What was ancient Sumer's Religious System?
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The Sumerians practised a polytheistic system similar to that of the Greeks with gods and goddesses representing various forces. \n\nAmong the major gods were:\n\n* An, the god of heaven;\n\n* Enlil, the god of air and storms;\n\n* Enki, the god of water and Earth;\n\n* Ki, god of earth;\n\n* Ninlil, goddess of creation; and\n\n* Inanna, the god of love and war.\n\nEach Sumerian city had a patron god. Ur created a ziggurat for Nanna, the God of the moon.
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This answer is about pyramids in Egypt. Pyramids were also constructed in ancient Greece and Mesoamerica. Flat topped pyramids were constructed in ancient China.\n\nPyramids in Egypt served as tombs, initially only for kings and close members of the royal family, but eventually came to be used (in much smaller forms) by the general populace.\n\nThe pyramid is thought to have developed out of the mastaba tomb. Mastaba is an Arabic word, meaning bench, which was applied to the flat-topped, slope sided superstructures of tombs. The pyramid is also thought to be associated with solar worship and the "ben-ben" stone which played a major role in sun worship and was vaguely pyramid shaped.\n\nIn the 3rd Dynasty, several mastabas were stacked forming the Step Pyramid of King Djoser. By the 4th Dynasty in the reign of Snefru attempts at building a true pyramid were underway. The pyramids of the 4th and 5th Dynasties, including those at Giza, essentially reflect the further refinement of the pyramid, the chambers within it, and the associated temple complexes. Eventually the standard style was an orientation of east to west (significant in Egyptian religion), with a pyramid temple, located directly on the east side of the pyramid, and a causeway leading to the "valley temple" located near the Nile at the edge of the cultivation.\nWhile it is accepted by reputable Egyptologists that pyramids served as burials for kings, the exact details of the theology behind them remains unclear. One idea, popularized I believe by Dr. Mark Lehner, one of the foremost experts on Egyptian pyramids, is that pyramids served as "resurrection machines" providing all the necessary means for eternal life with the gods for the dead king.\nIn the late 5th Dynasty in the Pyramid of Unas at Saqqara, we have the first appearance of formal texts within the pyramid itself - the appropriately-named Pyramid Texts. These texts are somewhat esoteric and are essentially a collection of spells, stories, and guides relating to the Underworld. Initially these texts were limited to royalty. In succeeding pyramids, elements of the Pyramid Texts were included in the "Coffin Texts" of the First Intermediate and Middle Kingdom and in the "Book of the Dead" of the New Kingdom - texts available to a broad spectrum of society.\n\nPyramid construction continued in the Middle Kingdom - again limited to royalty, but not on the grand scale of the Old Kingdom. The last known royal pyramids located in Egypt are that of King Ahmose, founder of the 18th Dynasty of the New Kingdom (ca. 1550 BCE) and the pyramid-cenotaph constructed for his grandmother, Queen Tetisheri. Both are located at Abydos.\n\nIn the New Kingdom, pyramids came to be part of tombs for reasonably wealthy private individuals - frequently added to the exterior portico area of rock-cut cliff tombs or appearing as architectural elements of brick constructed tombs in varous parts of Egypt.\n\nThe Napatan and Meroitic kingdoms in Nubia (modern Sudan) also used the pyramid for royal burials at sites such as El-Kurru and Nuri. While the Napatan kings ruled Egypt for a time during the 25th Dynasty and were buried in pyramids, those pyramids were located in Nubia proper.\n\nPyramid construction relied on highly skilled teams of workmen who were housed nearby the pyramid fields - in the Old Kingdom located in the general vicinity of the ancient capital Memphis at sites now knows as Giza, Saqqara, Meidum, and Dashur. A few pyramids in the Middle Kingdom were located near the Fayum, roughly Middle Egypt.\nIn addition to the full-time workmen, there was likely a seasonal labor requirement asked of the lower classes of Egyptian society - a sort of taxation, often referred to by the French term "corvee" labor. This is distinct from slavery. While the ancient Greek historian Herodotus (writing over a thousand years after the construction of the pyramids at Giza) reported that he
641050
I have read that in the beginnings there were people believing in things around them in nature as having a shine as a higher being type worship like worshiping fire and trees.  if you check out this site it describes it as being caveman h ad spiritual belief in surroundings of nature but not an ongoing organized religion like that of the first 7,000 years ago in egyptian prime. http://www.matrixbookstore.biz/cavemen.htm
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I like your logic, and I agree.  I believe all gods are one God, just different names/aspects.  The supreme ruler is an IMMENSE being, and mere humans with our human brains cannot possibly interpret the whole thing as it is.  So we look at aspects of the supreme being.  I see one part, and you see another part.  But we're seeing the same Being.
