Ancient Religions Quotes

Any period is fascinating: the more ancient, the better.

I am not saying people should not be free to join whichever reason they choose but should we be forced to live our lives around a belief system that originated somewhere around the fourth or fifth century BC. I cannot see any more reason to base a belief system around Christianity, Judaism or Islam than I can around Lord of the Rings.

The night of December 25, to which date the Nativity of Christ was ultimately assigned, was exactly that of the birth of the Persian savior Mithra, who, as an incarnation of eternal light, was born the night of the winter solstice (then dated December 25) at midnight, the instant of the turn of the year from increasing darkness to light.

I would believe any religion that could prove it had existed since the beginning of the world. But when I see Socrates, Plato, Moses, and Mohammed I do not think there is such a one. All religions owe their origin to man.

I think the most influential aspect of my work is to show that Judaism and Christianity exist in a continuity with archaic religions.

Before Christianity became the Roman Empire's official religion in the 4th Century, 'mystery religions,' organized around a central canon of secret knowledge, were widespread. Membership in such religions was limited to people who had passed through secret initiation rituals and had begun to learn a body of hidden knowledge.

I like both Greek and Egyptian. More Greek stories have survived, so we know more about them. They've always been my favorite. On the other hand, I like the Egyptian stories because they're not as commonly known and they have an exotic flavour.

I started studying mythology, just on my own. Joseph Campbell, mysticism.

The Romans learned about crucifixion from the Greeks, although they noted that many of the ‘barbarian’ races (Indians, Assyrians, Scythians, and Celts) also used it.

Superficial similarities exist between Christianity and some ancient pagan religions. But careful study reveals that there are far more dissimilarities.

I've never really seen archaeology as being any different from history. What I love are the stories of human beings that were around 1,000 years ago and how they lived - archaeology is another aspect to that.

The same thing which is now called Christian religion existed among the ancients. They have begun to call 'Christian' the true religion which existed before.

I didn't study Greek mythology in school and I wish I had.

The deeper I go into mythology, the more I find. I originally did five 'Percy Jackson' books. I thought that would cover Greek mythology and I couldn't have been more wrong. It's ever-expanding.

I basically only read books that are over 2,000 years old.

When I was In high school, I became interested in Greek mythology. I had to know all about the exact dates of all the history.

Mediaeval mythology, rich and gorgeous, is a compound like Corinthian brass, into which many pure ores have been fused, or it is a full turbid river drawn from numerous feeders, which had their sources in remote climes.

Beyond Greek mythology, history just didn't have a strong resonation with me.

All my stories are like the Greek and Roman myths, and the Egyptian myths, and the Old and New Testament.

Creation stories, so central in the religions of the Middle East, play a surprisingly marginal part in Greek myth. The Greeks had nothing to set alongside the resounding 'In the beginning' in the book of Genesis, where one eternal God creates the universe out of nothing.

The Fuhrer is a man totally attuned to antiquity. He hates Christianity, because it has crippled all that is noble in humanity.

Mythology does not interest me. Nor does history. But the possible overlap between history and mythology excites me immensely.

Well, right now, I'm very fascinated with 1920s Berlin. I mean, probably the more interesting thing would be to go to the beginning of civilization or precivilization - like polytheistic times. It would be interesting to see what came before modern religion and culture - what circumstances created the environment or the need for it.

One of the things that I love to do is travel around the world and look at archaeological sites. Because archaeology gives us an opportunity to study past civilizations, and see where they succeeded and where they failed. Use science to, you know, work backwards and say, 'Well, really, what were they thinking?'

I grew up being very interested in Greek mythology because my mum read to my sister and I.