Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Similarities and differences of religions
Similarities and differences of religions
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
“Christianity, along with all other theistic belief systems, is the fraud of the age. It serves to detach the species from the natural world, likewise, each other. It supports blind submission to authority[control of the masses].”(Zeitgeist 2007) In this essay, we will explore the different roots of religion and the plagiarism that Christianity and a number of different religions have committed. We start with Animism. In animism, spirits are considered to inhabit familiar objects in the landscape. There are traces of animism in the Judeo-Christian and Jewish religions. For instance, Satan was represented as a serpent; Jehovah, like Osiris(Deity in ancient Egyptian religion), was worshiped as a bull; Christ was the lamb of God, and the Holy Ghost appeared in the form of a dove. However, these are only symbols themselves and are not worshiped themselves. The ancient Egyptian religion predates Christianity at least 2,000 years. The similarities between Christianity and ancient Egypt are almost endless. They have a belief of life after death, punishment for sins, and a similar creation, that is, both religions claim that the world was created in seven days. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 And the earth was waste and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep: and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. 3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light… [4] and God divided the light from the darkness…[5] one day… [6] a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters…8 And God called the firmament Heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, a second day…”(Genesis 1:1-8 ASV) An excerpt of the first two days, as from the Bible, but from an an... ... middle of paper ... ...he Red Sea. Ancient Egyptian historical records do not mention such an account, even thought the Bible claims that 603,550 adult men plus women and children(roughly two million) went out of Egypt. Another account mentioned by the Bible, but not by Egyptian contemporary records, was the plagues. Many of the places mentioned in the Exodus did not exist within the time-period they were mentioned in. Pithom and Raamses, the two “treasure cities”, claimed to be built by the Hebrews never existed at the same time. Greek mythology has been dotted with familiar stories and “events” that suggest stories similar to Jesus. Odysseus(known to some as Ulysses) was the most famous character in Greek mythology, not only for his exploits in the Trojan war, but on his long journey home as well.[Source number here.] Odysseus was not the product of a union between mortals and immortals.
During the New Kingdom of Egypt (from 1552 through 1069 B.C.), there came a sweeping change in the religious structure of the ancient Egyptian civilization. "The Hymn to the Aten" was created by Amenhotep IV, who ruled from 1369 to 1353 B.C., and began a move toward a monotheist culture instead of the polytheist religion which Egypt had experienced for the many hundreds of years prior to the introduction of this new idea. There was much that was different from the old views in "The Hymn to the Aten", and it offered a new outlook on the Egyptian ways of life by providing a complete break with the traditions which Egypt held to with great respect. Yet at the same time, there were many commonalties between these new ideas and the old views of the Egyptian world. Although through the duration of his reign, Amenhotep IV introduced a great many changes to the Egyptian religion along with "The Hymn", none of these reforms outlived their creator, mostly due to the massive forces placed on his successor, Tutankhamen, to renounce these new reforms. However, the significance of Amenhotep IV, or Akhenaten as he later changed his name to, is found in "The Hymn". "The Hymn" itself can be looked at as a contradiction of ideas; it must be looked at in relation to both the Old Kingdom's belief of steadfast and static values, as well as in regards to the changes of the Middle Kingdom, which saw unprecedented expansionistic and individualistic oriented reforms. In this paper I plan to discuss the evolvement of Egyptian Religious Beliefs throughout the Old,
“Religion” is an inherently social creation which functions to naturalize certain behaviors and ideologies to maintain social order (Martin 94). In his book “A Critical Introduction to the Study of Religion”, Craig Martin introduces the concept of a “cultural toolbox”, comprised of the concepts, values, traditions, icons, figures, texts, and stories in a culture that represent and reinforce the elements of the society (97-98). To maintain social order and convince others to conform to the proposed, religions employ a tactic known as “legitimation” to justify traditions, practices, and ideologies using the “cultural toolbox” of a society (Martin 94).
Mesopotamian and Egyptian religions shared two key similarities: polytheism and priestly authority. The religions in Mesopotamia and Egypt were both polytheistic. Their religions were polytheistic because Mesopotamians and Egyptians could not explain many things in that occurred in their lives. Therefore, they assumed that there are different gods for everything. This means that the religion had many gods for different things. In Egypt and Mesopotamia, priests were part of the upper class and were very important in the daily lives of civilians. Priests were part of the upper class because they were thought to have the ability to communicate with the gods. In Mesopotamia, the priests held the highest authority in the religious structure. Egyptian priests were not as powerful in government as Mesopotamian priests were, but they still had significant power. Egypt’s highest religious and military leader was encapsulated in the position of pharaoh. The pharaoh was at the top of all social classes and was considered to be a god-like figure.
Boyer, Pascal. Religion Explained: The Evolutionary Origins of Religious Thought. New York, NY: Basic Books, 2001.
