Religion & Economy: The Evolution of Religion (Part 1)
Religion & Economy
The Evolution of Religion
(part one)
The rise and fall of large empires often relate to the founding of a new religion and the dependency of other nations to the empires system of economics.
1. Ancient Egyptians
2. Ancient Sumerians
3. Ancient Phoenicians
4. Greek Mythology
5. Moses Judo-Christian philosophy
6. India & Hinduism
7. China & Taoism to Buddhism
8. Rome & Christianity
9. Protestants
10. Islam
11. Judaism
12. The Lost Traditions (Africa and the Americas)
Ancient Egyptians:
The ancient Egyptians believed in a number of demi-gods, the most important being Ra the sun god. As tradition follows Ra gave birth to four children; Osiris, Isis, Seth and Nebthet. In the traditional story Osiris and Isis were the successors to Ra’s kingdom on earth, and they were beloved leaders. They taught the people how to farm crops and construct water channels to provide fresh water to dry lands. Together they would unite the people of nations and bring peace and prosperity to all. On the other hand Seth was jealous of Osiris and wanted to take over the kingdom. As the story goes Seth tricks his brother Osiris into joining him in a celebration and kills him. However through a process of what is described as artificial insemination Isis gives birth to Osiris’s son Horus, who would grow up to avenge his father. Within the story all characters are representations; Ra is a representation of the Sun, where as the four children each represents a season. Osiris is the summer and Isis is the spring… they give birth to life. In the story this is shown symbolically as being able to farm shows prosperity and the reference to bringing unity to the people of nations as well as peace is about trade of goods. The constructs of water channels shows a structured economical system. Nebthet and Seth are autumn and winter and the destruction Seth brings is unavoidable as farm crops are killed by cold weather and nations become desperate, peace becomes unsure. The later version of this story revolves around Horus the new sun god, Osiris and Isis son and Seth in a representation battle of good and evil, light and darkness and overall the day and night. The philosophy was not hard to interpret as the story explains that every day Horus would battle Seth and banish him, and yet every evening Seth would reemerge and send Horus into the underworld, where he would stay until the next morning when he would resurrect. The philosophy of good against evil through day and night was in reference to the lives of the people of that time. In those days the night was a scary time as humans were vulnerable to predators whereas during the day the sun-light provided a visual of any intruders to a tribe. The pharaohs used these beliefs to ensure structure over their people and establish a sufficient economy of loyal subjects. Many people imagine the builders of the pyramids to be slaves that were forced to work, however through discovered documents found by archeologist it shows that pyramid workers were employed by a system of work for “freedom”. Although many workers had been captured slaves of other tribes, important jobs that required skill and knowledge were given to men that were paid quite well. Monument structures were built for many reasons as rulers took advantage of situations; they would provide employment to their people by creating huge structures stabilizing an economy, the people would agree to work on these projects because the rulers would convince the people it was in the interest of pleasing the gods, and the structures were built to further the rulers understanding of cosmic alignments, and to work as calendars to allow a ruler to know the solstices and equinoxes which were important to farming and ensuring the citizens of the nation were not lost to a supply of food.
Ancient Sumerians:
The Sumerian Empire held its capital city in Sumer which would be present day Iraq. The Empire was known to have existed during the years of 3500BCE and 3000BCE as a huge Empire that controlled much of Asia. The belief system also consisted of many demi-gods and had many references to astronomical events. In the 1830s German archeologist found what is known as the Sumerian tablets, in these tablets are stories that are similar to biblical stories. For instance the biblical story starts the human life off with Adam and Eve, gods’ creations. The Sumerian tablets explain a story about a figure Enki and how he created the first man from clay mixed with spittle and the blood of a dead “god”. It is stated that he created seven men and seven women. In another Sumerian story it relates to the Garden of Eden and speaks about a figure called Ninhursag and how she created a beautiful garden of lush vegetation and fruit trees. Another figure in another Sumerian story was Ningshzida the son of Ninazu the god of the underworld. Ningshzida was a prince of the underworld and patron of medicine and had been the earliest holder of a symbol representing snakes twinning around an axial rod; it predates the Caduceus of Hermies and the staff of Moses which were both later representations of that symbol. Ningshizda was also represented by the bashmu dragon, which is a type of snake with horns. The snake was often seen by ancients as having the ultimate power on earth by a mortal because the snakes venom could heal, kill or cause illusions in vision. Another Sumerian story was about Gilgamesh. This story was similar to Noah of the ark in the bible. The Sumerian story describes a meeting between Gilgamesh and Utnapishtim who had been forewarned of a cataclysmic event caused by the ‘gods’ destined to occur and advised Gilgamesh to build a boat and load it with everything he could find. The story continues exactly like the biblical story of Noah as Gilgamesh loads up animals and waits out the storm in a large boat only to rebuild the population. Where the Sumerian story differs to biblical concept is the reference to god and the Anunnaki, which is portrayed as an advance civilization that came to earth to colonize the planet. The story explains how Enki the chief scientist and Ninhursag the chief medical officer merged the genes of Homo Erectus and Homo Sapiens for the purpose of being the slaves of the Anunnaki and do the mining of natural resources they needed to ship back to their home planet.
