I thought that this may be of interest, some of us have one faith, a path of many faiths or/and so on....

Some neopagans, like myself are of all faiths. That we believe that all faiths teach the same message differently, that many religions are in existance for many reasons. the top two:

1) it is impossible for two people to see things exactly the same, let alone the human race from dawn of mankind to us today in history. it was clear that early humans had a very similar religion( yet still unique) with some differences around the world( via cave paintings and even cave painters of today), give it time and they begin do divide and brach off more, until even today ideas change.

2) enviroment and knowledge. (i should of put this as #1 most important). adam isnt going to live in an igloo and artic nomads most likely have never seen a rain forest. as you will see clearly with when i and some, not all in this path see things) we are believing through our heart and soul, as well as our minds. what our mind has not known it can only wonder.


We believe that all mythologies are based on the culture and its society, enviroment and others. We believe in many beliefs(not all, depends person from person) from all religions. an example, this is my path:


lets start with universes creation. i dont believe in the big bang.no i dont believe earth and the universe was created in seven days or anything like that, actually i dont even believe that the universe has an origin. infinite and eternal. images that show scientists the "big bang" but to me it isnt the same. it takes a long time for that light to reach us, i understand it was long ago to reach us, but the radiation images still need to see past that one large ball of energy that is reasonably thought to have expanded out of nowhere(not exploded, as a wormhole would violently make things), auto, maybe it was a black hole that decayed(look at sombrero galaxy, the older the black hole, the more radiation it gives off as it falls apart), it wasnt the black hole of a galaxy, but of a giant system of galaxy(a half comparable analogy would be: if i am a universe, an cell in my body is a galaxy). this giant system would have many galaxies with constant paths of orbit, like in the early solar system some planets collided. when the center black hole finally lost influence over those countless galaxies, the nearer galaxies to the black hole chaotically crash into one another now than the gravity that caused the orbit was gone. other galaxies simply started to drift away, ones toward to center pushin the outer ones to move faster.
i live in an infinite, eternal universe, so do we all.

earth, creation, evolution,
when we talk about creation and beginnings i tend to see things more as a cycle of cause and effect in nature. i myself am a proud polytheist yet my gods dont creat a process, but continue one that was, is and will always be. earth wasnt forever, it had a birth, much like us people(if this is what you believe) have karma(my shinto based beliefs showing) and have a spirit. i believe that a planets spirit will be reborn as another planet or star(some people believe in many things as u may see, i no some think this as strange) yet the energy being soul, the matter is later to allow for other things to be reborn. cycle of karma planet(, plant, animal, human, river, etc....) is rebirth, life, death rebirth. all things exist to exist.

evolution of life
as we learn in biology, most if not all pagans believe that nature is the cause of life,via evolution. but what really is the cause of life of first life? chemical reactions happening on a regular bases cause a form of autorespiration in material that then becomes organic carbon rich matter.when that carbon rich matter eventually evolved in to microscopic organisms became living, earth was bound to be green and blue. now what causes evolution? the same thing that made lifeless matter come to life, an urge to live within. we live simply because we are meant to live to enjoy existing. ancient cultures didnt make origin tales to explain anything about origin, read em all closer to find that fables are set forth to explain the early earth as a the balanced land where life came to be as it is and bacame the will become.

now we often are fooled to think that the story of the first two people is meant to say of the first two people at all. in the bible, the tanakh(jewish bible) the mesopatamian tradition and some others based in the middleeast talk of the almost fable garden of eden. would you ever have guessed that eden is actually a place, not up toward the mountains(the rivers never met there), but down toward a place much closer to where Abraham was born. this epic is one which jews, christians, muslims and us pagans alike agree was real, and if you look right is more realistic than one would think. interesting that only one place has cultures that lack a flood tale, some remote african tribes whose ancestry has been in the same place since humans and chimps were the same species, the only true nonimmigrants.as we see today with global warming and even an ice cube, i ce melts from the inside out, the ice age glaciers may not have had enough water to bury the earth, but glaciers it the middle of continents do need to travel the land to get to the sea(the worst part of any tsunami is this fact). Noah wasnts high nor crazy, at that time in history(possibly if it happened today) you would have had far convincing of the belief that the world had ended. the question of Ea(i use this because it fits both canaan/hebrew el and is the name in mesopatamia) warning him of the flood, is that possible? dreams tend to predict things on a regular bases, nostradamus predicted hitler... the mayans predicted the exact day and year the spanish would come to america preaching monotheism(not to mention they had know way of knowing they existed nor how or if they would come, their calander was thair only tool) and were any of these supposed to br possible. only one saying to answer this: there is more to what meets the eye. in time a guy who survived a flood with wife, kids, servants and cattle is sent to mount nisir(mesopatamian) which i think are in iran. this may answer a archaeological question of sumerians not being truly aryan nor semitic, eden was in the persian gulf some scientists even believe, they may have thought the ocean was the source, gps satellites point out 2 dried up lakes that meet up just closer to the sea(now under) than the tigris and euphrates. eden meaning a marshy enviroment still around in parts of southern iraq. anyway noah lost in the mountains in persian maybe not living to see a non relative, i too in that time would of thought the world ended. in time whe population came back then making their way to sumeria (with a faith that wasntas varied as egyptians and others) the rise of civilization brought forth wars between nomads and farmers(you guessed it if cain and abel)
we are very influenced as you see the world around us. i believe in reincarnation, my belif dejavu being pertly remembering the last time you live this life(universe is big but you will need to repeat sometime).