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It is generally believed by historians that the earliest religion(s) were animistic, which developed into increasingly complex polytheistic systems.  \n\nEven the Bible tends to support this idea --- Abraham was said to abandon his "idols" (e.g. polytheism) in order to establish worship of the One God.\n\nReligion probably originates in the attempt to understand and explain the inexplicable in the world.
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Religionis a system of social coherence based on a common group of beliefs or attitudes concerning an object, person, unseen being, or system of thought considered to be supernatural, sacred, divine or highest truth, and the moral codes, practices, values, institutions, and rituals associated with such belief or system of thought. It is sometimes used interchangeably with "faith" or "belief system"[1], but is more socially defined than that of personal convictions.\n\nCASTE-Caste systems are traditional, hereditary systems of social stratification, such as clans, gentes, or the Indian caste system\n\nCustom-consists of established patterns of behaviour that can be objectively verified within a particular social setting. Generally, customary law exists where\n\na certain legal practice is observed \nthe relevant actors consider it to be la
150215
It was largely pagan.Before the coming of Islam, most Arabs followed a religion featuring the worship of a number of deities, including Hubal, Wadd, Al-Lat, Manat, and Uzza, while some tribes had converted to Christianity or Judaism, and a few individuals, the hanifs, had apparently rejected polytheism in favor of a vague monotheism.\n\nBy the fourth century AD, the Arab kingdoms of the Lakhmids in southern Iraq and Ghassanids in southern Syria had emerged just south of the Fertile Crescent and ended up allying respectively with the Sassanid and Byzantine Empires. Thus they were constantly at war with each other on behalf of their imperial patrons. However, their courts were responsible for some notable examples of pre-Islamic Arabic poetry, and for some of the few surviving pre-Islamic Arabic inscriptions in the Arabic alphabet. The Lakhmid kingdom was dissolved by the Sassanids in 602, while the Ghassanids would hold out until engulfed by the expansion of Islam. Mecca was conquered by the Quraysh around 500CE and was already a religious centre.\n\nThere was a split between the Arabs who lived in towns near oasis growing dates and supplying trade caravans and the Bedouin who lived as nomadic pastoralists. This split still exists in Arab culture today.
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They were all humans and man is subject to decay and death. But they accepted their suffering with this truth in mind. There was no miracle as such in their behaviour, but their followers could not understand some of their acts and branded as miracle which later got eulogised and popularised to bring them closer to God. In reality, they were all ordinary human beings. Deification of human beings started in the Euro-Asian region during pre-roman days in the 3rd century B.C. and later they were replaced by making distinction between God and Prophets. This is true with all the Semitic religions.
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The God of the Old Testament appears to have more than one personality. The identity of God seems to vary with the author. I see religion as an evolutionary process.
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Ishtar was the goddess of love and war to the ancient Babylonians. This same goddess was also worshiped throughout the Near East and Mediterranean worlds from the beginning of recorded history until the predominance of Christianity. Her name varied from place to place, but it was the same goddess who was known as Inanna, Innin, Astarte, Ashtar, and Aphrodite among other names. Ishtar first arose among the Sumerians sometime in the third millennium. They created an entire pantheon of gods who were like humans - only better. The gods of Sumer reflected the general pessimism of the Sumerians, but also their belief that the human mind could divine the minds of gods by observing perceived supernatural activity......
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The creator of all things was either Re, Amun, Ptah, Khnum or Aten, depending on which version of the myth was currently in use. The heavens were represented by Hathor, Bat, and Horus. Osiris was an earth god as was Ptah. The annual flooding of the Nile was Hapi. Storms, evil and confusion were Seth. His counterpart was Ma'at, who represented balance, justice and truth. The moon was Thoth and Khonsu. Re, the sun god, took on many forms, and transcended most of the borders that contained the other gods. The actual shape of the sun, the disk (or, aten), was deified into another god, Aten. \n\n \n\nCertain gods were worshipped in different areas. Local cities or villages, known as nomes, often had unique gods that were known only to that region. On occasion, these gods attained country -wide recognition and became the myths and legends that were passed on from century to century. Below is a listing of the main gods and their primary place of worship. \n\nAmaunet - A female counterpart to Amon and one of the primordial gods of the Hermopolitian Ogdoad (group of eight gods). She was also worshipped at Thebes along with Amon and Mut. \n\nAmon - Usually associated with the wind, or things hidden, and was also of the Hermopolitian Ogdoad. At Thebes he became Amon-Re, king of the gods. He was part of the Theban Triad, along with Mut and