Why do we select warrior gods who can only grow their religions by violence, --- instead of persuasion to a better way o

Is there a God? If so, what is She like?

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Greatest I am
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Why do we select warrior gods who can only grow their religions by violence, --- instead of persuasion to a better way o

Post by Greatest I am »

Why do we select warrior gods who can only grow their religions by violence, --- instead of persuasion to a better way of life?

Is our love of God and War connected due to being the epitomes of our love of drama?

People tend to do what is rewarding to them. We are a pleasure seeking species. War, as the epitome of drama, is a condition that humankind is forced to suffer because our instincts force us to seek the fittest. To us, that is either a god or a king; or whatever word or name you give to your epitome of whatever type.

Men controlled, by their two main passions, love and war and love of God as an ideal, have used war to seek a male God from the moment men set matriarchy aside 5,000 year ago.

We naturally seek the fittest and to us, that means we are driven to war.

We men are responsible for 5,000 years of advancing God with war.

Granted, we have used war with some skill and advanced society and its wealth, but we have yet to reach the ideals that matriarchy and Goddess rule reached. Not by a long shot. Wealth, when produced by war, is basically gained forcing the citizens to suffer. We lose both income and positive lifestyle, as well as; the more important, human lives.

Men get a fail mark in finding God and cannot do better from what women did before them. I think all real men of honor and duty would confess this reality.

A Gnostic Christian first recognized and coined the saying,” that for men to continue to do the same thing, while expecting a different result, is a sign of insanity”.

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Re: Why do we select warrior gods who can only grow their religions by violence, --- instead of persuasion to a better w

Post by Science Fan »

Grow up in a desert area, and one is likely to be a monotheist. Grow up in a rainforest area and one is likely to be a polytheist. At least among those who become theists. This shows that religious beliefs are not independent of behavioral ecology.

A religion could bring a group of people together, and unite them against opposing groups. While a debate may resolve issues within a group, it's much less likely to do so between groups. Do you think anyone can convince the leader of North Korea to step down and stop being a dictator? So, it may be the case that a religion is more functional as a practical matter when it encourages violence against outsiders.

I would look first to see if there is an adaptation that the religion promotes, as opposed to simply writing it off as immoral because it seems at odds with some of our modern-day thinking about morality in the abstract.
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Re: Why do we select warrior gods who can only grow their religions by violence, --- instead of persuasion to a better w

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Science Fan wrote: Sat Jun 17, 2017 7:58 pm Grow up in a desert area, and one is likely to be a monotheist. Grow up in a rainforest area and one is likely to be a polytheist. At least among those who become theists. This shows that religious beliefs are not independent of behavioral ecology.

A religion could bring a group of people together, and unite them against opposing groups. While a debate may resolve issues within a group, it's much less likely to do so between groups. Do you think anyone can convince the leader of North Korea to step down and stop being a dictator? So, it may be the case that a religion is more functional as a practical matter when it encourages violence against outsiders.

I would look first to see if there is an adaptation that the religion promotes, as opposed to simply writing it off as immoral because it seems at odds with some of our modern-day thinking about morality in the abstract.
Inquisitions and Jihad are not abstracts. We have had 5,000 years of objective war. Constant war as an adaptation is competition, and in survival terms, that is not the best. Cooperation is.

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DL
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Re: Why do we select warrior gods who can only grow their religions by violence, --- instead of persuasion to a better w

Post by Seleucus »

Greatest I am wrote: Sat Jun 17, 2017 6:48 pmWhy do we select warrior gods who can only grow their religions by violence, --- instead of persuasion to a better way of life?
...
We men are responsible for 5,000 years of advancing God with war.
If your culture is essentially gentle you will be enslaved and slaughtered, if your culture is on the other hand generally violent, then you are just a brute; the finest cultures are therefore both gentle and also vicious at the same time, because they can defend and add to the fine things they have made. This is a sort of cultural natural selection.

If we can believe Gimbutas, and by 2017 we mostly can: the pre-Indo-European cultures of Europe were much more peaceful and feminine. This also seems to be the case in places where geography and climate make living easy. But when times get tough, cultures cringe and hunker-down into the hominid gangland patriarchy system that allowed us to survive the trial of the African Savanna.

