Estimations of 'the God Force' During Ancient Civilizations

 

China
Book/Data Source of these Excerpts: Gods & Goddesses of Ancient China (2015)
Edited by: Trenton Campbell
Estimated Time Period for these passages: 1046-220 BCE

 

. . . some deities and mythological figures were rationalized into abstract concepts and others were euhemerized into historical figures [during the latter centuries of Zhou dynasty c. 1046-256 BCE].  Above all, a hierarchical order, resembling in many ways the institutional order of the empire, was imposed upon the world of the supernatural.

 

The worship of royal ancestors was central to the maintenance of the dynasty.


The goodwill of the ancestors, and of certain river and mountain powers, was sought . . .


The highest power of all, with whom the ancestors mediated for the living king, was the relatively remote deity Di, or Shangdi, "the Lord on High."  Di controlled victory in battle, the harvest, the fate of the capital, and the weather, but, on the evidence of the oracle bone inscriptions, he received no cult.


Tian, or t'ien, in Chinese means "heaven" or "sky."  In indigenous Chinese religion, tian is the supreme power reigning over lesser gods and human beings.

 

 

Certain concepts of ancient agrarian religion have dominated Chinese thought uninterruptedly from before the formation of the philosophic schools until the first radical break with tradition and the overthrow of dynastic rule at the beginning of the 20th century, and they are thus not specifically Daoist.  

 

 

What Laozi calls the "constant Dao" in reality is nameless.

 

 

(Dao)  "It was from the Nameless that heaven and earth sprang; the Named is the mother that rears the Ten Thousand Things, each after its kind."    

The power acquired by the Daoist is de, the efficacy of the Dao in the human experience, which is translated as "virtue."

 

India
Book/Data Source of these Excerpts: Gods & Goddesses of Ancient India
Edited by: Tammy Laser
Estimated Time Period: traceable back to around 1500 BCE  

 

Evidence of Hinduism's early antecedents is derived from archaeology, comparative philology, and comparative religion. 

Present-day Hinduism contains few direct survivals from its Indo-European heritage.

In the Vedas and Brahumanas, Vishnu is the god of far extending motion and pervasiveness who, for humans in distress, penetrates and traverses the entire cosmos to make their existence possible.  All beings are said to dwell in his three strides or footsteps (trivikrama): his highest step, or abode, is beyond mortal ken in the realm of heaven.  Vishnu is also the god of the pillar of the universe and is identified with the sacrifice.  He imparts his all-pervading power to the sacrificer who initates his strides and identifies himself with the god, thus conquering the universe and attaining "the goal, the safe foundation, the highest light" (Shatapatha Brahmana).

Devotees hold that, in addition to having many avatars, Vishnu also manifests himself in many temples.

Brahman is in all things and is the self (atman) of all living beings.  Brahman is the creator, preserver, or transformer and reabsorber of everything.

Hindus generally accept the doctrine of transmigration and rebirth and the complimentary belief in karma.

 

Greece
Book/Data Source of this Excerpt: The Essential Plotinus by Elmer O'Brien
Author: Plotinus
When written: "Plotinus (204-270) in the last years of his career as philosopher wrote a number of short treatises . . . the most famous of his pupils, Porphyry (c. 232-p. 304) . . . edited the treatises . . ." 

 

It is by The One that all beings are beings.

 

Greece

Book/Data Source of this Excerpt: Laws Book 10

Author: Plato

Translator: Benjamin Jowett

When written: 360 BCE

. . . since a soul or souls having every sort of excellence are the causes of all of them, those souls are Gods, whether they are living beings and reside in bodies, and in this way order the whole heaven, or whatever be the place and mode of their existence . . .

 

 

A note about ancient paganism and Constantine I (excerpts from www.britannica.com)

 

He not only initiated the evolution of the empire into a Christian state but also provided the impulse for a distinctively Christian culture that prepared the way for the growth of Byzantine and Western medieval culture.

 

. . . the controversy over Arianism, with its intricate explorations of the precise nature of the Trinity that were couched in difficult Greek, was as remote from Constantine's educational background as it was from his impatient, urgent temperament.  The Council of Nicaea, which opened in the early summer of 325 with an address by the emperor, had already been preceded by a letter to the chief protagonist, Arius of Alexandria, in which Constantine stated his opinion that the dispute was fostered only by excessive leisure and academic contention, that the point at issue was trivial and could be resolved without difficulty.  His optimism was not justified: neither this letter nor the Council of Nicaea itself nor the second letter, in which Constantine urged acceptance of its conclusions, was adequate to solve a dispute in which the participants were as intransigent as the theological issues were subtle.  Indeed, for more than 40 years after the death of Constantine, Arianism was actually the official orthodoxy of the Eastern Empire.

