[Buddha-l] Historical vs Psychological Religious Narratives

[Leigh Goldstein (deneb)]

> Hi there, Leigh,
> 
> I was wondering the other day what had happened to you.

Good timing then. I have missed this forum through which over many years I
have learned some things important to me, from the many knowledgable and
wise contributors.

> 
> I think we should be rather careful not to be mislead by the 
> word 'god'. It has one meaning in the Abrahamic religions and 
> another in most forms of polytheism. For the former we are 

The word god clearly has a wide spectrum of meanings in different religious
traditions, and sometimes in the same tradition.

I feel that because we live in a society founded on the Abrahamic religions,
Christianity in particular, there may be a natural tendency to privalege
Christianity, to grant it supposedly unique characteristics which it claims
for itself. 

The claim that Judiasm in some sense invented history, or is based on
history in a way not seen before, is one example related to the points under
discussion. The claim that Judiasm, and you seem to be pointing to the
Judiasm of later antiquity, invents a more abstract and philosophical god
for the first time, is another example.

I think that examples outside of, and predating, the Judaic religion can be
found that describe a transcendent deity, a self-created deity, even a deity
that cannot be represented in form. There are many examples of texts
describing Egyptian gods as self-created, for example. Many Egyptian gods
were at one time or another considered to be the creators of the world,
other gods, humanity, etc. 

Aside from self-created gods, Egyptian cosmology also includes gods creating
through speech (sort of like creating from nothing), and others who create
things (earth, people, gods) from their own bodies.

The appearance of multiple supreme deities comes to some degree  from our
own collapsing of different cults over great spans of time and space. At a
given time and place, one deity was often considered supreme. Political
amalgamation also involved accepting different local deities into a national
pantheon. (This is relevant because the more abstract or transcendent a
deity is, the less it makes sense to speak about multiple individual deities
of the same order.)

> dealing with a transcendent being in terms which can really 
> only be conceived after the development of the Platonist 
> philosophical tradition. For the latter we are dealing with 

Do the pre-Socratic philosophers count here? 

And what do you make of the Upanishads (and their concept of Brahman)? 

Reading various translations of Akhenaten's Hymn to the Aten, which dates
from sometime around 1300 BC I think, I get the feeling that Aten was closer
to a modern Christian concept of God than simply a more powerful human.

There was major Hellenic influence in later ancient Israel, but I have not
heard the suggestion that Jewish monotheistic thought was strongly
influenced by Platonism. Is there evidence for that?

-Leigh