These tales are believed to date back to 400,000BCE, however they were only found by archaeologist in the 1830s. Little is truly known about civilizations that might have or did exist 400,000 years ago, but history does know that a Sumerian culture existed from 3500BCE to approximately 3000BCE.
The Sumerian Empire was a nation limited to natural resources which made it highly dependent on expansion, which made it dependent on using the power of the gods to sustain loyalty among its citizens. Operating much like the Egyptian Empire, the Sumerian rulers took it one step further to demonstrate their connection to the gods over the average peasant. Like the rulers of the Egyptian Empire, the Sumerian rulers were highly educated in mathematics’ and over time compiled information that the upper class was able to use to study and learn new aspects of life. Through mathematics rulers learned how to calculate the movement of astronomical objects such as the sun, moon and the planet Venus. This knowledge gave rulers a huge advantage over their citizens as rulers were able to predict cosmic movements such as eclipses. This came in handy in places like Sumer where years of drought could cause a serious damage to the nation’s economy as crops would spoil and famine would hit the population sending a threat of rebellion from the civilians. In times like these an eclipse was a savior to a ruler as he would take the opportunity to tell the civilians that the gods were upset with them because of ‘their’ poor work and disobedience. The ruler would convince the people that in order to please the gods a noble warrior would have to be sacrificed. This allowed a ruler to assemble an army to attack another neighboring tribe and the warriors of the conquered tribe that were caught would be that sacrifice. Through this tactic a ruler not only avoided a rebellion within his own kingdom, but also managed to take over additional land opening up new resources for his empire. The women of the tribe were sold to men of the empire to be wives and concubines, while the sons that were born from these women would be asserted into the empires military.
Ancient Phoenicians:
About 5000 years to about 3000 years ago the land known as Canaan stretched from the Dead Sea to what is now Lebanon. The people from these regions were known as Canaanites. The land of Canaan was divided into a series of different territories that were all districts of the land. The people that were the most prosperous Canaanites were known as the Phoenicians. The word Phoenician literally means “purple people” and they saw themselves as superior to all other Canaanites. Early in time many that were considered Phoenicians would migrate to be in the company of another Canaanite called a Jebusite. Phoenicians mainly lived in Phoenicia, which consist of Lebanon, Syria and part of Israel, going as far south as Tyre, whereas Jebusites lived in a region around Jerusalem that was still called Jebus.
Sounds a lot like Jesus doesn’t it?
Now before we go any further let me just give a brush-up. In the biblical stories Noah of the Arc had a son named Ham. Ham had two sons, one Canaan and the other Cush. Cush married Semiramis and their son was Nimrod the Babylonian man-god. When Nimrod died, his mother / wife told the people of his kingdom that he was still present on earth in the form of a flame and to now refer to him as Ba’al… However this belief was only in Babylon and east. The land of Canaan was west. The descendents of Canaan spread out to form the land of Canaan and in the land Ba’al was a Canaanite word that meant lord.
At least 5000 years ago Canaanites worshipped a trinity of gods known as El the father, Baalat the mother god and their son Baal. We already know that Baal means lord in Canaanite and according to traditional stories, El was the sun and Baalat was a representation of Venus.
