What are the similarities between religions/mythologies?

If there is a God...
If that GOd is perfect and does everything perfectly and without further needs of improvement....
And if the religions you talk about are sent by Him...
Then all of them should be exatly the same.
He knows what He's doing. He knows what he's sending. He can send the perfect thing at the begining without any need to change it in the future. He only has to re-send them.
But there are lots of "If"s.

Well the ifs, the major ifs are why it is much easier and more sound to explain it as logical coincidences. I call it my "people do the same thing in similar situations" theory. It is by no means a researched or proven thing, mostly just opinion.

But try it out, make up a riddle or problem, ask 20 people. See how many answer it the same or similar way. (dont make it a complicated riddle).

Here are a few:
Besides the triple godheads, there are frequently relationships -- marriage or sexual joining -- between heaven and earth. Even the Christians who are prudish have Mary and the female persona of the Holy Spirit.

There are frequently intermediaries -- neither god nor human, but inbetween, ex. Angels.

There is often trickery or mystery, things aren't always what they seem, ex. the Tree of Life.

There are sacred spots or physical points on the earth, ex. the Holy Land.

There are physical signs or characteristics on the godheads which mark them or their people, ex. halo.

This does not offer anything strong towards the side of its all the same religion, you dont think it is possible for two different peoples to have places which they consider special or sacred.

Frank wrote:

HA!

On topic, what did you mean by:

did you mean I seem to be only paying attention to the parts that agree with my position? If so, tell me what I'm ignoring.

Etruscia:

Doesn't really relate to what I'm talking about. You're using physical force examples (Sun/Moon, Heaven/Hell, etc.), but what I'm using are cultural archetypes, not physical. And by the way...there's also Purgatory...making one of your arguments a "3." There's also almost always a third side to an argument, i.e. a compromise. You can also love more than one person, worship more than one god, have more than one spouse(in some places :wink: ), and, if you were truly rich as a Nazi, have more than one home.
That being said, your argument (not your examples, but your argument) has merit. There are other "holy numbers", and what's more, they're always odd. 1(Most religions nowadays), 3(See above), 5(Pentagram, witchcraft), 7(Celtic traditions, Lucky!), and 9(Norse tradition). So I can see why you'd have an argument that I'm just focusing on 3 and nothing else, but I've found that only 3 is universal. If I'm wrong, tell me...but for now, the 3 thing is odd enough that I can't "explain" it away as "coincidence", though I'll probably change my views in the next few years...only to change them again.
"Omnia mutantir, nihil interit." - "Everything changes, but nothing is truly lost."

I am enjoying your thesis, Tal...but the disagreements I have with it are really too difficult for me to present.

Let me give you the flavor of my arguments...and perhaps you see where I am coming from.

One of the first things that came to my mind after reading your presentation, was...

...the old thing that was being circulated a while back detailing the similarities between Abraham Lincoln and John Kennedy.

If you work hard enough...you can find "coincidence" that seem to stretch credulity...in damn near anything.

And as I mentioned...the first several items are essentially all of one culture...so the notion that they all seem to focus on the number three really isn't much of a coincidence at all.

But far be it from me to discourage you if you think you are on to something.

Good luck with it.

Okay, I think I get your point now, Frank. You're saying that since all the examples of mine you re-posted were from Greek Culture, that they don't really signify a universal "trend." I understand that, and if that was all I had presented, that would have been true.
However, you didn't seem to take into account the other examples from Babylonian, Hindu, Celtic, etc. cultures. I can agree/admit to some "hard work" on trying to find these occurences...but I like to think I threw out all the examples that were too spurious. I might be wrong, though, so please, tell me what you're having trouble with, and I'll see if I can explain/justify it...if I can't, I will admit to being wrong with pleasure. the "truth" has always been my goal.

Question, Tal.

I've read all your above posts, and I notice a trend here. Your comparitives are Indo-European. Western aka Christian, Judeo/Muslim; Middle Eastern, some Celtic. All these peoples had intermingling with each other; all travelled and met each other.

Is this your field or area? Is that why the comparatives are limited?

I ask not as an arguement, but because as Native American I don't see any difference in any of them. Sure, I understand the 3 who are 1 thing; I also get the pagan concepts that are threaded throughout the different religions (pagan since I'm mostly too lazy right now to illucidate which one's I'm referring do, gomen). But there are other views out there; other perceptions that do not fall into the 3 catagory. The 7 view of the Native American for one; or the similar view's... I think it's 4(?) of the asian.

As for whether these views being coincidences, one thing has not been addressed that I'd like to bring up. We are the same people; not necessarily ethnically, or regionally, but we are human. And our minds work in similar patterns. Any humans who thought differently were left behind in the evolution/development of our species.

