Based on some of the alt-history thread, my curiosity is piqued:

Quote from: Black FlagIn fact, the notion of different "religions" is largely a post-Christian phenomenon. Ancient people didn't think of themselves as following one "religion" or another. Indeed, there isn't even a word for "religion," as we understand it, either in Latin or in ancient Greek. There were traditional practices determined largely by culture and location, but there was no real standardization, and the adoption of various practices was quite fluid by modern standards. The rules for sacrifices were static, but those were surprisingly similar even across cultural lines, so it didn't appear that other nationalities practiced other "religions," so much that their local rituals simply varied in the particulars. Not surprising, since even cults dedicated to the same god would differ quite a lot in practice from one city to another.

What were the daily "religious" practices of people pre-Christian (pre-Islam, pre-Buddist) like?

How they differ from place to place, like you say?

What were the traditional practices, or the rules for sacrifice?

Let's here from all you History geeks...

Quote from: James J SkachBased on some of the alt-history thread, my curiosity is piqued:


What were the daily "religious" practices of people pre-Christian (pre-Islam, pre-Buddist) like?

How they differ from place to place, like you say?

What were the traditional practices, or the rules for sacrifice?

Let's here from all you History geeks...

Well, for one, sacrifice was often voluntary. You were chosen and therefore special, above the common man. You would go to the rewards in the afterlife, possibly be one with your god or benefit the entire people. You would be remembered by grateful populace...

Unless you were captured by the enemy. The Maya and to a far greater extent the Aztecs often captured enemies or required tributes of people for sacrifice to their gods. The Maya would often have voluntary sacrifice into the copote (sp?) and thus enter the underworld but get a pass (since they were a sacrifice) and go directly to the Tree of Life.

So, the modern view of sacrifice is often taken as a very negative thing (and sometimes was) but often it was embraced as a very spiritual and rewarding action.

Now, I base the above just on my reading and I am sure some of the more informed history folk will set me straight.

Bill

Quote from: James J SkachBased on some of the alt-history thread, my curiosity is piqued:


What were the daily "religious" practices of people pre-Christian (pre-Islam, pre-Buddist) like?

How they differ from place to place, like you say?

What were the traditional practices, or the rules for sacrifice?

Let's here from all you History geeks...

Well, you don't have to look at "ancientness" to see this. Just look at what we call "hinduism" today.

Hinduism isn't a single religion. I mean, we're not talking like Catholics and Protestants both being Christians here, or even "Mahayana, Hinayana and Vajrayana are all Buddhists".  

No; Hinduism is actually a blanket term to cover a thousand different little sects and philosophies, the ideas behind which (including things like the very idea of what God is, whether a personal God exists or not, whether there's just one or many, and who the important saints are) are MASSIVELY different.

I mean, if you look at Advaita-Vedanta and call it "hinduism", and look at the Hare Krishnas and call them "hinduism", you actually have two groups which don't agree on the nature of God, the nature of the Soul, the nature of the universe, the nature of enlightenment or salvation, and for whom most of their practices and daily rituals are utterly different.

What unites these various groups into being "Hindu" have more to do with a question of "region" than "religion", and most of that "identification" with Hinduism has largely only evolved over time as a reaction to stuff that was seen as outsider: first the Buddhists, then the Muslims.

So in large part its not a question of history, of post or pre-christian, as much as it is a matter of how, in the western world, christianity's historical development became so unusually extremely orthodox that we have come to think of the idea of "religion" as something far more static than what most people in most other cultures ever thought of it as.

Today, in Asia its not uncommon for people to regularly practice Buddhist, Taoist, and Confucian practices in their regular lives.
In India, one of the constant frustrations that would-be missionaries have faced is that the local Hindus will gladly participate in Christian worship, but won't stop any of their other worship.  So they'll put a statue of the Virgin Mary  or the picture of Jesus in their home alongside the statue of Kali and the picture of Ramakrishna; and they'll recite the rosary in the morning and then go sing Bhajans at night.

RPGPundit

Quote from: HinterWeltWell, for one, sacrifice was often voluntary. You were chosen and therefore special, above the common man. You would go to the rewards in the afterlife, possibly be one with your god or benefit the entire people. You would be remembered by grateful populace...

