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//-->The Heathen’s Guide to World ReligionsCopyright © 2011 by William Hopper Cover design by William Hopper Cartoon Illustrations by Kevin Jackson. All rights reserved.No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical meansincluding information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from theauthor. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.William Hopper Visit my website at www.heathensguide.com Printed in the United States of America First Printing: August 1997 Current Edition: 2011 ISBN-10:097315084X ISBN-13:978-0973150841 ChapterOne: JUDAISMReligion:JudaismProphet/Holy Guy:Old Testament prophets/patriarchs from Adam to Malachi.MainHolyBook:Torah,MishnahsWhattocallthepriest:Rabbi,RebbeWhat to Call an Adherent:JewIsraelTo you I'm an atheist. To God, I'm the Loyal Opposition. ~Woody AllenOkay, first off...forgetThe Ten Commandmentsmovie. If you‘re going try using a CharletonHeston flick as historical reference, I suggest you usePlanet of the Apes.It‘s no more accurate,but let‘s face it; a world run by apes is infinitely more interesting than a world run by Jewishpatriarchs.We can also forget about the ―In the beginning God created...‖ bit from Genesis. I‘m a littletoo pragmatic to bother getting into the whole creationism versus Big Bang versus ―we-were-seeded-here-by-alien-life-forms‖ debate. Each position has its merits, but basically it reallydoesn‘t matter. We‘re studying religion here, and religion started a hell of a lot later than theuniverse did. What does matter is the history, inasmuch as we can separate it from the bullsh-…er, faith. Here‘s what we know...Your average rabbi will tell you that this whole fiasco started in a mythical paradise called TheGarden of Eden. As much as I love disagreeing with holy guys with long beards, I have to givethem half a point on this one. I think it did start in a place called Eden. I just doubt it was theheavenly paradise we‘ve been told about.You see, according to the fable (sorry, ―Bible‖) a guy named God created two humans, Adamand Eve, who were the progenitors of the whole human race. Supposedly Adam and Evescrewed up, got tossed from the garden, and God sent an angel with a fiery sword to guard thegates and make sure that no one got back in. This whole tale might just be written off as purefable except for two small, niggling things that bug me about it. First, the Jews had to comefrom somewhere. It does little good to dismiss the Eden story if we have to replace it with anew creationism wherein the Jews just popped into being. They had to have had someancestral origin before they went off and slaughtered the Canaanites and took over the HolyLand.Second, the bible gives a pretty good description of where the place is geographically. Eden wasnot some mystic realm of winged faeries and giant dancing snakes. In Genesis, Eden had a clearphysical locale identified by the rivers around it. There were four according to the tale. I hate todo this to you, but here‘s a bible reference for you—Genesis 2, verse 10-14. You‘ll need it whenarguing with religious folks about this. It‘s really the only language they speak.Genesis 2, verse 10-141says:―A river watering the garden flowed from Eden; from there it was separated into fourheadwaters. 11 The name of the first is the Pishon; it winds through the entire land of Havilah,where there is gold. 12 / 13 The name of the second river is the Gihon; it winds through theentire land of Cush. 14 The name of the third river is the Tigris; it runs along the east side ofAsshur. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.‖We know the Tigris and the Euphrates. They‘re pretty famous rivers. It‘s this whole Pishon andGihon thing that‘s been keeping the location of Eden a deep secret for millennia. Basically, ifyou found all four rivers, go to the root of them and there you have it—one Land O‘ Heaven onEarth.As much as I‘d like to take the credit for all of this, I have to admit that a British archaeologistnamed David Rohl has done a hell of a lot of excellent work on finding Eden while I‘ve merelypondered the concept over cappuccino and cigarettes. In his bookLegend: The Genesis ofCivilization,2Rohl explains how he followed the known rivers, talked to the locals, did someresearch, and found the place. You can get right into this by reading his stuff, but to make along story short Rohl figured out that Pishon is now Uizhun and Gihon is Araxes, which put thelocation of Eden in Iran, ten miles outside of a city named Tabriz.In