, with regards to religion, before their falls. Meanwhile, the actions of Zeus in the mythology aren't really relevant, any more than how "god" treated adam and eve is relevant. Those are stories intended to impart information.
In short, I think you've confused the purpose of the religion with the stories within the religion. Think of it this way, in the case of judaism - the stories and mythology was built up in the form of oral tradition over time, during which the religion grew stricter and stricter. Then the christian era came along, and loosened the rules quite a bit. For some of the adherents of the two, things went backwards, and thus came the much stricter islam (not unlike how, if you have an unruly 14 year old, you are (or should be) much stricter than you would have been with an 11 year old).
It's a lot harder to prove things when it comes to the greeks and the romans, because much has been lost to time, now.
