PAGANS & A NEW ORDER

The oral stories have generational cultural significance as the basis of traditions, beliefs and rituals. In European Pagan cultures, they had similar myths and legends about human-gods with great powers who came to Earth to influence men. In Nordic culture, Thor was one such representation.

When Christianity spread through Europe, the southern troops came to conquer and wipe out the old Pagan ways. In some areas, religious sites were burned to the ground and new churches put in their place. It was a way of erasing the past with the present. It was a means of control.

In the latter religions, god and his messengers seem to be all-powerful beings. This is in contrast to the Pagan viewpoint that their gods had tremendous power and magic, but the one thing the gods could not do was overpower Nature.

Throughout human history, when a dominate philosophy comes to power with an army to enforce its principles, weaker cultures succumb or perish. Those who did not covert, died. But over time, even some of the old ways get incorporated into the new way of beliefs (such as Pagan holiday feasts being transformed into new Christian holidays such as All Saints Day around Halloween, the Night of the Dead festival).

There is probably an application of these long standing ways to LOST.

There is a progressive "conquest" history of people arriving on the island. Each new group attempts to impose its will upon anyone left on the island. The one exception to this is the Flight 815 survivors. They did not seek to change or control the island; they wished to leave it behind. Perhaps this is the one great change (loophole) that MIB mumbled about in his discussions with Jacob. The castaways did not want to rule, but to escape. With the prospect of controlling the ultimate power, the castways wanted to merely survive long enough to go home.

There is no religious belief canon in the island rituals. There is little worship of a god (that word is not used; Jacob is called a guardian). Religion plays no central role in the story. Religion plays only a minor role in a negative way with Eko's con of impersonating his dead brother in order to save his own life. There are Egyptian temples and deep history, but the Others practice none of the sacred rites. If the show is anything, it is a secular notion of non-belief in higher powers. But at the same time, it is not about empowering the characters in their own self-belief. It is a religious paradox: those who can't save themselves, can't ask for a higher power to save them. It would seem the only theology principle at work is "Live Together, or Die Alone" metaphor. In the primordial time, when chemical compounds began to group together to form amino acid chains (and the start of life), it is that same group connection that is the lesson of island life. And just as the ooze evolved into complex creatures, so did the island character connections grow into a critical mass to allow an eternal peace.