April, 1997, Rohl led an expedition to the site, found far more evidence than even he thoughthe would, and pretty much proved to the world that Eden was a physical place well known tomany cultures. However, as he did not find a giant angel with a fiery sword guarding the place,most Christians and Jews tend to believe that Rohl is nuts. They figure that all of the silly facts,archaeology, and history Rohl presents falls apart in the absence of a giant angel with a fierysword. Therehasto be a giant angel with a fiery sword. It doesn‘t matter if everything else fits.No Angel, no Eden. That‘s all there is to it. The Bible cannotbe wrong.It astounds me that people who think like that actually rule a good portion of this planet. THEHISTORYBOOKSThe people we now recognize as the Jews first enter popular history as a collection of nomadictribes on the Northern Arabian Peninsula somewhere around 10,000 BC.3Now, everyone youever quote that date to is going to have a different opinion, so don‘t take that as, well, gospel. Isettled on 10,000 BC because that‘s where carbon dating of artefacts found in the region putsthe timeline. I don‘t really trust carbon dating but it‘s what we have to go with for now.These folks basically wandered about the area going from oasis to oasis, trying to find grazingland for their goats, sheep, etc. Contrary to myth, they really weren‘t ―desert dwellers.‖ Theylived mostly on the edges of the desert, keeping near the coastline and on the major routes.The area they were in was harsh, with small patches of green land, and they had to dig wells tofind water.The big surprise to most religious folks is that these guys were not monotheistic, meaning thatthey didn‘t worship just one god. That didn‘t come along for another, say, 5,000 years. Theirgods (called collectively theelohim)were beings that inhabited nature. Special rocks or oaseswere considered to be filled with the entity of a god. There was nothing complex here. Basicallyit was just an extended version of a child looking up at the clouds when it‘s thundering andsaying, ―Hey-God must be bowling.‖ The whole world was a mystery back then. As they didn‘tknow about tectonic plates or barometric pressure, they just called them gods.Now, you‘ve got to figure it was a pretty harsh life back then, and there wasn‘t a lot of room inthis society for deep thought and contemplation. If they found areas that seemed more―powerful‖ than others or seemed to have more food than others, they decided that therehad to be a reason for it. Since they didn‘t know quite what the reason was, they said therewere elohim, or gods there. (Actually, the modern idea of a ―genie‖ is closer to their idea ofthe elohim than the JudeoChristian concept of a god, but I figure if I kept saying ―genie‖ we‘dwind up losing the thread linking all this stuff to what JC was doing hanging on a cross severalmillennia later.)Anyway, you get the idea. If it was a good god/genie, you‘d sacrifice a goat and say,―Hey,thanks. We really appreciate the help and please don‘t forget us in the future.‖If it was a badgod/genie, you‘d sacrifice a goat and say,―Excuse me...Mr. God? Uh...we‘ll be passing by herethis week and if you‘d be kind enough not to fry us to little cinders just for fun of watching usmelt like candle wax, we‘d really appreciate it. To show you how much we‘d appreciate it, I‘mgiving you this here goat and I hope you like it.‖All in all, this entire theology boded very poorly for goats.Okay, we have the concept. Rural nomads. No real cities. Gods/genies all over the place.Sacrifices to them. No churches. No ceremonies. Just kill something and hope the gods like it.Nothing could be simpler. Then along comes Abraham…FATHERABRAHAMAlmost anything is easier to get into than get out of. ~Agnes AllenSomewhere around 2,000 BC, these nomads made their way across the Red Sea. (No, this is notthe big Red Sea thing. Heston‘s role is still several hundred years away at this point.) The tribeshad basically run out of decent land in what‘s now Yemen and Saudi Arabia and had to pushwest to the Fertile Crescent.Anyway...along comes Abraham. Anyone who ever had the horrid misfortune of having to go tochurch camp or Sunday school knows the song ―Father Abraham had seven sons, oh, sevensons had Father Abraham...