Do humans need to worship God, or Gods?

[enaid]

Originally Posted by hallow

I think it has to do with the need to have something sacred. I think worshipping something or someone began at the dawn of man. "Cavemen" suffered a lot more than we could ever imagine. When someone good happened like a good hunt, ect. They got overwhelmingly happy and had to give thanks to wherever they thought the animal came from for example. Over time the ideas expanded. Even to the point where raw spiritually became extorted and fabricated to fit someone else's wants.

These ancient precedents as you say reveal a propensity in man to worship something or other that he believes to be more powerful than himself. Also back then there was a lot of superstitious fear involved - in other words “if I worship you then you won’t hurt me and you will give me good things”.

[iamthat]

Originally Posted by hallow

I think it has to do with the need to have something sacred. I think worshipping something or someone began at the dawn of man. "Cavemen" suffered a lot more than we could ever imagine. When someone good happened like a good hunt, ect. They got overwhelmingly happy and had to give thanks to wherever they thought the animal came from for example. Over time the ideas expanded. Even to the point where raw spiritually became extorted and fabricated to fit someone else's wants.

Of course, there are alternative views of human history which allow for ancient civilisations in the days when 'the gods walked among men". Various traditions speak of those who taught humans writing, agriculture, the movement of the planets, etc. These spiritual beings were worshipped, and this worship continued after they withdrew from direct contact with humanity.

Is any of this true? Who knows, but it is possible.

Peace

[hallow]

Originally Posted by enaid

These ancient precedents as you say reveal a propensity in man to worship something or other that he believes to be more powerful than himself. Also back then there was a lot of superstitious fear involved - in other words “if I worship you then you won’t hurt me and you will give me good things”.

this is a good addition to what I thinking as well. At that time and now there is a lot of things more powerful than us.

[hallow]

Originally Posted by iamthat

Of course, there are alternative views of human history which allow for ancient civilisations in the days when 'the gods walked among men". Various traditions speak of those who taught humans writing, agriculture, the movement of the planets, etc. These spiritual beings were worshipped, and this worship continued after they withdrew from direct contact with humanity.

Is any of this true? Who knows, but it is possible.

Peace

I been Reading and learning a lot about neandthals. From what I read they were in a lot of places before "us" Homo sapiens. I am useing what we know about neandthals to maybe get an idea of where "spiritually" began. ( I am a dork like that) a need to know how something "happened". But anyway. This is all just a therory I came up with. Keeping in mind, most often in history "we" in a since fallowed the tracks of the neandthals and they too were spiritual people. The held Rituals, maybe worshipped something, rituals for there dead? No one really knows why but they know they did. So how much did we learn from them? Either through personal contact or finding there artifacts in there path. When thinking about this you have to think it happened 50,000 to 40,000 year's ago and evolved since then.

Originally Posted by enaid

These ancient precedents as you say reveal a propensity in man to worship something or other that he believes to be more powerful than himself. Also back then there was a lot of superstitious fear involved - in other words “if I worship you then you won’t hurt me and you will give me good things”.

A few years back they were making a documentary on WWII and went back to an isolated island the Americans had used as a base. The native people had created aircraft out of straw, they had drawn lines in the dirt to represent an airfield and wore masks similar to flying helmets and goggles. They were waiting for their gods to return to them.


I wonder how much of that superstitious fear is with us today, only wearing different clothes. What might happen to some people if they stopped practising their Spirituality?

[NoOne]

Originally Posted by hallow

I been Reading and learning a lot about neandthals. From what I read they were in a lot of places before "us" Homo sapiens. I am useing what we know about neandthals to maybe get an idea of where "spiritually" began. ( I am a dork like that) a need to know how something "happened". But anyway. This is all just a therory I came up with. Keeping in mind, most often in history "we" in a since fallowed the tracks of the neandthals and they too were spiritual people. The held Rituals, maybe worshipped something, rituals for there dead? No one really knows why but they know they did. So how much did we learn from them? Either through personal contact or finding there artifacts in there path. When thinking about this you have to think it happened 50,000 to 40,000 year's ago and evolved since then.

I'm also interested in Neanderthals. There used to be an excellent exhibit in the Natural History Museum in London, not sure if it's still there.

Some interesting facts about Neanderthals:
- They were mostly left-handed
- They had red (occasionally blond) hair, freckles and blue or green eyes
- Their brains were larger than ours, with a particular protrusion towards the back of the head which is now believed to be the seat of spirituality and contact with the spirit world
- They were prone to depression and diabetes, as well as high blood pressure
- They were night creatures, hunted and partied at night, slept during the day
- Their religion was moon-based goddess worship. They had a lunar calendar based on the number 13, which corresponds with women's menstrual cycle
- Their society was matriarchal and promiscuous, with basically free love being the norm and children brought up by the community as a whole, so paternity and the paternal bloodline had little relevance. Red was a sacred colour to them as it represented the menstrual blood.

You can easily draw your own conclusions, but it is easy to see how Neanderthal "infiltration" into human society is still at the heart of many of our societal conflicts. Many of the genetic traits associated with people of European descent are clearly leftovers from Neanderthal traits. Then there is the mistrust towards "gingers" (red-haired people) that survives to this day. This often manifests in antisemitic or anti-Irish sentiment, where red-headedness and left-handedness are particularly common.

Then there is the traditional dichotomy between Left and Right. The Left is often seen as matriarchal, feminine, red, anti-nuclear-family, promiscuous, rather than monogamous, attracted to the occult and the Left-hand path, associated with night owls, rather than early risers, pacifist, rather than militaristic, communistic, rather than individualistic in nature, etc...

The right is of course associated with the opposite, patriarchy, masculinity, rationality over feelings, a lack of empathy, militarism and regimentation, emphasis on individual responsibility, competition over cooperation and so forth. You can also observe the difference in religions, where the Left-hand path (for Instance, Tantra) is often associated with sexual rituals, Goddess-worship, alcohol and drug consumption, etc... The right-hand path is of course your standard mainstream religion, that advocates monogamy, monotheism, prohibition on most sexual acts except for procreation within the confines of marriage, prohibition of various food and drink items, revealing clothing, etc...

I quite enjoy the dichotomy between these two paths and try to bring them together, in harmony.