Myth, Ritual and Religion, Vol. 1 (of 2)Lang, Andrew
Religion
Myth, Ritual and Religion, Vol. 1 (of 2)
Lang, Andrew
Myth; Mythology; Religion; Rites and ceremonies
The moral divine beings of these lowest races, beings (when religiously
regarded) unconditioned, in need of no gift that man can give, are not
to be won by offerings of food and blood. Of such offerings ghosts,
and gods modelled on ghosts, are notoriously in need. Strengthened
and propitiated by blood and sacrifice (not offered to the gods of low
savages), the animistic deities will become partisans of their adorers,
and will either pay no regard to the morals of their worshippers, or
will be easily bribed to forgive sins. Here then is, ethically speaking,
a flaw in the strata of religion, a flaw found in the creeds of
ghost-worshipping barbarians, but not of non-ghost-worshipping savages.
A crowd of venal, easy-going, serviceable deities has now been evolved
out of ghosts, and Animism is on its way to supplant or overlay a rude
early form of theism. Granting the facts, we fail to see how they are
explained by the current theory which makes the highest god the latest
in evolution from a ghost. That theory wrecks itself again on the
circumstance that, whereas the tribal or national highest divine being,
as latest in evolution, ought to be the most potent, he is, in fact,
among barbaric races, usually the most disregarded. A new idea, of
course, is not necessarily a powerful or fashionable idea. It may be
regarded as a "fad," or a heresy, or a low form of dissent. But, when
universally known to and accepted by a tribe or people, then it must be
deemed likely to possess great influence. But that is not the case; and
among barbaric tribes the most advanced conception of deity is the least
regarded, the most obsolete.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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