July 21, 2021 • 66 mins
The concept of religion predates civilization and the written word -- from its earliest days, the human species looked to religion to explain the ineffable. Religion has been the inspiration for some of humanity's noblest acts (and the rationalization for some of its most horrific crimes). Some have been enormously successful, spreading across the globe... but what happened to the rest? How many religions have been forgotten, or purposely destroyed?
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:26):
My name is Matt, my name is They called me Ben.
We're joined as always with our super producer Paul mission
controlled decads. Most importantly, you are you. You are here,
and that makes this the stuff they don't want you
to know. If you didn't check the title for today's episode,
we're diving deep into something very old that remains very
(00:47):
controversial in the modern day. We're talking about religion. It's
one of the oldest concepts in human society. It's uh
been the ruinous subject of many Thanksgiving dinners, you name it.
Religion has been somehow involved because it's you know, when
you think about it, thinking about this guy's it's the
first example of the human species attempting to explain why
(01:12):
something happens, you know, all the all like things like
why does the sun come up? Why does the sun
sometimes uh seem to disappear from the sky, Why are
we here at all? Where do we go after this?
What happens when we die, What does all of this mean? Why? Why? Why? Why?
Religion attempts to answer those questions, and for many people
(01:35):
it provides the only answers that they feel confident in,
and it's responsible for tremendous acts of kindness. It's also
a been a rationalization for countless heartbreaking atrocities. You know.
It's uh, we have a disclaimer. I think we need
to put in the front here. We do. And Ben,
I think your description of the origin of all religion,
(01:57):
of any religion explain a lot of the conflict that
has occurred between religious organizations over the years. Because you've
got pockets of people living together, someone or a group
of people come up with that explanation of why in
their bubble, uh, you know, miles and miles away, maybe
(02:19):
continents away. Another group of people does the same thing,
but they have their their own answers that they come to.
And then eventually when those two groups meet, and this
is just one example, they have to decide who's right.
And yeah, there's so much parallel thinking, right, They're like
kind of like key tenants in all major religions that
all aligned pretty well. And yet it has to be
(02:41):
this like spiritual pissing contest kind of it always ends
up being that and more than just that, I mean
larger obviously, whole wars and uh, genocide and all of
these you know, awful things that human beings do, all
in the name of My God is better than your God.
And that's why we are saying to you listening to
this that we are not making any judgments on anyone's
(03:03):
personal beliefs, and we would never tell Nope, we would
never tell you what to believe, and we're not going
to even really tell you what we believe. So we're
just gonna explore this together in a very very it's
not secular way, and a very even handed will be
our attempt. There we go. That's our that's our goal.
(03:24):
Pardon my Yoda phrasing, but yeah, we'll try to be
even handed, is what I mean. Yeah, it's and you
guys are raising these fantastic and these disturbing points and
of course and stuff they want you to to know. We
clearly believe that, as Matt said, your beliefs are your own.
Is it is a private thing, and no one has
(03:44):
the right or the power to quote unquote make you
believe something else. It is up to you, it is
a personal decision. I love the point you bring up
about origins of religion there too, because you know, a
lot of as we'll see in it, really murky stuff
from the pale Paleolithic era, a lot of um, a
(04:07):
lot of very early religions were since they were essentially
trying to explain things. They were explaining things that were
common in a native environment. That's why you would see
variations in animal deities, right, they would be based on
the animals that are encountered in you know, in day
(04:29):
to day life. And so like, just like you said, Noel,
followers of different systems, belief systems find themselves in constant,
countless conflicts with followers of other systems, from ancient wars
to acts of persecution that continue in the modern day.
And in many cases, as we'll find and as you've
(04:51):
probably found yourself, fellow conspiracy realists, people of all sorts
of faith can live together in peace, you know what
I mean. Like your next door neighbor might be an atheist,
they might follow a religion you've never heard of, but
still they're probably going to be cool to you because
they're your neighbor. And it seems to me that this
is somewhat of a modern development that people are able
(05:13):
to relatively coexist. Certainly, there are still disputes based on religion,
not saying that's not a thing, but you know, all
in all, you don't see quite as many large scale
conflicts based exclusively on differences and religious beliefs. It. Yeah,
it depends on where you go in every region. Right,
(05:34):
So this is the origin point for what we're exploring
today religions. As you said, you know, people of various
faiths have managed to live together in peace, but they
have also at various countless numerable points try to wipe
each other out. On today's episode, we're asking were any
(05:56):
of these attempts successful, Are there any forgotten religions, and
if so, how did they disappear? Here are the facts
to understand that. We have to first understand the state
of what we broadly call religion in the modern day.
Regardless of your own personal beliefs, you are probably pretty
(06:18):
well aware on some level of the world's most prominent religions.
If you look at the World Population Review and some
good stats. As of twenty Christianity is the is the
biggest one in terms of raw population two point three
eight billion followers, relatively closely followed by Islam with one
(06:42):
point nine one billion followers, and then Hinduism comes in
with around one point one six billion followers. Buddhism is
number four at five hundred and seven million followers, and
then we have what you could probably way term other,
but there is a loosely defined name for this category
(07:04):
known as folk religions, which comprises about four hundred and
thirty million followers. And that leaves a lot of people
in another category, which is like an A yeah, not applicable,
may not affiliated would be one of the ways those
are reported or or didn't respond consider considering oneself broadly
(07:28):
spiritual or you know other something like that. Yeah. This
These stats are tricky because for a couple of reasons. First,
each of these describes a very pretty broad category, you
know what I mean. A Protestant is not the same
as a Catholic, a Shiite is not the same as Sunni.
(07:49):
And over the course of history, there's no shortage of
members of the same overall belief system fighting amongst themselves.
You know, it can be it can be illuminating for
someone in the modern day to read read about the
various what are considered heresies disagreements of doctrine and Christianity,
(08:11):
because they may seem like a small deal to an outsider,
but they're a huge deal internally, and people did die
because of these disagreements. One person's heretic is another person's messiah. Yeah, yeah,
well put and this this leads us to um, this
leads us back to the idea of the commonality, right,
(08:31):
because if you're like, if you are, for instance, uh
not a not a follower of Christianity or an adherent
to some denomination of Christianity, then it may seem odd
to you that various denominations disagree or don't get along
because you think, well, you have a lot of you
have a lot of commonality, right you you're both uh,
(08:53):
you're all followers of this specific messiah. You all have
that you all have some verse of the same text. Right,
So why why won't you let each other coexist? And
I mean, even three of the world's most well known religions, Judaism, Islam,
and Christianity share a common lineage, and that common lineage
(09:16):
hasn't been enough to prevent conflicts. But the it's the
differences and observation, interpretation, and practice that lead to battle.
That you know, that is weird that Judaism didn't make
it into that World Population Review uh article or the
thing that we cited there. That's that's really interesting. It's
(09:37):
just a it's a numbers game. Yeah, I know, I
just I guess I imagined that there were higher, I
don't know, high enough numbers of followers of Judaism that
they would it would fit in there, But I guess. Yeah.
The population, the world's Jewish population as of this older
status of was about fourteen li in total. Yeah, it's crazy.
(10:03):
It's it's it's like at the bottom of the list
above it. It's something called spirit is um. I don't
even know what that is. Hopefully it's it's what it
sounds like. I guess. I guess. Yeah. That's fascinating. Yeah,
that's very very fascinating. And it's so interesting too because um,
you know that that it is such a visible um
(10:23):
population as well, Like in terms if you go to
like certain areas of New York City or Los Angeles
or even here in Atlanta, Um, you know, orthodox Jewish population,
they definitely tend to cluster in certain neighborhoods and are
a very visible part of communities. So it's very interesting
that it would be such a low number. And with
people common spiritual beliefs or cultural background, we find that
(10:44):
they do tend These groups do tend to cluster together
because you have you have that sense of community. But
also the danger of the large numbers is that when
when a smaller belief system becomes a subject of persecution,
whether regionally or globally, terrible terrible things can happen. And
(11:08):
from an anthropological perspective, less than anybody think we're dumping
on religion. Overall, every single religious system you will ever
read about, you will ever practice, is itself a priceless
monument to the abilities of human belief, and it's a
it's a cultural milestone that cannot be replaced for For many,
(11:30):
many people, religion is the single most important aspect of
their life on earth, and so we we know that
it provides things that that people fuel they need, and
it's been doing so for a long time. Right now,
if you're trying to figure out what is the oldest
religion that is still around today, you would hear a
(11:51):
couple of different answers. Most folks will most scholars will
generally agree that Hinduism is the oldest extent religion. I mean,
it's still you know, around in one as we record this,
though others will argue that there are some smaller religions
they continue today, smaller in terms of population size, like
(12:11):
a Zoroastrianism that is a strong contender for this position.
It's much less well known, and it's it's a fascinating story.
But let's maybe talk a little bit about Hinduism so
we can learn more about sort of the the oldest
guy in the restaurant of religion. It is interesting though
that it doesn't have like a founder that you can
(12:33):
point to. I've I've always wondered that, and there it
really isn't an answer. Um. So it's really hard to
trace its origin and the providence of its um. You know,
religious texts and doctrine. Um. It's quite unique in that
it's sort of like a amalgam of of of several
different traditions and philosophies, and again shares quite a few
(12:56):
commonalities with with Buddhism, for example. Um. But definitely wasn't
the only game in town, right um. And you know,
in terms of the most ancient of religions, Yeah, yeah, absolutely,
it's it's around today. Hinduism has many, many adherents. It
dates back to you know, like more than four thousand
(13:18):
years ago. Most of the most of the followers of
Hinduism do reside in India at this time, but while
it was around, you know, there were other parts of
the world that had completely different belief systems. Many of
those have been lost to history. But you're right, Nold.
Scholars spend a lot of time and effort trying to
(13:40):
pin down the beginning of what we would today recognize
as religion, and it becomes controversial so quickly. I gotta
tell you, guys, the coolest theory I heard um digging
into this. It concerns the idea of Paleolithic religions, meaning
belief systems that would have been around in two hundred
thousand to fifty thousand BC. It's hard to even understand
(14:04):
how long ago that was. But the coolest claim is
this that there were people alive during this time who
worshiped bears, bear worships. I think it's hard to hard
to wrap our heads around because it's also hard to
insert ourselves into the mindset of paleolithic you know humans, right,
Like it really points to the fact that or the
(14:25):
idea that religion is sort of this innate thing that
doesn't necessarily require like a large amount of intelligence. It
just is something that we sort of innately seek. Is
an explanation for why the sun comes up, or why
the thing does this, or why the herds, you know,
travel in this direction, and and look for things that
we can use magical thinking to kind of help us
(14:48):
solve day to day problems, especially at a time when
it would have been a very harsh life and very
you know, difficult to survive. Well, it's it's not for me.
It's not difficult to imagine and and and the only
reason why I say that is because if if you
try and just close your eyes, put yourself in the
mindset of a young child growing up in the Paleolithic era,
(15:12):
and you you know, you're born into whatever your family
situation looks like, whether it's one person to you know,
a hundred people living roughly together, especially if you're somewhere
where there are large mountains or there's you know, a
large open field where you're high enough up and you
can see enough of the planet immediately, no matter what
(15:36):
your beliefs are, what you're understanding is there's something that
says there's this is very big where I am is
very very big. There must be powerful things, something, some
things that created this. I think we're saying the same thing. Man.
I think I was just saying, like, I have a
hard time understanding the idea of an intellect of of
(15:56):
this kind of early you know, um human, But I
think right, the mind, even lacking the structure and the
framework to have more complex tenets of religion, just seeks
out the things that you're talking about. Kind of innate.
There's no scientific basis to it. And I'm glad you
guys are bringing this up because the human species did
something incredibly interesting from an evolutionary perspective. Uh. It began
(16:22):
to evolve in a way that prioritize thinking, abstract thought
the brain right, and the amount of energy the brain
takes is is pretty fascinating because it indicates that humans
spent a lot of time thinking right and and becoming toolmakers. Right.
