The gods aren't angry...part 1

Last night Michelle, Rochelle, and myself went to Indy to listen to Rob Bell speak on the topic of the history of religion. It was a very interesting look at how the pre-Abrahamic people worshiped different gods, and how the God of Judeo-Christian faiths interacted with the people in a new, and specifically different manner.

There were several interesting comments made, and from my chicken-scratched notes I can make out a few:

The talk started with a brief narrative about how primitive cultures ascribed worship to forces they believed manipulate those aspects of life that were beyond human control. These would be the harvest, the weather, the sun, moon, and stars, theaffect of biology on us, how food effects us, the rhythms of life. He went on to explain that these people eventually gave names to these forces and began to worship these gods. The idea arose that good things happened in life when the gods were happy, and bad things happened when the gods were unhappy. So the central concern of humanity became pleasing the gods. In order to please the gods, they offered sacrifices. These started as surplus offerings of harvest, but eventually evolved into sacrifices of those parts of our lives that were most important to us: up to and including children.

The idea arose that whether good things or bad things happened, you had to please the gods, so you had to offer more and more valuable and important sacrifices. That caused a huge insecurity and anxiety in the people in regards to their relationship to the gods.

Rob spoke about God's call that Abraham "leave his father's household." This was more than a call to leave his home. It was a call to leave all that his father had taught him about life and religion. It was a call to leave the religious rituals and perspectives of the culture. It was also a call to radically change his worldview. Nothing would be the same.

I will continue this later in "part 2" but I wanted to post a little about it here.