Axial Age BCE 1

Axial Age: 6 th Century BCE Radical Changes in Basic Religious Concepts 2

Axial Age: A Fresh Beginning 3

Axial Age: 500 BCE A New Cultural and Social Order Great Religious Leaders Rose to Prominence 4

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9 Axial Age: Common Insights Reciprocity, compassion, love, altruism, ending suffering for all human beings, all sentient life or perhaps all life is the proper central orientation of human life

10 Axial Age: Common Insights Preoccupation with god or gods, metaphysics, theology, belief systems, or other esoterica is not useful

11 Axial Age: Common Insights Right practice, actions, and intentions can lead to true religious understanding rather than the other way around

12 Axial Age: Common Insights Emptying oneself, eliminating craving, giving up the need for control, opening one's heart, embracing the void, losing oneself in perfectly performed ritual, sensing the shared tragic in life through communal theater are all pathways to compassion and the extinction of ego.

13 Axial Age: Common Insights Each person must find her or his own religious truth; formulas, authority, tradition do not work

14 Axial Age: Common Insights Diversity among people is natural and to be honored

15 Axial Age: Common Insights The point of religion is therapeutic, practical, and about this world - not some other invisible world.

16 Axial Age: Common Insights The point of religion is therapeutic, practical, and about this world - not some other invisible world.

Axial Age: China Confucius – Lao Tse – Mo Tzu Confucianism – Daoism - Jainism 17

18 Axial Age: India Buddha – Mahavira Socio-Political and Intellectual Transformation

19 Axial Age: Jerusalem Elijah – Isaiah – Jeremiah Deutero-Isaiah Law and Moral Code

Axial Age: Mesopotamia 20

21 Axial Age: Greece Socrates – Plato – Aristotle Discover the Principles of Existence More Philosophical than Spiritual

22 Axial Age: Cultures Reinterpreted Previous Cosmologies Cosmologies Reject Concept of gods as Larger-than-Life Human Beings

Axial Age: Second Spiritual Transformation Christianity - Islam 23

24 Axial Age: Reason Became the Tool to Search for the Ultimate Reality And Human Destiny

25 Karl Theodor Jasper Four Ages: Neolithic Age - Early Civilizations Great Empires - Modern Age

26 Neolithic Age: Most Far-Reaching Changes in Human History Discovery of Agriculture Domestication of Animals

27 Early Civilizations: Technological and Aesthetic InnovationsAesthetic The Search for Religious and Ethical Concepts

28 Early Civilizations: Sumerian Culture Inventiveness – Creativity – Energy More Important Cultural Contributions Than any Other People in History

29 Early Civilizations: TheocraticTheocratic Principles Declined Near Eastern Societies Religious Syncretism Syncretism

30 Early Civilizations: Questions of Divine Justice Monotheism Evolved Religiosity Dominant Over Science

31 First Millennium BCE Production of Agricultural Surplus Worship of Universal God Concern for Social InjusticesInjustices

32 The Axial is Born New Values – New Views of Life Recognized the spiritual freedom and independence of the individual Asked fundamental questions about the meaning and purpose of human existence Asserted the unity of mankind and the universe Adopted a rational view of natural processesrational

33 Consequences of the Axial Age

34 People have become conscious of themselves and of their limitations. Their view of their position in the world changed fundamentally

35 Philosophy, and science emerged. People still think within the fundamental categories born in the Axial period.

36 Attempts at reordering the world developed in most spheres of human existence, within competing worldviews worldviews

37 Drastic Changes in Religious Traditions Collapse of Previously Established Systems of Belief

38 The major world religions, which humans still follow, were established. Each is unique in their own way

39 Emergence of Religious Proselytizing Causing Religious and Doctrinal Intolerance Religious Orthodoxies Emerge

40 New Accountability to a Divine Law “King God” Replaced by Secular Ruler Deity Expressed in Poetic – Allegorical Language

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