Oh How Easy it is to Create a God
Cargo Cults and other brand-new Religions
This story is weird, very weird, but when we consider that it occurred dozens of times, at dozens of locations, by dozens of separated and isolated groups with no contact with each other, most if not all speaking different languages, all within the last century or so, we must conclude that it is in fact, something quite normal for humans to do. For you see, most, if not all societies and cultures have created gods who they then worship and serve. There have been thousands of them in history and as we will see, new ones are still being created, while older ones are completely redesigned.
Many, what are often called “Cargo Cults” are in isolated areas such as Papua New Guinea, Fuji, and the Solomon and Oceania Islands. The inhabitants are usually a group of people with little or no exposure to anyone other than their own, and without advanced technology or modern manufactured goods. When military forces, mainly the Americans, arrived to use their island for military purposes, they were awestruck with the airplanes, tanks, jeeps, refrigerators, medicines, canned food, tools, supplies, and etc. The military forces were usually kind and gave them gifts and often traded with them. To many of them, it was like “manna from heaven.”
Often, they concluded that the new arrivals were sent by a god or by their ancestors. Sometimes, one of the new arrivals was a god himself. Other times, after the soldiers departed, a strong member of the group became their new prophet who promised that a new supply of goods would soon arrive. They viewed the manufactured goods as being spiritually produced elsewhere and delivered to them for their benefit. Some believed all the goods were for them and resented the G.I.’s from depriving them of most of the goods. Others loved the soldiers and even tried to rub the white off of their skin.
Probably the most famous of these so-called “cargo cults” (a term that is becoming more and more frowned upon by anthropologists and other professionals) involves a U.S. soldier who is referred to as John Frum. While there is no record of an actual soldier with that name, many soldiers introduced themselves as “John from America.” This particular group was on the large island of Tanna in Vanuatu, then known as New Hebrides around 1940.
Today, they celebrate John Frum day every Year on February 15th. They claim that his spirit lives deep within Mount Yasur, a nearby volcano and that one day he will return with a very large supply of goods.
In order to hasten his return, they use wood and straw to make artificial runways, airplanes, control towers, radios, and other equipment that they had observed were used in bringing in large planes full of the wonderful cargo. Wearing some of the uniforms given them by the G.I.’s, they conduct parade drills to encourage his return. During their annual celebration, a ceremonial raising of the American flag takes place.
Of the roughly 30,000 inhabitants on this island, about a fourth of them are dedicated and fervent believers in their soon coming “messiah,” John Frum. They are sometimes mocked by Christians living on the island but reply that “you have waited 2000 years for your messiah to return, we have only been waiting 50.”
Karen Armstrong was right when she began her 1994 New York Times bestselling book The History of God with this sentence: “In the beginning, human beings created a god who was the first cause of all things and ruler of heaven and earth.”
While most people in the world claim to follow one of the five largest religions (Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Judaism); of whom the vast majority of their members are “lukewarm” at best and extreme hypocrites at worse, millions have joined dozens of new religions or newly designed offshoots of the main five. Many scholars suggest that the largest religions, which all have major differences in doctrine, rituals, and customs, maintain their large memberships due mainly to the fact of “time-tested” culture and childhood indoctrination. With few exceptions, in America most people are Christians; Saudi Arabia and most of the Middle East countries are Muslims; if you were born in India, you would most likely be Hindu, and in China, Buddhist.
It is pure and simple, that your religion is not what you decided was the right one, but simply was determined arbitrarily by where you were born.
In fact, most “believers” do not have a clue or even an interest in knowing how their holy book was developed or even how or when their religion took root. Using my former religion of Christianity as an example, few ever read the Bible (other than cherry picking certain passages) and know even less about the history of its origin, or the well documented problem that it contains. Since their religion is the correct one, there is no need to consider or investigate the others, as really, it is only a matter of having faith. Evidence and truth mean almost nothing. More time is spent researching the right smartphone to buy, or the new HD television or computer than is ever spent researching why their religion may or may not be true.
Given the increase of available information via the internet and vast supply of books, along with basic fact-finding techniques, members are leaving their religion by the millions.
Yet, new religions, offshoots, and cults continue to grow in number and size. Several larger ones that did not exist a century or two ago are Mormonism, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Seventh Day Adventists, Sun Myung Moon and his Moonies, Scientology, and The Rajneesh Movement. (See Netflix documentary “Wild Wild Country” regarding this one…it is very interesting and wild)
Let’s focus on Mormonism, which by far, has the most members. Its creator, Joseph Smith, was a convicted criminal. He was arrested over 40 times for such things as bank fraud, conspiracy to murder a governor, perjury, threatening a judge, fornication, treason, issuing unauthorized bank paper, rioting, disorderly conduct, fleeing, and others.
