Religion and translation to modern times.

A good friend of mine spent the last year studying in Italy and has done stints in both England and Bulgaria, thanks to the Honors College.  She’s an art history major with an interest in anthropology, and she believes that studying as she has is the quickest, surest way to break people of their faiths.  As an atheist, she sees anthropology as a science that disproves religion in its own way, showing the fickle nature of human belief.

Before this trip, I had no comparable experience.  Now, after seeing with my own eyes the way the Mother Goddess (Cybele or Kubaba) became Artemis and Aphrodite and eventually Mary over time, I understand where my friend was coming from.  If you take any religion by the letter of the law, it’s easy to unearth inconsistencies.  However, I’m more liberal with my spirituality.  I see this gradual morphing of beliefs as an affirmation of a higher power.  To me, the name or even the history of gods and goddesses are not what’s important.  It’s amazing to me when I realize that even in ancient days, many of the same basic belief systems existed.  Details differ, of course, but too many of the same basic principles survive to be passed off as coincidence.  Though shall not kill, steal, etc. is prevalent, but most obvious is the faith that someone is watching over us all.

Kubaba, Artemis, and the Virgin Mary all served the same purpose for the people of Anatolia.  The Greeks and Romans took the idea of Kybele being the Mother of the Gods from the Phrygians.  She was the Mother, the abundant, the giver of life and so much more.  This idea never changed, even if the actual religions did.  Many other ideas survived in the same way.  Pagans buried bull testicles for good luck and fertility; Ephesians display them on the chest of Artemis; modern-day Christians hang Christmas bulbs as a symbol of the ancient bull testicles; Muslims worship towards spermata.  Ancient ideas survive today, right under our very noses.  Though we may build them out of less durable materials, we use the same arches as the Romans.  Our skyscrapers may not survive for thousands of years, unlike the many ruins I saw, but ....  More than anything else, I learned that even in this age of machines, I am still a small part of history.