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johncmcleod
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Coeur d'Alene, ID, USA
Jan 2002
time: 21:18
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Why were the Western religions so much farther behind from the East in development?
The exception of this is the Jews, a very small minority. They had a very complex, ethical monotheism that was very spiritual and very different from the pagans. Jesus came and with his reform movement and created Christianity, which became the main religion of the western world. But this came from Judaism, which is the one exception I am speaking of.
As for the rest of the Western world, they hadn't developed anything beyond simple paganism. People made sacrifices in the manner of a business transaction, they did it in order to gain something worldly and keep the wrath of the Gods away. There was no type of spirituality or any notion of ethics.
The East on the other hand, was far more advanced. Thousands of years before Christ, a great religion arose in India. Because it was an institutionalized religion, it was corrupted, and the practices of the common Indian were not as advanced or spiritual as the ideal. But they had fascinated ideas on metaphysics, and the religion was extremely spiritual (much more than Judaism).
Then of course there was the reform movement that created another great religion, which had an even stronger code of ethics and was intensely spiritual.
On top of that, the Chinese had been believing in heaven for thousands of years and with Confucianism created a religion with a stronger, more detailed code of ethics than any religion on the planet. And besides that its philosophies enabled the largest nation ever to be a powerful, united empire for thousands of years, and for its society to hold together and change little. Even with western cultural hegemony, and years of trying to stamp it out, Confucianism still survives.
And, the Chinese also developed Taoism, another religion with a strong ethical code that was very spiritual and had some fascinating philosophies.
So, at the time of Jesus, the majority of the West had no sense of ethics or spirituality, yet the East had 4 major religions that were extremely developed in those categories. In fact, the only Western religion that was past the baby steps of paganism, could not compare to any of the four eastern religions in size, influence, complexity, philosophy, metaphysics, ethics, or spirituality.
Then of course came Jesus and Mohammed, and the West finally produced religions that rivaled the East. But it took a long time, and neither were nearly as complex as the eastern religions. In these religions, you do good stuff, and you go to heaven, you do bad stuff, and you go to hell. Yet one could spend lifetimes studying the metaphysics and philosophies of the Hindus.
Is there any explanation for this?
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Comrade Tassadar
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Westerners are barbarians.
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Tripledoc
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I think it all depends on the fact that 'pagan' or polytheistic religious beliefs in the West were not written down, but was based on an oral tradition.
It also much depends on the rise of a priestly class. The Hindu valley, Egypt (where Moses came from) and the rivers Euphrates and Tigris had an abundance of food.
In early times the priestly class were the ones who decided when harvesting time was - hence the connection between astronomy and religion. Thus they gained power - and had the time to think of new ways to cheat the peasants out of their surplus. Such as inventing punishment in the afterworld for not obeying orders.
In Northern Europe there was a lack of food, and therfore a religious doctrine that awarded a good afterlife if one died in battle was invented.
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Bosh
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Taehan Mingook
Jan 1970
time: 00:18
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Classical polytheism was pretty much dead by the time Christianity got going, it got lip service at best. But there was plenty of other religious stuff, everything from Neo-platonism, Pythagorian number mysticism, Hermetic "science," and a whole mess of mystery cults that ranged from ones of Isis to Mithras to Orpheus, Christianity wasn't different from them except for being much less picky about its member, a little less heavy on Neo-platonism and heavier on middle-eastern monolatism (and contravy to proper belief there were LOTS of monotheistic or monolatric religon in the middle east from the Syrian sun cult that ended up as the Roman Sol Invictus to non-Jewish Hebrew religons such as those of the Samarians etc. and the big one, Zoroastrianism).
Then you have pre-Christianism Gnosticism and religious trends of that sort such as Manichaeism and that's not even counting the philosophical schools of Epicurianism, Cyrnicism, Stoicism etc. etc.
The West before the rise of Christianity was one of the most interesting and diverse religious mileus in history.
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Albert Speer
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Puerile Polemic
Mar 1999
time: 00:18
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Stoicism was just as complex as buddhism. they were quite similiar in many ways, in fact.
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General Ludd
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Minion of the Dominion
Aug 2001
time: 05:18
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quote:
Originally posted by JohnT
quote:
Then of course came Jesus and Mohammed, and the West finally produced religions that rivaled the East. But it took a long time, and neither were nearly as complex as the eastern religions. In these religions, you do good stuff, and you go to heaven, you do bad stuff, and you go to hell. Yet one could spend lifetimes studying the metaphysics and philosophies of the Hindus.
Is there any explanation for this? |
Yeah. We're more pragmatic than they and while we have wasted billions of hours studying crap like how many angels dance on the head of a pin, that's not all that we have done... unlike the Easterners, we did spend some of our time developing a civilization that spans the globe and is capable of feeding billions. |
But I suppose that is the difference. The west focused on imperialism while the east focused on spirituality.
Two quite different systems, and when the west came to the east with imperialism in mind, the east was helpless to defend themselves without taking up western culture and methods (with the exception of Ghandi), which has resulted in most of the countries that exist in Asia today.
I just wouldn't say that imperialism "feeds billions" and is a paradigm of civilization. Especially when you consider that the western "global civilization" is present in the very same countries which you are critisizing.
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24-11-2004 10:20
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