Western Culture as a Mimic of Ancient Cultures

Submitted by M Tovey (United States), Jul 25, 2020 at 22:27

Western Culture as a Mimic of Ancient Cultures
Your dissertation is, indeed, much appreciated. After a lifetime of attempts to understand how modern civilization cannot seem to get its act together, a process of reviewing what was taught in my youth brought to light that all that was deemed the basis of 'western' belief was actually a combination of various panoramic views that did not necessarily agree. They were further complicated by contravening and clashing ideologies, which strangely, appeared to be introductory to a modern liberal mindset of what to teach in American (Californian) colleges. They did not make sense to a budding libertarian, were found wanting in certain perceptions of truth; so, this observer went along his way. Education from then on was accomplished by independently going back to the classics that came before while reading in parochial settings of high school. The idea of western culture not being the true basis of a cultured society was initially inculcated then.
Being raised in denominational settings, religion as a youth was viewed with a jaded eye, even then; the argument that religious practices were the path to righteousness did not bear itself out and lost its value before reaching majority citizenship. However, spiritual influences did not cease then, other voices offering rationale that did not agree with the majority ideologies of many of the denominational belief systems. This observer knew of the name of Jesus Christ; but knowing Him was not embraced until the deception of majority religion was removed to reveal the truth of why modern Christianity is no longer able to witness to His transformational power in the face of humanist secularist theosophy. Modern 'Western' Christianity has succumbed to the persuasion of the superiority of the moral self and the loss of the spiritual influences necessary for repentance and submitting the conscience to the chastisement of being obedient in His love and responding to His love. It requires belief in the risen Savior.
Now, your dissertation has been decidedly helpful in backgrounding much of the narratives of ancient civilization and how they attempted to relate to the religious influences of those times. It is further helpful in understanding how those ancient influences are still affecting the mentality of modern 'Western' civilization, completely in spite of the witness that the progressive changes of empires over the centuries have done nothing to improve the condition of humanity, but that mankind has yet to demonstrate any propensity for compassionate self-rule. That self-rule almost always promotes the idolization of the self of the leadership and that liberty being extended to the population cannot guarantee freedom without the rule of law; and rebellion to the rule of law, without proper spiritual intercession, is innate to the entirety of humanity. Of such is the fate of 'Western' culture. Does a different interpretation of the ancients provide an alternative solution? In this humble opinion, not really.
In the attempt to discern some rationale in ancient sources for the development of social order in civilizations over the millennia, the rise and fall of empires, left behind virtually nothing that makes sense, archeological discoveries being subjected to as many variations of interpretations as there are independent studies. Such as trying to determine which came first, Sumerian/ Mesopotamian societies or the ancient Egyptian. Much of the concepts of life after death appear to have been influenced by the practices of these ancients, including your narrative of the deification of Horus and the others as they attempted to extend the influences of power beyond the finality of death. In the alternative narrative this observer is more familiar with, the deities of the times of the pharaohs such as Seti (?) and his successor(s), the concept of Egyptian deities was challenged and by certain accounts, lost to the challenge of a superior power of the Eternal Sovereign worshipped by the Hebrew slaves under the Pharaoh's charge.
It is alleged by some scholarship that was the beginning of the end of the superiority of Egyptian dynasties against other empires of those times. This evidently became a systematic issue as other empires move in their own extensions of conquest, up to and including successor empires to the Sumerians, like the Assyrians, then the Babylonians. The legends of the deities, such as the wife of Nimrod, of those ancient powers are the stuff of modern folklore; forge of empires and the like. To some, it is the mystery of Babylon. The source of this is the Hebrew Holy Writ.
Counter to all of this is the alternative narrative to which you have alluded to as being filled with irrational dissertations which fly in the face of most of the civilized cultures that have survived until this day; and yet, the witness to this alternative narrative presents certain insights, called Biblical, not found in any of the more traditional pursuits of finding the most compelling determination of the meaning of life. This became a force of conflicting ideologies when the Roman Empire held sway in a post-Egyptian environment and the most contentious piece of real estate of a conquered kingdom was the scene of religiously epic proportions.
The person that claimed authority over that kingdom was being rejected by the very people He was supposed to be accepted by; they, in their extreme religiosity, rebelled against His claims of fulfilling written records of His authority. After all, did they not remember Him as being the son of Mary. Still, they delivered Him to the Roman authority for an execution that is far more remembered today than any other influence to 'Western culture,' a problem this modern time of culture still has a problem with now. But for all the antithetical issues modern society has today in not being able to reconcile in order to live in harmony with each other, this alternative to the clash of societies we see today does provide a way to move away from the antagonistic attitudes towards humanity as a whole. There is a release from the prison of minds captured in the delusion that humanity can save itself. It is not found in the religious forms of modern society; not in faux Christianity, nor replacements like Islam or trying to follow ancient formulas of being better people without the Spiritual offering of salvation from the aforementioned Jesus Christ. It is found in this choice: believe in the LORD Jesus Christ and you shall be saved. And in appreciation for your helping this observer to understand the confusion of it all, it can be written thus:

فقالا آمن بالرب يسوع المسيح فتخلص انت واهل بيتك.

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