Pacifism is laudable, but I don't advocate it for my people in this age.

I expect war comes out of animal training, not agriculture. Conditioning. As we know, a European stock was laid down tens of thousands of years ago. Much later, agriculturalists from the Middle-East then spread as far as Ireland. Then, somewhat later again, the horse people of the Pontic Steppe brought the Indo-European languages and religion which is of course the era of violence in Gambutas and popular imagination. The highly syncretic system of exogenous marriage, pagan religion, and cavalry swept from Iceland to the Philippines. Today, except Black Africans, Aborigines and Native Americans who were for a long time cut off from contact, we are all Hindus.

What makes civilization is that underlying layer of agriculturalists dominated over by a war god worshiping equestrian elite and the negotiation between them. It is to this arrangement that we owe all of history.
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Re: Why do we select warrior gods who can only grow their religions by violence, --- instead of persuasion to a better w

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Interesting. Thanks for this.

Yet instinctively, our default position is to cooperate as we are one of the most altruistic and good to each other species that the world have ever seen.

We, as one of the Jesus' said, are the light of the world. The only animal that we know of that has a real sense of moral conscience.

That is likely partly due to us going from tribal living to hive living.

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Re: Why do we select warrior gods who can only grow their religions by violence, --- instead of persuasion to a better w

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Bonobos and chimps have a moral sense.
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Re: Why do we select warrior gods who can only grow their religions by violence, --- instead of persuasion to a better w

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Science Fan wrote: Wed Jun 21, 2017 6:50 pm Bonobos and chimps have a moral sense.
I agree.

I prefer the Bonobo sense.

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Re: Why do we select warrior gods who can only grow their religions by violence, --- instead of persuasion to a better w

Post by omegaphallic »

I don't focus my worship on War Gods. I worship Hapheastus, Bastet, Flora, among others, but I don't pray to war Gods like Ares, Athena, and the Abrahamic God. Not to say that I never would, but in practice I have no interest in conducting RL wars so I don't really feel that sort of connect to War Gods.

Hapheastus, also known as Vulcanus by the Romans,
Sethlan by the Erutruscans, God of Fire, Vulcanoes, Metal, Smithing, Sculpture/Masonry, Technology, Cooking. Via my own understanding I'd add BDSM (his mythology is filled with BDSM images.
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Re: Why do we select warrior gods who can only grow their religions by violence, --- instead of persuasion to a better w

Post by gaffo »

Greatest I am wrote: Sat Jun 17, 2017 6:48 pm Why do we select warrior gods who can only grow their religions by violence, --- instead of persuasion to a better way of life?

Is our love of God and War connected
yep. Man is an animal and a product of evolution. we create "God" via our nature (anthropomorphize).

one of our nature is that of war, which must serve as a survival instinct, otherwise we would have have the instict for it (i suspect it was useful prior to the nuclear age - not so much now of course).

God/the Gods are just a reflection of our nature - good and bad.
gaffo
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Re: Why do we select warrior gods who can only grow their religions by violence, --- instead of persuasion to a better w

Post by gaffo »

Greatest I am wrote: Sat Jun 17, 2017 6:48 pm
Men controlled, by their two main passions, love and war and love of God as an ideal, have used war to seek a male God from the moment men set matriarchy aside 5,000 year ago.
3000 yrs ago in Greece,Rome 2000 yrs ago in northern europe (Nurtis was the mothergodess - the Nordic worshiped, but turned to her Sons Woton/Thor due the Roman occupation in 32 AD.....and started to fight back (Amenious anyone?). Nurtis become lost to history for the next 1000 yrs with Thor being supreme - until the Christians converted them).