‖ (I get Roman Catholic flashbacks just thinking about it.) Abrahamdid, indeed, have seven sons. At least that‘s what his wife, Sarah, told him. The fact that he wasway too old to be fathering children at the time didn‘t seem to hinder him. I figure he waseither naive as hell about his wife‘s activities or had something in his diet that the Ovaltinepeople would love to get their hands on. But I digress. (A lot.)Abraham came from Haran.4That‘s Syria to you and I. Before that, he was supposedly from Ur.That‘s Ur to you and I. (It‘s in Iraq, and it‘s still called Ur.) For whatever reason, he was theleader of a group of these nomads and he led them south from Haran down to Goshen-a smalltown in the aforementioned Nile Delta. As near as we can tell, they got there somewherearound 2000 BC and settled right in.Understand, this wasn‘t some Stone Age culture. By the time Abraham was around, there werereal cities, real trade, and real international wars going on. Egypt was run at the time by a groupknown as the Hyksos, a short-lived but delightfully bloodthirsty bunch of guys that hadmanaged to take political power in Egypt. Their reign only lasted about 200 years before they,in turn, met their gruesome demise, but at the time Abraham came on the scene he hadalliances with them. (Note: The nameHyksosmeans Shepherd Kings. As the people underAbraham were shepherds this could well explain the alliance Abe had with them… a unity ofsheep.)THE GOD OFABRAHAMMan could not make a mite, yet he makes gods by the dozen. ~ M. De MontaigneAbraham had a working deal with a god, pretty much like any other leader of the day. Nowremember, he comes from a group of these nomads who believe in the elohim, the god/geniebeings. The one god/genie in particular that Abraham had a deal with was El-Shaddai. For thoseof you have an interest in such things, ElShaddai means ―god of the mountains.‖ That wouldbe opposed to the ―godof the sea,‖―godof the desert,‖or the ―godof the purple-and-blue-flowers-growing-out-of-a-log-a-couplemiles-down-the-road.‖Abraham‘speoplesawgods/genies pretty much everywhere. But it was with El-Shaddai that Abraham had struck adeal.The deal was simple. With all the gods that could be sacrificed to, Abraham and his family wereto worship and sacrifice to only El-Shaddai. In exchange for this, El-Shaddai was supposed tomake Abraham and his descendants wealthy and prosperous. The fact that at the timeAbraham made the deal he was 99 years old and had no kids didn‘t seem to bother El-Shaddai.Abraham agreed and mysteriously Sarah wound up pregnant with the first of seven sons. (Thatdamned song again...)Genesis 17 tells the story of El Shaddai‘s promise to Abraham. Read it for yourself. The Gideon‘shave put a Bible in every hotel room in North America. If you haven‘t yet managed to steal onefrom them, I‘m sure you can steal one from someone. Ask a born-again Christian. They lovegiving them away.For those who have some need to have all this set in bible perspective, Abraham arrives on thescene about 130 years after the Great Flood. If you haven‘t heard of the Great Flood or thewhole Noah story, then you‘re probably in some small Swiss canton that has been isolated bymountainous terrain for the last two thousand years, in which case I‘m amazed at thecirculation this book is getting.FIVEMINUTESMR. HESTON…Onlythe good die young. ~Billy JoelAbraham allegedly lives an insane length of time. We‘re talking 200 years here. That‘s twice aslong as George Burns. His wife was still having children well into her 100s, and the family keptgetting bigger and richer. By the time Abraham died, his offspring had ―begat‖ so often theyreally were becoming their own nation. We‘re talking thousands of people, all related, and allliving in the Nile Delta region. Lots of money. Lots of cattle. No problems. Life is good.It really doesn‘t matter one iota what you think of Abraham or the whole idea of him living to200. Personally, I think he probably lived to be eighty or ninety (which at the time was a miraclein itself) and the story of how old he was grew in the telling. But like I say, it doesn‘t matter. Allyou‘ve really got to understand is that every true Jew on the planet is a direct descendant of oldAbe. (Not counting those who converted to Judaism of course.) It sounds a little nuts, but it‘strue. They‘re all one huge family tree that‘s branched out around the whole world.One of the weird things about this is that most pious Jews (called Hasidic Jews, which translatedfrom the Hebrew means ―pious‖.5Scary how deep these mysterious names are, isn‘t it?) cantrace their lineage father-son, father-son right back to Abraham. I have trouble with mymother‘s maiden name.Anyway... the bunch of them did well for themselves on the Nile Delta. So, you ask yourself, [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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//-->The Heathen’s Guide to World ReligionsCopyright © 2011 by William Hopper Cover design by William Hopper Cartoon Illustrations by Kevin Jackson. All rights reserved.No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical meansincluding information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from theauthor. