I have several friends who follow....alternative religions. Rebuilt Wicca, Asatru (modern Scandinavian) Hellenic (modern Greek), Rebuilt ancient Egyptian and so on. Many of these friends use equal parts of legend, myths, history, and sciences to cobble together a religion. But what they create is not the old religion. Because they do not know the old in its entirety, they dont understand why Christianity replaced these beliefs.
The first belief is that Christians came to convert by the sword. And thats wrong. By the time the "Northern Crusades" happened, most of the Northern lands were already converted. The "Crusaders" were actually invited by rulers of the country, to help stamp out rebellion. They called it heresy to get the church's aid.
There is a repeating format to most of the elder religions: The gods are born, and will eventually die. At the end of the world, the gods die, and not only the living, but the dead are lost as well. Judaism and its two split-offs were the first that offered a god that existed before the beginning, and would continue on after the end. We today cant understand the importance of that, given the strong efforts world-wide to tarnish religion and eliminate it.
To know that your god is destined to die; indeed, the Greek and Norse legends told that the killers already existed, and gave all the details of who, how, and why; this proved the gods limited, and led to questions of what other limits they had.
Next was the problem of the afterlife. In viking lore, you got to go to paradise only if you were especially heroic, and died in battle. Many people forget, it wasnt just dying, you also had to be so amazing on the battle field that the Valkyries noticed you above all the rest. Otherwise, you went to Hel. Now, it wasnt all fire and brimstone as Christians teach, but it was not a pleasant friendly place. And great "sins" ogainst the gods were such things as dying of disease or old age, yet the religion taught that "The Fates" beings with power even over the gods, controlled everything, and had laid out your life before you were even born.
Then there were the Greeks; their afterlife was dark, dreary, and miserable period. No reward or punishment regardless of how you live. The Egyptians believed that your station in life fixed your station in the afterlife. And so on... And come the end of the world, even the dead were going to be destroyed.
But, the Judaic religions offered something different. Believe this teaching, follow these rules, and you would go to paradise, regardless of how you died. And while the evil were in for great torture, the faithful were actually going to be rewarded. And when the world ended, this god would survive, with all his faithful, to live on a new earth.
Its hard to explain to todays high-tech, science based population the psychological effects these arguments had. Here was a god that wouldnt die, an afterlife that didnt condemn one unless they were "evil" by a standard that most religions already taught was "bad", that said all were equal - the lowest laborer was as much loved as the highest king by this god.
This religion offered hope. Hope that if rewards didnt come in this life, then they would in the afterlife, and that come the end of the world, all would not be lost. Today, those in civilized parts of the world forget the power of hope. Our lives are spared the suffering and hardship that religion offers consolation for. So we have difficulty understanding just how important this facet is to the lives of those without such blessing. And because of that, we have a hard time understanding why the Judaic religions are so popular, and why conversion is so easy.
No comments:
Post a Comment