According to literature written by ancient writers, modern man was able to put the pieces together of what their belief was about.
The Greek writer Lucian wrote in 120BC about how the women of Byblos had carried out secret rituals in the temple of Baalat and another early writer named Herodotus wrote in 460BC about how certain ritual ceremonies occurred, except this time they took place in the temple of Astarte in Babylon. In these times certain women were chosen to sacrifice themselves sexually to traveling strangers in exchange for a donation to the temple, which was controlled by the high priest, not the king or ruler of the area. These women were titled as Hierodules which means “holy servants”. In later, but still early Jewish temples the Hierodules were called Kedeshim meaning “consecrated one”.
In the early Canaanite religion El was the highest of the 3 gods and high priest created stories claiming that El wanted to impregnate good pure women, so that they would give birth to special god-like children that would bring order, and structure to the world. However included in the story was that El would have to disguise himself as a passing traveler, to test the faith of the women whom became Hierodules. This imposed a religious duty for the Phoenician women to make themselves sexually available to traveling strangers. At first it was only during certain periods of the year, mainly the equinoxes, but later on became more regular. This Phoenician originated belief did two very important things needed to become a dominate progressive nation, it boosted loads of tourist to come into town and trade goods as well as bring in a type of uneven-trade in return for a time in the temple of Baalat. It was common for a traveling stranger to pay a donation to the Hierodules, whom in return would pay tithe or a tax to the temple of Baalat for allowing her to perform her “ritual”. The area known as Phoenicia became wealthy and powerful and dominated over the other Canaanite lands because of these tactics. In an ancient pictorial drawing, there shows an exchange in knowledge from the Phoenicians to the Greeks.
Greek Mythology:
The rise of the Greek Empire is an interesting story of an underdog rising to power. In many ways it is the basis of western capitalism and often used as a heroic tale in the fight for freedom; however there are always two sides to every story. Before the rise of the Greek Empire, the Persian Empire ruled the economic system. The Greek leaders of the time put emphasis on teaching logic and liberal ideas to the people of the Greek nations. During a crucial moment in history the Persian Empire tried to enforce an economic sanction on the Greeks, in which the Greeks refused and this led to the legendary battle of Sparta. From this battle soon grew Philippe of Macedonia who would unite the Greeks in a national struggle against the Persians. For Generations a smaller Greek army would defend itself against a larger Persian fleet whose rulers would focus more on revenge than strategic warfare. Philippe’s son Alexander the Great would grow up “destined” to conquer the old world and restore power. Through Alexander’s raids he would conquer lands collecting knowledge for the Greek empire while suppressing the traditional beliefs of the conquered nations, justifying it as teaching knowledge to barbaric cultures. The only problem was the knowledge being taught was Greek philosophy full of encoded meanings. Greek mythology is a collection of individual mythological stories about Greek hero’s telling a story relating to astronomy, economy or philosophy. These stories would later be incorporated into the Greek-Roman Mithraism belief.
It is important to understand that Greek philosophy is the foundation of western economics and many of the stories relate to important events that would later come from the basis of these stories. Stories such as Titans, Works and Days, Prometheus, Pandora, Five Ages of Man, Trojan War, and Heracles are all of significance.
The Titans were a power race of demi-gods that ruled during the ‘golden ages’. There were originally twelve Titans but later on a thirteenth was added. The Titans were eventually over thrown by the Olympians led by Zeus. This piece of literature remarkable connects to the zodiac wheel and the finding of a thirteenth zodiac division, which we will learn more about in later chapters involving Nostradamus.