Khonsu. \n\nAntaios - He was originally a double god, "the two falcons", that was later joined to create one, probably that of Horus. \n\nAnuket - Worshipped at Elephantine, she was associated with the gazelle. \n\nApis - Seen as the bull with a solar disk between its horns, Apis was associated with Osiris and Ptah. \n\nAton - Also known as Aten, he was worshipped at Tell 'Amarna. \n\nAtum - A primordial god that was represented in the form of a human and a serpent. He was the supreme god in the Heliopolitan Ennead (group of nine gods) and formed with Re to create Re-Atum. \n\nHathor - The goddess of love, dance and alcohol was depicted as a cow. At Thebes she was also the goddess of the dead. She was worshipped at Dendera as the consort of Horus and Edfu, and was associated with Isis at Byblos. \n\nHorus - The earliest royal god was the shape of a falcon, with the sun and moon as his eyes. The sky-god was the ruler of the day. The many forms of Horus are; Re-Harakhti, Harsiesis, Haroeris, Harendotes, Khenti-irti, Khentekhtay (the crocodile-god), and Harmakhis, which is Horus on the horizons, in which the Sphinx of Giza is considered to be his aspect. \n\nIsis - The mother of Horus and sister and consort of Osiris was worshipped at Philae. Associated with Astarte, Hathor, Nut and Sothis, she was later worshipped over the entire Roman Empire. \n\nKhnum - Resembling a human with a rams head, he was worshipped in Hypselis, Esna, Antinoe and Elephantine. \n\nKhonsu - the moon god was the son of Amon and Mut. The main temple at Karnak is dedicated to him. \n\nMin - God of fertility coalesced with Amon and Horus. Min was mainly worshipped at Coptos and Akhmim. \n\nMut - Worshipped at Thebes, she was a consort of Amon and part of the Theban Triad (group of three gods). \n\nNut - Mother of the sun, moon and heavenly bodies. \n\nOsiris - He is regarded as the dead king that watches over the nether world and is rejuvenated in his son Horus. As the symbol of eternal life he was worshipped at Abydos and Philae. \n\nPtah - Worshipped in Memphis, he coalesced with Sokaris and Osiris. \n\nRe - He was the sun god of Heliopolis. From the fifth Dynasty onwards he becomes a national god and is combined with the supreme deity Amon. \n\nSerapis - He was mainly worshipped in Alexandria and was later worshipped by the Greeks as Zeus. He was never fully accepted by the Egyptians in the Ptolemaic period. \n\nSekhmet - She was part of the Memphite Triad with Ptah and Nefertem. She was the mistress of war and sickness. \n\nSeth - The son of Geb and Nut in the Heliopolitan Ennead was in the form of an animal that
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Here are a couple of links for Sumerian Tablet information:\n\nhttp://www.sacred-texts.com/ane/sum/sum05.htm\nhttp://groups.msn.com/ILLUMINATIUNCOVERED/serpentgods.msnw\nhttp://www.theology.edu/sumer.htm
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The Egyptian deities could be many places at once.  They are portrayed as having once lived on earth before eventually ceding their direct rule to a line of human kings.\nTexts like the Am Duat "That Which is in the Underworld" from the New Kingdom, which are part of a larger tradition of religious texts like the Book of the Dead tell of the gods holding court in the underworld.\nHowever, Egyptian temples were also perceived by the Egyptians as houses for the various deities.  Statues were kept in the temples, they were bathed, dressed, had makeup applied to them and were "fed" daily by the priests and taken out on "visits" to other deities or to be paraded during various festivals.\nStatues in a broad sense in ancient Egypt were thought to be able to hold the soul or part of the soul of people and gods in order to receive offerings or to interact in some way with the living world.\nThere also seems to have been a belief that statues of various deities had healing powers as there are accounts of Egyptian deity statues being sent to other Near Eastern kings when those kings fell ill.
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They sent them to Godhood.  think pyramids, big statues, mummies.  Those were memorials.  Often pharoahs were buried with a host of servants to serve them in the after life.
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Hinduism is the world's most ancient religion.The Vedas which are considered to be primary religious texts of Hinduism dates back many centuries BC before any other known religion would have or known to be existed.
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Egyptians believed in the concept of life after death, which led them to the art of embalming and drove them to build the pyramids and tombs.\n    They also believed in god worship.  The god-forms each represented a principle or aspect of the supreme creator.  \n\n\n\nThese links will provide more information about Egypt:  \nhttp://library.thinkquest.org/15924/\nhttp://www.egyptheart.org/\nhttp://neferchichi.com/
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Hinduism. it still includes mother goddess, sun, fire worship and shamans. \n\nwe call it Sanatana dharma. it includes most ancient traditions. yet always modifying itself according to changing ideas. still retaining old traditions and beliefs.\n\nstill for religious practices pots made of bronze are supposed auspicious. that was the first metal man used. \n\nHinduism has a continuous evolution tradition. but it never negated or disregarded earlier beliefs. it just modifies them. \n\nyou want to study religious evolution of man study hinduism. it will go back to stone age and latest off shoot of hinduism Sikh Panth is hardly 400 yers old.