The Religions Book

39 See also: The Dreaming 34–35 ■ The spirits of the dead live on 36–37 ■ Symbolism made real 46–47 ■ Man and the cosmos 48–49 L ...

THE GODS DESIRE BLOOD SACRIFICE AND BLOOD OFFERINGS ...

...

T he sacrifice of animals and humans has been a feature of many religious traditions around the world, but the idea of ritual sa ...

43 See also: Created for a purpose 32 ■ A lifelong bond with the gods 39 ■ The burden of observance 50 ■ Renewing life through r ...

44 dates back to the Olmec people and continued after the Spanish Conquest of Mexico in 1519. Both men and women of the Mayan no ...

45 Totec, the flayed deity, a priest impersonating the god donned the flayed skin of a sacrificed captive. As the skin tightened ...

46 T he first sacred spaces of early religions were naturally occurring ones— groves, springs, and caves. However, as worship be ...

47 See also: Making sense of the world 20–23 ■ Man and the cosmos 48–49 ■ Living the Way of the Gods 82–85 PRIMAL BELIEFS helped ...

48 T he Dogon people live in the Bandiagara plateau in Mali, West Africa, where they practice a traditional animist religion: fo ...

49 The form of man was prefigured in the egg, and is also echoed in the form of the universe. Everything, from the smallest seed ...

50 A Tikopian man performs a dance with a canoe paddle: ritual dancing and drumming on canoes were part of the Work of the Gods. ...

51 See also: The spirits of the dead live on 36–37 ■ Beliefs that mirror society 80–81 T hrough their ritual songs and dances, t ...

A N C I E N T CLASSIC BELIEFS FROM 3000 BCE ...

AND AL ...

54 T he earliest civilizations emerged when scattered nomadic tribes began to settle in order to raise crops. Previously localiz ...

55 more a philosophy than a religion, as it concentrated on enlightenment without the need for gods. This focus on moral philoso ...

56 T H E R E I S A HIERARCHY OF GODS AND MEN BELIEFS FOR NEW SOCIETIES M esopotamia, the area of modern Iraq between the Tigris ...

57 Images of Babylonian soldiers lined the Ishtar Gate, which led to the city of Babylon. Effigies of gods were paraded from the ...

58 We want to live again after death, as the god Osiris did. There, Osiris will judge us, and our hearts will be weighed against ...