Works and Days is an ancient poem written around 700BCE by Hesiod. The poem discusses what it claims to be the two general truths which are; labor is the universal necessity of mankind, and he who is willing to work will get by. The poem contains advice on labor and the practice of usury as well as describing labor as the source of all things good to maintain loyalty to a nation’s ruler. Prometheus was a Titan known for his intelligence and for stealing fire from Zeus and the Olympian gods and gave it to the mortals to use. Prometheus is often viewed as being blamed for the evolution of human thinking. After Prometheus gave fire to the mortals Zeus ordered for the creation of the first woman as part of a punishment for mankind. This woman was Pandora and she had been given a gift from every god. Prometheus had warned his brother Epimetheus to not accept gifts from Zeus, but he did not listen and married Pandora. Pandora had been given a large jar from Zeus and had been ordered to never open it; however Pandora had also been given the gift of curiosity and eventually opened what became known as Pandora’s Box. Inside it was the evilest of evils, disease and burdensome labor, which was released into the world. These stories relate to the structure of social classes and the order that came from confusion and chaos. The five Ages of Man are stories of the stages of mankind beginning with the Golden Age. It portrays a time when humans enjoyed a perfectly divine existence that de-evolved into a world of pain and suffering. The Golden Age is a time when humans lived among the gods, and peace and harmony was abundant on the earth. Humans did not have to work to feed themselves during this age as the earth provided everything they needed. It was said they lived to very old ages but still remained looking young. The Silver Age followed and during this age humans lived well past one-hundred years but lived in conflicts with each other. During this age humans also refused to worship the gods and Zeus destroyed the race for its disobedience. The next age was the Bronze Age and in these times the purpose of man was war and everything from weapons to tools were made from bronze. The Heroic Age was the fourth age and had witnessed the legendary battle of Troy also known as the Trojan War. It was a time of hero’s for the Greek culture as it also is a period just before the rise of the Greek Empire. The final age was the Iron Age and during this age the world is in trouble, humans live a life of misery, children dishonor their parents and brothers kill brothers. During this age to make right bad men tell lies to be thought good and at the height of this age humans no longer feel shame for wrongdoing, babies are born with gray hair and there is no help against evil.
The Trojan War was a legendary war. During this war Achilles is one of the main characters and is known as a great warrior that fights in the battle under his king only for the sake of making a name for himself and becoming immortal through his legacy. Another point of the story is the war was caused by a woman. The war had originated in the stories because of a competition between the goddess Athena, Hera and Aphrodite after Eris and Zeus declared Aphrodite the fairest and most beautiful of the three goddesses. The goddess Aphrodite then made Helen the most beautiful mortal woman alive and influenced her to fall in love with Paris the prince of Troy. Helen had been the wife of Menelaus the king of Sparta. The King of Mycenae Agamemnon would assemble an army along with the brother of Menelaus to attack Troy only to finish off the battle by use of the strategic tactic of the Trojan Horse. France had been named by the Franks, who were named after the Frankish kings of the Merovingian dynasty and their first ruler Franco, who claimed to be a descendent of Noah of the Ark. Franco’s group had migrated from the city of Troy in Turkey to Gaul and named their new settlement Troyes after their hometown Troy. Paris was named after the Greek Prince who had eloped with Helen of Troy. The Roman rulers also trace their bloodline to the Trojan warriors from Aeneas. Heracles was the son of Zeus, and great grandson of Perseus, he was the greatest of the Gods and ancestor of royal clans. He was part of the Order of Olympia also known as the twelve Olympians. The Greek period was very important in decoding, in ancient pictorials it shows reference to Phoenicians giving wisdom to the Greeks, trade between ancient Egyptians and Greeks in the time of Socrates and Plato was extremely strong and caused many Egyptian philosophies to be incorporated into Greek philosophy. From here Greek philosophy would be a major force to the basis of western thinking.
Moses Judo-Christian philosophy
According to the tradition agreed by Jews and Christians god began this segment of life with Adam and Eve; however in certain Jewish tradition god is plural rather than singular. Descending from Adam and Eve was Noah and from him descended Abraham the founder of the Abramic religions which are Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Coincidentally Abraham’s life time marks a celestial period in which the age of the constellation changes. The age of Taurus was symbolized by the bull and was from 4330BC to 2165BC approximately, and then from 2165BC to 1AD it was the age of Aries which was symbolized by the ram. In the bible during this time Abraham was the main character and he gets mad at the pagans and tells them to stop worshipping the golden bull.
