Religion Articles

Earth spirits in ancient Rome, as well as the spirits of those who had died, watched over the every day lives of the Romans cheerfully - unless one forgot to give thanks. Spiritual Life in a Roman Household In ancient Rome, although there was regular worship of the better known `state gods' such as Jupiter and Juno and Vesta, individual Roman lives were influenced... [continue reading]

Shabti dolls (also known as `shawbti’ and `ushabti’) were funerary figures in ancient Egypt who accompanied the deceased to the after-life. Their name is derived from the Egyptian `swb’ for stick but also corresponds to the word for `answer’ (`wSb’) and so the Shabtis were known as `The Answerers’. The figures, shaped... [continue reading]

Is it possible to have a heart that is lighter than a feather? To the ancient Egyptians it was not only possible but highly desirable.  The after-life of the ancient Egyptians was known as the Field of Reeds and was a land very much like one's life on earth save that there was no sickness, no disappointment and, of course, no death. One lived eternally... [continue reading]

Hathor: The Mother Goddess In ancient Egypt, Hathor was the goddess of old, later re-imagined as Isis, who gave all the good gifts of life to humanity. Early depictions of the goddess show a queenly woman with the sun disk and horns on her head; later she came to be seen as a woman with the head of a cow or, simply, as a cow, symbolizing her life-giving energy... [continue reading]

The gods of the Mesopotamian region were by no means uniform in name, power, provenance or status in the hierarchy. Mesopotamian culture varied from region to region, from city-state to city-state and, because of this, Marduk should not be regarded as King of the Gods in the same way Zeus ruled in Greece. While Marduk was venerated highly in Babylon... [continue reading]

The Myth of Adapa (also known as Adapa and the Food of Life) is the Mesopotamian story of the Fall of Man in that it explains why human beings are mortal. The god of wisdom, Ea, creates the first man, Adapa, and endows him with great intelligence and wisdom but not with immortality, and when immortality is offered Adapa by the great god Anu, Ea tricks... [continue reading]

The Myth of Etana is the story of the Sumerian antediluvian King of Kish who ascends to heaven on an eagle to request the Plant of Birth from the gods so that he might have a son. That the myth is very old is attested to by cylinder seals depicting Etana on the eagle's back which date from the reign of Sargon of Akkad (2334-2279 BCE). The British Museum... [continue reading]

Introduction Like any other religious tradition, Buddhism has undergone a number of different transformations that have led to the emergence of many different Buddhist schools. Analyzing the major Buddhist traditions, we find a great number of topics ranging from moral concerns (which seems to have been originally the number one concern of the Buddha... [continue reading]

The Greek poet Hesiod (c. 700 BCE) is most famous for his works Theogony and Works and Days. In this passage from Theogony, Hesiod relates the birth of the gods from cosmic Chaos and follows the lineage through the great Zeus, King of the Olympian gods, worshipped by Hesiod’s contemporaries: (ll. 1-25) From the Heliconian Muses let us begin... [continue reading]

Hypatia, the much loved pagan philosopher of Alexandria, Egypt, has long been acknowledged as the symbol of the passing of the old ways and the triumph of the new. Hypatia (370-415 CE) was the daughter of Theon, the last professor of the Alexandrian University (associated closely with the famous Library of Alexandria). Theon was a brilliant mathematician... [continue reading]