When did the idea of anthropomorphic "gods" arise?

[old man emu]

In this discussion, I'm not looking to get into the "Believer -v- Non-beleiver" type of debate. I'd like to keep this as a strictly anthropological discussion.

 

Believe or not, the concept of human-like beings, which for want of a collective name we will call "gods", seems to be common right across the joint Eurasian landmass. The number and description of those beings varies from just one in the Abrahamic religions, to many as in the Hindu religion. Common to all these Eurasian religions are the characteristics of the beings involved. They have in most cases a patriarchal power system, and the individuals exhibit the same strengths and weaknesses of character that mere morals have.

 

However, away from Eurasia Mankind appears not to have those types of supernatural beings who need to be worshiped, praised, thanked and appealed to by sacrifices of various types. The peoples of the other inhabited continents seem to have systems based on a belief in beings who inhabit natural features and whose spaces need to be respected, but the beings do not need to be sacrificed to.

 

I take my example from the Australian Aborigines. There Creation stories do not seem to involve any Supreme Creator. In their stories it is the native animals which make the natural world, and once they have done so, simply get on with their own lives.

 

My theory is that the Eurasian concept of "gods" arose after the end of the last Ice Age when Mankind began to engage in sedentary agriculture in the Middle East. It is pretty well accepted that the rising of the oceans after the Ice Age isolated the Aborigines from the rest of Mankind. They were probably pretty well isolated  anyway due to the smaller overall worldwide human population and limitations on travel. So the Aborigines never were exposed to the concept of gods until the start of the 19th Century. I am surmising that something similar would have happened in sub-Saharan Africa until the Islamic Arabs began to move in in search of slaves. 

 

The civilisations of South America did have the idea of gods who required worship, but it is believed that humans did not enter until the later stages of the Ice age, before agriculture developed in the Middle East.

[Marty_d]

What's your definition of anthropomorphic? As far as I know Hindu gods have merged human/animal (elephant heads, monkey heads etc) and so do many others e.g. Egyptian.

[nomadpete]

Marty, that was when God entities morphed from abstract (pure spirits), into anthropo (super man).

I suspect that present day anthropomorphic god/s actually represent our (unimpeachable) tribal alpha male.

 

The ancient 'primitives' had a more spiritual connection with their world.

[old man emu]

9 hours ago, Marty_d said:

What's your definition of anthropomorphic?

In religion and mythology, anthropomorphism is the perception of a divine being or beings in human form, or the recognition of human qualities in these beings. The merging of animal features to the human body is an application of the perceived characteristics of the animal. We say "strong as an ox", "fierce as a lion", "wise as an owl", and "cheeky as a monkey", and so we could apply those features to a human or a god. This cartoon drawing to me represents a leonine (like a lion) hairstyle.

[facthunter]

The Australian aborigines seem to be $#!T scared of the rainbow serpent and any haunting evil spirits occupying certain places. Pointing the BONE seems to work. We (Christians ) came along and told them to throw away all their traditional worshipping stuff and still DO. Nev

[Bruce Tuncks]

I reckon many gods resemble tribal leaders with their faults and virtues. Unfortunately for the Abrahamic religions, they made their god too powerful, in that he could fortell the future. This makes nonsense of lots of the other stuff.

My understanding of the Aboriginal "gods" is that many were human-based, only with superhuman characteristics. But I have to agree that they also had animal "gods" ( the rainbow serpent comes to mind) which similarly had super-powers.

If you want a story that would be humorous if it were not so sad, look up the true history of Hermannsburg mission. The first lot ( from germany) found it easy to get the locals to accept jesus etc, but after many years, they could not shake off the other gods the abos had.

[Bruce Tuncks]

I always wondered what the locals would have made of some of the stories like the prodigal son. They had no concept of the idea of private property for example, a thing which still makes trouble today.

[facthunter]

Once the future is established as Knowable, whatever we do can't change anything because it's all pre ordained.  For this to happen a lot of ordinary Physics would have to change.  I suggest there's little proof of that ever happening or likely to. Churches seem to be involved in their share of natural disasters and Theocracies have earthquakes and floods famines and pestilences.  Nev

[nomadpete]

Yes Nev. It is all part of god's grand plan. The more we mortals suffer, the easier it is to enter the gates of heaven. The lord works in mysterious ways indeed.

 

It is all too hard for me to take seriously.

