Each culture produces its heroes:

Attila from Hungary; Cuchulain and Finn
from Ireland; Ogier the Dane; Roland and
St Joan from France; Sigurd from the Norse
and Icelandic sagas who becomes
Siegfried in German stories; Antar of Arabia;
Rustem of Iran; Rama the Indian hero; and
Scarface of the Blackfoot Indians - to select
only a few.

In our own century we can become our own
storytellers and make the printed words
bring back to life these worlds of
enchantment.

Strangely, Europe had culture before they converted to Christianity and many places remained not much different.

The notion that our culture 'comes from' Christianity' isn't quite true.
Let's see- our system of governance and law originates in ancient greek and roman tradition from times BEFORE Christianity existed (which I might add, came from then very much-non-western Palestine).

Both the Romans and Greeks were polytheistic pagans when they were practicing these systems at some point.

Foxy, I see where you are coming from, but the title of your post has the word 'religious' in it, so you are going to have to expect some strong religious opinions that not everyone will bother reading!

Yes, the stories from the Bible have caused multiple phrases and names to be peppered all through many Christian based communities all over the world. It is, after all, part of many people's cultures from way back.

I do agree with King Hazza though when she says we also have strong influences from the many thousands of years that humans were on earth before the advent of Christianity.

"The die has been cast." Pronounced by Julius Caesar when he entered Italy with his army in 49 BC.

"Let there be light"
This is the Latin translation of a Hebrew phrase. The phrase is often used for its metaphorical meaning of dispelling ignorance.

Of course we cannot forget the great Confucius, 551BC- 477BC, who had plenty of common sense wisdom to give the people of the world, long before Jesus was born:

"Respect yourself and others will respect you".
" To see what is right and not do it, is want of courage".
" Hold faithfulness and sincerity as first principles".

And he wrote many hundreds more pearls of wisdom we could all do well to live by.....

Examples of "love your neighbour as you love yourself" though quoted by Jesus had it foundations in the Hebrew Torah Leviticus 19: 18 given by Moses in 1,300 BC. The wisdom gathered by Kings David and Solomon in Israel around 1,000 - 970BC gives evidence of Hebrew scholars influence on Culture and Christian thought through even to today. Reading of the Psalms and Proverbs gives evidence that no person owns wisdom but those that follow its principles as set in place by the Creator are following the wisdom and light of the eternal Creator.

The Law, social justice and community behaviour has always been centred around theistic views. That these principles were set in place by the Creator. The attempt by some to outdo or deny the Christian influence on society is falacious, as for 5,000 years the Creator of human history has been attributed as the judge of human behaviour with blessings upon the righteous or curses upon the disobedient.

That human society is so fractured today is evidence that the curse of sin [sin = rejection of the Creator's principles] is applied upon violation of good social order Romans 1.

Correct Suzie, and let's not forget all the cultures, inventions and religions that have existed thousands of years before (and for your interest Philo), OLDER than 5,000- ancient Chinese, ancient Egyptian, etc- all functioning at quite a sophisticated level BEFORE. If you really want to go into depths is that Aborigines sailed to Australia about 50,000 years ago.

Excellent posts.

Thank You.

Now, it's becoming interesting!

In another tradition, travellers to Bali
will almost certainly have been introduced
through mime, dance and puppetry to the
pervasive Indian epic, the "Ramayana" of
the wise Valmiki, going back some 3,000 years.
Although the "Ramayana" was orignally
written in rhymed couplets, it has been recited
and orally passed on from generation to generation
in the East, where it is still an integral part
of culture and religion.

Please keep it coming.
Does anyone know of any "Dreamtime" stories?