(16:47):
The The original form of human hunting, by the way,
this kind of interesting is called persistence hunting. It's just
other animals evolved for quick burst of speed and then
humans just kind of duras selled it or wait, no, energizer,
bunny did right, They kept going and going and going.
So we've evolved to specific things. But one one thing
(17:10):
that we evolved to is very important is pattern recognition.
So I would argue, like, that's that's how they became
such good hunters. So I would argue that um pattern
recognition in a way is hardwired. Neurological imperative can explain
how early humans arrived at explanations for things that we
(17:32):
would think of as religion, because they were they literally
evolved to say not just oh, that happened again, but
to say, oh, that happened twice. I wonder if it's
going to happen a third time, and if it will
happen at the same time. Let me think about that, right,
just really quickly, think about the first winter that you
(17:54):
can remember, like if you're in that time, the first
winter that you live through that you can remember the
reverence that you would have for the heat coming from
the sun. At the times when heat is coming from
the sun and you know, you may not even correlate that,
oh I'm warmer now because of that bright thing up there.
(18:15):
If you don't have, you know, a language to describe
the things you can at least since I am warmer
when there's light on me and that thing is up
in the sky. Um. And then I can see at
night to hunt if I have to, or to do
you know things at night because that other thing is
in the sky or you know that thing in the
(18:35):
sky has changed now into this other thing, um, and
I can still see. You can just imagine that a
reverence gets built up, as you said, with the pattern recognition,
Ben there I can you can imagine them culminating and
you start connecting the dots like between big magic thing
in the sky too. Don't eat this mushroom. It'll kill
you because I saw something, you know what I mean,
(18:56):
Like they're there. There are these ways you start to
connect and like say, oh if this sun you know
thing represents this, then this other thing represents this and
I have to give it homage and respect it or
else I could actually literally die because like all my
brothers and sisters didn't you know what I mean. I
mean that recognition I think is crucial. Well, religion, I
(19:16):
mean is the precursor of modern science. It is analytical
right in its in its endeavor, and you know, I
know it can sound maybe a little bit cold or
soulless to to say, pattern recognition plays a big part.
We We do have another episode that you may want
(19:38):
to check out if you're interested in these kinds of conversations,
and that is uh, the the belief that psychoactive substances
may have played a role in early religions. Please do
check that out. There's some sand to it. Uh, But
I love the opposite. I mean, you know, as you know,
my kind hibernates during winter, So I don't personally know
(19:58):
the experience that you're described, I mean, Matt, but I
get it. I get where you're at. And and people,
did you know the things, the things that have power,
these inexplicable things, they must be explained is the human mind.
We seek to understand them. And so it makes sense
that some of the first gods would be things like
the spirits of the dead, um or avatars of powerful
(20:22):
natural elements like the sun, the moon, the ocean. And
then later social concepts like UH, contracts, friendship, UH war,
things like that, these inevitable parts of the human existence.
And now, I hate to say it, right as of now,
(20:43):
a lot of people say there's no evidence that humans
are Neanderthals really had something that would understand as religious
practice or at least as bear worship. I don't know
why I get stuck on that, but but yeah, But
also of this is pre like, there's not written documentation
(21:03):
of this time, right, so it is very very possible,
I would argue probable that there are things that are
religious beliefs. They just didn't make it to the to
modern history. Right. So as a result of that, we
see some of the first forgotten religions and we will
likely never know what they were. Uh. Instead, when we
(21:24):
search at this like point in the distant past, we
have to find physical evidence of practices that imply some
sort of belief system, which means, like, what is the
first time it looks like someone was buried on purpose?
You know that that indicates something, right, a fear perhaps
of the dead, or a belief in the afterlife, maybe
(21:46):
at the very least a reverence for life to some degree,
which sort of recognizes a to me, a spiritual layer
I think, or at least an unawareness of something like that.
What one was it? Ben? They covered the first buried
child I believe around what seventy eight thousand to seventy
four thousand BC E the earliest known Homo sapien burial
(22:08):
of a child at a cave site called Panga Yasadi
in modern day Kenya. It's and like the southeast of
Kenya uh and the earliest known purposeful burial of a
human being at all occurs a hundred thousand BC in
the Middle East. And of course countless other people were
probably being buried by their loved ones at this time.
(22:30):
Like we said, it's tough to know exactly what the logic,
but the process, the system was here, but there is
that that implies a belief system of some sort, and
those those early people, We're not the only cases. We
have to remember that humans are very, very very good
at losing things and breaking things and destroying things. We've
(22:54):
lost entire cities before. Religion is no exception. I can't
believe we got this far are without referencing R. E. M.
But we're all we're all kind of doing the r
M song as a species. Do you know what this?
I'm doing the dance. I'm doing the r M dance
right now. The Michael Stipe and the white you know,
collared shirt with a CP of tone back on that
(23:15):
video by the way absolutely fundamental nineties art rock video
that was copied ad nauseam. Just take a look what
watch Losing My Religion and then just think about the
nineties and the look of music videos that is like
the prototype. But well that's you in the spotlight. And uh.
And I appreciate that point because, as we'll see, a
(23:36):
lot of religions copy from one another as well or
evolve out of one another. But some haven't been simply forgotten.
Some religions, you see, have been lost or raised on purpose.
We're gonna pause for a quick word from our sponsor
and then we'll dive in. Here's where it gets crazy. Yes,
(24:02):
religions can and do disappear over time. Some even experience
of resurgence and reappear right they go underground because of persecution,
and then later they emerge when whatever insert regime here
has passed on. Belief is a durable, powerful thing. And
I would say, you know, it's interesting, and I was
(24:23):
trying to think aboutw to phrase this in the very
very early days of human beings, thinking along these lines,
it's almost like the concept of religion is itself a conspiracy.
You are finding hidden truths, you are encountering illumination and revelation.
And then on the flip side of that, religious persecution
(24:45):
is a genre of conspiracy all its own. It doesn't
make like, insert the name of any religion you wish,
and you will find at some point in history those
people have been persecuted for their beliefs. You also find
that people continue very much so to be persecuted in
the modern day in horrific ways. And it's it's weird
(25:08):
to think, you know, if you live in the US,
it's pretty strange to to imagine a president, whatever president
you wish, going on, you know, going on TV from
the Oval Office and saying like, all right, we've had
it had it up to here with the uh with
the Seventh day Adventist, you know, the Baptist. They can't
(25:32):
they can't have jobs anymore. They all have to pay
an extra tax and they all have to uh live
in Cincinnati. Alright, God bless America. Like, but that that
kind of stuff happened, Like versions of that stuff happened
all the time. People would be lower class, they would
have day to day restrictions on movement, social opportunities. This
(25:52):
still again continues in the modern day, including like who
they can marry, where they can have kids with. And
this also of course takes the takes the form of
violence up to an including genocide. This is a very
real thing. Thinking about it in that context, you can
imagine why some of the groups, the religions that we're
(26:13):
going to speak about today operated in secret. As you said,
it was they had to function in a conspiracy to
hold those beliefs because you had to be careful who
you talked to about your beliefs because of these dangers.
So a lot of these groups would, you know, rather
than having a temple, a large temple, or you know,
constructing a church of some sort, they would operate underground.
(26:37):
You know, they would build a temple under the ground
literally on purpose as a way to be able to
secret away to practice even during the you know, Roman
rule when Christianity was persecuted religion and they had to
mark you know, their meeting places or speaking code using
the fish symbol or whatever. Um they're they're various ways
(27:00):
of doing that. But yeah, I mean, what is now
the world's most prominent religion absolutely used to operate in
secret and underground or face you know, crucifixion. Yeah, that's
that's the exactly that's exactly the case. You know, each
and every act of religious persecution could be an episode
of forget an episode, it could be an entire series
(27:22):
all its own. And what we're gonna do is site
several examples of religions that have come and then have gone.
And we won't have a comprehensive list of this because again,
there are just so many examples of people doing horrible
things to each other and using rationalization for these acts
they have been successful in the past. That's why we'll
never know how many religions the species has lost. And additionally,
(27:47):
this is kind of funny. I hope there's not me
being like too soon about it, but this is kind
of funny for so many to religions, a lot of
our information comes from people who hated them, their regional
rivals there. And he's you run into this um with
you know, historical biographies of individuals to write, Like an
emperor dies and then some archivist or story and a
(28:12):
writer wants to what's the curry favor with the new
emperor and so they're they're like, hey, let me tell
you some wild stuff about the guy before you I heard,
you know, he eats toes, I'm sure, I don't know,
or a conquering force comes through and wipes out the
record any written records you know that existed. So we
(28:35):
only know then from hearsay of people who rolled through
with you know, weapons, The victors go the spoils and
the right to tell the story, right, history is written
by the winners. It's uh, that's the one. It's a
bug for some, a feature for others. But like for
one quick example of this, the Canaanite religion. If you
(28:56):
have read the Bible, which is a pretty popular book,
pretty easy to find a copy, then you'll hear mentions
of the k and Nite religion, and the authors of
the Bible in those sections that mentioned it clearly do
not They're not down with it. There's not like it's
definitely not a like David Attenborough esque kind of observation.
(29:19):
So so we were deloaded, is what you mean? Why
they they clearly feel away. Yes, yeah, there's there's some
bias there and this this is something that we see
happen in other in other parts of the world and
other parts of time. So in the if we look
at the Middle East, this is a great example of
(29:40):
um a place that is a wash in religions that
the modern world largely forgot. Uh. It's the birthplace of civilization,
you know. So it makes sense logically that there would
be an immence density of religious practice in the Middle East,
and before the rise of Islam, the Arabic world had
(30:01):
this rich, diverse spiritual ecology, which I think is maybe
a little bit of a pretentious term, but it works.
The majority of inhabitants in the region until about the
fourth century, practiced different forms of polytheism, which means a
spiritual belief with multiple gods as compared to something like Christianity,
which is monotheistic. There's one God. And even as these
(30:25):
growing populations, well they're they're there are three, there's one
in three forms. Yes, yeah, and some of us are
probably old enough to remember when the Holy Ghost turned
into the Holy Spirit right in the in the I
don't want to call them speeches, but you know what
I mean, yeah, yeah, yeah, Well, and don't forget about
the Yes. Religious syncretism, which we also have an episode on.
(30:51):
Religious syncretism is the idea of mix taping religion. So
if you want, if you are proselytized for a specific
belief system. The Catholic Church was tremendously talented at this
for proselytizing for a specific belief system. It's really tough
to say to tell people, hey, that thing that you
(31:12):
and your ancestors believed, that's wrong. Do my thing. Instead.
The more clever, subtle way to do it is to say, hey,
that you know that God you are worshiping from, you know,
the mountain, from the river or whatever, that's actually this
person in my belief system. So we're already we're agreeing.
(31:34):
Let me just tell you more about what you already believe.
I mean, that is your thing is just a it's
a it's a smaller thing apart over here. That's really
this larger thing that I'm going to tell you. I
can show you the Yeah, it's like it's but it's
way less chilled than that because they're also doing this.
(31:54):
But like while they're doing this, they're using this religious
difference as a rationalist Asian to enslave, to torture, to
assault and murder people. So it's it gets ugly real quick.
But but in the Middle East you have all these
regional polytheistic practices. People have deities that are kind of
(32:15):
local to the area, and this continued even as populations
of people practicing Judaism and Christianity began to develop into
significant minorities. UH. One commonality that these pre Islamic belief
systems had was the belief in a chief God, not
a not a single god overall, but like one God
(32:37):
above the rest of the gods, whose name was hubald
h g B A L spelled a couple different ways
sometimes and in fact, it might surprise people know the
Kabba in Mecca actually was once a a repository for
for representations of many of these gods, hundreds of different gods.
(32:58):
Their images were housed in there in that structure in Mecca.
