In The Beginning There Was Idol Worship

Long before the Bible was written, man was worshipping gods of some sort or the other. Early man, coming out of the development of the ape, lived in a fearful world. Imagine living like any other life on earth having to keep warm, find food, survive accident and illness, protect yourself from predators, travel without maps, understand calamities like tornados, volcanoes erupting. tsunamies, torrential rains, snow storms, drought, and a million more.

If a woman saw herself reflecting in a pool of water for the first time, imagine what she might think? Is that me? It looks like me, but I am here. Maybe that is someone who looks like me. She touches the water and the reflection ripples. This is frightening. Maybe it’s something that could hurt me. It’s something I can’t understand and can’t comprehend. She tells her mate, in the manner of communication in that early time. He, too, is frightened for fear is the primary reaction to survivalists of the time. They have to give what they’ve seen a name. They have to find an explanation they can understand. “Jingapu!” they call it. Some days Jingapu is there. Some days not. Where does Jingapu go? Why do I feel only water when I try to touch it? It is mysterious. Is Jingapu harmful? Not so far. Maybe I should do things to make Jingapu like me. I’ll float flowers on the water.

A child is clawed by a lion, but the child lives. The child is held in awe by others. That child has special powers to protect it. The child was wearing a blue feather. Now all the tribe wears a blue feather for protection. Lightening strikes and burns down a shelter and the owners die. They deserved to die. The husband was crippled and the woman crazy.  The tribe erects a monument to the lightening and chant “Oolagoola!” repeatedly. Lightening will see the monument and hear the chants and will spare them next time.

A man cannot make his wife pregnant. The wife finds a stone that looks like a phallus and she rubs the stone and says “Ahahah!” repeatedly. She gets pregnant. She tells the other women what she did. Pretty soon they also have phallus symbols they rub and say “Ahahah!” The women get together and rub the phallus and chant together. A man overhears and angrily asks them what they are doing. They tell him. He says “You are women! These are matters you can not handle alone. You will come to me once a week and I will direct you.” He begins to like his job. He lengthens the ceremony by creating new chants and rituals and homages. He tells the women to bring him food to eat and tokens to expand his wealth. Evenutally he builds a place of worship with all the trappings. He gives himself a special title, “Preeest!”

When man learns to grow crops and store crops and sell crops, new forms of worship arise. A prayer and a mound of stones and gifts to the forces that be to protect their crops from wind and rain and fire and drought. More places of worship and new forms of worship arise. Cows and sheep and pigs are corraled or shepherded. Wolves and other predators attack. “What can we do? What can we do?” “Let us slaughter one of our livestock that is of particularly good quality and bow our heads and chant to give to those forces of harm so they will protect the rest of our livestock.’

Many, many forms of worship existed before the coming of The Bible or The Quran or other modern forms of worship. And these forms of worship were to sticks and stones and wind and rain and fire. Later there were the Greeks and the Romans with their gods and goddesses that could look like people or animals or both. They could fly, or float, live on Mt. Olympus or on Earth. They could talk. They could ride chariots. And much, much more. There were tribes all over the world with their own religions. The Hawaiians and Polynesians had special religions that included volcanoes and human sacrifices. So many other religions!

Then the idea of one God. And the believers of this wanted a universal God. Here comes the Bible, for one. A fantastic story had to be told to sell all the pagans everywhere. And the evangelistic big religions still try to convert everyone to the extent of changing science and history to suit their religions.