Religion and Folklore

 The thing is most religions have borrowed ideas from other religions over the years, although they all like to think that they invented this stuff themselves. Every once in awhile a fundamentalist movement arises and an attempt is made to purge the borrowed stuff out of a particular religion and return to what they consider to be their fundamental beliefs, which is why they are called fundamentalist movements. I think that's what's happening today with those Islamic extremists, except there seems to be several fundamentalist movements going on at once and they all hate each other. With the Christians there was the Spanish Inquisition, the Protestant Reformation, the Counter Reformation, none of which would have been necessary if those Romans hadn't decided to make Christianity their state church. Before that there were lots of Christian sects coexisting more or less peaceably. When the Romans took it over, they wanted one set of doctrines that everybody could buy into, and Christianity has never been the same since. Throughout the history of organized religion, and probably preceding it, there has been kind of a religious underground which is known as folk religion. Basically, people believe what they want to believe. You can force them to pay lip service to your particular brand of faith, but that doesn't mean they really believe it.

One recurring theme is reincarnation. The Hindus may have invented it, or they may have assimilated it like they have most of their other beliefs. There are a few vague references to it in the Bible, although I am not aware of any current Christian or Jewish sect that incorporates it into their doctrine. I think that some pre-Christian Pagans believed in reincarnation, although their version might not have been exactly like the Hindu doctrine. The problem I have with it is that you almost never remember anything from your past lives. How are you supposed to improve yourself if you don't know what you did wrong the last time? Occasionally someone claims to remember a former lifetime, but there is no way to prove or disprove their claim. One exception that comes to mind is the Bridie Murphy case. I have never read the book, but I seem to remember reading a condensed version in a magazine, probably Readers' Digest. Wiki probably has something on it, and I may look for it tomorrow, but not tonight.

A number of ancient cultures have flood stories in their mythology. Some people believe that proves the truth of the Noah's Ark story, and others say that the only thing it proves is that lots of places have experienced catastrophic floods at some time or another. If you think about it, the flood myths are really just variations on the end of the world theme. The old world gets washed away and a new world rises up to take its place. People have been predicting the end of the world since the beginning of the world, and yet the world is still here. Go figure!

"Apocalypse" is the Greek word for "revelation", specifically applied to the Biblical book "The Revelation to John". (No, Ken, it's not the plural "revelations" it's the singular "revelation", a common mistake.) In general use, "apocalypse or apocalyptic" has come to mean any kind of end of the world scenario, of which there have been many over the years. We were supposed to have one of those in 2012 because that's when the old Mayan calendar ran out of days. The earliest documented version of which I am aware came from the Persian prophet Zarathustra, who lived somewhere between 3000 and 6000 years ago, depending on whose book you read. Suffice it to say that these types of stories have been around for a long time. People seem  drawn to them, maybe because they make our little day to day problems seem petty by comparison, or maybe because they represent the ultimate solution to all problems large and small. I am reminded of an old Kingston Trio song, "The Merry Minuet" :

But we should be tranquil and thankful and proud,
For man's been endowed with a mushroom shaped cloud,
And we know for certain that, one lovely day,
Someone will set the spark off and we will all be blown away.