And then according to Islam Uh, this structure was originally
built by the biblical Abraham, but later people after his
time people went in and put those other idols inside,
and then when the prophet of Islam, the prophet Mohammed,
(33:21):
gained control of the structure, he expelled those idols. So
there's clearly even in that story, there's clearly like an
acknowledgement that other belief systems exist, but they are not
the true belief system and they must therefore be excised
from society. Man, you're gonna tear down that golden calf,
all those idols, get rid of them. Even that big
(33:42):
bull outside of Wall Street. I mean, what you mean,
what you mean with the little girl facing him off?
I don't know what you're talking about, or well, at
least at least that bull. I don't think. I don't
think they burned people in it yet, which is the
one of the accusations, right for the bull worshipers. But
like we could go, we could see examples of this
(34:04):
all the time, because history really is a palambsessed It's
written over itself repeatedly. So like what what about Europe? Right,
Europe is considered now, as we'll see, Europe is considered
increasingly secular. But for a long time, it was, like
the um, a huge economic force for Christianity and for
(34:25):
spreading various belief systems of Christianity. But it wasn't always
the case. And then you had all sorts of flavors
of Celtic religions. You had druids and various forms of
regional paganism that you know, had very specific pantheons of
gods and deities that they would worship that were very
(34:48):
regionally specific and not necessarily a universal language or or
group of gods that that everyone knew about. I mean,
there certainly were the big ones um, you know, for example,
let's say, worshiping of um ancient Roman deities like like
Pan or certain personifications of nature. I think paganism has
always been fascinating to all of us, and it's also
(35:08):
very misunderstood and as often I think, misconstrued with devil
worship or various you know, forms of witchcraft, for example.
But it really is its own thing, Yeah, very much so. Yeah,
it's a it's really it's the term itself, which comes
from It's funny because pagan isn't, like you said, is
(35:30):
associated sometimes with devil worship quote unquote, but really the
term edomologically means rural. It's like country people, that's that's
what That's what it was originally meant, and it was
it was a term used by practitioners of early Christianity
(35:52):
to apply to anybody who was polytheistic beliefs in the
Roman Empire. They were like, okay, that's if you're anything
that's not a Christian, you're you're a pagan, right, And
this this is super unfair to these as you said, well,
very specific regional religions that are not you know, they're
(36:13):
not united by a common language, often not united by
a common culture. They exist on their own. Uh. And
then and I would I'm sorry, Ben, I don't want
to cut you off, but I would just say the
connection to nature with some of those religious beliefs were
it was very strong, and possibly because of the rural
nature of their lifestyle. The people who followed many of
(36:36):
these religions, like the harvest was very important and you
know it was worthy of worshiping a deity that would
help your harvest out. Uh. I don't know. I'm just
wanted to make that point because again, we're everybody we're
talking about is intelligent. They're highly intelligent, their logical rational actors.
(36:56):
So they're explaining the world in the best way they
and and other people just disagree with their explanations in
a very violent way. If you if you want to
get a modern look this tangential. But if you want
to get a modern look at uh at pagan inspired art,
I would highly recommend spending some time on YouTube checking
(37:19):
out Heal Long Job I'm pronouncing correctly. They're a folk
music band from Germany and parts of northern Europe. I'm
gonna send you guys a clip if you haven't seen
them yet. It's it's awesome, It's the whole nine. I
can't recommend it enough. Oh, I can't wait to check
it out another you know, you're right in the we
caviat of this whole discussion from the start and saying that, yeah,
(37:42):
we don't have bulleted lists for all of these categories
because some of these things were successfully eradicated. Um. But
one that I think is interesting, and I think it's
something that will hit a cord with all three of us,
is uh the snake god glican Um, which is actively
promoted and worshiped by the comic book writer Alan Moore,
(38:03):
who fancies himself a bit of of a of a
magician um, and he wears a ring on his hand
that is this kind of like intertwined snake um you
know image It almost looks like Oran from the Never
Ending story series the Seal, the metal thing that's on
the book. Um. But yeah, glican was a pagan deity
(38:25):
that was worshiped and it was a cult that was
very um influential when the Romans were trying desperately to
eradicate all of these types of religions, and they were
relatively successful in being able to continue their traditions and
staying underground um. And obviously that has persevered today, even
if it's not super mainstream at all. And it's funny
(38:46):
because Alan Moore actually refers to this, it's almost like
he's doing it as a gag or like kind of
like a satire, satirical form of religion because he refers
to it as a hoax deity. But we do know
there's evidence like in ancient Macedonia even you know of
uh cults groups rather the term cult is so loaded um.
(39:06):
But you know I can refer to I guess a
small group of devoted followers that were particular individual or
deity um, and of of these individuals actually worshiping a
real serpent that represented this uh, this this god liken.
So you know, Alan Moore, whatever his intentions are, whether
tongue in cheek or sincere, he is keeping it alive
(39:27):
and it has made enough of an impact and stuck
around long enough in the historical record to be around today.
So I guess they did something right and not becoming
one of those casualties that we're talking about today. And
sometimes um people who common later generations will use whatever
scant resources or other documents are available to resurrect an
(39:52):
ancient religion. And this was really common in the days
of Theosophy and the age of spiritualism. People would have
these discoveries or these revelations and they would say, I'm
not introducing a new religion, I'm bringing the old one back,
you know. Uh, this this was an attempt to in
many cases acquire some sort of street cred in a way.
(40:16):
But but right, and that's that's an excellent example of
a really common practice. What we're saying is that Europe,
the European continent at this time, was incredibly varied, right,
and there wasn't the sort of religious uniformity that Christianity
would later seek to impose and largely successfully. And that's
(40:37):
kind of ironic itself, right, because as you were called,
Christianity itself was persecuted throughout most of the history of
the Roman Empire. They were they were the bad guys.
And uh, while we're on the subject of cults, one
thing that's interesting. You can see definitions of tactics that
modern cults use but if we're talking about this, maybe
(40:58):
are the best way to define that is by um
a religion practiced in secret, right, that has mysteries, mysteries
that are unavailable to the uninitiated. And this is where
we go to some more. I am so compelled with these,
so interested in Manicheism and mythrayism. One of the extreme
(41:22):
examples of religious persecution occurs with this first one, Manicheism,
founded in third century A d That this dualistic cosmology,
So life, your existence about two things, a struggle between
the spiritual world of light that's the good side, and
the evil material world of darkness. This religion went viral
(41:47):
kind of and you know these belief inherently is mametic, right,
So this religion spread like wildfire, but it was successfully
stamped out by the Roman Empire. And right now as
we record, there's an interesting plot twist because they are
growing rumors that some form of Manicheism may persist in
nice lated areas of China. There's not enough research out
(42:10):
there to say for sure yet. But again, belief powerful, durable,
hard to kill, and it's it's a similar becais our Astrianism.
I believe um in that it and also, I guess gnosticism,
where it has its own mythology, then that is very
unique to the belief um and its own kind of
innate philosophy. I mean, you know, we've done a whole
(42:31):
episode I believe with Joe McCormick a gnosticism um, and
it's sort of interesting. Twists on deities we might recognize,
you know, from other religions. But the idea of having
a whole mythology that's unique to a belief system, I
think is is very fascinating, even if there are overlaps
and especially key points that are very similar between the
(42:52):
different beliefs. But yeah, it looks like the Romans that
have fine job of stamping this one out. Fascinating that
it would still be around in certain need China, maybe right,
maybe yeah. And the Astrionism quick note there um was
was in play at this time. Azorastrianism had more followers
in terms of raw numbers, but Menicheism was h could
(43:16):
be for a time. It was arguably more successful because
it spread further, you know, made it out to China,
and then it also counted among its members some high
ranking political figures. Guys. I I don't I think that's
really important to high ranking political figures because that leads
right into some of my personal beliefs about Mythraism. But
(43:40):
I okay, I we'll bring it up here. Remind me
to talk about something before we finished talking about Mythriism. Okay, okay,
all right, you got it. Let's let's go to Mythraism. So, uh,
myth Reism is a mystery religion. It was a mystery
of religion again that you know, and it's it's a
cult because they practiced in secret, and you were if
(44:02):
you were not a follower, a member of Mythraism, you
weren't going into that underground temple and secret. Then you
wouldn't know what their rituals were. You weren't supposed to
h they do. You know. They worshiped a deity damed Mithriss,
which is a Cadian for contract, and Mythriss was the
god of friendship, order and contract. These books were super
(44:24):
super duper into secrecy. Uh. This cult begins um late
first century and it spreads from the Italian peninsula to
border regions all and then all across the Roman Empire.
Right now, there are no written narratives or theology from
the religion itself. It's still though the Roman Empire, right,
(44:48):
they also wanted to stamp out things that they thought
were subversive or danger to the status quo and mythriism.
For a time, I've kind of had a it was
kind of an exception because the followers of Mithraism supported
the Roman Empire and the people of power, you know,
(45:10):
and although they conspired, they were you know, in general,
they were seen as not a subversive force. You will
find videos across the Internet and writings that say the
Cult of Mithress exists today. And I believe it's because
of that connection to friendship, contract and order, because it
(45:33):
really does speak to big business essentially to large markets
working together. Um. You can see how the beliefs that
we know of that the cult of Mrs Mithress had
would translate really well to a group of people working
together to build empires, to like the Roman Empire, to
(45:56):
build um monetary empire. You can see why this belief,
at least in the modern age, that this group persists.
You can see you can see why people would I
think that maybe because was that the thing we're supposed
to remind you to talk about. Uh No, that's okay. Well,
I know we're we're running along here already. The thing
(46:17):
I wanted to talk about that many of these religions,
like Manicheism that we were talking about there, show this
dualism that I think is really fascinating between So you've
got the light in the dark right that you can
see that mirrored, and a lot of religions even once
it exists today, Well, there's there's some in here, not
(46:39):
necessarily these two that we're talking about right now, but
there's some of these that have been lost that supposedly
had a tethering between the plane of matter, this physical
plane and a spiritual plane, where there were two versions
of you, of an individual that existed simultane eneously, uh,
(47:01):
in both planes, essentially multiverse kind of situation almost for Meliever, Yeah,
for me, it's more it's closer to simulation theory, almost
like there's a version of you or an intelligence that
is a part of you that exists on some other
plane that manipulates this one, or that this one manipulates
(47:24):
that one. I don't know, it's just fascinating to me.
Before we agreed, mat before we go to break, I
gotta ask you, Matrix four, what's your position Matrix two
or three weren't that great in my opinions so well,
so I don't know. Maybe maybe it'll be cool a
long times past. I hope it's good. I am purposefully
(47:46):
removing myself from any and all materials coming out about it,
and I will watch it when it is released. I'll
tell you after that last thing, last thing. Sorry, I
know we keep having the last last things? Me thrist
Do you think there's any connection to the mystical material
and the Lord of the Rings books? Me thrill the
(48:07):
like it's like a chain mail that can't be penetrated. Possibly,
possibly have to ask a Tolkien scholar, but maybe we
should ask Stephen Colbert. Probably yeah, yeah, Okay, well, let's
let's take a let's pause for word from our sponsors.
I'll text Steve uh, and then we'll come back if
(48:27):
if he gives us an update. All right, we have returned,
uh Steve. Steve texted me and just like a weird emoji.
So I'm gonna have to dig dig into Tolkien to
figure out the etymology there. But he did, you know,
(48:47):
he he did spend a lot of time working as
a linguist, you know, in the construction of those worlds,
So it wouldn't be surprised if there are echoes. Uh.
This this is the big moment here. We've talked a
lot of out various religious conflicts. We've talked about how
religions get suppressed. We've talked about how some religions can
suppress others, or at least people who claim to practice
(49:11):
those religions will use a religion as an excuse to
oppress other people. But we promised you we would talk
about times where religions have been erased. This is almost
a terrible now, it's it's a story that I think
we all enjoy. Uh, it's fascinating. It happened long enough
ago that we can laugh at the hubris of it.
