Origins - 4000 years in a nutshell...

I'm sure I read about the arithmetic of counting... and how it arose to take inventory maybe in Hammurabi's time...

Wondering how people learned each other's languages before writing... gestures...

Then eventually alphabets arose and you could write and translate???

So you have language and customs and technology all creating different cultures... most of that is "material" and factual and verifiable...

in addition, earlier humans also had non-factual and non-verifiable beliefs...

Of course, to know something is one thing... to just believe something is another thing... superior technology spread easily I would assume... why do something the obvious hard way...

But belief systems were different... cause and effect wasn't so clear...

I always thought the Greeks became so philosophical cause they had so many gods... and when you have gods for everything it is the same as not having gods at all... if a god is behind everything, then it would be no different if a god was behind nothing...

the Jews were unique in having the minimalist god by the necessity of poverty... a god you can't see and can't have a golden image of if you can't afford it or don't want to spend the resources...

and the Jews started out with no soul, no afterlife AND god was both the good guy and the bad guy...

belief in an ALMIGHTY god and an AFTERLIFE is so much more emotionally powerful and comforting and pleasing than a naturalist materialist secular philosophy of social justice...

so, what might you expect to happen... yes, you've guessed it... combine the two...

that is how the Greek/Jewish philosophical system evolved and became a god/man based system as opposed to a god based system... of course, that required a god/man... hence the name CHRISTianity...

as Rome fell to the barbarians, the barbarians fell to this superstitious system and we had the dark ages where in the absence of Roman power, religious power grew...

makes sense that religion could and would grow in darker more desperate times...

and then, as you would expect, as politics and social power grew, and as technology and science grew, and as commercial success and trade and prosperity grew, material success began to question the dark traditions of Christianity...

-500 to 0 Greece
0 to 500 Rome rises and falls
500 to 1000 Christianity becomes firmly rooted
1000 to 1500 progress creates science and thinking leading to a Renaissance and
then a Reformation and an Enlightenment...
2000 the Mideast is still a mess of religious vs political leadership...
Europe has its own economic problems and isn't an intellectual leader
cause it isn't a military leader...
the USA is a confused mix of Religious and Militaristic leadership...
China and Japan are more concerned about economic issues...

so it comes down to leadership... and the strongest leaders are the religious leaders... seems to be true in the Mideast and in the USA... kind of sad...

and strange how that is...

I assume it is good for business, or business leader would take over and secularize things more...

I guess GOD smiles on religion, business and war...