We can't assume "Mother Goddess" ruled as supreme prior to 3000 yrs ago - she may have - or not - we just do not have historical record to assume such a claim that mother goddess ruled for the 1/2 million yrs man roamed europe/asia.

from cave drawings and fugines of 20000 yrs ago it seems man worshiped animal-gods, and in particular a Lion-god-man (probably a male figurine BTW).

however there are also female figurine goddess of found in europe and middle east that date to the same time.
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Re: Why do we select warrior gods who can only grow their religions by violence, --- instead of persuasion to a better w

Post by gaffo »

Science Fan wrote: Sat Jun 17, 2017 7:58 pm Grow up in a desert area, and one is likely to be a monotheist. Grow up in a rainforest area and one is likely to be a polytheist.
Polytheism is not dictated by geography - Saudis had 365 gods 1600 yrs ago.
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Re: Why do we select warrior gods who can only grow their religions by violence, --- instead of persuasion to a better w

Post by gaffo »

Seleucus wrote: Sun Jun 18, 2017 2:31 pm
Greatest I am wrote: Sat Jun 17, 2017 6:48 pmWhy do we select warrior gods who can only grow their religions by violence, --- instead of persuasion to a better way of life?
...
We men are responsible for 5,000 years of advancing God with war.
If your culture is essentially gentle you will be enslaved and slaughtered, if your culture is on the other hand generally violent, then you are just a brute; the finest cultures are therefore both gentle and also vicious at the same time, because they can defend and add to the fine things they have made. This is a sort of cultural natural selection.

If we can believe Gimbutas, and by 2017 we mostly can: the pre-Indo-European cultures of Europe were much more peaceful and feminine. This also seems to be the case in places where geography and climate make living easy. But when times get tough, cultures cringe and hunker-down into the hominid gangland patriarchy system that allowed us to survive the trial of the African Savanna.

Pacifism is laudable, but I don't advocate it for my people in this age.

I expect war comes out of animal training, not agriculture. Conditioning. As we know, a European stock was laid down tens of thousands of years ago. Much later, agriculturalists from the Middle-East then spread as far as Ireland. Then, somewhat later again, the horse people of the Pontic Steppe brought the Indo-European languages and religion which is of course the era of violence in Gambutas and popular imagination. The highly syncretic system of exogenous marriage, pagan religion, and cavalry swept from Iceland to the Philippines. Today, except Black Africans, Aborigines and Native Americans who were for a long time cut off from contact, we are all Hindus.

What makes civilization is that underlying layer of agriculturalists dominated over by a war god worshiping equestrian elite and the negotiation between them. It is to this arrangement that we owe all of history.
apt post (note your agriculture mention (started in turkey and moved finally to Ireland (10,000 in turkey - 7000 yr ago in Ireland)- concur, wht do you mean when you say "We are all hindu" curious.
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Re: Why do we select warrior gods who can only grow their religions by violence, --- instead of persuasion to a better w

Post by Greatest I am »

gaffo wrote: Sun Jan 27, 2019 7:43 am
Greatest I am wrote: Sat Jun 17, 2017 6:48 pm Why do we select warrior gods who can only grow their religions by violence, --- instead of persuasion to a better way of life?

Is our love of God and War connected
yep. Man is an animal and a product of evolution. we create "God" via our nature (anthropomorphize).

one of our nature is that of war, which must serve as a survival instinct, otherwise we would have have the instict for it (i suspect it was useful prior to the nuclear age - not so much now of course).

God/the Gods are just a reflection of our nature - good and bad.
True. We create our Gods in our image.

Except for the sheeple and adherents in the revealed religions, the intelligent people recognize this.

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DL
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Re: Why do we select warrior gods who can only grow their religions by violence, --- instead of persuasion to a better w

Post by Greatest I am »

gaffo wrote: Sun Jan 27, 2019 7:54 am
Greatest I am wrote: Sat Jun 17, 2017 6:48 pm
Men controlled, by their two main passions, love and war and love of God as an ideal, have used war to seek a male God from the moment men set matriarchy aside 5,000 year ago.
3000 yrs ago in Greece,Rome 2000 yrs ago in northern europe (Nurtis was the mothergodess - the Nordic worshiped, but turned to her Sons Woton/Thor due the Roman occupation in 32 AD.....and started to fight back (Amenious anyone?). Nurtis become lost to history for the next 1000 yrs with Thor being supreme - until the Christians converted them).

We can't assume "Mother Goddess" ruled as supreme prior to 3000 yrs ago - she may have - or not - we just do not have historical record to assume such a claim
Actually, we do.

It is a drudgery to listen to the information but it is there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yU1bEmq_pf0

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DL
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