(49:34):
But way back in the day, Egypt straight up erased
an entire religion successfully and purposely. Well not all the
way successfully, because we know about it today, but they
did their best, and they did a really good job.
It's something called aton is um A T E n
(49:55):
I s M. It's a religion centered on a sun
god named Aton. It was debatably monotheistic, but it's probably
better to say the followers of this belief system, followers
of attanis um believe that other gods could exist or
were believed to exist, but that Atton is Um and
(50:17):
Atton himself was, you know, the main deal, the primary
spiritual entree. It was egypt state religion for just twenty
years in the fourteenth century b C. And it's all
because of this pharaoh named Akatan. He over his reign,
he create, he founded this cult himself. It was kind
(50:41):
of about Otten, but it was really all about how
important he was in the religion. It's very self serving
religion because, um, you know how in the Catholic belief system,
the clergy is your connection to God. Right, that's big
doctrinal different between some other denominations in Christianity and Catholicism.
(51:04):
In this belief system, in this cult, there was only
one guy who could talk to God, a single, single conduit,
and he lived at the top of that giant building.
But you know, he was closer to the heavens or whatever.
But yeah, you can totally see how it was a
bit self serving. Even what if it was the real
(51:24):
what if auton Issm was the real, true religion, that
was the one boat on that one matt because Uh
as soon as he died later rulers with the support
of the people through this stuff in the garbage. You know.
It's after he passed away, his cult enters a decline,
(51:47):
gradually at first, but then pretty at a pretty hectic pace.
The pre existing beliefs returned because he's fighting against thousands
of years of tradition and culture. And we were talking
off air about this, but it reminds me of like
Coke two or New Coke when that came out in
the eighties. There's a conspiracy about that as well. I
(52:09):
don't know if you guys have heard this that apparently
was made to distract people from changing the recipe of
original Coca cola. Not confirmed yet, but anyway, this guy's
move was tremendously unpopular. Folks. Imagine, imagine you have, uh,
you have friends that you get together with and you like,
you play a game every week. You could be Magic
(52:31):
the Gathering. Maybe you have like a jam band, or
maybe you have like um Dungeons and Dragons or board
get whatever you know, c O D. It doesn't matter.
You get together every week. And then one of the
people you get together with every week, uh, is they say,
I've got a new idea. We're gonna play a game
(52:51):
it's it's about me, and I'm the only person who
can win. Okay, We're all gonna play this game. The
minute they're gone, you you got will be like, that's wacky,
what is wrong with this person? And this guy only
got away with it because he was pharaoh, you know,
because he was the pharaoh at the time. So as
soon as like pretty much as soon as he's dead,
(53:13):
the coming pharaoh's destroy temples, all the temples they are
built to this guy, or most of them, and they
don't just destroy them. They take the building blocks and
they use it in other construction projects, and they take
some of that. They take some of those blocks and
they build new temples to the god Amun, who was
(53:33):
the god they liked the whole time that this pharaoh
was making them cosmologically kiss his butt a man. Yeah,
well not that you know. It's not like, uh, Pharonic
rule was anything like a bastion for democracy or something.
This is he's an interesting example. But don't think other
other pharaohs were all, you know, heroes in comparison, right,
(53:55):
This is really weird that you could have like the
hutzpah of that, you know. Yeah, no, I agree, But
if I've learned anything from Stargate, It's it's that you know,
Alma Alma Rah is an extraterrestrial and uh has a
cool spaceship. Is this the star Gate the series or
Stargate the singular motion picture? Yeah? It was good. It
(54:21):
was good, yeah, with the guy from the Crying Game
in it. But in short, you know what happened is
that it seems the people at the time weren't really
digging this concept. And even though they didn't, even though
they weren't into it, you'll find some scholars that conjecture
the rough concept of one god over others. Later even
(54:44):
the just the concept of monotheism, a single god uh
to rule them all. Uh. This concept may have gone
on to influence other later religions, so in a way,
the shadow of Otten may still be extant on the Earth.
And I just wanted to bring something up. I was
considering asking to have it taken out, but I think
I'm I'm not. At the top of the show, I
(55:06):
mentioned how hey, at least things are a little better now.
People don't like beef over religion as much as they
used to. And that's certainly, I think partially true, but
it's also what I mean. We're talking about things that
have happened in two thousand eleven, you know, I mean
with with Isis trying to you know, literally murder people
for not converting to Islam, and obviously the conflict between
(55:27):
the Israelis and the Palestinians. All these things are very
very real. Maybe they're more isolated and smaller groups, but
they're very much still is a conflict between people of
different faiths. And the question that I think that leads
to is are there religions that exist now? The Big
five or whatever? However many there were I think I
(55:48):
think it was four plus other on a long enough
timeline that might be wiped out in the future. Yeah,
will modern religions die out the Again, We've just got
a few examples illustrating a much larger concept. But the
answer is conclusively, Yes, some religions have died out. Yes,
some have been the victims of conspiracy and they have
(56:10):
been purposely raised from the earth. But the process may
continue today in two ways. Uh. One is one is
kind of new. Let's talk with about the new one.
In two thousand eleven, the BBC reported on a study
or several studies that said nine countries seem set to
overall say goodbye to religion and become increasingly secular. Not
(56:34):
by persecuting religious people. It's just more and more residents
of those countries or less, it's less and less of
an important part of their life. You know. They're they're
the people who might say, uh, you know, I I'll
go to I'll go to church or temple if it's
a big holiday and my family makes me. But I
(56:55):
don't think about it every day. Uh. Interesting quote I
found from Richard owner of the Research Corporation for Science
Advancement and University of Arizona. He says, quote, in a
large number of modern secular democracies, there's been a trend
that folks are identifying themselves as non affiliated with religion.
In the Netherlands, the numbers the highest we saw was
(57:16):
in the Czech Republic, where the number is sixty. And
this is you know, this might be depressing to some
people who consider themselves very religious, but if you look
at all the bloody conflicts of the past, this is
kind of a peaceful rise of secularism, and I would
argue it's better than the alternative, which would be religious
(57:37):
persecution or persecution for people not being religious, for being um, apostates,
you know, or atheist. You know. I don't I don't
want to go back to Night City too much, guys,
But it just one day. What if religions are completely
taken out of the picture and it's corporate per persecution. Yeah,
like the th X was a it's a great scene
(57:59):
with that. Yeah. And you know that's why I think
that's a really good point, um that we should come
back to remind me before we wrap, because I gotta
I gotta pitch for you guys. We've certainly talked about
the the idea that money, uh and wealth and the
belief in all of these things is in and of
itself its own kind of faith and its own kind
of thing that can govern people, and that in many
(58:19):
ways can be stronger um because it's tied to you know, results,
very results driven, you know, right, And there's an argument there.
An idea is controversial to some, but it's the concept
of religion or a belief system as a kind of technology.
And if that, if we look at it through that lens,
then it's understandable that people may misuse that technology for
(58:43):
their own ends, just the same way you would with
fire or with a knife. Uh. And you know we
said there are two ways this happening. We give you
the newest way, peaceful rise of secularism. Uh. And now
the problem is that the second way we're going to
mention is the tried and true, the Coca Cola classic
of religions dying out, which is violence. Uh. In twenty fourteen,
(59:07):
Isis launched a genocide against people of the Year City faith. Uh.
They also called them devil worshipers due to specific aspects
of their doctrine. And I very poorly alluded to this
earlier and cited it as twenty eleven. But this is
absolutely this is they were still trying to kill them. Inn.
This is a very specific event. And this is yeah, yeah,
(59:30):
they killed thousands, as many as five thousand men who
refused to convert to Islam, the enslaved thousands of others.
This was so extreme that today thousands of women who
are enslaved in traffic remain officially missing. And this like,
this is this is a real world thing. This is
a real world impact. And right now at present, billions
(59:55):
of people around the world consider themselves members of one
faith or another to some degree, re or another and
that doesn't seem set to change anytime soon, and where
no one is saying that it has to or it should,
at least none of us are saying that because you know,
some of our some of the folks in the crowd today,
you know, you know that membership and a spiritual community
(01:00:16):
can bring great benefits, both physical and mental. Look into
blue zones, the parts of the world where people tend
to live much longer than others. Uh, community in a
sense of cohesion is a huge part of that. Not
to get personal about it, but I often wish that
I were more able to be more religious. I grew up,
(01:00:37):
you know, in that world, and then I kind of
abandoned it, and that's not something that's part of my life.
But I see people that are what I would consider
good examples, positive examples of people that have faith, and
it does seem to make them happier, and it does
seem to observe a very functional purpose in their lives.
Um And sometimes I feel like that's missing and I
kind of, you know, wish that I were more in
(01:00:58):
that mindset. So are absolutely physical benefits and mental health
benefits to following a certain religion and the way it
guides your life and makes you a quote unquote better person.
And I, you know, I had a difficult time research
in this episode because I didn't want to put because
we're talking about people who are like, no, do my thing,
(01:01:19):
so I don't want to talk about my old stuff.
And I think we're hitting on things that everybody can
on some level identify with, you know, And and we're
trying to be respectful about this because uh, the not
to like quote Arby's different is good. But the variations
and belief systems, you know, can help humanity learn to
(01:01:44):
look at itself in new ways, its struggles and its triumphs.
But the problem with this is that the right now,
from what we understand, the existence and importance of religion
inherently means that there will be uh practices of persecution
and a pression that follow it like a shadow. Those
seem set to continue even in countries with laws explicitly
(01:02:06):
banning abuse, harassment, or persecution based on faith, you know
what I mean. The US has laws against this, and
religious institutions are still getting attacked. This is this is
a huge issue. I mean, we could say, let's hope
that humans can learn to dwell on commonalities rather than
differences Biologically, everybody listening to this needs the same basic
(01:02:30):
stuff psychologically or socially. Like to your pointnal humans also
tend to want the same kind of mental experiences, right.
You want safety, You want a sense of belonging, you know,
just something larger than you and being an important part
of it. You want a sense that you're making the
world a little bit of a better place, at least
for your loved ones, at least giving your kids a
(01:02:51):
better shot than you had. That is like, it doesn't
matter what your belief system is. That is what most
people actually want. And if we recognize that and we
can appreciate it it's an inarguable common grounds, then that
might be the best defense against these ongoing conspiracies to
persecute or attack people because of their religion in the
(01:03:13):
modern day. Yield my time. Sorry, you know, um, I
think one of the excellent points, one of the only
other things we can all agree on, is that Horsey
Sauce is far superior to RBS Sauce. Oh god, yeah,
what he's an is rb Sauce. I don't understand. Uh,
not a fan, but I do have to give a
shout out to their marketing department because they are very clever.
(01:03:36):
They are have the like foremost like snarky um, social
media feeds and all of fast food dumb um. But
we have the meats. They had a venicine Burger for
a while too. I was sad that I couldn't get
to it. I didn't know about the um. But this
is all certainly food for thought. And whatever your religious
persuasion is or lack thereof, out there, we would love
(01:03:57):
to know what you think. Um. Do you think that
religions are going to be continuously in conflict until time immemorial? Um?
Or is it going to kind of become more of
a motto uh culture in terms of like like, I
love your idea mat of either some sort of techno
religion that everyone is invested in, maybe by force or
(01:04:19):
just by virtue of social evolution. Yeah, I'm calling it now.
It's the cult of our asaka. I don't understand that reference.
But it's all good. It's all good. So let us
know what you think, and let us know. This is
something we didn't have time to get to today because
we're running along. But let us know whether you believe,
(01:04:39):
as some do, that there are secret religions existing kind
of like the cult of Mithress in the modern day.
You know, maybe did some go underground and just never
come back up? If so, what are they and do
you have an address where we can go and visit them?
Anywhere about Bohemian growth. We would love to hear from you.