end of the world is gonna happen, yet by more natural means, we may already have a mars and moon base by then, we may go back to the mars like earth to reinhabit it, who knows

we live for the sake of living. life in a sense creates itself and the univers is a cycle of wheels forever in action.

i see knowledge, balance of life(yin and yang), living to live, spiritual growth and being in touch with the earth set in amongst highest regards and priority

thank you for sharing, i agree with alot of your point of views.

Great post, sonofhorus. Thank you.

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Originally posted by sonofhorus:
We believe that all mythologies are based on the culture and its society, environment and others.

That they are. And when you start to compare beliefs from parts of the world that could not possibly come into contact with each other, it's truly a fascinating picture.

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i don't even believe that the universe has an origin. infinite and eternal.

Yep, otherwise it would not be the universe as in "the whole" or "the entire cosmos"; instead, it would be a mere part of something bigger.

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when we talk about creation and beginnings i tend to see things more as a cycle of cause and effect in nature. i myself am a proud polytheist yet my gods don't create a process, but continue one that was, is and will always be.

It's interesting that outside of rather late European beliefs, very few cultures were concerned with the absolute beginning of life or the Universe itself. They simply don't have a concept of linear time that got to start somewhere and are perfectly happy with circular calendar where time goes on and on in circles like a serpent endlessly swallowing its own tail or a bull and lion wrestling each other and forever taking turns to win.

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ancient cultures didn't make origin tales to explain anything about origin

That's maybe because the explanation was not of the highest priority back then, survival and knowing what to do to survive was. That could explain why myth as magic of the word came into existence much later than rites as magic of the act. Even those ethnographers who took time to learn aboriginal languages of Australia and South America in order to write down their myths precisely, had great difficulty doing so because the myths were changing from one narration to another, even when told by the same person. Rites, on the other hand, were stable, well developed and rather complicated.

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now we often are fooled to think that the story of the first two people is meant to say of the first two people at all. in the bible, the tanakh(jewish bible) the Mesopotamian tradition and some others based in the middle east talk of the almost fable garden of eden. would you ever have guessed that eden is actually a place, not up toward the mountains (the rivers never met there), but down toward a place much closer to where Abraham was born. this epic is one which jews, christians, muslims and us pagans alike agree was real, and if you look right is more realistic than one would think. interesting that only one place has cultures that lack a flood tale, some remote african tribes whose ancestry has been in the same place since humans and chimps were the same species, the only true nonimmigrants.

Siberian tribes have no concept of the flood, and so did Hellenic Greeks and Egyptians before getting familiar with Greco-Roman culture. Any thoughts on this? And if I am not mistaken, Pigmy do have a flood myth, only it got nothing to do with mankind disappointing Gods. Someone in that myth poked his nose where it did not belong and unintentionally caused the flood.

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Noah wasn't high nor crazy, at that time in history (possibly if it happened today) you would have had far convincing of the belief that the world had ended. the question of Ea(i use this because it fits both canaan/hebrew el and is the name in mesopatamia) warning him of the flood, is that possible? dreams tend to predict things on a regular bases, nostradamus predicted hitler... the mayans predicted the exact day and year the spanish would come to america preaching monotheism(not to mention they had know way of knowing they existed nor how or if they would come, their calander was thair only tool) and were any of these supposed to br possible. only one saying to answer this: there is more to what meets the eye.

