Author Description

As one may have read Cicero in The Nature Of The Gods, ancient people were vivid observers of the sky and the celestial bodies because of their livelihood- they were mostly engaged in agriculture and animal husbandry. The cycles of nature and seasons were the most important factors affecting farming civilizations. The brilliant ‘stars’ Jupiter, Saturn, Venus and the zodiac were also objects of great interest. These heavenly bodies were regarded as deities even by learned philosophers. Cicero and Socrates had a field day demolishing these strongly held prevailing ideas. One popular god illusion of the West and Middle East began with patriarch Abraham who was an astronomer from Mesopotamia. He studied Jupiter avidly and could predict its behavior which he used it to his advantage in his migration to the Fertile Crescent and in his encounters with hostile inhabitants. Abraham had the delusion that Jupiter-Yahweh was a deity who could be depended to assist him in troubled times. The Yahweh Delusion was passed down from Abraham to son Isaac and grandson Jacob. Jacob’s 12 sons migrated to Egypt, multiplied and eventually became slaves. Moses a pariah Egyptian prince became the rebel leader of the Hebrew slaves when he discovered his roots. At the opportune moment, c.1450 BCE, Venus erupted from unstable fast-spinning Red Giant Jupiter and shot into the inner solar system like a billiard ball along a highly elliptical orbit. It had several close encounters with Earth, Moon and Mars and created stunning phenomena or ‘miracles’ such as the much exaggerated Ten Plagues, parting of the Red Sea, the rain of manna, apparent stopping of the Earth’s rotation, and even the destruction of the mighty army of Sennacherib near Jerusalem. Moses and his successors apparently knew and could predict more or less unusual celestial phenomena and attributed them to a tribal deity Yahweh who was connected with their deliverance and survival. Every successful