We try to it get easy to find us online.
(01:05:01):
Find us on the internet in the usual social media
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(01:05:25):
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(01:06:04):
Stuff they Don't want you to Know is a production
of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio,
visit the i heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:26):
My name is Matt, my name is They called me Ben.
We're joined as always with our super producer Paul mission
controlled decads. Most importantly, you are you. You are here,
and that makes this the stuff they don't want you
to know. If you didn't check the title for today's episode,
we're diving deep into something very old that remains very
(00:47):
controversial in the modern day. We're talking about religion. It's
one of the oldest concepts in human society. It's uh
been the ruinous subject of many Thanksgiving dinners, you name it.
Religion has been somehow involved because it's you know, when
you think about it, thinking about this guy's it's the
first example of the human species attempting to explain why
(01:12):
something happens, you know, all the all like things like
why does the sun come up? Why does the sun
sometimes uh seem to disappear from the sky, Why are
we here at all? Where do we go after this?
What happens when we die, What does all of this mean? Why? Why? Why? Why?
Religion attempts to answer those questions, and for many people
(01:35):
it provides the only answers that they feel confident in,
and it's responsible for tremendous acts of kindness. It's also
a been a rationalization for countless heartbreaking atrocities. You know.
It's uh, we have a disclaimer. I think we need
to put in the front here. We do. And Ben,
I think your description of the origin of all religion,
(01:57):
of any religion explain a lot of the conflict that
has occurred between religious organizations over the years. Because you've
got pockets of people living together, someone or a group
of people come up with that explanation of why in
their bubble, uh, you know, miles and miles away, maybe
(02:19):
continents away. Another group of people does the same thing,
but they have their their own answers that they come to.
And then eventually when those two groups meet, and this
is just one example, they have to decide who's right.
And yeah, there's so much parallel thinking, right, They're like
kind of like key tenants in all major religions that
all aligned pretty well. And yet it has to be
(02:41):
this like spiritual pissing contest kind of it always ends
up being that and more than just that, I mean
larger obviously, whole wars and uh, genocide and all of
these you know, awful things that human beings do, all
in the name of My God is better than your God.
And that's why we are saying to you listening to
this that we are not making any judgments on anyone's
(03:03):
personal beliefs, and we would never tell Nope, we would
never tell you what to believe, and we're not going
to even really tell you what we believe. So we're
just gonna explore this together in a very very it's
not secular way, and a very even handed will be
our attempt. There we go. That's our that's our goal.
(03:24):
Pardon my Yoda phrasing, but yeah, we'll try to be
even handed, is what I mean. Yeah, it's and you
guys are raising these fantastic and these disturbing points and
of course and stuff they want you to to know. We
clearly believe that, as Matt said, your beliefs are your own.
Is it is a private thing, and no one has
(03:44):
the right or the power to quote unquote make you
believe something else. It is up to you, it is
a personal decision. I love the point you bring up
about origins of religion there too, because you know, a
lot of as we'll see in it, really murky stuff
from the pale Paleolithic era, a lot of um, a
(04:07):
lot of very early religions were since they were essentially
trying to explain things. They were explaining things that were
common in a native environment. That's why you would see
variations in animal deities, right, they would be based on
the animals that are encountered in you know, in day
(04:29):
to day life. And so like, just like you said, Noel,
followers of different systems, belief systems find themselves in constant,
countless conflicts with followers of other systems, from ancient wars
to acts of persecution that continue in the modern day.
And in many cases, as we'll find and as you've
(04:51):
probably found yourself, fellow conspiracy realists, people of all sorts
of faith can live together in peace, you know what
I mean. Like your next door neighbor might be an atheist,
they might follow a religion you've never heard of, but
still they're probably going to be cool to you because
they're your neighbor. And it seems to me that this
is somewhat of a modern development that people are able
(05:13):
to relatively coexist. Certainly, there are still disputes based on religion,
not saying that's not a thing, but you know, all
in all, you don't see quite as many large scale
conflicts based exclusively on differences and religious beliefs. It. Yeah,
it depends on where you go in every region. Right,
(05:34):
So this is the origin point for what we're exploring
today religions. As you said, you know, people of various
faiths have managed to live together in peace, but they
have also at various countless numerable points try to wipe
each other out. On today's episode, we're asking were any
(05:56):
of these attempts successful, Are there any forgotten religions, and
if so, how did they disappear? Here are the facts
to understand that. We have to first understand the state
of what we broadly call religion in the modern day.
Regardless of your own personal beliefs, you are probably pretty
(06:18):
well aware on some level of the world's most prominent religions.
If you look at the World Population Review and some
good stats. As of twenty Christianity is the is the
biggest one in terms of raw population two point three
eight billion followers, relatively closely followed by Islam with one
(06:42):
point nine one billion followers, and then Hinduism comes in
with around one point one six billion followers. Buddhism is
number four at five hundred and seven million followers, and
then we have what you could probably way term other,
but there is a loosely defined name for this category
(07:04):
known as folk religions, which comprises about four hundred and
thirty million followers. And that leaves a lot of people
in another category, which is like an A yeah, not applicable,
may not affiliated would be one of the ways those
are reported or or didn't respond consider considering oneself broadly
(07:28):
spiritual or you know other something like that. Yeah. This
These stats are tricky because for a couple of reasons. First,
each of these describes a very pretty broad category, you
know what I mean. A Protestant is not the same
as a Catholic, a Shiite is not the same as Sunni.
(07:49):
And over the course of history, there's no shortage of
members of the same overall belief system fighting amongst themselves.
You know, it can be it can be illuminating for
someone in the modern day to read read about the
various what are considered heresies disagreements of doctrine and Christianity,
(08:11):
because they may seem like a small deal to an outsider,
but they're a huge deal internally, and people did die
because of these disagreements. One person's heretic is another person's messiah. Yeah, yeah,
well put and this this leads us to um, this
leads us back to the idea of the commonality, right,
(08:31):
because if you're like, if you are, for instance, uh
not a not a follower of Christianity or an adherent
to some denomination of Christianity, then it may seem odd
to you that various denominations disagree or don't get along
because you think, well, you have a lot of you
have a lot of commonality, right you you're both uh,
(08:53):
you're all followers of this specific messiah. You all have
that you all have some verse of the same text. Right,
So why why won't you let each other coexist? And
I mean, even three of the world's most well known religions, Judaism, Islam,
and Christianity share a common lineage, and that common lineage
(09:16):
hasn't been enough to prevent conflicts. But the it's the
differences and observation, interpretation, and practice that lead to battle.
That you know, that is weird that Judaism didn't make
it into that World Population Review uh article or the
thing that we cited there. That's that's really interesting. It's
(09:37):
just a it's a numbers game. Yeah, I know, I
just I guess I imagined that there were higher, I
don't know, high enough numbers of followers of Judaism that
they would it would fit in there, But I guess. Yeah.
The population, the world's Jewish population as of this older
status of was about fourteen li in total. Yeah, it's crazy.
(10:03):
It's it's it's like at the bottom of the list
above it. It's something called spirit is um. I don't
even know what that is. Hopefully it's it's what it
sounds like. I guess. I guess. Yeah. That's fascinating. Yeah,
that's very very fascinating. And it's so interesting too because um,
you know that that it is such a visible um
(10:23):
population as well, Like in terms if you go to
like certain areas of New York City or Los Angeles
or even here in Atlanta, Um, you know, orthodox Jewish population,
they definitely tend to cluster in certain neighborhoods and are
a very visible part of communities. So it's very interesting
that it would be such a low number. And with
people common spiritual beliefs or cultural background, we find that
(10:44):
they do tend These groups do tend to cluster together
because you have you have that sense of community. But
also the danger of the large numbers is that when
when a smaller belief system becomes a subject of persecution,
whether regionally or globally, terrible terrible things can happen. And
(11:08):
from an anthropological perspective, less than anybody think we're dumping
on religion. Overall, every single religious system you will ever
read about, you will ever practice, is itself a priceless
monument to the abilities of human belief, and it's a
it's a cultural milestone that cannot be replaced for For many,
(11:30):
many people, religion is the single most important aspect of
their life on earth, and so we we know that
it provides things that that people fuel they need, and
it's been doing so for a long time. Right now,
if you're trying to figure out what is the oldest
religion that is still around today, you would hear a
(11:51):
couple of different answers. Most folks will most scholars will
generally agree that Hinduism is the oldest extent religion. I mean,
it's still you know, around in one as we record this,
though others will argue that there are some smaller religions
they continue today, smaller in terms of population size, like
(12:11):
a Zoroastrianism that is a strong contender for this position.
It's much less well known, and it's it's a fascinating story.
But let's maybe talk a little bit about Hinduism so
we can learn more about sort of the the oldest
guy in the restaurant of religion. It is interesting though
that it doesn't have like a founder that you can
(12:33):
point to. I've I've always wondered that, and there it
really isn't an answer. Um. So it's really hard to
trace its origin and the providence of its um. You know,
religious texts and doctrine. Um. It's quite unique in that
it's sort of like a amalgam of of of several
different traditions and philosophies, and again shares quite a few
(12:56):
commonalities with with Buddhism, for example. Um. But definitely wasn't
the only game in town, right um. And you know,
in terms of the most ancient of religions, Yeah, yeah, absolutely,
it's it's around today. Hinduism has many, many adherents. It
dates back to you know, like more than four thousand
(13:18):
years ago. Most of the most of the followers of
Hinduism do reside in India at this time, but while
it was around, you know, there were other parts of
the world that had completely different belief systems. Many of
those have been lost to history. But you're right, Nold.
Scholars spend a lot of time and effort trying to
(13:40):
pin down the beginning of what we would today recognize
as religion, and it becomes controversial so quickly. I gotta
tell you, guys, the coolest theory I heard um digging
into this. It concerns the idea of Paleolithic religions, meaning
belief systems that would have been around in two hundred
thousand to fifty thousand BC. It's hard to even understand
(14:04):
how long ago that was. But the coolest claim is
this that there were people alive during this time who
worshiped bears, bear worships. I think it's hard to hard
to wrap our heads around because it's also hard to
insert ourselves into the mindset of paleolithic you know humans, right,
Like it really points to the fact that or the
(14:25):
idea that religion is sort of this innate thing that
doesn't necessarily require like a large amount of intelligence. It
just is something that we sort of innately seek. Is
an explanation for why the sun comes up, or why
the thing does this, or why the herds, you know,
travel in this direction, and and look for things that
we can use magical thinking to kind of help us
(14:48):
solve day to day problems, especially at a time when
it would have been a very harsh life and very
you know, difficult to survive. Well, it's it's not for me.
It's not difficult to imagine and and and the only
reason why I say that is because if if you
try and just close your eyes, put yourself in the
mindset of a young child growing up in the Paleolithic era,
(15:12):
and you you know, you're born into whatever your family
situation looks like, whether it's one person to you know,
a hundred people living roughly together, especially if you're somewhere
where there are large mountains or there's you know, a
large open field where you're high enough up and you
can see enough of the planet immediately, no matter what
(15:36):
your beliefs are, what you're understanding is there's something that
says there's this is very big where I am is
very very big. There must be powerful things, something, some
things that created this. I think we're saying the same thing. Man.
I think I was just saying, like, I have a
hard time understanding the idea of an intellect of of
(15:56):
this kind of early you know, um human, But I
think right, the mind, even lacking the structure and the
framework to have more complex tenets of religion, just seeks
out the things that you're talking about. Kind of innate.
There's no scientific basis to it. And I'm glad you
guys are bringing this up because the human species did
something incredibly interesting from an evolutionary perspective. Uh. It began
(16:22):
to evolve in a way that prioritize thinking, abstract thought
the brain right, and the amount of energy the brain
takes is is pretty fascinating because it indicates that humans
spent a lot of time thinking right and and becoming toolmakers. Right.