Smart, Ninian. "Blackboard, Religion 100." 6 March 2014. Seven Dimensions of Religion. Electronic Document. 6 March 2014.
The growth of religious ideas is environed with such intrinsic difficulties that it may never receive a perfectly satisfactory exposition. Religion deals so largely with the imaginative and emotional nature, and consequently with such an certain elements of knowledge, the all primitive religions are grotesque to some extent unintelligible. (1877:5)
In geographical terms the land of Egypt is fairly isolated, and cut off from most of its neighbouring countries by harsh desert. (Gardiner: 1964). This must have had an effect on the ideology of its inhabitants, who in early times probably had an insular view of the world. In the Egyptian creation myths Heliopolis is described as the centre of the world, as the first dry land to emerge from the waters of Nun. This shows that from the beginning the Egyptians considered themselves as the heart of the Earth and sustained by the sun-god, whereas lands around were arid, harsh and ruled by chaos. There is little archaeological evidence from Predynastic Egypt concerning `foreigners,' which could be indicative of this introverted perspective.
Egypt’s culture was one of the most diverse and religious cultures of its time. Much of early Egyptian culture was based around the flooding of the Nile and the nutrients it brought for them to farm. The river was their oasis in the middle of one of the harshest environments. It was this that helped them to become a very hardened and capable society that could withstand the tests of time. Their religion also reflected their hard steadfastness since it was of their own creation. Other than a few of the well known gods of creation each village and town in Egypt had a different set of gods. With each place having the freedom to do what they wanted with the religion they could “personalize” it to suit their individual needs. Egyptian people realized that they were not perfect, this fact is clearly represented in their religion and mythology. It was also seen in their religious art, such as on the walls of pyramids, that they believed that the deceased would be judged in the afterlife for what they did. This judgment would dictate wether or not they wo...
Walls, Andrew F. 1997. 'Christianity'. In A New Handbook Of Living Religions, 1st ed., 59-92. London: Penguin.
One of the more surprising features of the Christian faith is that it produced at its very beginning a substantial body of writings. That this should be the case is by no means a necessity: not all religious movements produce writings. Furthermore, that these writings should be collected into one book and thus become a sacred corpus, and that this sacred corpus should continue to influence the life of believers and to determine the content and the practices of the faith two thousand years later is also remarkable.
The Egyptians were one of the first known civilizations. “Religion played a very influential role in the life of the Ancient Egyptians, leaving it’s impress on politics, literature, architecture, art, and the conduct of daily affairs.” (Page 56) Throughout their history as a civilization their religion changed from polytheistic to monotheistic and then back to polytheistic. The beginning religion focused on the importance of the sun god, Re. This “solar faith” didn’t offer any spiritual blessings for its followers. Following this solar faith was the cult of Osiris. He was portrayed as a nature god that rose from the dead. Osiris also portrayed human like qualities and Osiris’ death gave the people the promise of an afterlife. This belief is what started the idea of mummification and that people could take their worldly possessions with them into afterlife. These ideas were all merged together. The
David Bentley Hart’s Atheist Delusions is a labyrinthine, convoluted historical essay. Hart has carefully crafted his argument for God while simultaneously discrediting those who oppose his well-founded argument. He proves his point by offering history, facts, and reason onto why and how Christianity has been such an influence on the society of past, present and future. His method of delivery is complex yet genuine. He destroys the delusional atheists’ arguments with a grandiose compilation of philosophy, theory, and logic; he stands up for God.
The word “ancient” can be a hard word to describe. It has no specific time period, but also does at the same time. When something is described as ancient, it is something that is extremely old, or was in the very distant past. Ancient Egyptian and Ancient Greek civilizations co-existed from 1150BC to 146BC. They had different systems, beliefs, and life styles, just like how different countries do today. There were also similarities, such as both having a single person be the ruler, not giving equal power to everyone. For Greeks, this would be a king and for Egyptians, and Pharaoh. Both Ancient Egypt and Ancient Greece believed in mythology – a similarity between the two. However, much of their mythology was different. Although both Egypt
Ancient Egypt is considered to be one of the most significant eras in history, due to its lengthy existence and its overwhelming contributions to the development of western civilization. You could say that Egypt provided the building blocks for Greek and Roman culture, and through them, influenced all of Western tradition. Today Egyptian imagery, concepts, and perspectives are found everywhere; you will find them in architectural forms, on money, and in our day to day lives. We are able to distinguish various elements of its culture that played a key role in its development, such as agriculture, architecture, religion, and government to name a few. Egypt 's impact on later cultures was and still is immense.
In the past centuries scientific innovations have occupied people’s mind. People have been looking for answers about their existence with the help of science and the scientific method. But nothing has changed with people’s culture or behavior. However, something happened two thousand years ago that influenced and changed how some people perceive the world and self existence. It was the beginning of Christianity.