Well, we can only speculate... But:
1. the Egyptians considered a type of lettuce an aphrosidiac. The plant was sacred to Min, who was always depicted with an erect phallus.
2. we know that there were intercontinental trade routes in the Bronze Age connecting Nothern Africa with Europe up to the Baltic Sea
3. If you want to trade lettuce over a long distance, you need to find a way to preserve it. Pickling it might work.

... Just saying...

It's a matter of interpretation and levels of literalism you wish to impose. — Hanover

True. But are the good bits worth the other stuff?

And maybe you haven't read the New Testament, but there are things in there that are just as ridiculous as the OT. How about the blatant sexism in 1 Timothy 2:11-12 ? — chatterbears

Actually, in my personal opinion, they should just throw out anything written by Paul. He brought in a lot of specific and personal interpretations on what Christianity is and how Christians should behave - I'd see that as secondary literature which has no business being treated as "holy scripture".
But then... I have returned my member card for that club a while ago, so it's not really my business any longer.

OK, #15
I think I get most of that. I'd summarize like this:
Hegel has just presented and defended his idea, saying that the new concept of science is still at an initial starting point, and now needs to grow, to unfurl, to develop. So in the end we'll have a well-ordered universal system.
Now in #15 he describes a false way of growing.
He complains that the "others" take two unrelated elements: the available content and material gathered by the older stages of science, and their own idea.
And then they pretend that this existing material is all nicely explained by their one idea, like they were the ones who invented and gathered it all. Which is not the case, and neither is the material explained better nor their own idea improved or developed by this artificial joining.

Like: they're just piling up stuff that was already there, and spray-paint it pink, and then expound how this perfectly shows the superiority of the theory of pinkness.
Or like some guy with a conspiracy theory, who will copy and paste all kind of unrelated stuff from all over the internet then then go on how this is all proof for his pet theory.

Unfortunate detail: I'm not totally sure who exactly those "others" are he's complaining about, and what exactly that "absolute idea" is which they are trying to pass off as the pinnacle of all science.
Thoughts?
Is he still complaining about Romanticism?

They tried but the animals kept getting smushed under the blocks and gumming up the works — frank

lol, well, that's a valid explanation for all the bones of cattle that Mark Lehner's expeditions found... the oxen kept getting smushed. And since they didn't want the meat to spoil, they ate them, of course...

Incidentally, this proves that the popular German meat dish, Schnitzel, was actually invented in Egypt.
A proper Schnitzel involves the meat getting pounded until it's all flat and then covered in flour and bread crumbs - clearly an imitation of the stone-smushed oxen covered in desert sand.

That definition, of course, is of no use to you if I don't explain what I mean by "Maat", but I guess that this would throw the thread wildly off topic... — WerMaat


Then use more generic analogies buddy. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

Maat isn't an analogy, she's the heart of my religion.

But okay, let me put it in more generic terms. "in accordance with Maat" means to me:
- practice moderation and seek balance. You should enjoy the good things but don't be greedy.
- help the poor and protect the weak. (with power comes responsibility :wink: )
- do your duty and uphold the law, as long as that law is fair
- your conduct should be calm, patient and friendly. Don't let yourself be provoked into slander or violence.
- perfection cannot be reached, but always strive to learn and do as much good as you can.

Is this goodness according to Maat still a relative term?
Yes, I think so. Human beings can only relate to the world in terms of their individual mind and perception. Any "truth" or ethical system we come up with is necessarily relative.
Still, I believe that Maat is not an arbitrary concept. She holds, if not an absolute truth, then at least some very widespread consent about what is good and correct action for a human being.

Here is a Gnostic Christian speaking of the Jesus myth. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oR02ciandvg&feature=BFa&list=PLCBF574D — Gnostic Christian Bishop

Thank you for this link! I like this idea presented in the video: That it's in the end rather irrelevant if Jesus even existed as a historical figure. It's much more rewarding to understand his life and teachings in the context of mythology.