(16:47):
The The original form of human hunting, by the way,
this kind of interesting is called persistence hunting. It's just
other animals evolved for quick burst of speed and then
humans just kind of duras selled it or wait, no, energizer,
bunny did right, They kept going and going and going.
So we've evolved to specific things. But one one thing
(17:10):
that we evolved to is very important is pattern recognition.
So I would argue, like, that's that's how they became
such good hunters. So I would argue that um pattern
recognition in a way is hardwired. Neurological imperative can explain
how early humans arrived at explanations for things that we
(17:32):
would think of as religion, because they were they literally
evolved to say not just oh, that happened again, but
to say, oh, that happened twice. I wonder if it's
going to happen a third time, and if it will
happen at the same time. Let me think about that, right,
just really quickly, think about the first winter that you
(17:54):
can remember, like if you're in that time, the first
winter that you live through that you can remember the
reverence that you would have for the heat coming from
the sun. At the times when heat is coming from
the sun and you know, you may not even correlate that,
oh I'm warmer now because of that bright thing up there.
(18:15):
If you don't have, you know, a language to describe
the things you can at least since I am warmer
when there's light on me and that thing is up
in the sky. Um. And then I can see at
night to hunt if I have to, or to do
you know things at night because that other thing is
in the sky or you know that thing in the
(18:35):
sky has changed now into this other thing, um, and
I can still see. You can just imagine that a
reverence gets built up, as you said, with the pattern recognition,
Ben there I can you can imagine them culminating and
you start connecting the dots like between big magic thing
in the sky too. Don't eat this mushroom. It'll kill
you because I saw something, you know what I mean,
(18:56):
Like they're there. There are these ways you start to
connect and like say, oh if this sun you know
thing represents this, then this other thing represents this and
I have to give it homage and respect it or
else I could actually literally die because like all my
brothers and sisters didn't you know what I mean. I
mean that recognition I think is crucial. Well, religion, I
(19:16):
mean is the precursor of modern science. It is analytical
right in its in its endeavor, and you know, I
know it can sound maybe a little bit cold or
soulless to to say, pattern recognition plays a big part.
We We do have another episode that you may want
(19:38):
to check out if you're interested in these kinds of conversations,
and that is uh, the the belief that psychoactive substances
may have played a role in early religions. Please do
check that out. There's some sand to it. Uh, But
I love the opposite. I mean, you know, as you know,
my kind hibernates during winter, So I don't personally know
(19:58):
the experience that you're described, I mean, Matt, but I
get it. I get where you're at. And and people,
did you know the things, the things that have power,
these inexplicable things, they must be explained is the human mind.
We seek to understand them. And so it makes sense
that some of the first gods would be things like
the spirits of the dead, um or avatars of powerful
(20:22):
natural elements like the sun, the moon, the ocean. And
then later social concepts like UH, contracts, friendship, UH war,
things like that, these inevitable parts of the human existence.
And now, I hate to say it, right as of now,
(20:43):
a lot of people say there's no evidence that humans
are Neanderthals really had something that would understand as religious
practice or at least as bear worship. I don't know
why I get stuck on that, but but yeah, But
also of this is pre like, there's not written documentation
(21:03):
of this time, right, so it is very very possible,
I would argue probable that there are things that are
religious beliefs. They just didn't make it to the to
modern history. Right. So as a result of that, we
see some of the first forgotten religions and we will
likely never know what they were. Uh. Instead, when we
(21:24):
search at this like point in the distant past, we
have to find physical evidence of practices that imply some
sort of belief system, which means, like, what is the
first time it looks like someone was buried on purpose?
You know that that indicates something, right, a fear perhaps
of the dead, or a belief in the afterlife, maybe
(21:46):
at the very least a reverence for life to some degree,
which sort of recognizes a to me, a spiritual layer
I think, or at least an unawareness of something like that.
What one was it? Ben? They covered the first buried
child I believe around what seventy eight thousand to seventy
four thousand BC E the earliest known Homo sapien burial
(22:08):
of a child at a cave site called Panga Yasadi
in modern day Kenya. It's and like the southeast of
Kenya uh and the earliest known purposeful burial of a
human being at all occurs a hundred thousand BC in
the Middle East. And of course countless other people were
probably being buried by their loved ones at this time.
(22:30):
Like we said, it's tough to know exactly what the logic,
but the process, the system was here, but there is
that that implies a belief system of some sort, and
those those early people, We're not the only cases. We
have to remember that humans are very, very very good
at losing things and breaking things and destroying things. We've
(22:54):
lost entire cities before. Religion is no exception. I can't
believe we got this far are without referencing R. E. M.
But we're all we're all kind of doing the r
M song as a species. Do you know what this?
I'm doing the dance. I'm doing the r M dance
right now. The Michael Stipe and the white you know,
collared shirt with a CP of tone back on that
(23:15):
video by the way absolutely fundamental nineties art rock video
that was copied ad nauseam. Just take a look what
watch Losing My Religion and then just think about the
nineties and the look of music videos that is like
the prototype. But well that's you in the spotlight. And uh.
And I appreciate that point because, as we'll see, a
(23:36):
lot of religions copy from one another as well or
evolve out of one another. But some haven't been simply forgotten.
Some religions, you see, have been lost or raised on purpose.
We're gonna pause for a quick word from our sponsor
and then we'll dive in. Here's where it gets crazy. Yes,
(24:02):
religions can and do disappear over time. Some even experience
of resurgence and reappear right they go underground because of persecution,
and then later they emerge when whatever insert regime here
has passed on. Belief is a durable, powerful thing. And
I would say, you know, it's interesting, and I was
(24:23):
trying to think aboutw to phrase this in the very
very early days of human beings, thinking along these lines,
it's almost like the concept of religion is itself a conspiracy.
You are finding hidden truths, you are encountering illumination and revelation.
And then on the flip side of that, religious persecution
(24:45):
is a genre of conspiracy all its own. It doesn't
make like, insert the name of any religion you wish,
and you will find at some point in history those
people have been persecuted for their beliefs. You also find
that people continue very much so to be persecuted in
the modern day in horrific ways. And it's it's weird
(25:08):
to think, you know, if you live in the US,
it's pretty strange to to imagine a president, whatever president
you wish, going on, you know, going on TV from
the Oval Office and saying like, all right, we've had
it had it up to here with the uh with
the Seventh day Adventist, you know, the Baptist. They can't
(25:32):
they can't have jobs anymore. They all have to pay
an extra tax and they all have to uh live
in Cincinnati. Alright, God bless America. Like, but that that
kind of stuff happened, Like versions of that stuff happened
all the time. People would be lower class, they would
have day to day restrictions on movement, social opportunities. This
(25:52):
still again continues in the modern day, including like who
they can marry, where they can have kids with. And
this also of course takes the takes the form of
violence up to an including genocide. This is a very
real thing. Thinking about it in that context, you can
imagine why some of the groups, the religions that we're
(26:13):
going to speak about today operated in secret. As you said,
it was they had to function in a conspiracy to
hold those beliefs because you had to be careful who
you talked to about your beliefs because of these dangers.
So a lot of these groups would, you know, rather
than having a temple, a large temple, or you know,
constructing a church of some sort, they would operate underground.
(26:37):
You know, they would build a temple under the ground
literally on purpose as a way to be able to
secret away to practice even during the you know, Roman
rule when Christianity was persecuted religion and they had to
mark you know, their meeting places or speaking code using
the fish symbol or whatever. Um they're they're various ways
(27:00):
of doing that. But yeah, I mean, what is now
the world's most prominent religion absolutely used to operate in
secret and underground or face you know, crucifixion. Yeah, that's
that's the exactly that's exactly the case. You know, each
and every act of religious persecution could be an episode
of forget an episode, it could be an entire series
(27:22):
all its own. And what we're gonna do is site
several examples of religions that have come and then have gone.
And we won't have a comprehensive list of this because again,
there are just so many examples of people doing horrible
things to each other and using rationalization for these acts
they have been successful in the past. That's why we'll
never know how many religions the species has lost. And additionally,
(27:47):
this is kind of funny. I hope there's not me
being like too soon about it, but this is kind
of funny for so many to religions, a lot of
our information comes from people who hated them, their regional
rivals there. And he's you run into this um with
you know, historical biographies of individuals to write, Like an
emperor dies and then some archivist or story and a
(28:12):
writer wants to what's the curry favor with the new
emperor and so they're they're like, hey, let me tell
you some wild stuff about the guy before you I heard,
you know, he eats toes, I'm sure, I don't know,
or a conquering force comes through and wipes out the
record any written records you know that existed. So we
(28:35):
only know then from hearsay of people who rolled through
with you know, weapons, The victors go the spoils and
the right to tell the story, right, history is written
by the winners. It's uh, that's the one. It's a
bug for some, a feature for others. But like for
one quick example of this, the Canaanite religion. If you
(28:56):
have read the Bible, which is a pretty popular book,
pretty easy to find a copy, then you'll hear mentions
of the k and Nite religion, and the authors of
the Bible in those sections that mentioned it clearly do
not They're not down with it. There's not like it's
definitely not a like David Attenborough esque kind of observation.
(29:19):
So so we were deloaded, is what you mean? Why
they they clearly feel away. Yes, yeah, there's there's some
bias there and this this is something that we see
happen in other in other parts of the world and
other parts of time. So in the if we look
at the Middle East, this is a great example of
(29:40):
um a place that is a wash in religions that
the modern world largely forgot. Uh. It's the birthplace of civilization,
you know. So it makes sense logically that there would
be an immence density of religious practice in the Middle East,
and before the rise of Islam, the Arabic world had
(30:01):
this rich, diverse spiritual ecology, which I think is maybe
a little bit of a pretentious term, but it works.
The majority of inhabitants in the region until about the
fourth century, practiced different forms of polytheism, which means a
spiritual belief with multiple gods as compared to something like Christianity,
which is monotheistic. There's one God. And even as these
(30:25):
growing populations, well they're they're there are three, there's one
in three forms. Yes, yeah, and some of us are
probably old enough to remember when the Holy Ghost turned
into the Holy Spirit right in the in the I
don't want to call them speeches, but you know what
I mean, yeah, yeah, yeah, Well, and don't forget about
the Yes. Religious syncretism, which we also have an episode on.
(30:51):
Religious syncretism is the idea of mix taping religion. So
if you want, if you are proselytized for a specific
belief system. The Catholic Church was tremendously talented at this
for proselytizing for a specific belief system. It's really tough
to say to tell people, hey, that thing that you
(31:12):
and your ancestors believed, that's wrong. Do my thing. Instead.
The more clever, subtle way to do it is to say, hey,
that you know that God you are worshiping from, you know,
the mountain, from the river or whatever, that's actually this
person in my belief system. So we're already we're agreeing.
(31:34):
Let me just tell you more about what you already believe.
I mean, that is your thing is just a it's
a it's a smaller thing apart over here. That's really
this larger thing that I'm going to tell you. I
can show you the Yeah, it's like it's but it's
way less chilled than that because they're also doing this.
(31:54):
But like while they're doing this, they're using this religious
difference as a rationalist Asian to enslave, to torture, to
assault and murder people. So it's it gets ugly real quick.
But but in the Middle East you have all these
regional polytheistic practices. People have deities that are kind of
(32:15):
local to the area, and this continued even as populations
of people practicing Judaism and Christianity began to develop into
significant minorities. UH. One commonality that these pre Islamic belief
systems had was the belief in a chief God, not
a not a single god overall, but like one God
(32:37):
above the rest of the gods, whose name was hubald
h g B A L spelled a couple different ways
sometimes and in fact, it might surprise people know the
Kabba in Mecca actually was once a a repository for
for representations of many of these gods, hundreds of different gods.
(32:58):
Their images were housed in there in that structure in Mecca.
