I like other mythologies because they're interesting, they've got a lot of gods and a lot of other cultures.
Christianity only has Jesus, Moses, God and the Virgin Mary going for it. The mythology is kinda boring and very contradictory of itself. People prefer to cherry pick verses and everything to believe out of than it's intention.
Idk man, when you start looking into the old testament, especially non-official/apocryphal books like the Book of Enoch, it gets pretty interesting. Especially when you take early Judaism in context with the neighboring Canaanite religions
I wish I shared your optimism but I fear it is not happenstance that it has survived for so long. I suspect that it contains enough textual material to be easily adapted over time to serve many purposes, fit many cultural mores, and exploit various aspects of human nature.
Bit inaccurate, isn't it..? No such thing as Greek gods and Roman gods... “Roman” gods are just your plain old Greek gods with fake beards, speaking Latin in a Greek accent, and wearing their togas in the Roman style... Should have used Greco -Roman gods for one door and something else (Egyptian, Babylonian, Norse... take your pick) for the other...
It is the syncretist of the pagan. You can still see it in many places of the world. They treat religion basically how Westerners treat tropes in entertainment. Oh you like that show? Check out this show that is almost the same! I have seen shrines that had crucifixes hanging next to a Buddha.
I imagine its probably all over the place, to the point an average is not very useful, because on the one hand, something like a small cult that doesnt survive the death of its founders might last just a few decades, but something like Hinduism might last thousands of years and have a very unclear date to when it starts. You'd also have the question of when a religion ends exactly, like, one that has no followers left is probably dead, but what if it changes over time until the original form is unrecognizable? Is the original dead, or does the modern form count, and if the former, when did it end? Does it count as dead if a major world religion loses that status and becomes largely irrelevant, but still has a few small communities of followers, such as with zoroastrianism? If a religion does lose all of its followers, but people later attempt to recreate and convert to it from its surviving texts or similar, does it still count, or does the revival count as a new religion?
Maybe Im missing some obvious example, but I cant really think of cases, beyond the tiny cultlike ones, where a religion dies out organically either, most examples I can think of are cases where a religion is deliberately killed off, usually by another one supplanting it and having some conquering power or converted authority forcing its members to convert to the new one.
It is difficult. Ancestor worship is most likely the most common form of religion out there. Is a family shrine to a passed grandparent its own mini-religion?
Both the Egyptian pantheon and the Hellenic pantheon went through multiple iterations across the ages of their respective peoples. Neptune was the all father originally, then Zeus was made the patriarch of the Olympians (while Kronos created Phanes who begat the cosmos). Curiously Aphrodite was Astarte before, and Ishtar before that, and didn't just bring love and beauty, but also the Phoenician alphabet which would replace Linear-B.
And the way Christian and Jewish scripture is interpreted today is very different than how it was interpreted in the 16th century, or the 11th century, or the 6th century.
I feel bad for religious people who have been deceived their entire lives' into a delusion. But at the same time, I almost feel no empathy when they go out of their way to do and say the most insane stuff with religion as a justification.
I feel so bad for the kids of these religious zealots. I used to live next to a family with a little girl (12/13ish) that just played/stood around in their yard alone for hours every day. She wasn't allowed to speak with anyone outside of their church ever or use the phone. She wasn't allowed to have toys or really celebrate anything ever. "Homeschooled" of course. Often she'd just sit out there crying because her mom constantly used her as a bargaining chip to guilt her dad to join their religion. She told her constantly that her dad didn't love them because he wouldn't join their faith and that he was going to hell blah blah blah. She riled her up and made her hysterically beg her dad not to leave them and go to hell on a regular basis. It was truly awful. Sometimes when her parents left she'd wonder over to the fence separating our homes and chat with us. I hope we were able to plant at least a seed of sanity with our talks. Poor girl.
Later I had a coworker stressing out about her kid having extreme night terrors and behavioral issues because she was SO scared of going to hell. I, knowing her kid was only 7, kinda laughed and said something like "did you tell her 7 year olds aren't ending up in hell?" To which she got angry, snapped at me, and said that she wouldn't lie to her daughter like that. She seemed genuinely offended that I expected her to have cared more about her young child having a mental breakdown at the age of 7 than appeasing her rancid asshole of a god.
Abhorrent parenting from stupid and small minded people all around. If that's what they deal with as kids no wonder they're so broken and incapable of rational thoughts as adults. It's SO important to keep this shit out of our schools.
Rather than a question of adulthood vs childhood, the reality is that humans evolved certain traits and abilities that mean superstition and religion are in our nature, for better or worse, like it or no.
Humans had to become adept at determining the intent of other humans and of animals to the point where we tend to anthropomorphize animals, inanimate objects, even concepts like justice and luck and fate.
We evolved mechanisms to avoid harm by remembering past experiences and predicting future ones. Though flawed from the standpoint of rationality, these adaptations were enough to prevent extinction of humanity at large, while leaving us saddled with numerous cognitive biases that leave us more likely to believe unfounded claims of a spiritual nature.
The antidotes to irrational, superstitious thinking are knowledge and critical thinking skills. It takes time, effort, and dedication to gain the upper hand against our nature.
It may be impossible to completely overcome our nature. Still I do hope we are able to set aside the most harmful manifestations of our nature: dogmatic thinking and religious zealotry.
Logically and morally, this is an obvious conclusion, but most people are fucking idiots or apathetic towards what they perceive as 'lesser injustices.' Religious people are now existentially threatened because people are openly non-believers and since most of them lack self-reflection capabilities they get angry and aggravated and do what they can to fight for what is right in their eyes. One of the worst aspects of religion is that it makes people feel justified in doing things they otherwise never would have.
Really original that notion. I'm sure no one has ever considered it.
I also notice it was carefully considered and worded in order to avoid being considered as intolerant as the detractor to humanity it proposes to have dismantled.
Eh, “time”. I’d say so far only religion has killed other religions. I don’t think there’s ever been a time where atheism was as prevalent as it is now after the concept of religion was first formed.
Inaccurate. Neopagans and reconstructionists exist, and have growing communities. A thing doesn't have to be the most popular thing to be alive and well.