Ye Olde Stage

The archaic stage of development is fairly easy to point out to anyone living today. Think back to ancient religion.... not ancient, like Egyptian.... ancient like caveman. This is a lot like the Stage 1 God that I described in an earlier post.

At the archaic level, everything is a complete mystery. People at this stage believe that all creatures and objects have living spirits inside them, and that these spirits are able to influence life in different ways. Things like weather, disease, crop yield, etc. are all influenced by these spirits. The spirits themselves may or may not be intelligent, and people at this stage may not even differentiate at all between the objects and spirits. They may not even admit the presence or existence of the spirits, so much as the mystery of life itself.

Keep in mind here that I am not saying anything about specific cultures or religious faiths. All of these stages can be "colored" by any religious flavor. I am only talking in general terms.