 

A town in Asia Minor mentioned the unanimous Christianity of its inhabitants in support of a petition to the emperor; while, on the other hand, one in Italy was allowed to hold a local festival incorporating gladiatorial games and to found a shrine of the imperial dynasty — although direct religious observance there was firmly forbidden.  In an early law of Constantine, priests and public soothsayers of Rome were prohibited entry to private houses; but another law, of 320 or 321, calls for their recital of prayer "in the manner of ancient observance" if the imperial palace or any other public building were struck by lightning.

 

Classical culture and education, which were intimately linked with paganism, continued to enjoy enormous prestige and influence; provincial priesthoods, which were as intimately linked with civic life, long survived the reign of Constantine.  Constantinople itself was predominantly a Christian city . . . its foundation was also attended by a well-known pagan seer, Sopatros.

Council of Arles, (314 CE), the first representative meeting of Christian bishops in the Western Roman Empire.  It was convened at Arles in southern Gaul in August 314 by Emperor Constantine I, primarily to deal with the problem of the Donatists, a schismatic Christian group in North Africa.  Attended by representatives of 43 bishoprics, this synod was held because the Donatists had denied the representative character of two earlier synods, at Rome and in Africa, at which they had been condemned.  At Arles the Donatists were again condemned, but they rejected the decisions reached by the council and again appealed to Constantine to review their case.

 

Martyrdom following a life of penance was the goal of the religiously minded Donatist.

 

A note about Native American spirit beings and the 'Great Spirit' in Native American cultures (excerpts from britannica.com)

 

. . . doctrine consists of belief in one supreme God (the Great Spirit), who deals with men through various spirits . . .  

 
 

Spirit, power, or something akin moves in all things, though not equally.  For native communities religion is understood as the relationship between living humans and other persons or things, however they are conceived.  These may include departed as well as yet-to-be-born human beings, beings in the so-called “natural world” of flora and fauna, and visible entities that are not animate by Western standards, such as mountains, springs, lakes, and clouds.  This group of entities also includes what scholars of religion might denote as “mythic beings,” beings that are not normally visible but are understood to inhabit and affect either this world or some other world contiguous to it.  

A note about African religions (excepts from https://www.britannica.com/topic/African-religions)

No single body of religious beliefs and practices can be identified as African.

Generally speaking, African religions hold that there is one creator God, the maker of a dynamic universe.

African religiousness is not a matter of adherence to a doctrine but is concerned with supporting fecundity and sustaining the community.  African religions emphasize maintaining a harmonious relationship with the divine powers, and their rituals attempt to harness cosmic powers and channel them for good.

  

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While considering the choice of excerpts, some potential conclusions about information selection became especially apparent with the text about the life of Roman emperor Constantine I.  Textbook-style details are offered in an endeavor accompanied (as usual) by precise notations about the group of successive editors and contributors with the apparent influence of 'social consciousness' assumed imperatives about avoiding any potential disapproval or criticism in relation to information deemed possibly controversial due to probable reader unfamiliarity.  An example of an author sharing personal insights and citing specific sources of quotations is Tony Bushby, whose books include one published in 2005 with passages about Constantine I and the Council of Nicaea.  The following excerpts provide a few examples. 

 

"As yet, the new God had not been selected by the council, and so they balloted, in order to determine the matter.  For one year and five months the balloting lasted" (God's Book of Eskra, xlviii 26-53).


He [Constantine] determined that the names of his two First Century descendants, Rabbi Jesus and Judas Khrestus, be joined as one, Jesus Khrestus, and that would be the official name of the new Roman god.

A vote was taken and it was with a majority show of hands that the twins became one God . . . 161 votes to 157.


A new Roman god was proclaimed and official ratified by Emperor Constantine (Acta Concilii Niceni, Colon, 1618).

One author who has written about shamanic lore and traditions throughout the world is Piers Vitebsky, whose books include The Shaman (1995).  In this book Vitebsky observed that "there are astonishing similarities, which are not easy to explain, between shamanic ideas and practices as far apart as the Arctic, Amazonia and Borneo, even though these societies have probably never had any contact with each other."