Genealogy of Religion

Exploring the Origins, History and Future of Religion

Entries Tagged as 'Assyria'

Mesopotamian Religion: Prelude to Axial Age

August 31st, 2011 · 12 Comments · Axial Age, History, Morality

Between 800 and 200 BCE, a remarkable series of sages, mystics, and thinkers gave rise to the transcendental traditions that are known today as “world religions.” In 1949, the German philosopher Karl Jaspers identified several themes common to these traditions and described this  six hundred year period as the Axial Age: “These movements were ‘axial’ [...]

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Ghostbusting with Gozer

May 31st, 2011 · 3 Comments · Economy, History, Neolithic, Power

According to the Ghostbusters Wiki, Gozer the Gozerian (known also as Gozer the Destructor, Volguus Zildrohar, and Lord of the Sebouillia) is an ancient entity who “was originally worshiped as a god by the Hittites, Mesopotamians, and the Sumerians around 6000 BC.” When not visiting retribution on New York in the form of the Stay [...]

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The “Sin” of Sodomy and Demographic Imperatives

July 13th, 2010 · 1 Comment · Ecology, Economy, Evolutionary Adaptation, History, Morality, Power, Ritual

When attempting to determine whether something is “natural ” (vis-a-vis yesterday’s post on Catholicism and homosexuality) one good way of investigating the issue is to use the genealogical method.  So far as I can tell, there are no hunter-gatherer or pre-Neolithic societies that had taboos against homosexuality.  We can therefore trace the history of the [...]

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