[Zionist Conspirator]

I know, I'll get piled on for posting this in the "religion" section. But this is where it belongs.

[glennherman]

There are many chosen people. There are many vile people. Let the chosen neutralize the vile. In every land. We can start with the DU traitors. And the islamofascists.

[Zionist Conspirator]

Ping

[SJackson]

If you'd like to be on this middle east/political ping list, please FR mail me.

[BlackVeil]

Thus despite all claims to the contrary, the Irish J*sus is not the Polish J*sus is not the Filipino J*sus is not the Bolivian J*sus is not the Romanian J*sus is not the Armenian J*sus is not the "redneck" J*sus is not the Ethiopian J*sus. And despite its somewhat greater apparent unity, these divisions exist in islam and (other "universal" religions) as well.

I disagree. The image of Jesus, among Christians, is in some ways vague, but it is consistent. It is not much affected by national considerations. For instance, even so militant a group as the Spanish Empire of the 16th century, did not make Jesus a warrior, but stayed with the image of gentleness and suffering, however little they seem to have imitated it in practice.

In the Islamic world, God is a transcedent being, exactly similar to the Jewish concept of God.

Also, there are very significant national differences between Jews, and in Jewish laws and observances, but no real differences in their concept of God, and the ideal means of relating to Him.

[John Locke]

Despite their "universal" character they were seized upon and inculturated by each nation as the spiritual incarnation of its own essence. In worshiping these national "gods" the nations of the world in fact worshiped themselves.

An almost complete inversion of the truth. The pagan peoples - the word "nations" is an anachronism in this context - never saw their gods as extensions of themselves. They rather saw themselves as under the tutelage of their gods. Every new venture - city, colony, temple, even tavern - had to petition an existing god to be their patron. As, for instance, Athena was the patron of Athens, and the Capitoline Trinity the patrons of Rome.

But there were no "national gods" - the same deity could patronize whatever and whomever he chose. Before the Battle of Marathon, for example, Miltiades did not ask Athena to grant victory; he said rather, "I believe that, provided the gods will give fair play and no favor, we are able to get the best of it in an engagement." Because the same gods watched over both Greece and Persia.

Pagan theology was almost relentlessly syncretistic. Different peoples might use different names, and have different legends, but the gods were the same. Jupiter simply is Zeus.

Megasthenes, the Seleucid ambassador to India, had no difficulty recognising that "Krishna" simply was "Herakles", and a comparison of the legends confirms this. On the other side of the world, it is likewise obvious that the Mayan "Kukulcan" is simply Thoth, "Ixchel" is Selene, "Nacon" is Ares, and so on across most of the pantheon. Likewise, when I moved to Asia, it was obvious that their "Kuan Yin" is just my Isis.

But why should different peoples, all over the world, describe the same gods? For the same reason different peoples, all over the world, describe the same heavenly bodies: because they are real.