Discovering God by Professor Rodney Stark

Discovering God

The Great Revelations of the 6^th Century B.C.E.

Rodney Stark

• Rodney Stark is an American sociologist of religion. He grew up in Jamestown, North Dakota in a Lutheran family. He spent time in the U.S. Army and as a journalist before pursuing graduate studies at The University of California, Berkeley. After teaching at the University of Washington for 32 years, Stark moved to Baylor University in 2004. He is an advocate of the application of Rational Choice Theory in the sociology of religion. One of Stark's hallmarks is writing with respect about the religions he studies.

Discovering God (review)

• Discovering God is a monumental history of the origins of the great religions from the Stone Age to the Modern Age. Sociologist Rodney Stark surveys the birth and growth of religions around the world—from the prehistoric era of primal beliefs; the history of the pyramids found in Iraq, Egypt, Mexico, and Cambodia; and the great "Axial Age" of Plato, Zoroaster, Confucius, and the Buddha, to the modern Christian missions and the global spread of Islam.

How do we know what the Ancients Believed?

• Ceremonial Burials with “stuff” needed in the afterlife

• Altars, Implements, and Inscriptions

• The Bible, and other ancient religious books and traditions

• The Tel’s or mounds of cuneiform tablets from Sumer that contain detailed instructions on religions ceremony.

TIME LINE

• -200,000 B.C.E Ceremonial burials

• -10,000 B.C.E. Altars and Idols

• -4000 B.C.E Sumer, professional priests

• -1400 B.C.E. Akhenaton, monotheism

• -1300 B.C.E The Exodus from Egypt

• -1000 B.C.E Kings David and Solomon, the first Temple in Jerusalem

• -900 B.C.E Elijah

• -800 B.C.E. Isaiah (1st), Founding of Rome

THE GREAT AXIAL AGE -600 TO -501 B.C.E

• Zoroaster in Persia founds monotheistic religion

• Pythagoras and Orpheus sects founded in Greece

• Upanishads in India Revolutionize Hinduism

• Jainism perfected in India

• Buddha founds a new faith in India

• Lao Tzu founds Taoism in China

• Confucius founds a new Religion in China

THE GREAT AXIAL AGE -600 TO -501 B.C.E

• Jews taken in captivity to exile in Babylon

• The first Temple Destroyed

• The Jews return from exile and build the second Temple in Jerusalem

• Isaiah (2^nd), Jeremiah, and Ezekiel

• The Roman Republic is established

• Mayan Civilization and Religion arises

THE GREAT AXIAL AGE -600 TO -501 B.C.E

• Early Religion demanded sacrifice to the Gods to propitiate their anger and obtain their favor. Worship was a foreign concept.

• The Gods were previously viewed as immortal beings but not Omniscient, Omnipotent, nor especially nice.

• No link existed between religion and moral conduct.

• The revolutionary religious outlook that appeared in the Axial Age was that religion was rendered ethical . God was now seen as demanding that we live a moral life.

THE GREAT AXIAL AGE -600 TO -501 B.C.E

• During the Great Axial Age the idea rapidly spread the we earn our fates by our behavior, thus the connected concepts of sin and salvation had been discovered.

• Hinduism, Greek Orphic and Pythagorean Mysteries – the “good” are reborn to higher social status and vice versa

• Buddha – A moral code of conduct for followers.

• Jews and Zoroastrians developed strongly held views of Sin and Salvation at this time

THE IMPORTANCE OF THE CONCEPT OF SIN

• If God and his Creation are Perfect, how do we explain the existence of evil?

• All of the major religions are dualistic. They assume the existence of lesser spiritual beings such as Satan, Angels, Demons, Cherubim and Seraphim, and etc. who exist and operate only within God’s authority.

• Satan is not God’s equal but he is stronger than any Man.

Divine Accommodation

• God’s Revelations are always limited to the current capacity of humans to comprehend

• God is forced to resort to “baby talk”

• Jesus put it this way “This is why I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand”.

Divine Accommodation

• Origen wrote: “ We teach about God both what is true and what the multitude can understand. The written revelation in inspired scripture is a veil that must be penetrated. It is an accommodation to our present capacities that will one day be superseded”.

• Augustine wrote: “since God is incapable of either error or falsehood, if the Bible seems to contradict knowledge, that is because of a lack of understanding on the part of the servant who recorded God’s words”.

Divine Accommodation

• Stark: “Hence it can be argued that if religions have much in common, that is to be expected because each is based on revelations, variously accommodated and interpreted, from the One True God.”

Stark’s Criteria for Divine Revelation

• God must “reveal himself” as opposed to discovery during deep meditation or drug induced trance.

• God’s revelation must have consistency over time and distance

• Revelations must show increasing complexity over time as dictated by man’s increased intellectual abilities

Christianity and Science

• “Christianity epitomizes revealed religion and offers a substantially more nuanced vision of God --- and presents a more comprehensive doctrine of salvation.”

• “Real Science arose only once: in Europe, not in China, Islam, India Ancient Greece or Rome. All these societies developed elaborate systems of alchemy, but only in Europe did alchemy develop into chemistry.

Science and Christianity

• By the same token, many societies developed elaborate systems of astrology based on excellent observations of the stars, but only in Europe did astrology lead to scientific astronomy. Why?

• Most non-Christian religions do not posit a Creation at all: the universe is eternal and while it may pursue cycles, it is without beginning or purpose, and most important of all, having never been created, has no Creator. Consequently the universe is thought to be a supreme mystery, inconsistent, unpredictable, and arbitrary”.

Christianity and Science

• “In contrast, based on their commitment to Judeo-Christian theology, Europeans assumed, not only, that the universe was created, but that its workings are logical and consistent, thereby being susceptible to reason and inquiry.”

• “Consequently, science arose only in Christian Europe primarily because only Europeans believed it could be done and should be done.”

Science and Theology

• Stark: “I find it more rational to regard the Universe itself as the Ultimate Revelation of God and to agree with Kepler that in the most fundamental sense, Science is Theology and thereby serves as another method for the discovery of God”.

• Tulane Professor of Cosmology and Astrophysics, Frank Tipler, agrees. (The Physics of Immortality)