What if....?

robhic

I started this after reading Jeanniebeanz's thread about reading the bible and it making her more skeptical. The same thing happened to me after reading it through. How could I or anyone have ever been so controlled in so many aspects of life by this fairy tale? Then the thought occured to me:

What if, in a society far less advanced and primitive, say, like the Israelites , someone took Aesop's fables and inflated them over time to the "inspired' status of the bible? Do you think that in hundreds or thousands of years people would be worshipping ants instead of grasshoppers for having such a good work ethic? Reciting other stories like the guy who lost his donkey off a bridge because he couldn't please all the people all the time and other such moralistic but obviously not "divinely inspired" tales?

If nothing else, I have to give the ancient Jews credit for starting something based on fear, ignorance, and superstition and it turning into a huge multi-national, multi-cultural belief system that has lasted for thousands of years! Even in our current enlightened society it still gets a whole lot of obedience and airtime (look at the pope's death).

Could Aesop have fared as well if the situation had presented itself?

Robert

AlmostAtheist

There was a Star Trek episode about a culture that based itself on "The Book", which turned out to be a history of the 1920's in America. The society was run by "Bosses" that regularly "hit" the other bosses and attempted to take over their territory. It shows that you can take anything, raise it to the level of holy and inspired, and base your life on it if you want to.

Mecurious?

Hmm, very thought provoking and simultaneoulsy sad at the same time..

BrendaCloutier

Almost, I remember that one. And there was another one with a moderately advanced society, and one living underground because they were hunted and killed because they believed in the "Sun".... or so Sun worship was assumed, when they actually ment the "Son" of god.

Hmmm

love11

I think I remember reading something about this a long time ago. Apparently, the christian religion started out as a cult, when everyone at that time thought they were quacks. Then one of the emperors or kings of Rome decided to be christian and that everyone in his kingdom had to convert. Then of course Rome and Christianity spread through Europe, by force I may add. And later onto the New World. If that guy never converted it probably would have died out a long time ago. Hey... you got me thinking. A long time ago, one of the most populated cities in the world was mexico city, mx. How different would our life be if the Aztec's religion was the one that spread all over the world instead of christianity? Yikes!! I guess things could be worse.

peacefulpete

A neat book entitled "Religion Explain" reseaches the patterns of myth that become elevated to religious status. There are very specific patterns that seem universal to world superstition and religion. These mind teasing religious stories while no less ludicrous are differentiated from general fiction by all societies. I'm too tired to speculate about the Aesop tales but it good to remeber that a number of OT tales were understood to be allegory and only reinterpreted later as literal.