And then according to Islam Uh, this structure was originally
built by the biblical Abraham, but later people after his
time people went in and put those other idols inside,
and then when the prophet of Islam, the prophet Mohammed,
(33:21):
gained control of the structure, he expelled those idols. So
there's clearly even in that story, there's clearly like an
acknowledgement that other belief systems exist, but they are not
the true belief system and they must therefore be excised
from society. Man, you're gonna tear down that golden calf,
all those idols, get rid of them. Even that big
(33:42):
bull outside of Wall Street. I mean, what you mean,
what you mean with the little girl facing him off?
I don't know what you're talking about, or well, at
least at least that bull. I don't think. I don't
think they burned people in it yet, which is the
one of the accusations, right for the bull worshipers. But
like we could go, we could see examples of this
(34:04):
all the time, because history really is a palambsessed It's
written over itself repeatedly. So like what what about Europe? Right,
Europe is considered now, as we'll see, Europe is considered
increasingly secular. But for a long time, it was, like
the um, a huge economic force for Christianity and for
(34:25):
spreading various belief systems of Christianity. But it wasn't always
the case. And then you had all sorts of flavors
of Celtic religions. You had druids and various forms of
regional paganism that you know, had very specific pantheons of
gods and deities that they would worship that were very
(34:48):
regionally specific and not necessarily a universal language or or
group of gods that that everyone knew about. I mean,
there certainly were the big ones um, you know, for example,
let's say, worshiping of um ancient Roman deities like like
Pan or certain personifications of nature. I think paganism has
always been fascinating to all of us, and it's also
(35:08):
very misunderstood and as often I think, misconstrued with devil
worship or various you know, forms of witchcraft, for example.
But it really is its own thing, Yeah, very much so. Yeah,
it's a it's really it's the term itself, which comes
from It's funny because pagan isn't, like you said, is
(35:30):
associated sometimes with devil worship quote unquote, but really the
term edomologically means rural. It's like country people, that's that's
what That's what it was originally meant, and it was
it was a term used by practitioners of early Christianity
(35:52):
to apply to anybody who was polytheistic beliefs in the
Roman Empire. They were like, okay, that's if you're anything
that's not a Christian, you're you're a pagan, right, And
this this is super unfair to these as you said, well,
very specific regional religions that are not you know, they're
(36:13):
not united by a common language, often not united by
a common culture. They exist on their own. Uh. And
then and I would I'm sorry, Ben, I don't want
to cut you off, but I would just say the
connection to nature with some of those religious beliefs were
it was very strong, and possibly because of the rural
nature of their lifestyle. The people who followed many of
(36:36):
these religions, like the harvest was very important and you
know it was worthy of worshiping a deity that would
help your harvest out. Uh. I don't know. I'm just
wanted to make that point because again, we're everybody we're
talking about is intelligent. They're highly intelligent, their logical rational actors.
(36:56):
So they're explaining the world in the best way they
and and other people just disagree with their explanations in
a very violent way. If you if you want to
get a modern look this tangential. But if you want
to get a modern look at uh at pagan inspired art,
I would highly recommend spending some time on YouTube checking
(37:19):
out Heal Long Job I'm pronouncing correctly. They're a folk
music band from Germany and parts of northern Europe. I'm
gonna send you guys a clip if you haven't seen
them yet. It's it's awesome, It's the whole nine. I
can't recommend it enough. Oh, I can't wait to check
it out another you know, you're right in the we
caviat of this whole discussion from the start and saying that, yeah,
(37:42):
we don't have bulleted lists for all of these categories
because some of these things were successfully eradicated. Um. But
one that I think is interesting, and I think it's
something that will hit a cord with all three of us,
is uh the snake god glican Um, which is actively
promoted and worshiped by the comic book writer Alan Moore,
(38:03):
who fancies himself a bit of of a of a
magician um, and he wears a ring on his hand
that is this kind of like intertwined snake um you
know image It almost looks like Oran from the Never
Ending story series the Seal, the metal thing that's on
the book. Um. But yeah, glican was a pagan deity
(38:25):
that was worshiped and it was a cult that was
very um influential when the Romans were trying desperately to
eradicate all of these types of religions, and they were
relatively successful in being able to continue their traditions and
staying underground um. And obviously that has persevered today, even
if it's not super mainstream at all. And it's funny
(38:46):
because Alan Moore actually refers to this, it's almost like
he's doing it as a gag or like kind of
like a satire, satirical form of religion because he refers
to it as a hoax deity. But we do know
there's evidence like in ancient Macedonia even you know of
uh cults groups rather the term cult is so loaded um.
(39:06):
But you know I can refer to I guess a
small group of devoted followers that were particular individual or
deity um, and of of these individuals actually worshiping a
real serpent that represented this uh, this this god liken.
So you know, Alan Moore, whatever his intentions are, whether
tongue in cheek or sincere, he is keeping it alive
(39:27):
and it has made enough of an impact and stuck
around long enough in the historical record to be around today.
So I guess they did something right and not becoming
one of those casualties that we're talking about today. And
sometimes um people who common later generations will use whatever
scant resources or other documents are available to resurrect an
(39:52):
ancient religion. And this was really common in the days
of Theosophy and the age of spiritualism. People would have
these discoveries or these revelations and they would say, I'm
not introducing a new religion, I'm bringing the old one back,
you know. Uh, this this was an attempt to in
many cases acquire some sort of street cred in a way.
(40:16):
But but right, and that's that's an excellent example of
a really common practice. What we're saying is that Europe,
the European continent at this time, was incredibly varied, right,
and there wasn't the sort of religious uniformity that Christianity
would later seek to impose and largely successfully. And that's
(40:37):
kind of ironic itself, right, because as you were called,
Christianity itself was persecuted throughout most of the history of
the Roman Empire. They were they were the bad guys.
And uh, while we're on the subject of cults, one
thing that's interesting. You can see definitions of tactics that
modern cults use but if we're talking about this, maybe
(40:58):
are the best way to define that is by um
a religion practiced in secret, right, that has mysteries, mysteries
that are unavailable to the uninitiated. And this is where
we go to some more. I am so compelled with these,
so interested in Manicheism and mythrayism. One of the extreme
(41:22):
examples of religious persecution occurs with this first one, Manicheism,
founded in third century A d That this dualistic cosmology,
So life, your existence about two things, a struggle between
the spiritual world of light that's the good side, and
the evil material world of darkness. This religion went viral
(41:47):
kind of and you know these belief inherently is mametic, right,
So this religion spread like wildfire, but it was successfully
stamped out by the Roman Empire. And right now as
we record, there's an interesting plot twist because they are
growing rumors that some form of Manicheism may persist in
nice lated areas of China. There's not enough research out
(42:10):
there to say for sure yet. But again, belief powerful, durable,
hard to kill, and it's it's a similar becais our Astrianism.
I believe um in that it and also, I guess gnosticism,
where it has its own mythology, then that is very
unique to the belief um and its own kind of
innate philosophy. I mean, you know, we've done a whole
(42:31):
episode I believe with Joe McCormick a gnosticism um, and
it's sort of interesting. Twists on deities we might recognize,
you know, from other religions. But the idea of having
a whole mythology that's unique to a belief system, I
think is is very fascinating, even if there are overlaps
and especially key points that are very similar between the
(42:52):
different beliefs. But yeah, it looks like the Romans that
have fine job of stamping this one out. Fascinating that
it would still be around in certain need China, maybe right,
maybe yeah. And the Astrionism quick note there um was
was in play at this time. Azorastrianism had more followers
in terms of raw numbers, but Menicheism was h could
(43:16):
be for a time. It was arguably more successful because
it spread further, you know, made it out to China,
and then it also counted among its members some high
ranking political figures. Guys. I I don't I think that's
really important to high ranking political figures because that leads
right into some of my personal beliefs about Mythraism. But
(43:40):
I okay, I we'll bring it up here. Remind me
to talk about something before we finished talking about Mythriism. Okay, okay,
all right, you got it. Let's let's go to Mythraism. So, uh,
myth Reism is a mystery religion. It was a mystery
of religion again that you know, and it's it's a
cult because they practiced in secret, and you were if
(44:02):
you were not a follower, a member of Mythraism, you
weren't going into that underground temple and secret. Then you
wouldn't know what their rituals were. You weren't supposed to
h they do. You know. They worshiped a deity damed Mithriss,
which is a Cadian for contract, and Mythriss was the
god of friendship, order and contract. These books were super
(44:24):
super duper into secrecy. Uh. This cult begins um late
first century and it spreads from the Italian peninsula to
border regions all and then all across the Roman Empire.
Right now, there are no written narratives or theology from
the religion itself. It's still though the Roman Empire, right,
(44:48):
they also wanted to stamp out things that they thought
were subversive or danger to the status quo and mythriism.
For a time, I've kind of had a it was
kind of an exception because the followers of Mithraism supported
the Roman Empire and the people of power, you know,
(45:10):
and although they conspired, they were you know, in general,
they were seen as not a subversive force. You will
find videos across the Internet and writings that say the
Cult of Mithress exists today. And I believe it's because
of that connection to friendship, contract and order, because it
(45:33):
really does speak to big business essentially to large markets
working together. Um. You can see how the beliefs that
we know of that the cult of Mrs Mithress had
would translate really well to a group of people working
together to build empires, to like the Roman Empire, to
(45:56):
build um monetary empire. You can see why this belief,
at least in the modern age, that this group persists.
You can see you can see why people would I
think that maybe because was that the thing we're supposed
to remind you to talk about. Uh No, that's okay. Well,
I know we're we're running along here already. The thing
(46:17):
I wanted to talk about that many of these religions,
like Manicheism that we were talking about there, show this
dualism that I think is really fascinating between So you've
got the light in the dark right that you can
see that mirrored, and a lot of religions even once
it exists today, Well, there's there's some in here, not
(46:39):
necessarily these two that we're talking about right now, but
there's some of these that have been lost that supposedly
had a tethering between the plane of matter, this physical
plane and a spiritual plane, where there were two versions
of you, of an individual that existed simultane eneously, uh,
(47:01):
in both planes, essentially multiverse kind of situation almost for Meliever, Yeah,
for me, it's more it's closer to simulation theory, almost
like there's a version of you or an intelligence that
is a part of you that exists on some other
plane that manipulates this one, or that this one manipulates
(47:24):
that one. I don't know, it's just fascinating to me.
Before we agreed, mat before we go to break, I
gotta ask you, Matrix four, what's your position Matrix two
or three weren't that great in my opinions so well,
so I don't know. Maybe maybe it'll be cool a
long times past. I hope it's good. I am purposefully
(47:46):
removing myself from any and all materials coming out about it,
and I will watch it when it is released. I'll
tell you after that last thing, last thing. Sorry, I
know we keep having the last last things? Me thrist
Do you think there's any connection to the mystical material
and the Lord of the Rings books? Me thrill the
(48:07):
like it's like a chain mail that can't be penetrated. Possibly,
possibly have to ask a Tolkien scholar, but maybe we
should ask Stephen Colbert. Probably yeah, yeah, Okay, well, let's
let's take a let's pause for word from our sponsors.
I'll text Steve uh, and then we'll come back if
(48:27):
if he gives us an update. All right, we have returned,
uh Steve. Steve texted me and just like a weird emoji.
So I'm gonna have to dig dig into Tolkien to
figure out the etymology there. But he did, you know,
(48:47):
he he did spend a lot of time working as
a linguist, you know, in the construction of those worlds,
So it wouldn't be surprised if there are echoes. Uh.
This this is the big moment here. We've talked a
lot of out various religious conflicts. We've talked about how
religions get suppressed. We've talked about how some religions can
suppress others, or at least people who claim to practice
(49:11):
those religions will use a religion as an excuse to
oppress other people. But we promised you we would talk
about times where religions have been erased. This is almost
a terrible now, it's it's a story that I think
we all enjoy. Uh, it's fascinating. It happened long enough
ago that we can laugh at the hubris of it.