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.William Hopper Visit my website at www.heathensguide.com Printed in the United States of America First Printing: August 1997 Current Edition: 2011 ISBN-10:097315084X ISBN-13:978-0973150841 ChapterOne: JUDAISMReligion:JudaismProphet/Holy Guy:Old Testament prophets/patriarchs from Adam to Malachi.MainHolyBook:Torah,MishnahsWhattocallthepriest:Rabbi,RebbeWhat to Call an Adherent:JewIsraelTo you I'm an atheist. To God, I'm the Loyal Opposition. ~Woody AllenOkay, first off...forgetThe Ten Commandmentsmovie. If you‘re going try using a CharletonHeston flick as historical reference, I suggest you usePlanet of the Apes.It‘s no more accurate,but let‘s face it; a world run by apes is infinitely more interesting than a world run by Jewishpatriarchs.We can also forget about the ―In the beginning God created...‖ bit from Genesis. I‘m a littletoo pragmatic to bother getting into the whole creationism versus Big Bang versus ―we-were-seeded-here-by-alien-life-forms‖ debate. Each position has its merits, but basically it reallydoesn‘t matter. We‘re studying religion here, and religion started a hell of a lot later than theuniverse did. What does matter is the history, inasmuch as we can separate it from the bullsh-…er, faith. Here‘s what we know...Your average rabbi will tell you that this whole fiasco started in a mythical paradise called TheGarden of Eden. As much as I love disagreeing with holy guys with long beards, I have to givethem half a point on this one. I think it did start in a place called Eden. I just doubt it was theheavenly paradise we‘ve been told about.You see, according to the fable (sorry, ―Bible‖) a guy named God created two humans, Adamand Eve, who were the progenitors of the whole human race. Supposedly Adam and Evescrewed up, got tossed from the garden, and God sent an angel with a fiery sword to guard thegates and make sure that no one got back in. This whole tale might just be written off as purefable except for two small, niggling things that bug me about it. First, the Jews had to comefrom somewhere. It does little good to dismiss the Eden story if we have to replace it with anew creationism wherein the Jews just popped into being. They had to have had someancestral origin before they went off and slaughtered the Canaanites and took over the HolyLand.Second, the bible gives a pretty good description of where the place is geographically. Eden wasnot some mystic realm of winged faeries and giant dancing snakes. In Genesis, Eden had a clearphysical locale identified by the rivers around it. There were four according to the tale. I hate todo this to you, but here‘s a bible reference for you—Genesis 2, verse 10-14. You‘ll need it whenarguing with religious folks about this. It‘s really the only language they speak.Genesis 2, verse 10-141says:―A river watering the garden flowed from Eden; from there it was separated into fourheadwaters. 11 The name of the first is the Pishon; it winds through the entire land of Havilah,where there is gold. 12 / 13 The name of the second river is the Gihon; it winds through theentire land of Cush. 14 The name of the third river is the Tigris; it runs along the east side ofAsshur. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.‖We know the Tigris and the Euphrates. They‘re pretty famous rivers. It‘s this whole Pishon andGihon thing that‘s been keeping the location of Eden a deep secret for millennia. Basically, ifyou found all four rivers, go to the root of them and there you have it—one Land O‘ Heaven onEarth.As much as I‘d like to take the credit for all of this, I have to admit that a British archaeologistnamed David Rohl has done a hell of a lot of excellent work on finding Eden while I‘ve merelypondered the concept over cappuccino and cigarettes. In his bookLegend: The Genesis ofCivilization,2Rohl explains how he followed the known rivers, talked to the locals, did someresearch, and found the place. You can get right into this by reading his stuff, but to make along story short Rohl figured out that Pishon is now Uizhun and Gihon is Araxes, which put thelocation of Eden in Iran, ten miles outside of a city named Tabriz.In