Shaman's were there to be go betweens between humans and the other forces of the universe that were obviously so much bigger than us: to speak to the animals we needed to hunt to eat; to speak to the spirits or those animals to ask forgiveness for taking their lives, etc. and to aks the "gods of nature" to go a bit easier on our poor little lives before sending that hurricane or tornado or earthquake to make mince meat of our homes and families.

With that said, one more question, was this investigation of yours going to spread out to other parts of the world? or just center in Europe and the Middle East?

MikoNoNyte: welcome. Yeah, European/Middle-eastern religions are my forte; I could never really understand/get into Japanese/Chinese Mythology, since I wasn't able to find a cohesive base for it all. Is there one? I always wanted to look into it, but, as I said, I could never find a kind of "hierarchy" or guide as to the myths. It all seemed to be people deifying their ancestors, like the deification of Egypt's pharaohs, to me.
As far as Native American views go: I haven't found the time/the reference material to explore them. Would you mind either a) explaining some of it to me, or b)pointing me in a direction where I can find out about it? As I told frank, I'm always interested in hearing other POVs, even if they contradict/disprove mine. Thanks.

edit: Sorry, I missed your last question - I'd like to have the discussion spread to anything, not just mainstream mythologies, so post whatever you want, and I'll try to find the time to explore it further with you.

Frank: Is this what you were talking about, too?

Ah, that explains it. That's your area of expertise then.

Asian religious/myths are something I'm looking at, and I find similarities really; the "ancestor worship" is actually global. Our ancestors - humans - revered and respected their anticedants. Afterall it was they who bore them, fed them, protected them and taught them. If you look at the archeology from even the middle east, there is evidence of this respect in the bits of statuary, as well as the burial items. It's a bit of a stretch, as we're also trying to impose our world view on these ancient sites but it certainly seemed similar to me ... ^^ Egyptians, not the pharoah, but everyday people, reverred their ancestors as well; I don't think as diety, but out of respect in some way. It doesn't take long for something like that to grow into a religion.

When I was studying Egyptology back in college (this was 30 years ago!) I remember the information given was that the Pharoah was marrying his sister because SHE held the reigns of power. SHE was the Land, and so for the man to gain the power to rule, he had to Marry the Land, aka sister, cousin whatever. This I later saw in Celtic and European myths, which were even reflected in books like Morte D'arthur.

As for Native American, I leanred what I know from sitting around the fire; I listen and try to make sense of what I hear. I never lived on the Res... that was my grandparents thanks. ... so I didn't hear this stuff in a religious perspective. What I know is from experience though, and having dealings with Shamans. I came away with a bit of an understanding that they are trying to be the intermediary I guess we would say. They are trying to catch the power of the moving force of the universe to heal, or direct or ... whatever. (Not a shaman, can you tell)

But the whole time I listened to these folks talking to me, the more I realized that the similarities are there, between the older, ne - ancient, prehistorical even! european "myths" and the natives. I saw similarities in Asia too. We humans like to explain things and since we don't always have the words, or the knowledge, we try some other fasion. (boy that's sensible, hope that makes sense to you!)

Goofy example here. I used to travel to Berkeley California several times a year. Parking is absolute hell. The locals used to say, if you want to find a parking spot, then you need to pray to ... (I can't remember the name), the new god of parking meters. Now I thought they were kidding, but as I observed, if they did a prayer to this diety, they had a better shot of finding a parking spot than when they didn't. Now yes, that could be coincidence, but it runs in the same league as finding a parking spot in downtown New York ... aka, a cold day in hell! Yet they found spots... every time. An example of the birth of a myth. I haven't been back for a while, but I wonder how many people still "pray to this parking spot god" without knowing its origins; and also, if the "god" has become a reality because the minds and wills of the people doing the praying "made him so".

Ok, enough outta me.

Tangentally!

I was going to mention the significance of the number 7 in many cultures...but the work necessary to give substance to that significance is more than I really want to spend right now.

If you Google "Significance of the number 3" or "significance of the number 7"...you will get hits.

This happens not to be an especially interesting avenue of investigation for me...so I am disinclined to go further with it.

On a gut level, I see the 3 thing to be as likely pure coincidence as to be an indicator of some "greater purpose."



But apropos of what I just said, let me go back to your earlier post, where you wrote:



Well...the Greek and Babylonian cultures probably share enough comminality to the Greek...that one could argue they probably have a common ancestor (!) with regard to the 3 thing.

And the Hindu and Celtic...probably are mere coincidence!

I think this is all coincidence...or at least, in the absence of much stronger evidence to the contrary...that would be my guess.




Ain't gonna be no right or wrong here, Tal.

I don't know if the 3 thing actually indicates a divine purpose (or whatever) or is merely coincidence based on "who knows what."

There certainly has been a lot made that (supposedly) almost all cultures have myths that deal with a great flood. Well...yeah! Great floods do happen. And as time passes...and stories pass from mother to daughter/father to son/generation to generation...