The third eye being called the single eye as Jesus called it, I think, is Egyptian. I could be wrong on that. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

I'm not aware of any single Egyptian text that mentions a 3rd Eye.
But we know the eye as a motive from the "Eye of Horus", a story about injury and healing and tied to the cycle of the moon. And in the context of the "Eye of Ra", the goddess who is the most powerful warrior of the Sun god. Here, however, we need to consider the double meaning of the Egyptian word "ir.t", eye, for it can also be taken as a female participle form of "irj", to do, and then it means "the one who acts". Oh, and even older there's the gods khenty-irty and heru wer, sky gods whose two eyes are the sun and the moon. Interesting stuff, but Horus and his healing eye is surely the most closely related with the Jesus myth. (consider: The goddess Isis, after the birth of her divine son, has to flee from her enemies and hide the child in the reed marshes on the bank of the Nile. When the child grows up, he returns to take his rightful place as divine king... sound familiar?)

Buddy. That happened a long time ago. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

Of course it did. Multiple times, and not just to Christianity.
I merely intended to state a general principle, not quote examples...

I find "good" to be a term of limited use. When I do use it, I choose to use it in the everyday sense, with an intentionally broad and vague definition. :wink: — Pattern-chaser

Again, fair point. I would ask if you have a suggestions for a more useful term or definition, but again, that's off topic. Is there any existing post or thread, perhaps?

If Maat is who I understand Her to be — Pattern-chaser

Yes. :smile:
I might argue some of the finer points, but the Wikipedia entry offers a good summary

"good" and "evil" are relative terms. To indulge in such descriptions without being so misleading as to be plain wrong, we must ask questions like "Is God good to/for me?" Or, if not me, then anyone else: "Is God good to/for the people of Paris?" And so on. — Pattern-chaser

Fair point.
You seem to define "good" as "profitable or pleasurable"?
I see it differently, since I define "good" as "in accordance with Maat", and then it's no longer a relative term. That definition, of course, is of no use to you if I don't explain what I mean by "Maat", but I guess that this would throw the thread wildly off topic...

Jesus was from an old school single eye shaman or guru training in Egypt, knowledge seekers and not god worshipers; — Gnostic Christian Bishop

Is this speculation, or do you have any historical clues pointing to this interpretation?
I'd be extremely curious to hear more about it since I personally follow the ancient Egyptian code of ethics and also admire Jesus of Nazaret greatly.

and told us to look to our emotions as well as our minds for the best rules and laws to live by. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

This kind of fits with Egyptian philosophy, which assumes that all humans are naturally able to comprehend Maat and can choose to do either evil or good:
"Follow your heart as long as you live" (Ptah-Hotep)
“The heart of a human, it is larger than a storehouse and deeper than a well, it is full of all potential. From the best take your choice, and the bad keep caged until the day that you die” (either Ani or Amun-em-Ope... I apologize, I'm quoting from memory right now and I'll need to look up the precise reference)
From the a hymn, the god Ra speaks: “I have created one man equal to his second, and I have not commanded them to do evil. It is their hearts that do not listen to that which I told them.”

Gnostics knew how to live in peace, but as history has shown us, the good die young and the evil grows threw murder and corruption. Hurray for the mainstream religions. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

I would advise caution, similar to what Enki wrote.
Look at the historical evidence: There is at most a weak correlation between the religion and ethical system of a society and the actual conduct of people in this society.
Even in a country with a strict and cruel set of religious laws, you'll find generous and gentle human beings. And even under a nominally pacifist ideology, you'll still find murderers and warmongers.
Human behavior shows a great deal of uniformity, regardless of time, place and religion.

I believe that faith can be a strong guide for an individual person, but organized religion needs to carefully guard itself lest it be corrupted and used as a tool for manipulation and political power.

With regard to the root meaning of the term in German you provided I am reminded of the parable of the blind men and the elephant. Each can touch a part but since none can grasp the whole, and so none of them understand or comprehend the object. — Fooloso4

Yes definitely, a good point!
Still, in this context I think that Hegel is mainly trying to contrast the "esoteric" and the "exoteric", stating that only the latter is easily and immediately "graspable": begreiflich.
He may still be arguing against Romanticism, which believes in the opposite: that the true core of a thing can best be comprehended and grasped by immediate intuition, circumventing reason and intellect.

By the way, scrolling back to the earlier paragraphs, please note that you have already encountered the noun form of "begreiflich".
The word "Begriff", translated as "concept" in #6, stems from the exactly same root...

Only what is completely determinate is at the same time exoteric, comprehensible, and capable of being learned and possessed by everybody.

