![]() |
Last Updated: 04 July, 2010 |
Modern Philosophy |
Ancient Egypt: 1 - Modern Catholics: 0 04/15/10 Egyptian temple-goers 4000 years ago demonstrated more wisdom and thoughtfulness than a 21st century church-goer. If you belong to a modern monotheistic church, one of what I like to call "the big three", then by description your god is an omnipotent, omnipresent consciousness with an infinite wisdom and strict set of morals by which you are judged upon. This works beautifully to keep people fearful and obedient, but it doesn't do much for ones sense of well... sense. If you were an ancient Egyptian however, your most important god would have been the Sun God (usually called Ra) and while Ra was attributed features of both a human being's physical form and personality, his power was to control the sun. See, thousands of years ago people weren't faced with the types and quantities of distractions that you and I do today. They had a lot of time to make simple, yet categorical and detailed observations about things you and I would considering mundane and take for granted. They also depended on the sun in a very direct way, farming crops to survive they would have been very aware of the link between sunshine and plant growth. They would easily notice the direct correlation simply by observing that in growing seasons when the sun shone less, the plants grew slower and didn't get as big. This observation in conjunction in with a much less developed scientific and philosophical mind set led our ancestors to believe that the sun was a conscious being who decided how much or how little to provide us based on how we pleased it. In fact to me it seems much more insightful to praise the sun for it's contribution to our existence rather than some omniscient, limitlessly powerful overseer. The ancient Egyptians seem to have had at least one cognitive advantage over modern day societies: they based their beliefs on observation and fact rather than metaphorical parables. -CH3SH1R3 M4TT Share |
HOME © 2010 All Rights Reserved |