April, 1997, Rohl led an expedition to the site, found far more evidence than even he thoughthe would, and pretty much proved to the world that Eden was a physical place well known tomany cultures. However, as he did not find a giant angel with a fiery sword guarding the place,most Christians and Jews tend to believe that Rohl is nuts. They figure that all of the silly facts,archaeology, and history Rohl presents falls apart in the absence of a giant angel with a fierysword. Therehasto be a giant angel with a fiery sword. It doesn‘t matter if everything else fits.No Angel, no Eden. That‘s all there is to it. The Bible cannotbe wrong.It astounds me that people who think like that actually rule a good portion of this planet. THEHISTORYBOOKSThe people we now recognize as the Jews first enter popular history as a collection of nomadictribes on the Northern Arabian Peninsula somewhere around 10,000 BC.3Now, everyone youever quote that date to is going to have a different opinion, so don‘t take that as, well, gospel. Isettled on 10,000 BC because that‘s where carbon dating of artefacts found in the region putsthe timeline. I don‘t really trust carbon dating but it‘s what we have to go with for now.These folks basically wandered about the area going from oasis to oasis, trying to find grazingland for their goats, sheep, etc. Contrary to myth, they really weren‘t ―desert dwellers.‖ Theylived mostly on the edges of the desert, keeping near the coastline and on the major routes.The area they were in was harsh, with small patches of green land, and they had to dig wells tofind water.The big surprise to most religious folks is that these guys were not monotheistic, meaning thatthey didn‘t worship just one god. That didn‘t come along for another, say, 5,000 years. Theirgods (called collectively theelohim)were beings that inhabited nature. Special rocks or oaseswere considered to be filled with the entity of a god. There was nothing complex here. Basicallyit was just an extended version of a child looking up at the clouds when it‘s thundering andsaying, ―Hey-God must be bowling.‖ The whole world was a mystery back then. As they didn‘tknow about tectonic plates or barometric pressure, they just called them gods.Now, you‘ve got to figure it was a pretty harsh life back then, and there wasn‘t a lot of room inthis society for deep thought and contemplation. If they found areas that seemed more―powerful‖ than others or seemed to have more food than others, they decided that therehad to be a reason for it. Since they didn‘t know quite what the reason was, they said therewere elohim, or gods there. (Actually, the modern idea of a ―genie‖ is closer to their idea ofthe elohim than the JudeoChristian concept of a god, but I figure if I kept saying ―genie‖ we‘dwind up losing the thread linking all this stuff to what JC was doing hanging on a cross severalmillennia later.)Anyway, you get the idea. If it was a good god/genie, you‘d sacrifice a goat and say,―Hey,thanks. We really appreciate the help and please don‘t forget us in the future.‖If it was a badgod/genie, you‘d sacrifice a goat and say,―Excuse me...Mr. God? Uh...we‘ll be passing by herethis week and if you‘d be kind enough not to fry us to little cinders just for fun of watching usmelt like candle wax, we‘d really appreciate it. To show you how much we‘d appreciate it, I‘mgiving you this here goat and I hope you like it.‖All in all, this entire theology boded very poorly for goats.Okay, we have the concept. Rural nomads. No real cities. Gods/genies all over the place.Sacrifices to them. No churches. No ceremonies. Just kill something and hope the gods like it.Nothing could be simpler. Then along comes Abraham…FATHERABRAHAMAlmost anything is easier to get into than get out of. ~Agnes AllenSomewhere around 2,000 BC, these nomads made their way across the Red Sea. (No, this is notthe big Red Sea thing. Heston‘s role is still several hundred years away at this point.) The tribeshad basically run out of decent land in what‘s now Yemen and Saudi Arabia and had to pushwest to the Fertile Crescent.Anyway...along comes Abraham. Anyone who ever had the horrid misfortune of having to go tochurch camp or Sunday school knows the song ―Father Abraham had seven sons, oh, sevensons had Father Abraham...