Of course. The concept of primal waters that exist before a world suitable for men and other living beings is created does not necessarily come to our modern mind either. But essentially, those primal waters are no different from the great flood. They are the other side of the ordered, home-like world.

As for Mayan predictions, their texts can be interpreted widely different depending on the agenda because meaning of words changed by the time Books of Chilam Balam were found, some were lost, some could not be translated at all. It's probably does not get as bad with Nostradamus, but he's not exactly famous for clarity of his prophesies either.

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in time a guy who survived a flood with wife, kids, servants and cattle is sent to mount nisir(mesopatamian) which i think are in iran.

Armenia. It's very beautiful.

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this may answer a archaeological question of sumerians not being truly aryan nor semitic,

Who said they were one or the other? AFAIK we have no idea of their origin at all, only uneducated guesses.

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the rise of civilization brought forth wars between nomads and farmers(you guessed it if cain and abel)

And between hunters and hunters before that, between fishermen and hunters, herders and fishermen, gatherers and farmers. Wherever there were not enough resources, wars would start. Where there were enough resources, wars would still occur, albeit those were smaller and relatively non-destructive because the main reason was to see if the God/good luck was still on the people's side or to obtain much needed scalps/heads.

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end of the world is gonna happen, yet by more natural means, we may already have a mars and moon base by then, we may go back to the mars like earth to reinhabit it, who knows

Of course, everything comes to the end. Then a beginning of something else happens. As Alan Watts said, we live in a floating, ever-changing world.

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we live for the sake of living. life in a sense creates itself and the universe is a cycle of wheels forever in action.

i see knowledge, balance of life (yin and yang), living to live, spiritual growth and being in touch with the earth set in amongst highest regards and priority

I really like that.

hey the whole thought of how and why things came to be came from those that finished plowing feilds in time to wonder. about the prophecy part i used those to give well known examples. i used the christian apocalypse how it was read as end of world in other post because it was how it was known, but it originally and still says anything about the end of time let alone anything beyond the tyranny of nero's rome. nostradamus seemed to use wat he wrote as a means to talk more of tales than future..... mayan prophesied are most commonly understood by someone really unable to read the future, he made guesses at the calander originally made to point out infinite time...things came from the tree of life(in the night sky as the milkyway) and seemed fanatic about prophecy not that he could read it.

originally from wat we know aligned planets were bad not because of supernatural forces at all. Mesoamerica sits at a fault line, solar eclipses tend to cause tremors or worse, earthquakes.
but one can draw my point.

you are right coffee owl

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Originally posted by sonofhorus:
hey the whole thought of how and why things came to be came from those that finished plowing fields in time to wonder.

Nah-ah. Those who plowed the fields and who did observations and thinking were different people. Plowers were not allowed to create their own myths, they would be put to death for doing this.

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about the prophecy part i used those to give well known examples.

i used the Christian apocalypse how it was read as end of world in other post because it was how it was known, but it originally and still says anything about the end of time let alone anything beyond the tyranny of Nero's Rome. Nostradamus seemed to use what he wrote as a means to talk more of tales than future..... Mayan prophesied are most commonly understood by someone really unable to read the future, he made guesses at the calendar originally made to point out infinite time...things came from the tree of life (in the night sky as the milky way) and seemed fanatic about prophecy not that he could read it.

Mayan prophecies are more often misunderstood than anything else. And the more prophecy-happy an author gets, the wilder his conclusions are. Probably the same with Nostradamus. But then again, I could never really understand the thrill of decoding prophecies.

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originally from what we know aligned planets were bad not because of supernatural forces at all.

Depending on what supernatural means to you. For some, the Universe itself is one supernatural being.

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Mesoamerica sits at a fault line, solar eclipses tend to cause tremors or worse, earthquakes.
but one can draw my point.

What was that about solar eclipses and earthquakes? BTW, living in a troubled area ()which Mesoamerica indeed is) does not necessarily cause apocalyptic mythology, be it final or circular. Shinto would be a good example of the exact opposite.

somebody loves debates i see, you should really look to run for office lol. kiddn. you can draw my point very easily of what i wrote without putting it under an autopsy and microscope based probe analysis.

What debates? It was $0.02 worth of comments in conjunction with what I read. You happened to touch on some matters that are of interest to me, that's all.

its fine i was just sayin you put more into my post than i did....its okay i just did expect anyone to really gain that much interest...its not bad its actually good that people wanna hear....just at first it seemed as a debate but i guess im just used to people mocking my beliefs