The next major character to emerge was Moses; however before we explore Moses life we should brush up on how the Canaanite Jebusites became prisoners of the Egyptians. It all begins with Abraham, whom had originally been named Abram. Abram was originally born in Chaldea in Mesopotamia, which was basically the Middle East then called Babylon. He then traveled west to settle in the land of Canaan. At the time Canaan was suffering with famine so Abram traveled to Egypt where he has a run in with the pharaoh and he is banished. Through his journey he and his wife Sarai have problems having a child so he takes on an Egyptian slave girl known as Hagar and has a child with her named Ishmael, however Sarai later gets pregnant with a son named Isaac and becomes jealous of Hagar and Ishmael and demands Abram now called Abraham to send them away. Isaac married a woman named Rebekah and had two sons, Esau and Jacob. Jacob becomes the main character in the biblical stories and it is shown how he tricks his father and brother into receiving the family’s birthright. Jacob grows up to marry two women, Leah and then Rachel his true love, however the father of the two women trick Jacob into working seven years for him for each girl. Through the work Jacob gains great wealth and power and becomes known as Israel. Jacob, now called Israel continues in the biblical stories to have 12 sons; Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Zebulun, Joseph, Benjamin, Dan, Naphtali, Gad and Asher. His sons became known as the 12 tribes of Israel; however the most important son in this story is Joseph.
Meanwhile Ishmael had 12 sons creating the Ishmaelites’ who settled from Havilah to Shur which is the Persian Gulf area to the border of Egypt in the districts of Arabia. As Joseph grew up he imagined himself as a ruler and dreamt of being in power. His brothers saw him as arrogant and grew jealous of him and later on would sell him as a slave to the Ishmaelites on their way towards Egypt. In Egypt Joseph was bought by a man named Potipherah who quickly took a liking to him because of the good work Joseph had done for him. Not far down the line Joseph has an altercation with the pharaoh and through a ‘dream interpretation’ reveals to the pharaoh that Egypt will have seven years of good crops followed by seven years of bad crops. Eventually famine hit Egypt, but because of Joseph’s interpretation the pharaoh was able to avoid disaster and saved enough food from the first seven years to accommodate the next seven years of famine. From that point Joseph is appointed in charge of production of grains and the distribution to the rest of the population in need of grains. When the Israelites came to buy grains, Joseph had indeed become a powerful ruler, now that famine was on the rise and Joseph had grains he had power over other nations in need.
Due to Mount Santorini first eruption in 1628BCE and the later Mount Thera eruption, it would cause the formation of a group known as the Hyksos. The Hyksos were not a nation but instead were composed of various peoples that united and moved into Egypt around 1656BCE. The Israelites were master masons and considered useful builders for monuments, temples and tombs, because of this and other economical reasons the Israelites remained free in Egypt for a short time after Joseph’s death. Years later Ahmose 1st would expel the Hyksos from Egypt and time for the Israelites would become uneasy. During the era of the birth of Moses the Egyptian Pharaoh became suspicious of Israelites and ordered all Israelite newborn boys be killed at birth. Levi, a son of Jacob later to be known as Israel had a daughter named Yachadeb. She had three sons, Aaron, Miriam and Moses. Moses had been the only child born under the Egyptian rule and as the biblical story goes Yachadeb placed Moses in a basket and sent him up stream to avoid him being killed. As “faith” would have it the pharaohs’ daughter would find the uncircumcised boy, not realizing him to be an Israelite as Israelite boys were circumcised, and took him in as her own child. Moses spent his early years training in the Egyptian house of life which was a type of early education where he practiced the art of writing through the scribes of Thoth. He was taught by the highest of Egyptian scholars and priest receiving the very best education in Egypt by attending such ancient schools as the Household of the Royal Children of Thebes and the Temple of Ra in Heliopolis. During this same time Thutmose 3rd had founded a secret society called the ‘White Brotherhood’ also known as the Clandestine society of Karnak, which is believed to be the root of what became known as the Hermetic teachings. The belief of the society was around an astronomical system of weather predictions and the concept of the human body being a microscopic expression of the universe. It should be noted that within the biblical scriptures God is referred to as Jehovah up until the time of Moses, when the title of God now becomes Yahweh. According to Jewish-Hebrew scriptures Yahweh was originally a storm god before he became the ‘one’ true god of the Hebrews. In fact when science is applied to the 10 plagues recorded in the bible it leaves a skeptic such as myself to question if it is possible that everything was not so much to say pre-destined as it was preplanned?
