How do religion's end up like they do? many have similarities and seem to be from some common or shared origins, yet they have evolved to all be unique and a mixture of various different elements that merge to each be presented as one single consolidated representation of one conceptual practice. Many religion's and faiths can have a almost CULT-LIKE following, strict and even claimed by others to be Brain Washing or manipulative?
The new MEGA Christian Fellowship Cathedral in Huddersfield. for example.. an interesting congregation. - always seems to remind me of the Bibbey distribution HGV & other company extended networks, The American Golden trumpet church in Chorley and those scientologist folk?
One way of looking at how religion's are formed could be to look at an example of how something NON-religious is formed. Such as a concept, idea or whole entity that has been born from the merging of various seperate things that have merged and become something new, but that retain still things from the concepts & ideas of which it is created from.
I wanted to use a cartoon series as an example of this, because then I can better illustrate how the original things are put together and are still evident in the new thing, but still are identifiable and recognizable.
The Cartoon "Thundercats" is a good example. (treat this is a primary school talk, if its all a bit too simple for you)
So here is the Thundercats opening sequence...
So before the "Thundercats" was first introduced, there were a few things that were really big at the time. (or just before) especially with children of the same age. Some of those contemporary things were:
The A-Team.
He-Man & the Masters of the Universe
Wild Cats (the animals)
Star Wars/Battle star Galactica
You could even give EVIDENCE that these things did influence the Thundercats, even if its creator does not confirm you are correct. (They might not even have been aware of the influences themselves)
The Character Panthro in the Thundercats is undoubtedly based around "BA Barackas" from the A-team. Because he fills the same roles as the Panthro character & is lent some characteristics as well.
The Sword that Lion-O uses - Sword of Omens, and how he uses it, is near identical to the Sword that He-Man uses & how he uses it in the cartoon.
Then we have the space intro elements & star ships which are very similar to the contemporary programs Battlestar Galactica and Star wars movies
And also at the time, there were quite a lot of childrens books on "Wild cats", Tigers, Lions, Cheetah's, Panthers. (I know there are books on all sorts all the time) but at that particular time, there WAS a focus on books being published about wild cats & at that time, it was not as commercial as it is now. Nowhere near as many books were being published like today.
So if you think of:
The A Team.
He-Man
Star Wars
Wild Cats
All as completely different things, that are by different people. And some person, or a group of people come together to do something new, they bring ideas, practices? influences, knowledge & even likes of existing things that are going to be evident and be become part of this new idea they are working on - The Thunder cats.
So....
The Same thing, I believe MUST be in play when we look at the different Religions of the world.
It doesnt have to all make sense into this or that happened or it must have been here or there, or then and this or that - in the sense of "gospel truth" - Religions can dictate a very specific set of interpretations and scriptures that must be followed and understood as concrete. Yet what that concrete is "made from" - the sand, cement and water.. are all seperate things that came together to make the concrete.
Various peoples and places of the human race have folowed different paths across the world, found different places, eaten different foods, learned different things & had very different experiences. Yet there still are certain themes and ideas, values, beliefs and practices that no matter what "form" they take, be it Panthro or BA Barackas, for example - still embody or reveal that beneath these representations is the SAME thing, similar thing or else a slight variation of something that can be identified and confirmed.
Old religions and old stories contain not only the story but analogies and gestures, hints and clues as to forgotten knowledge, thoughts, concepts and truths that may have been warped or forgotten, lost or changed, or merges with other things. Or combined as to be confusing. such as customs, traditions of prayer, how, when, where, why. Sacraments and what they do, what they mean. The holy wine, breaking of the bread.
Items in a church or a mosque may have at one time meant to represent a certain "thing". a ritual to remember how something was done, or for it to be done correctly.
Even the assembly, cleaning and dissasembly of a gun can be a ritual. Why a soldier sits there taking his gun to pieces over & over and cleaning it every day. Why does he do this?
When these practices & rituals are lost, things are forgotten & when they are forgotten, the purpose and the true act is lost.
The Church bangs on & on about Jesus. All the time. Jesus this Jesus that. The honest truth is that it doesnt matter a monkeys fuck who jesus was, or to even talk about jesus. The entire point is that he was meant to DO certain things.
Sharing bread, helping people, healing the sick???
What the point is is that time spent singing hyms, stood in church, is NOT time sharing stuff, healing people or helping people. What the guy was trying to get people to do, has been obscured by fascination with the person. with the book itself the bible, with the ritual of church & singing. The ACTUAL RITUAL in the bible IS THE ACT AND ACTIONS OF GOING ABOUT SHARING< HELPING & HEALING. The ritual was NOT meant to be stood around paying £8 into a minster to look at cobwebs & statues like madame tussauds. JESUS WOULD NOT BE IMPRESSED BY PEOPLE GOING AROUND TALKING ABOUT JESUS. Jesus would be impressed by one thing. People going around sharing stuff, caring about eachother, healing people and helping people, as best they can trust eachother & believe in eachothers honesty and love.
That is the ritual. Lost mostly to ceremony.
IMHO.
There are many other things, knowledge and information contained in religion, about god, creation and certain things which really ammount to early science and subjects on all things. University if you will. The Knowledge of men (& women) and of the world. This is ABC 123 you say. Good. No need to be reading this rubbish then.
I just thought the Thundercats cartoon was a good example of how various beliefs can get combined or end up different and arguments or misconceptions can occur. Wars even. Feuds, Civil war, mostly on disagreements over Money, style, power. Ideas.
Just a loada crap I thought I would write on here, so you can confirm I am talking shit.