...the "last" great flood was always the worst.

Coincidence in my opinion.

I was just thinking, there is over 256 flood stories in cultures all over the world, 69 of which are completely different. I mean numbers can easily be coincedences, but a huge deluge/flood seems less likely to be a coincedence. Im thinking there had to be a big flood at one time, one big way of explaining it is Atlantis. . .

The celts had contact with the hindus. I believe there may have been cultural as well as historical ... that's not the word I want... connections. I've read articles that were exploring that avenue, claiming that the Rom and the Celt both had ethnic connections. I don't know if that's true or not, but certainly the Celts had converse with the hindi's in their travels and brought many ideas back with them.

Were you speaking to my list? If I understand what you're saying, I'd like to point out that I wasn't trying to bolster the "side" of its being all the same religion, I was mentioning a few of many similarities.

As to sacred space -- not sure what you're getting at. There were sacred spaces in what we consider Indo-European cultures, as well as in native American, Chinese, Inuit, Aboriginal, South American and Meso-American cultures.

Art is another example of a common religious trait, not just visual arts but performance arts. So is symbolism and some of the symbols between cultures are coincidentally parallel. Some other similarities are prayer, supplication, offerings, special foods, holidays and seasonal events. Most religion and cultural beliefs have some sort of "liturgical" calendar.

Not everything is the same, but whoever it was who started this thread was asking, I thought, for congruences. I'm not giving any reasons why there are these similarities, but I'd be interested in the arguments against them as a whole and would like to see the research or evidence cited that contradicts it.

That is pretty interesting if the Celts and Hindus met. Considering the oldest Celtic discoveries have been 1200 BC in France and Germany. Not until facing the Roman Empire did they gain Near East and possibly Far East knowledge.

There were people who lived in the Indus Valley 2500BC and had an advanced civilization at Moejen Daru. It is believed that these people were Hindu. Nothing is really known about them and they just dissapeared or became assimilated. The Indo-Aryans moved in shortly after. The only possibility of Celts and Hindus mixing was if the Celts and Indo-Aryans met before they left the NEar East and Moved to the Far East.

Miko: That's one of the most hilarious stories ever. "Parking God" indeed. Most excellent.
On the "ancestor worship" topic, there's a difference between reverence, which is what you're talking about, and worship, which is what I was talking about.



No, I get what you're saying: you mean that anything we can't explain right off the bat, we tend to make it into a "miracle" or whatnot.

Frank: All right, It's fine with me if you don't want to explore further, but thanks fro the input, and I'll talk to you on the other threads.

Etruscia: I've never really been keen on the whole "Atlantis" story. What is it, exactly? I've heard numerous accounts, and I know the basis of it from...Plato, I think: Poseidon's country, 7 concentric rings going into the citadel, etc., but what theory did you have in mind?

To all: There might have been one original civilization that broke off into pieces, thus giving birth to new interpretations of the same religion, but there's still a habit today of grouping things into threes, and that, I think, shows significance, and calls the religious "coincidence" into question.
3 seems to be a basic building block for our...psyche, for lack of a better word, and this is shown in many forms.
Quick fact: The typical human being can automatically recognize that there are 3 or fewer objects in a group, but any more and they have to count them individually.

Taliesin, read this website. www.Atlan.org It is actually amazing. it is actually a must read, and might shake up your thoughts a bit, and it definitely works for the one big civilization that breaks off argument.

Etruscia: I'm reading it right now, but not only does the scientist seem to be extremely doomsday-ish "The end of the world is coming", etc., but he also tries to force facts into his mold, most notably here:

he states that Atlantis is also eden, and uses the Bible to back his argument, totally disregarding the fact that the Bible states the location of eden as Mesopotamia, between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers(I think; it was somewhere in that area). out of respect for you, I'll continue reading, but as it stands he's putting me off with his fanaticism(Not the exact word, but it'll do).

I think it's really interesting that agnostics and atheists have no problem seeing things that have probably astronomical odds of co-occurance as coincidence.

I teach pharmacy to military personnel, and I have to teach a block about the circulatory system this coming Wednesday. While I was just reviewing my notes, I was struck again by how remarkably complex our bodies are. There are timed firings of electrical impulses with tolerances of less than a hundreth of a second that keep our hearts beating, and delicate balances of hormones and gases that regulate the pressure, etc. I'm floored every time I try to wrap my mind around the idea that we are the result of some dumb combination of chance.

To each their own.

I think it's really interesting that theists are able to look at co-occurances that are more than likely merely coincidental...and come up with the notion that the odds against these probable coincidental events are "astronomically high...and that they have the audacity to question the motives of agnostics and atheists -- for the most part because agnostics and atheists do not go along with their silly fears and and even sillier myths.