I ask myself why was the pharaoh, even after the 10th plague had struck Egypt, did not take the plagues seriously. Most scholars claim that the Egyptian pharaoh just didn’t believe in Moses god, but what if there was another reason? We can clearly see that Moses had the same schooling the pharaoh would have had, so our next question should be how did Moses go from being a son of the daughter of the pharaoh to causing a massive rebellion?
As stated in the biblical scripts after Moses found out his true identity he kills a slave master and flees Egypt only to return years later with the goal of freeing the Israelites. The next question should be why did Moses return at that specific moment? There are only two capable answers; either he had the power of “god” on his side, or he used his knowledge in mathematics and was able to predict the butterfly effect of a natural disaster.
The first plague is described as the Nile River turning blood red, however an outbreak of fisteria, which is a disease that is caused by an abundance of algae in a river would turn a river into a blood red color. If a volcano erupted nearby it would have produced fisteria. Fisteria infected water is also poisonous and would kill all the fish. In the bible the next plague is an abundance of frogs. The ancient Hebrew word for frogs and toads is the same word, frogs are not able to multiply as quickly as stated in the bible, but on the other hand toads hatch millions in a very short time. When all the fish died, the toad spawns were not eaten during that season and the balance of the food chain was interrupted. The toads naturally left the poisonous water and came to land in search of food. However the toads would starve and die. Without proper place to dispose of the dead toads, the citizens began to pile them into piles that would eventually become over run by flies and insects. This brings on the third plague described as lice, but instead of what was thought to be lice could have been the tiny bugs that flutter near swamps or left out food and accumulate in abundance. Some people call them midgies others call them fruit-flies. This would also carry on to the next plague as the insects would accumulate. The fifth plague was a disease that killed both animals and people; logically the disease was probably carried by the insects from the dead rotting toads and the lack of clean water. The sixth plague states the Egyptian people were scared with boils and blisters, which some have claimed is possible to happen under these circumstances. It is actually a disease called glanders and is a virus passed on by stable flies. The seventh plague talks about fiery hailstones that rained down from the sky. This could have been an act called volcanic-ash fallout, which is caused by a volcanic eruption that has ash that flows high in the atmosphere and freezes and as the ash falls to the ground it is no longer frozen but instead is a smoking icy-looking rock that becomes dust as it hits the ground. The eighth plague is locusts. Locusts dwell in the desert and follow the hot wind, as a hot wind flows from east to west they follow the path and through Egypt they would have attacked fruit trees and crops. This would further deprive the Egyptian people of food sources. The ninth plague was said to be three days of darkness, which could have been caused by volcanic dust that covered the sky. Finally the tenth plague was the death of the first born sons of the city of Thebes that would die mysteriously. According to researcher Simcha Jacobovici the reason the first born sons died was because of Moses knowledge of the Egyptian social structure. In Egypt during these days first born sons were responsible to collect and pick the food, this put them into contact with disease. First born sons also received larger portions at dinner, and considering much of the disease caused in our bodies comes from what we eat, Egyptians of that time were in a bad position for healthy crops and cattle as well as clean water. The mixing of bacteria, mildew and mold producing toxins that were lethal to be inhaling helped cause damage to first borns in the fields collecting food. Even Moses final act of parting the Red Sea can be explained, as an earthquake beneath Mount Santorini which could have caused the Nile delta region to start sliding into the Mediterranean. This would have taken the pressure off the African tectonic-plate and allowed the plate to rise 1 to 1.5 meters, allowing the sea to part. The delta would have dropped while the inland areas would rise. However water that had flowed onto higher land would then drain back out. This is the possibility that could have created a dry land bridge for the Israelites to cross as the sea parted for a short amount of time and would then violently re-flood the area. The following ancient teachings could have led to the foreknown knowledge of natural disasters and pre-calculations could have helped in taking advantage of an anarchy situation. In addition to the turmoil of economical disaster the Egyptian Empire began to decline in its power of authority. Some have even suggested the Israelite Empire had been the succession of the Egyptian Empire.