Religions of Ancestors and Animals Make More Sense


When it comes to which kind of religion is best it is imperative to lay all of them out there and look them over. The most popular ones in recent generations have been about sky gods, invisible and imaginary beings that hide from us but live somewhere in the sky. 

I've only heard there are native religions on this continent that are about spirits in undomesticated game animals. They are hunted and eaten but only after appropriate deference to their superior rank.

Going back to ancient times there has been ancestor worship. I did not know it still existed until I read this New York Times piece. When we see the burial chambers in other parts of the world we know they existed back then. Still today there are ancestor worshipping religions.

The link discusses the author's family experience with the religion Druze. It is a 1,000 year old faith now practiced in Lebanon, Syria, Israel and Jordan. People of the faith believe our bodies are only shells holding the real person. The person in the shell existed in another shell before and will exist when it leaves its current shell. It is a "life after death" promise that tops what Christianity sells. It an eternity of life on earth. 

The link author's sister is a faithful Druze. She remembers other bodies she was in in past lives. They had different hair color but she was the same person. In their life experience they recall these past lives and then marvel at things they know that did not come from this life's experiences but from the previous ones. To the untrained ear like mine these sound like what Christians call miracles. I'm sure both Christians and the Druze would correct me.

The Druze faith offers people great hope and what is to them rational thinking. Just as a Christian might see the complex human body as "proof" there is a God, so the Druze find the presence of their knowledge and minds "proof" there is a spiritual force greater than they. They worship this force instead of a sky god. Can anyone blame the Druze for thinking theirs is the true religion and others like Christianity are about fake gods?

I must add a disclaimer. I don't find worshipping ancestors anymore rational than worshipping sky gods.  

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