(49:34):
But way back in the day, Egypt straight up erased
an entire religion successfully and purposely. Well not all the
way successfully, because we know about it today, but they
did their best, and they did a really good job.
It's something called aton is um A T E n
(49:55):
I s M. It's a religion centered on a sun
god named Aton. It was debatably monotheistic, but it's probably
better to say the followers of this belief system, followers
of attanis um believe that other gods could exist or
were believed to exist, but that Atton is Um and
(50:17):
Atton himself was, you know, the main deal, the primary
spiritual entree. It was egypt state religion for just twenty
years in the fourteenth century b C. And it's all
because of this pharaoh named Akatan. He over his reign,
he create, he founded this cult himself. It was kind
(50:41):
of about Otten, but it was really all about how
important he was in the religion. It's very self serving
religion because, um, you know how in the Catholic belief system,
the clergy is your connection to God. Right, that's big
doctrinal different between some other denominations in Christianity and Catholicism.
(51:04):
In this belief system, in this cult, there was only
one guy who could talk to God, a single, single conduit,
and he lived at the top of that giant building.
But you know, he was closer to the heavens or whatever.
But yeah, you can totally see how it was a
bit self serving. Even what if it was the real
(51:24):
what if auton Issm was the real, true religion, that
was the one boat on that one matt because Uh
as soon as he died later rulers with the support
of the people through this stuff in the garbage. You know.
It's after he passed away, his cult enters a decline,
(51:47):
gradually at first, but then pretty at a pretty hectic pace.
The pre existing beliefs returned because he's fighting against thousands
of years of tradition and culture. And we were talking
off air about this, but it reminds me of like
Coke two or New Coke when that came out in
the eighties. There's a conspiracy about that as well. I
(52:09):
don't know if you guys have heard this that apparently
was made to distract people from changing the recipe of
original Coca cola. Not confirmed yet, but anyway, this guy's
move was tremendously unpopular. Folks. Imagine, imagine you have, uh,
you have friends that you get together with and you like,
you play a game every week. You could be Magic
(52:31):
the Gathering. Maybe you have like a jam band, or
maybe you have like um Dungeons and Dragons or board
get whatever you know, c O D. It doesn't matter.
You get together every week. And then one of the
people you get together with every week, uh, is they say,
I've got a new idea. We're gonna play a game
(52:51):
it's it's about me, and I'm the only person who
can win. Okay, We're all gonna play this game. The
minute they're gone, you you got will be like, that's wacky,
what is wrong with this person? And this guy only
got away with it because he was pharaoh, you know,
because he was the pharaoh at the time. So as
soon as like pretty much as soon as he's dead,
(53:13):
the coming pharaoh's destroy temples, all the temples they are
built to this guy, or most of them, and they
don't just destroy them. They take the building blocks and
they use it in other construction projects, and they take
some of that. They take some of those blocks and
they build new temples to the god Amun, who was
(53:33):
the god they liked the whole time that this pharaoh
was making them cosmologically kiss his butt a man. Yeah,
well not that you know. It's not like, uh, Pharonic
rule was anything like a bastion for democracy or something.
This is he's an interesting example. But don't think other
other pharaohs were all, you know, heroes in comparison, right,
(53:55):
This is really weird that you could have like the
hutzpah of that, you know. Yeah, no, I agree, But
if I've learned anything from Stargate, It's it's that you know,
Alma Alma Rah is an extraterrestrial and uh has a
cool spaceship. Is this the star Gate the series or
Stargate the singular motion picture? Yeah? It was good. It
(54:21):
was good, yeah, with the guy from the Crying Game
in it. But in short, you know what happened is
that it seems the people at the time weren't really
digging this concept. And even though they didn't, even though
they weren't into it, you'll find some scholars that conjecture
the rough concept of one god over others. Later even
(54:44):
the just the concept of monotheism, a single god uh
to rule them all. Uh. This concept may have gone
on to influence other later religions, so in a way,
the shadow of Otten may still be extant on the Earth.
And I just wanted to bring something up. I was
considering asking to have it taken out, but I think
I'm I'm not. At the top of the show, I
(55:06):
mentioned how hey, at least things are a little better now.
People don't like beef over religion as much as they
used to. And that's certainly, I think partially true, but
it's also what I mean. We're talking about things that
have happened in two thousand eleven, you know, I mean
with with Isis trying to you know, literally murder people
for not converting to Islam, and obviously the conflict between
(55:27):
the Israelis and the Palestinians. All these things are very
very real. Maybe they're more isolated and smaller groups, but
they're very much still is a conflict between people of
different faiths. And the question that I think that leads
to is are there religions that exist now? The Big
five or whatever? However many there were I think I
(55:48):
think it was four plus other on a long enough
timeline that might be wiped out in the future. Yeah,
will modern religions die out the Again, We've just got
a few examples illustrating a much larger concept. But the
answer is conclusively, Yes, some religions have died out. Yes,
some have been the victims of conspiracy and they have
(56:10):
been purposely raised from the earth. But the process may
continue today in two ways. Uh. One is one is
kind of new. Let's talk with about the new one.
In two thousand eleven, the BBC reported on a study
or several studies that said nine countries seem set to
overall say goodbye to religion and become increasingly secular. Not
(56:34):
by persecuting religious people. It's just more and more residents
of those countries or less, it's less and less of
an important part of their life. You know. They're they're
the people who might say, uh, you know, I I'll
go to I'll go to church or temple if it's
a big holiday and my family makes me. But I
(56:55):
don't think about it every day. Uh. Interesting quote I
found from Richard owner of the Research Corporation for Science
Advancement and University of Arizona. He says, quote, in a
large number of modern secular democracies, there's been a trend
that folks are identifying themselves as non affiliated with religion.
In the Netherlands, the numbers the highest we saw was
(57:16):
in the Czech Republic, where the number is sixty. And
this is you know, this might be depressing to some
people who consider themselves very religious, but if you look
at all the bloody conflicts of the past, this is
kind of a peaceful rise of secularism, and I would
argue it's better than the alternative, which would be religious
(57:37):
persecution or persecution for people not being religious, for being um, apostates,
you know, or atheist. You know. I don't I don't
want to go back to Night City too much, guys,
But it just one day. What if religions are completely
taken out of the picture and it's corporate per persecution. Yeah,
like the th X was a it's a great scene
(57:59):
with that. Yeah. And you know that's why I think
that's a really good point, um that we should come
back to remind me before we wrap, because I gotta
I gotta pitch for you guys. We've certainly talked about
the the idea that money, uh and wealth and the
belief in all of these things is in and of
itself its own kind of faith and its own kind
of thing that can govern people, and that in many
(58:19):
ways can be stronger um because it's tied to you know, results,
very results driven, you know, right, And there's an argument there.
An idea is controversial to some, but it's the concept
of religion or a belief system as a kind of technology.
And if that, if we look at it through that lens,
then it's understandable that people may misuse that technology for
(58:43):
their own ends, just the same way you would with
fire or with a knife. Uh. And you know we
said there are two ways this happening. We give you
the newest way, peaceful rise of secularism. Uh. And now
the problem is that the second way we're going to
mention is the tried and true, the Coca Cola classic
of religions dying out, which is violence. Uh. In twenty fourteen,
(59:07):
Isis launched a genocide against people of the Year City faith. Uh.
They also called them devil worshipers due to specific aspects
of their doctrine. And I very poorly alluded to this
earlier and cited it as twenty eleven. But this is
absolutely this is they were still trying to kill them. Inn.
This is a very specific event. And this is yeah, yeah,
(59:30):
they killed thousands, as many as five thousand men who
refused to convert to Islam, the enslaved thousands of others.
This was so extreme that today thousands of women who
are enslaved in traffic remain officially missing. And this like,
this is this is a real world thing. This is
a real world impact. And right now at present, billions
(59:55):
of people around the world consider themselves members of one
faith or another to some degree, re or another and
that doesn't seem set to change anytime soon, and where
no one is saying that it has to or it should,
at least none of us are saying that because you know,
some of our some of the folks in the crowd today,
you know, you know that membership and a spiritual community
(01:00:16):
can bring great benefits, both physical and mental. Look into
blue zones, the parts of the world where people tend
to live much longer than others. Uh, community in a
sense of cohesion is a huge part of that. Not
to get personal about it, but I often wish that
I were more able to be more religious. I grew up,
(01:00:37):
you know, in that world, and then I kind of
abandoned it, and that's not something that's part of my life.
But I see people that are what I would consider
good examples, positive examples of people that have faith, and
it does seem to make them happier, and it does
seem to observe a very functional purpose in their lives.
Um And sometimes I feel like that's missing and I
kind of, you know, wish that I were more in
(01:00:58):
that mindset. So are absolutely physical benefits and mental health
benefits to following a certain religion and the way it
guides your life and makes you a quote unquote better person.
And I, you know, I had a difficult time research
in this episode because I didn't want to put because
we're talking about people who are like, no, do my thing,
(01:01:19):
so I don't want to talk about my old stuff.
And I think we're hitting on things that everybody can
on some level identify with, you know, And and we're
trying to be respectful about this because uh, the not
to like quote Arby's different is good. But the variations
and belief systems, you know, can help humanity learn to
(01:01:44):
look at itself in new ways, its struggles and its triumphs.
But the problem with this is that the right now,
from what we understand, the existence and importance of religion
inherently means that there will be uh practices of persecution
and a pression that follow it like a shadow. Those
seem set to continue even in countries with laws explicitly
(01:02:06):
banning abuse, harassment, or persecution based on faith, you know
what I mean. The US has laws against this, and
religious institutions are still getting attacked. This is this is
a huge issue. I mean, we could say, let's hope
that humans can learn to dwell on commonalities rather than
differences Biologically, everybody listening to this needs the same basic
(01:02:30):
stuff psychologically or socially. Like to your pointnal humans also
tend to want the same kind of mental experiences, right.
You want safety, You want a sense of belonging, you know,
just something larger than you and being an important part
of it. You want a sense that you're making the
world a little bit of a better place, at least
for your loved ones, at least giving your kids a
(01:02:51):
better shot than you had. That is like, it doesn't
matter what your belief system is. That is what most
people actually want. And if we recognize that and we
can appreciate it it's an inarguable common grounds, then that
might be the best defense against these ongoing conspiracies to
persecute or attack people because of their religion in the
(01:03:13):
modern day. Yield my time. Sorry, you know, um, I
think one of the excellent points, one of the only
other things we can all agree on, is that Horsey
Sauce is far superior to RBS Sauce. Oh god, yeah,
what he's an is rb Sauce. I don't understand. Uh,
not a fan, but I do have to give a
shout out to their marketing department because they are very clever.
(01:03:36):
They are have the like foremost like snarky um, social
media feeds and all of fast food dumb um. But
we have the meats. They had a venicine Burger for
a while too. I was sad that I couldn't get
to it. I didn't know about the um. But this
is all certainly food for thought. And whatever your religious
persuasion is or lack thereof, out there, we would love
(01:03:57):
to know what you think. Um. Do you think that
religions are going to be continuously in conflict until time immemorial? Um?
Or is it going to kind of become more of
a motto uh culture in terms of like like, I
love your idea mat of either some sort of techno
religion that everyone is invested in, maybe by force or
(01:04:19):
just by virtue of social evolution. Yeah, I'm calling it now.
It's the cult of our asaka. I don't understand that reference.
But it's all good. It's all good. So let us
know what you think, and let us know. This is
something we didn't have time to get to today because
we're running along. But let us know whether you believe,
(01:04:39):
as some do, that there are secret religions existing kind
of like the cult of Mithress in the modern day.
You know, maybe did some go underground and just never
come back up? If so, what are they and do
you have an address where we can go and visit them?
Anywhere about Bohemian growth. We would love to hear from you.
We try to it get easy to find us online.
(01:05:01):
Find us on the internet in the usual social media
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(01:05:25):
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(01:06:04):
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