Were the ancients gods real beings or were they man made to conrol and enslave people?

Question

The civilisations that worshipped GODS and idols have long gone, was it god who destroyed them for not accepting his name and worshipping statues. If so, why is India still here when hindu's are idol worshippers. Are they still here because god punishes them with poverty and disease as well as famine.

Answer 1

every one worships some sort of "god",money,budda,fame,etc.they need to find the true GOD.

Answer 2

When God gave the angels and humans free will he took the chance some would chose the wrong way.
That is what happened. The devil wanted to be worshipped.
Genesis 6 chaper tells how these other angels came down and lived with women. Jude 6 before the flood.
They too wanted to be worshipped. They were the mighty ones of old the men of fame. So because they were not human did many powerful works. Angels are mighty in power.
So they people began to worship them.
Apparently it was still going on in Jesus day because Satan showed him all the kingdoms of the world and said he would give them to him. Can't give something you don't own.
Jesus never said he didn't own it. So the Bible says Satan is the ruler of this world. Those other demons live here to Rev. 12
speaks of a war in heaven and Satan and the demons are cast down to the earth. They are worshiped as gods or prophets or mystic leaders and do horrible things to people.
Would a religion that tells a young man to strap on a bomb and blow people up be from a true loving god. Kill people you don't even know. So the demons are in religion worshipped as God's.
Jesus said, Test it by its fruits, if it isn't publishing peace and love and forgiveness. Christian or other wise, it isn't from the true god.

Answer 3

Polytheism grew out of ancient astronomy. The ancients used the position of the sun against the background stars at sunrise as a calendar to know when to plant, harvest, etc. Since there are roughly 12 lunar cycles in a year, they divided the sky into 12 regions, and made up stories related to the seasons appropriate for each of those 12 regions.

At some point, they anthropomorphised those stories into gods. The first gods were viewed as basically superheroes living in the sky in control of the weather. The evolved into other forms of control.

The 7 "nonfixed" eye visible heavenly objects were added to the list of gods; sun, moon, murcury, venus, mars, saturn, and jupiter.

This is the origin of all the ancient religions on earth. It's the reason the numbers 12 and 7 are so prevalent in ancient religions. It's the reason angels have wings (they were viewed as people living in the sky, aka heavens, and so they needed wings to fly back and forth between heaven and earth). It's the reason that 'heaven' and 'sky' were the same word in ancient times.

Monotheism grew out of cults that gave special honor to the sun.

Answer 4

They were about as real as stone can get. Idol worship is still prevelant today as you see in the Roman Catholic church. They will tell you they do not worship the statues but why then would they venerate them so and kneel down in front of them and plead with them for help? Same thing they do in India and other places that have gods they pray to. God has not destroyed all the gods as yet but will when Jesus comes to take His people back with Him. All the gods are man made and the churches that use them do use them to enslave people, to control them and keep them subservient to them.

Answer 5

That civilization is still here, just in a more subtle form depending on where you live. If God had destroyed them then everyone on earth would be worshipping the one true God. Also, those so called gods were really demons, agents of Satan. All those requests that are heard by the idols are actually executed by the demons. Satan is powerful but the true God is omnipotent (all powerful)

Answer 6

The concept of God rose from ignorance and fear of the unknown. Idols are still worshiped by all religions. The cross for example. If you have to "worship" any thing it should be the physical laws of nature.

Answer 7

haven't you seen Stargate SG1? Ancient 'gods' were in fact gou'uld! :)

On a more interesting note though one of the ten commandments (of the bible) states thou shalt not worship idols. Correct me if I'm wrong but an idol can also be a statue, so arn't Catholics worshipping idols when they kiss the feet of statues of the Virgin Mary etc- 'cos they're worshipping the statue rather than their god?(que angry backlash)

Answer 8

Both. The human being has a capacity to have feelings. Some of them scape to any rational interpretention. There is also a need to explain what goes further our natural reach cosmos, fairness... God may be used to explain the latter. What is clear through historical experience is that man has used god to impose himself to fellow human beings.

Answer 9

Perhaps some of the gods started out as metaphors for awhile but got reinterpreted by superstitious types. Then probably the superstitious types piled up wood and lit some of the reasonable types on fire, and after that pretty much everyone got religion.

Answer 10

People used to be so in tune with the land, and the various cycles of life, night and day, lunar cycle etc.

At a later date it was seen as a way of not only trying to control nature, sacraficing people to appease a volcanic erpution - but of also controlling the masses, with the instillation of priests who could commune with said gods on peoples behalf.

Greedy buggers have co-opted this as a way of control

Answer 11

I think people found it easy to explain things they didn't understand by attributing deity to them. When they found that e.g. pork went bad very soon in heat, they declared it unholy, and people acting accordingly remained healthy. The person giving the prescription was considered holy, a priest and that gave him power. Then there needed to be one superior god, like Zeus, or Wodan. And other peoples believed there was only one god who took care of everything, was the explanation of everything. Nowadays many of us find that we are only a splendid accident in evolution. That has nothing to do with god.