Religion has become associated with having a focus on morality. But that wasn’t always the case, researchers say. Academics have long suspected that the modern world’s major religions were born of...
Hengshan, or Mount Heng, which is located in Shanxi province, is one of China’s Five Great Mountains. Pinned to the side of its cliff face is the Xuan Kong Si, also known as the Hanging Monastery...
Water, essence of life and natural force sacred to the ancient Inca, was harnessed and controlled in a large man-made water temple in the late 15 th century. The pool, featuring finely carved and...
Millennia ago, ancient cultures were astounded by the seeming miracle of natural flames which burned day and night for weeks, decades, or even centuries. The tales of such flames have become a focus...
Read Part One At first, Zarathushtra preached among ordinary people on the streets but met harsh resistance from the conservative priesthood, and his teachings were dismissed. For twelve years he...
There was a time when the philosophy of oneness, one entity and one universal power emerged out of the polytheistic teachings. The Persian words goftare nik, pendare nik, kerdare nik meaning good...
Did an ancient meteor have such a life-changing impact on witnesses of the day that it shaped a religion and altered the course of history? Astronomers theorize that the dramatic flash and boom that...
An important ancient temple site dedicated to the founder of a sect of Taoism has recently been excavated by Chinese archaeologists. In China's Jiangxi Province, the archaeological site of ruins of...
The Crusades are best known as a series of military campaigns launched by Western European states, and sanctioned by the Roman Catholic Church, aimed at reclaiming the Holy Land from the Muslims...
The Sagas of the Icelanders have long been preserved as the most comprehensive specimen of the literary culture of the 13 th and 14 th centuries of Iceland. In writing these sagas, many attributes of...
The prehistoric religious temples of Hawaii are being dated by researchers with the help of small sea creatures. Indigenous temples of Hawaii, known as heiau , can be found across the islands. Dr...
All throughout history people have invoked gods of various kinds, including incomprehensibly strange creators. Crediting an almighty god as the creator of the universe is an acknowledgement that the...
In ancient times, people in Central Asia practiced a religion known as Tengriism, which focused on living in harmony with the natural universe. While this religion was founded and most widely...
The word "paganism" has come to refer to various pre-Christian religions belonging to a number of ancient cultures—those from Greece, Rome, Egypt, Scandinavia, and so on. It has come to also...
Before the acceptance of Christianity, Roman polytheism was dominant in the western world. Rome's borders extended as far west as Britain and as far east as modern day Greece and Turkey. To help ease...
A microscope scientist working for California State University has been fired following the discovery that a Triceratops horn still contained soft tissue complete with bone cells “that look alive”,...
A new study published in the journal Antiquity has revealed that a number of Bronze Age child skulls discovered around the perimeter of ancient settlements in Switzerland and Germany show signs of...
Egypt is the image of the heavens, and the whole Cosmos dwells here, in this its sanctuary— but the gods will desert the earth and return to heaven abandoning this land that was once the home of...
(Read Part 1 – Cannibal Jack Jones and the Beachcombers of Samoa ) In a development that was quite without parallel elsewhere, the Samoans in the 1830’s discovered a positive demand for a new...
More than 10,000 years ago, ancient people living in the Judean Desert and Hills abandoned their nomadic lifestyles and established permanent settlements. Around this time, art, culture, and...
A study published in March by the Nexus Network Journal suggests that the spatial position of palaces, temples, and tombs built at least 2, 300 years ago by the Nabataeans, including the famous city...
The Hopi live, move, and have their being in religion. To them the unseen world is peopled with a host of beings, good and bad, and everything in nature has its being or spirit. Just what kind of...
The Vatican has announced that it will display for the first time in history the remains of St Peter to mark the end of the Year of Faith. According to the New Testament, Saint Peter was one of Jesus...
In an article authored by Craig Considine , reference has been made to the extreme historical amnesia that has taken place with regards to the achievements and contributions of the Muslim culture to...