Unless you were captured by the enemy. The Maya and to a far greater extent the Aztecs often captured enemies or required tributes of people for sacrifice to their gods. The Maya would often have voluntary sacrifice into the copote (sp?) and thus enter the underworld but get a pass (since they were a sacrifice) and go directly to the Tree of Life.

So, the modern view of sacrifice is often taken as a very negative thing (and sometimes was) but often it was embraced as a very spiritual and rewarding action.

Now, I base the above just on my reading and I am sure some of the more informed history folk will set me straight.

Bill

Well, you know, the problem is a matter of the OP's questions being so general and vague that you can't really go into details.

I mean really, "what were the daily religious practices of all the people who lived in non-chrstian cultures, ever?" is pretty much unanswerable.

Likewise, there is no one answer as to "what people think of sacrifice"; because what was defined as "sacrifice" varied tremendously from culture to culture.

I'll note that the Romans, of course, considered human sacrifice to be utterly abhorent.  Of course, religious ritual combat to the death, in the form of Gladiator Combats, were hunky-dory.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPunditWell, you know, the problem is a matter of the OP's questions being so general and vague that you can't really go into details.

I mean really, "what were the daily religious practices of all the people who lived in non-chrstian cultures, ever?" is pretty much unanswerable.

Likewise, there is no one answer as to "what people think of sacrifice"; because what was defined as "sacrifice" varied tremendously from culture to culture.

I'll note that the Romans, of course, considered human sacrifice to be utterly abhorent.  Of course, religious ritual combat to the death, in the form of Gladiator Combats, were hunky-dory.

RPGPundit

Agreed, I did the best I could with the question as it stands. I was trying for different cultures viewed sacrifice very differently but I imagine it came off as "Everyone was happy about it". To put it in the European theater, as you said, the Romans abhorred it. The Celts viewed it more as we traditionally think of the word today, a sacrifice or giving up something dear for the greater good.

Bill

Quote from: RPGPunditWell, you know, the problem is a matter of the OP's questions being so general and vague that you can't really go into details.

I mean really, "what were the daily religious practices of all the people who lived in non-chrstian cultures, ever?" is pretty much unanswerable.

Likewise, there is no one answer as to "what people think of sacrifice"; because what was defined as "sacrifice" varied tremendously from culture to culture.

I'll note that the Romans, of course, considered human sacrifice to be utterly abhorent.  Of course, religious ritual combat to the death, in the form of Gladiator Combats, were hunky-dory.

RPGPundit

I'm sorry about that Pundit.  I was intrigued with Black Flag's response, but didn't want to derail that thread.  And, quite honestly, I was unsure how specific or vague to be.

So, in the interest of being clearer, let's just focus on a couple of areas - say Roman and/or Greek and/or Norse?

Then we can move on to others as the feelings strike. And thanks for the infor on Hinduism - very interesting.  Are there any other "religions" practiced in any great numbers today that have this kind of diversity?

Oh - one more note - I wasn't specifically talking about human sacrifice.  I assumed there were others like slaughtering a calf and so forth. Again, I should have been clearer - my apologies.

Thanks!

One of my favourites was a story about some heathen family in Scandinavia who passed around a dried horse's penis and said prayers over it. Now what book did that come from?

You can't disprove the Holy Horse Penis!

Verily.  For as is read in the Book of Wang, chapter 11, verse 32: "And they shall not know their wangs from their elbows.  So is the Great Wang to the wangs of men."

!i!

The Renaissance, Reformation, and particularly the Enlightenment have made modern thought and beliefs very different than it was in ancient or medieval times.

We still have much of the same motivations, feelings, and even beliefs as human always had. But how we deal with them and how we act on them has changed.

Quote from: Ian AbsentiaVerily.  For as is read in the Book of Wang, chapter 11, verse 32: "And they shall not know their wangs from their elbows.  So is the Great Wang to the wangs of men."

!i!

Ah, but in chapter 12, verse 1107 of that same holy book, it clearly states that "he who wangs last, wangs longest."