‖ (I get Roman Catholic flashbacks just thinking about it.) Abrahamdid, indeed, have seven sons. At least that‘s what his wife, Sarah, told him. The fact that he wasway too old to be fathering children at the time didn‘t seem to hinder him. I figure he waseither naive as hell about his wife‘s activities or had something in his diet that the Ovaltinepeople would love to get their hands on. But I digress. (A lot.)Abraham came from Haran.4That‘s Syria to you and I. Before that, he was supposedly from Ur.That‘s Ur to you and I. (It‘s in Iraq, and it‘s still called Ur.) For whatever reason, he was theleader of a group of these nomads and he led them south from Haran down to Goshen-a smalltown in the aforementioned Nile Delta. As near as we can tell, they got there somewherearound 2000 BC and settled right in.Understand, this wasn‘t some Stone Age culture. By the time Abraham was around, there werereal cities, real trade, and real international wars going on. Egypt was run at the time by a groupknown as the Hyksos, a short-lived but delightfully bloodthirsty bunch of guys that hadmanaged to take political power in Egypt. Their reign only lasted about 200 years before they,in turn, met their gruesome demise, but at the time Abraham came on the scene he hadalliances with them. (Note: The nameHyksosmeans Shepherd Kings. As the people underAbraham were shepherds this could well explain the alliance Abe had with them… a unity ofsheep.)THE GOD OFABRAHAMMan could not make a mite, yet he makes gods by the dozen. ~ M. De MontaigneAbraham had a working deal with a god, pretty much like any other leader of the day. Nowremember, he comes from a group of these nomads who believe in the elohim, the god/geniebeings. The one god/genie in particular that Abraham had a deal with was El-Shaddai. For thoseof you have an interest in such things, ElShaddai means ―god of the mountains.‖ That wouldbe opposed to the ―godof the sea,‖―godof the desert,‖or the ―godof the purple-and-blue-flowers-growing-out-of-a-log-a-couplemiles-down-the-road.‖Abraham‘speoplesawgods/genies pretty much everywhere. But it was with El-Shaddai that Abraham had struck adeal.The deal was simple. With all the gods that could be sacrificed to, Abraham and his family wereto worship and sacrifice to only El-Shaddai. In exchange for this, El-Shaddai was supposed tomake Abraham and his descendants wealthy and prosperous. The fact that at the timeAbraham made the deal he was 99 years old and had no kids didn‘t seem to bother El-Shaddai.Abraham agreed and mysteriously Sarah wound up pregnant with the first of seven sons. (Thatdamned song again...)Genesis 17 tells the story of El Shaddai‘s promise to Abraham. Read it for yourself. The Gideon‘shave put a Bible in every hotel room in North America. If you haven‘t yet managed to steal onefrom them, I‘m sure you can steal one from someone. Ask a born-again Christian. They lovegiving them away.For those who have some need to have all this set in bible perspective, Abraham arrives on thescene about 130 years after the Great Flood. If you haven‘t heard of the Great Flood or thewhole Noah story, then you‘re probably in some small Swiss canton that has been isolated bymountainous terrain for the last two thousand years, in which case I‘m amazed at thecirculation this book is getting.FIVEMINUTESMR. HESTON…Onlythe good die young. ~Billy JoelAbraham allegedly lives an insane length of time. We‘re talking 200 years here. That‘s twice aslong as George Burns. His wife was still having children well into her 100s, and the family keptgetting bigger and richer. By the time Abraham died, his offspring had ―begat‖ so often theyreally were becoming their own nation. We‘re talking thousands of people, all related, and allliving in the Nile Delta region. Lots of money. Lots of cattle. No problems. Life is good.It really doesn‘t matter one iota what you think of Abraham or the whole idea of him living to200. Personally, I think he probably lived to be eighty or ninety (which at the time was a miraclein itself) and the story of how old he was grew in the telling. But like I say, it doesn‘t matter. Allyou‘ve really got to understand is that every true Jew on the planet is a direct descendant of oldAbe. (Not counting those who converted to Judaism of course.) It sounds a little nuts, but it‘strue. They‘re all one huge family tree that‘s branched out around the whole world.One of the weird things about this is that most pious Jews (called Hasidic Jews, which translatedfrom the Hebrew means ―pious‖.5Scary how deep these mysterious names are, isn‘t it?) cantrace their lineage father-son, father-son right back to Abraham. I have trouble with mymother‘s maiden name.Anyway... the bunch of them did well for themselves on the Nile Delta. So, you ask yourself, [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]