© David Staume 2006

The most logical expression of religious devotion

Sun worship is the worship or adoration of the sun as the symbol of the deity, or as the most glorious object in nature, or as the source of light and heat.

It’s something that we would generally regard as primitive – I mean you’d have to be fairly unsophisticated to worship a big ball of hydrogen, wouldn’t you? … Well, actually I’d hold off answering that for a moment, because first, it’s not true to say that sun worship is primitive, and second, sun worship is probably the most logical expression of religious devotion.

The principal proponents of sun worship include some of our greatest civilizations – Ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, the Aztecs of Mexico, and the Incas of Peru. Sun worship also formed part of religious practices in ancient Greece and Rome, among several Native American tribes, among the Druids of England, and in Zoroastrianism, Hinduism, Mithraism, and Buddhism. Sun worship is also practiced by a number of spiritual teachers and their followers today. Sections of mankind have regarded the sun as a great Being through all of recorded history. Sun worshipers were superstitious people, but they weren't primatives.

And as for the claim that sun worship is the most logical expression of religious devotion: well if you’re looking for your Creator, look no further than the sun. All the matter and energy in all the realms of nature – all except the few that were created in the Big Bang – have their genesis in the sun. Every atom of your body was created in the sun’s atomic furnace.

The sun is the source of energy for every aspect of our lives. It is the creator of every mineral in the earth, every drop of water we drink, every molecule of oxygen we breathe, and the source of energy for all our food. Coal, oil, and natural gas are all forms of preserved solar energy. The sun is the creator of rain, the cause of the seasons, the provider of light and heat; it is the reason that the Earth is habitable. If you’re looking for your Sustainer, it’s the sun. If your idea of deity is your Creator and Sustainer, the sun is the only contender. Nothing else comes close.

Another conception of God is an omnipresent, omnipotent, and omniscient Being. In regard to life on Earth, the sun certainly fulfils the first two of these criteria. It is omnipresent: our life literally revolves around it, and its emissions, which include light, heat, neutrinos, x-rays, and radio waves, are present everywhere simultaneously. It is also omnipotent: being obviously all-powerful within its solar system.

Perhaps ‘our Father who art in heaven’ is more obvious than we think. And perhaps the next line in the Lord’s Prayer should read ‘haloed be thy name’. Perhaps Moses was wise to be ‘afraid to look at the face of God’ (Exodus 3:6) because he would burn his retinas. Perhaps the source of our en(light)enment is not so mysterious after all?

Flights of fancy, maybe … but maybe not. The sun is certainly the closest thing to God we can perceive objectively. If you’re going to worship something, you could make worse choices. Nothing else is more obviously the Creator and Sustainer of life on Earth.

If you enjoyed reading this work, please spread the word about this site.