 

Tell me again, why do churches  (and other places of worship) need lightning arrestors and (mankind's cash paid) insurance against natural disasters?

 

 

 

 

Edited July 17, 2023 by nomadpete

[facthunter]

AND 15 Million$'s by Monday?. I sometimes get a sneaking suspicion , It's a CON. Thank god for atheists.  You NEED some people to do thinking  Nev

[nomadpete]

Historically, (although I'm just too lazy to google it), my suspicion is that anthropogenic god's evolved (can god's evolve? That means they can be improved with time), evolved somewhat prior to development of  fixed village life. I'm  thinking of the early worship of the female form - the giver of life. There have been many ancient idols representing the pregnant woman. Might this be the ealiest example of personification of a God? Or did it simply demonstrate awe and wonder about the miracle of childbirth?

[nomadpete]

Sorry OME, but autospell put those apostrophes in my last post. I really did mean plural gods

[old man emu]

2 hours ago, nomadpete said:

Sorry OME, but autospell put those apostrophes in my last post. I really did mean plural gods

To the blackboard, Peter, and write, one hundred times. "I must proofread before posting".

 

Further, according to the spell-checker used by this forum's software, "auto spell" is written with two words.

[facthunter]

So many exam questions and so little time. Give him six of the best and be done with it. These days  Capital Punishment is being forced to work in Canberra.  Nev

[nomadpete]

17 minutes ago, old man emu said:

To the blackboard, Peter, and write, one hundred times.

Pretty sure the word "black" anything is now disallowed.

 

And my school did not permit mere children to write upon the sacred CHALKBOARD.

 

However, certain children were sometimes permitted to receive the surplus chalk upon the back of the head, from a carefully aimed blackboard duster.

We quickly realised that it was a good plan to face the front of class at all times.

[old man emu]

I'm not woke to the fact that the reflected electromagnetic frequency descriptor had been erased from the lexicon and that the ancient object from which the electromagnetic frequency reflected has been allocated a descriptor to distinguished it from other types of manufactured, plant-based materials usually supplied in rectangular shapes of standard dimensions.

[nomadpete]

That is precisely the calibre of diatribe, up with which I will not put!

[facthunter]

Wrecked  angles are a problem which anyone who's been A round long enough is well aware of. Keep in shape with TRYangles. Nev

[facthunter]

To the original Topic. The word is god made US in HIS own Image. More likely we made him in our image with the same failings ie Jealous , Vain, needing to be worshipped with all thy heart and all thy mind. IF you don't want to cop that you go to hell  and BURN forever with fire and brimstone and there shall be weeping and wailing and Gnashing of teeth.   I thought entering a contract under duress was null and void? Add to  that many of the most ardent followers don't do very nice things but that can be "fixed" by a few Hail Mary's and some money in the poor box. Nev

[red750]

Fire and brimstone is passe.  Now you have to walk barefoot forever on Lego pieces.

[willedoo]

Many years ago I read a book on the history of Islam. I seem to remember something about Mahommed being pi*sed off with the priests at Mecca for being idolators. So he left, went to Medina, raised a troop of desperados, then returned to Mecca and destroyed their wooden gods. He gave the priests the option to die or convert to Islam, so they signed up on the spot to be muftis. But I think that was about 500 years after JC. I don't know whether wooden god idolators preceded human-like gods; maybe they did.

[old man emu]

I hope God doesn't go back to his rural roots. Out here Lego pieces would be replaced by cat head thorns. In comparison, walking on Lego pieces would be like walking in silken slippers.

[willedoo]

5 minutes ago, old man emu said:

Out here Lego pieces would be replaced by cat head thorns.

Thread drift here. I wonder which ones are cat head thorns. We have bull heads and goat heads, but if you type any of the three into a google images search, the same photos come up for all three. The goat heads I remember were more slender than the bull heads but had longer, sharper spikes. It's why we have scientific botanical names; there are quite a few different plants all called wait a while for example. I'm just wondering if your cat head is our bull head or goat head by a different local name or is a different thorn altogether.

[nomadpete]

3 hours ago, facthunter said:

To the original Topic. The word is god made US in HIS own Image. More likely we made him in our image

Sorry Nev but that is not the original topic.

The original topic is open to a lot greater speculation than this.

[nomadpete]

Are your cat heads similar to 'three corner jacks"?

They always land with a slender sharp spike pointing straight up. Go right through your thong or tyre.

 

Probably invented by a bad tempered diety to torment people.