He also had no fewer than 28 wives, possibly as many as 49. Two of them were 14 years old and two were only 16. Three were 17. The younger ones agreed to marriage when he promised them that not only they, but their entire family would be assured of eternal salvation and exaltation. 14-year-old wife Helen Mar Kimball wrote that “This promise was so great that I willingly gave myself to purchase so glorious a reward.”
The Book of Mormon, despite clear DNA evidence to the contrary, teaches that Native Americans are descendants from ancient Israelites. It also teaches that dark skin people indicate God’s curse.
Many heavenly visits:
Joseph Smith claimed that an angel named Moroni, directed him to gold plates that were buried 1400 years earlier, when he, Moroni, was a human. Joseph Smith claimed he was given magical eyeglasses that allowed him to read the “reformed Egyptian” writings which he then translated into English.
During that period, he claims to have been visited in person by God the Father and His Son Jesus together, and that John the Baptist ordained him into the Aaronic priesthood and later, the apostles Peter, James, and John came to ordain him into the Melchizedek priesthood.
He also taught that Adam and Eve were literally real people who lived in the Garden of Eden that was located in western Missouri.
The beauty of faith is that it requires you to ignore reality.
Despite its absurdities and immoral historical foundation, over 16 million members follow it and most give the church 10% of everything they earn. If smart people can fall for this one, it just shows how easy religions are developed when evidence is never required and when contradictions and absurdities are completely ignored. After all, that is what faith is all about. In fact, many teach that doubting or investigating it is a great sin.
Let us not forget a few other recent self-proclaimed “gods” or prophets that attracted many devoted followers such as David Koresh, who claimed to be the Lamb of God, usually associated with Jesus; Jim Jones; Maharishi Mahesh Yogi; and A.C. Bhaktivedanta who founded the Hare Krishna movement.
And of course we have dozens of Christian leaders who falsely prophesied that Trump was going to be re-elected and the hundreds who preach that if you send them money, God will multiply it a hundred-fold, along with saving your wayward children from an eternity in hell. Thankfully, the Bible requires that all false prophets be killed, so they should all be gone by the publishing of this article.
Here is a list of several hundred new groups or significant offshoots of the main five. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_new_religious_movements
Given the above, it is clearly seen how easy it is to adopt new gods and prophets that become quickly accepted by many sincere people. Some of them are even more “bizarre” than those we enjoy reading about in Greek Mythology. After all, lightning and thunder had no intuitive explanation until science discovered their cause. Volcanoes, hurricanes, droughts, and floods appeared to be supernatural as was food, animals, and new babies. And please don’t tell me that the sun can possibly journey clear across the sky every day without a god guiding it from his chariot.
The fact is, then, as today, fear needs a safety net, and the unknown needs an explanation.
Science has answered many of those concerns causing most of the older gods to die or disappear, but many people still deny the strongest of evidence, so they stick with gods that they can define and change as needed or invent new ones as desired. It is so much easier for many people to just accept on faith that they already have the truth rather than doing the hard work of studying, researching, and requiring evidence before declaring something is true. The fact is, faith discourages you from doing just that.
With the holy books containing so many errors and contradictions, how is it possible that with so much undisputable information about DNA and the fossil record, along with other sciences and historical evidence, can any intelligent person still believe that their religion is true? To repeat once again, faith was developed as a way to just simply ignore and deny anything and everything that undercuts the religion’s beliefs. And the sad fact is, the teaching of faith (often along with fear) works very effectively on young children before they develop the necessary skills to critically think. And then, it is extremely difficult to overcome.
A word about atheism.
Atheism is not a religion. It has no creed, no holy book, no founder, no prophet. It has nothing to do with faith. In fact, it is just the opposite of faith. It is merely the acknowledgement that there is no reasonable evidence to accept any one of the thousands of gods that others claim to have existed. Most of us would love it if there was a god who loved and protected children and who would make sure that equality and fair justice was the norm. And, that innocent animals and insects would not have to kill and eat each other if they wanted to live or feed their babies. Should evidence ever appear that a god does in fact exist, be assured that the vast majority of atheists would not deny it. And if it was a good god, worthy of worship, then most of us would gladly follow him or her. In the meantime, we understand that it is what it is, regardless of what we may wish for.
To continue a search for truth, please see:
Ten Fatal Flaws of the Bible: https://medium.com/excommunications/ten-fatal-flaws-of-the-bible-24ef7a305f3f
A Few Thoughts to Ponder about Prayer: https://medium.com/interfaith-now/a-few-thoughts-to-ponder-about-prayer-6a1aa0e6814e
