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Saviours and Religious founders: Alternatives to Jesus

21 Feb 2011 4
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If you grow up in Central Europe you get a good idea of the life and work of one of the most influential people in world history: Jesus Christ

We know little more than the names of his peers, the redeemers before and after him:

erloeser4

birth dates and age of some saviours

Moses and Krishna reached a truly biblical age. Unfortunately, both are unlikely to be historical figures. Mose’s story was written no earlier than 700 B.C.E and Krishna’s story no earlier than 1500 B.C.E.

But more astonishing is, that the remaining 7 Redeemer probably were historical persons, men of flesh and blood. Today every one of them is a designated founders of a religion. Imagine the 7 religious founders in the same room! Would they get along?

In fact, some of the religious founder were almost contemporaries. Around the year 500 B.C.E. there was a heyday of religions in India, China, Europe and the Middle East.

Some of the 9 Saviors knew about each other and about the older Egyptian religion and the Greco-Roman religion. We can only guess today, if Zoroaster was influenced by Krishna or respectively Jesus by Buddha or Krishna.

saviours

Influences of some redeemers

However after Jesus at the latest, you can draw the knowledge border. This is mainly thanks to the spreading of knowledge by the Silk Road. Mohammed probably knew about his 8 peers, but only cites Jesus and Moses as prophets before him.

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Humanism

I have allowed myself to evaluate the 9 religions in the chart according to their position towards humanism:

  • humanistic man:
    There is no personal god, but humanistic values
  • humanistic gods:
    There is a god/there are gods, but the trend is towards humanistic values
  • authoritarian gods:
    There is a god/there are gods, and the trend isn’t towards humanistic values
A list of 9 Saviors is necessarily incomplete. I have done a lot of thinking before limiting the list to the figureheads with strong influence on today’s religions.

Depending, where you draw the line, there are many other candidates. Some suggestions:

  • Abraham
  • Aristotle
  • Baha’u’llah
  • Descartes
  • Elijah
  • Epicurus
  • Nanak Dev
  • Hubbard
  • Jeremia
  • Kierkegaard
  • La Vey
  • Marcus Aurelius
  • Martin Luther
  • Martin Luther King Jr.
  • Mahatma Gandhi
  • Mahavira
  • Mani
  • Karl Marx
  • Maslow
  • Max More
  • Nebuchadnezzar II
  • Nietzsche
  • Plato
  • Plotinus
  • Pythagoras
  • Spinoza
  • Rudolf Steiner
  • Veda Vyasa
  • Wittgenstein
  • Zeno of Citium
  • etc..
kirchenkreuz

I must confess: A month ago, I had no idea about religion. That’s why I have greatly simplified the relationships; hopefully without mistakes with regard to content. Criticism is welcome.

By the way: My eurocentric world view was shaken, when writing this post. Just the right thing before a world tour (-;

Sources:

Ähnliche Beiträge:

  1. In Search of Religion: 7 Approaches
  2. In Search of Religion: Stoicism
  3. Resentment against God: Atheism & Humanism
  4. In Search of Religion: Zen Buddhism


by Florian Blümm   Mellrichstadt, Deutschland   Religion   , , , , , , , , , ,  

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