lpetrich

I have concluded that there is something fundamentally bogus about idea of revelation to obscure people in obscure places. This is because an omnipotent or near-omnipotent being could easily deliver His/Her/Its revelations to some Very Important People.

As an analogy, consider the diplomatic efforts being made to keep India and Pakistan from going to war with each other. US President Bush and British PM Blair have been sending envoys to the upper levels of government of those two countries. One diplomat reported that he tried to convince some officials that the confrontation was leading to "madness".

They are *not* choosing to reveal their messages to obscure citizens in out-of-the-way places, and they are *not* choosing to phrase their messages in obscure and ambiguous language. Which is what many religious revelations amount to.

Why would God beget Himself in the person of the stepson of a carpenter in an out-of-the-way province of the Roman Empire? Why would God issue his latest and greatest revelation to some Arab merchant? Why would the Virgin Mary reveal herself to some peasant girls, and tell them things that are supposed to be secret?

However, the obscure origins of many religious movements is more typical of human discoveries and inventions; they almost universally start small and gradually spread and become bigger.

Richard Carrier had written an essay on "Why I Don't Buy the Resurrection", in which he makes a similar point -- that it simply isn't big enough.

Wizardry

Religious revelation in its most common form has the benefit of being both theologically justifiable(God doesn't want you to know, because if you knew, then you wouldn't be able to make a moral choice) as well as impossible to verify. However, this revelation is relatively newer. The gods of mythology did not conduct themselves in this manner, revealing themselves to random peasants in the backwaters; they were actively involved with the leaders of governments. In the OT, God has no problem revealing himself to the entire Egyptian population in the form of plagues. He didn't have a problem establishing the Hebrew government or overtly assisting them in their conquests.

As time passed, it became more and more difficult to embellish histories with tales of divine intervention. In first century Rome, it would have been far too easy to disprove the notion of Jupiter descending on the cities of the Egyptians and commanding surrender. It would have been impossible to claim royal lifetimes of 12,000 years as the Sumerians had. However, documentation and communication were poor enough for impressive miracles to occur unnoticed in the countrysides and the obscure routes of nomads. Hence you have Jesus in Palestine and Muhammed in Arabia.

The six hundred years between Jesus and Muhammed were sufficent to tone down the great prophet's story. Jesus was able to do all kinds of crazy things, like walk on water, make wine from water and of course rise from the dead. Muhammed's exploits were not nearly so supernatural. The greatest compliments to Muhammed would have to be his excellent mastery of Arabic and his formidable skills as a military commander. Muhammed was far more of a human being.

The main reason that many religions begin in obscurity is that they need to in order to survive. A religion that attracts attempts at disproof will almost immediately fail due to the fact that it can never back up its claims. It would be far easier to invent a religion around an unknown soldier in the Civil War than around one who died in our present conflict. The latter could be readily falsified while the former could escape scrutiny because of the holes in the paperwork.

Religionists can justify this subversion on the part of their deity. The problem is that it really won't convince anybody who doesn't want to believe anyway.

Peace out.

Amos

A lot of good points you made and I agree that it is much more difficult to start a new mythology today than it ever was (never mind protestant religions because they are all wrong). I think that the main reason for the obscurity of religion is that salvation is a mystery that must overthrow the faculty of reason (TOK) to give rise to the superior faculty of knowledge contained in the soul (TOL), to which the TOK is later added by means of Resurrection.

Sorry if this does not say much for Richard Carrier who does not understand the argument.

Amos

[ January 17, 2002: Message edited by: Amos ]</p>

gravitybow

So if I'm reading your posts right, Amos, you're somewhere in the "overthrow the faculty of reason" stage. All TOK and no reason, as it were.

Jonny

lol

Amos

All TOL and TOK is along for the ride.