In a message dated 12/26/00 8:47:38 PM Eastern Standard Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:
> It seems obvious to me that the monotheistic religions are eschatological
> for a historical reason; namely that the OT and NT speak of the end of the
> world / the end of time.
You might have the cart before the horse. The ancient Hebrews had certain
religious beliefs that we know about because Hebrew authors or scribes
eventually wrote them down and they were collected as the OT. You make it
sound as if the book dropped out of the sky, the Hebrews read it, and
thereafter decided to adopt the religious ideas they found within.
You're not responding to my primary point, which is that there's no barrier
to a polytheistic religion having an eschatology, and many or most actually
do. That's precisely why Britannica has a section about the eschatologies of
non-Western religions. Stories about how the world will end are a genre in
their own right, and come from all parts of the globe. Contrary to what you
seem to be implying, it's not even necessary that the people who hold to a
particular set of eschatologial beliefs write them down, or have a written
language that would allow doing so. Some of the examples given by
Britannica--say, the eschatological beliefs of the peoples of the Andaman
Islands--come from societies that had no written language. The beliefs were
transmitted orally, and eventually collected by anthropologists.
Why is it important to you to believe--in the face of abundant evidence to
the contrary--that only a monotheistic religion could have an eschatology?
pat sloane
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