How did humanity create its gods?

Biography of the Gods – A. Eustace Haydon (1967)

            This book attempts to gather what info it can to show how the many religions of humanity were created by humanity to serve human’s purposes. Mr. Hayden, a former ordained Baptist minister, details how the many religions came about and how they all share the same human-created aspects.  He comes to this study of comparative religion to understand it’s origins and to show how, since they are all human-made constructs, the true goals of religion are within humans to begin with.  We created the gods.  We imbued them with our human qualities.

            Even in 1942 when he wrote this book, Mr. Hayden saw how skeptical inquiry and scientific knowledge cast a harsh light on the myths that humans believe.  It is now 2014 and much of the world still functions on a day to day basis solely on the grounds of these wholly imaginary creations we call gods.  He shows how modern man has moved beyond a need for these rituals and bullshit lies.

Here is an extreme close-up of their fabric of lies.

 

            He lists the three phases of religion, as he sees it.  (a) The Ideal, a vision of the desired values of the completely satisfying life, (b) The Cult, that is, the techniques by means of which the group feels confident the values may be attained, and (c) The Ideology, which, in the guise of cosmology and theology, interprets the way in which the envisioned universe is related to man’s hopes and ideals.

            In Biography of the Gods Mr. Hayden studies not only Western religions but also Eastern Religions and he finds that in them there is not a need for significant gods, especially in the ancient culture of China. In fact, Lao Tse, and Kong Fu Tse (Confucius to westerners) created systems of morality and philosophy which do not require gods or souls at all.  Taoism and Confucianism are still very much alive in China.

            Someday, Mr. Hayden posits, humans will all grow beyond the need for childish deities.  He states, “…more needful than faith in God, is faith that man can gain love, justice, peace and his beloved moral values embodiment in human relations.  Denial of this faith is the only real Atheism.”

            It is a shame that this lofty goal and ideal is a threat to those that benefit from the existence of churches/cults.  That would be all priests, churches, religious organizations and anyone involved in perpetuating their lucrative lies, trying to keep humanity stupid, ignorant, and enslaved to their imaginary gods.

(This book can be read or downloaded here:  https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.178314 )