Oh well.

Happy Easter!

You say "Just like every other mythology in the world was authored by people who called themselves the chosen ones."

Well, maybe they're ALL right. Maybe God--which is shorthand let's say for some overarching divine presence in the universe--has made every people on earth, and every person on earth, and every sentient species in the entire universe, the "chosen ones." Maybe we're all "chosen." Maybe the state of sentience is what truly makes us "chosen," and that being "chosen" yourself doesn't necessarily preclude others being "chosen" as well. So all the peoples you mention, with all their own conceptions of God--maybe all of them are right, each in their own particular way. Of course, the corollary of this is that they're also all wrong, in various and sundry ways. The fact that humans--so tribal in nature--insist that their particular tribe is the ONLY chosen people is just another indication of how ill equipped we are--or were when all these various religions were first articulated and established--to understand truly what it is we're talking about when we delve into this or any other aspect of divinity.

Here's an analogy for you.

Light is often used as a metaphor for divinity. "I've seen the Light" "the divine light" and so on.

Our humanity--which means not only our own individual traits, but also the culture into which we're born and socialized, is like a prism. A prism will divide light into its constituent parts (and bear in mind this is only the visible spectrum we're seeing). Our individual/social prism takes the divine light and fractures it--and who and where we are in body and place and time determines which part of that spectrum we see as most dominant. Hence, all the various iterations of what may well be one light, shining down and through us all.

The Bible comes down to most westerners as the sole authority on this light merely as a circumstance of politics, history. To the extent that we accurately perceive that light, and are guided by it, Divinity works its will on our history--but only inasmuch as our perceptions are clear, our minds unclouded by the clutter of individual ego and social conditioning.

So--to sum up--we are all the Chosen People. Or as Gandhi is supposed to have said, "I am a Moslem, and a Hindu, and a Christian, and a Jew, and so are all of you."

This of course leaves other conundrums to solve--why didn't this Divinity, in Creating us all, create us so our perceptions would be entirely clear? And why death, why suffering at all? We're all familiar with the fundamentalist and perhaps even mainstream view of this, but if I were a believer I'd be heretic enough to say much of that is bunk, and that Christ as a "sacrifice" to atone for our sins is only one of many ways to view his role in all this.

As I've said in other threads, I'm an agnostic, and don't presume or pretend to know the actual truth of all this. As far as I can tell, there is no objective evidence of a Divine presence in the universe, except perhaps for the religious experiences of individual prophets and believers, which are impossible to verify and may well simply be hallucinations. On the other hand, in these matters I take to heart the scientific axiom that "Absence of evidence is not necessarily evidence of absence."

Hope this at least in part answers some of your questions and concerns.

In my view, to be created in the image and likeness can only refer to sentience. So every sentient being in existence is created in that image.

As to human perception, given that human intelligence is limited, so must perception be limited.

It must be remembered that the scriptures were written by fallible men attempting to explain the inexplicable. All scripture has to be read in the historical context.

The Hebrews were the "chosen people" in that their understanding of God continued to grow into the faith that became the basis of the three great monotheistic religions - all people trying to understand things beyond our comprehension.

Everyone has to find their own way in the search for the truth. In doing so, we should each be tolerant and respectful of others, even those following another path.

Until that search puts a limit on my search.

We are all obliged to find our own path.

The freedom to promote ones religion must also include the freedom of someone else to demean it.

Too often the idea of freedom of religion really means the enforcement of privilege.

the way it's told in the Bible. Let me try to modify it a bit, if you don't mind:

Suppose you had a friend who had 4 children. Suppose this friend decided that the oldest daughter was better than the other three children, and lavished all sorts of favors on her, while neglecting, and mistreating the other three children. Suppose your friend then ordered the oldest daughter to murder her brothers and take all their possessions for herself, and to enslave her sister. What kind of a parent would show that kind of favoritism?

There really isn't any good reason to suppose that a god, if one were actually to exist, couldn't be malevolent.

because those people invented the deities. The deities of all cultures I know about reflect the mores and customs of those cultures. People have it backwards. It's not that deities particularly favor one group over another. It is the the groups themselves do that. They create deities that are on their side and against their enemies or even random strangers.

Religion and its deities are the products of cultures, not the other way around.

That's my opinion, of course. But, if you look at all of the deities that are or have been worshiped by various cultures, it's an opinion that makes perfect sense, and explains the answer to your question.

Some deities, such as the Abrahamic deity/deities trio, are more portable, and have been adopted by other cultures. That's the product of better communication between cultures, which did not exist so much in the past.

Consider the many deities of druid/celtic cultures. They are no more. We aren't even certain of their names. The cultures that created them are also gone. A deity rarely survives the death or replacement of its original culture. That's more evidence in support of my opinion.

Your opinion might differ from mine.

What made the Christian faith so dominant in the West was a) that the existence of the Roman Empire made communication across the Mediterranean so much easier than it had ever been before (or would be again until the Renaissance) and b) it appealed to ordinary people--especially the downtrodden, who constituted the overwhelming majority of the people living in that Empire. There were other cults that competed for mass appeal, but Christianity won out.

Of course, after it was co-opted by Constantine et al., it became the dominant religion through its affiliation with the state, a relationship that has lasted, in various ways and in various locales, to this very day. This makes for a constant tension within Christianity as a whole, between its origins as a faith appealing to slaves and the oppressed, and a religion that provides legitimacy to ruling elites. Sometimes you see both in the same context, in Latin America say, after the advent of Liberation Theology. Or in the US right now, in the split you see between Left and Right Christians.

Best wishes.

have dwindled away where it began, as yet another splinter sect of Judaism. But, the Romans were in the right place at the right time to spread that simple religion, with its shortcut path to Paradise, throughout the western world. Through Paul's letters, they customized the religion to fit more or less everywhere. It's very interesting.

By opening up this new sect of Judaism to the gentiles, they were able to tap the wealth of the Romans and Greeks. The Romans just jumped on the bandwagon because they knew the power organized religion had to bring large populations under control.

But, either way, the Romans chose well. Christianity was a pretty easy sell, actually. It has a pretty good value proposition, compared to other religions. You can break the rules, pretty much as often as you want, and you still get the reward. That's hard to beat as a selling point, religion-wise.

As I see it, that was the real charm of Christianity, as promoted by the Roman church. It still is.

There was a big rift in the early Christian church. On the one hand you had Paul and the gentiles and on the other you had those who favored more orthodox Judaism which required adherence to mosaic law. Ultimately Paul won because he was bringing in boatloads of cash. And that’s why Christians eat ham on Easter.

I rarely get any recognition when I bring that up. Huh? People just don't understand what I'm talking about.