German:
Erst was vollkommen bestimmt ist, ist zugleich exoterisch, begreiflich, und fähig, gelernt und das Eigentum aller zu sein.

Forget about the double sense, we're talking "understandable" only, "completeness" is not implied in the German Text.( At least not in this sentence.)
Hegel uses "begreiflich", from the root greifen: the action of grasping an object with your hand.
With the prefix be- you get begreifen, literally: the action of touching an object repeatedly in order to explore its shape - but usually used in the more abstract sense of understanding or grasping something in your mind

I like your concept. It's a simplification, but a useful model nonetheless.

However, I believe that you're underestimating the time factor. You write:

Time dilutes both returns and costs — khaled

I think you need to consider that there's more than just a dilution. You cannot actually stockpile "quota" that much at all, and longer periods of time will not help.
If you spend 2 hours playing or relaxing, you feel refreshed and ready to work - OK.
But imagine you spend 2 consecutive days or even 2 consecutive weeks playing and relaxing - does this result in you being super-extra motivated and able to now work for 2 weeks with barely a break?
Anyone coming back to work after a vacation will probably tell you otherwise.

From a gaming point of view: your quota is mana points, and your mana pool cannot exceed a certain size. You can replenish it by relaxing, and perhaps speed regeneration by engaging in a positive activity. But as soon as you're on max it will not keep growing and further time spent quota farming is ineffective.

Does that make sense?

OK, interesting point. After reading these paragraphs about 3 times, I mostly agree with the above points, but I'm wondering if we aren't reading a little too much into it.

I can't put it into such poetic words as my predecessor in this thread, but I'm guessing that Hegel is not aiming for any eternal spirals or cycles of life and death.
Instead, he might simply be defending himself against the criticism of being too simplistic or too elitist:
"The wealth of its bygone existence" - He says that the old concept(s) of science where broad and diverse in scope and well founded in a wealth of particulars.
And this broad scope is still what people expect from science: "consciousness misses both the dispersal and the particularization of content,"
Right now, however, he's at a bottle neck or turning point. His concept of the new science is currently "enshrouded in its simplicity" and "the esoteric possession of only a few individuals"
But he hastens to assure us that this simplicity is not the goal or core of his project, but merely an initial stage. From here on, the "new" science will unfold and realize its potential.

Right now his theory may be a small acorn, and only few can work with it and understand it. But it's supposed to grow into a large tree and be accessible to a broad audience: "Only what is completely determinate is at the same time exoteric, comprehensible, and capable of being learned and possessed by everybody."

What do you think?

Nice to chat with one who know his religious history. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

Same here. Not many people are even aware that there are literary traditions which are older than the bible.
For me, Christianity was the starting point, it's what I was raised with. But the more I questioned and explored it the more dissatisfied I became with the biblical texts and concepts.
I mean no general disrespect - for some people, Christianity is apparently the right path. But not for me, personally - I found more clarity and wisdom in the teachings of Ptah-Hotep and Amenemope.
I

The new age has many belief systems. It is very eclectic — Corra

yeah, well, I follow only one of these belief systems so I'm not actually that eclectic, as in: taking in elements from different sources.
What about you? Do you see New Age as a field of study, or as a personal path?

I wonder. I get sick of backing a theist into a corner just to have him pull his G D god is love B.S.
I mention the feeding of the poor already. To show you wrong now let me show why you might be right. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

OK, you lost me here. Do you see me as a theist and are you waiting for me to hit the corner?
And where exactly does the feeding of the poor come in at this point?
I'm confused...

I like that summary! But basically, Hegel is still criticizing and deconstructing the main ideas of German Romanticism in §10, right?

Hegel is not entirely unsympathetic to the impulse of those he is criticizing — Fooloso4

Well, yeah, he gets where they're coming from. But isn't he accusing them of choosing the easy path, which they claim leads to deep understanding but is really just a superficial dream?

In §11, when he chooses the metaphor of the child:
However, just as with a child, who after a long silent period of nourishment draws his first breath and shatters the gradualness of only quantitative growth – it makes a qualitative leap and is born – so too, in bringing itself to cultural maturity, spirit ripens slowly and quietly into its new shape
Do you think that he's picking up the bud and flower metaphor from earlier?
I think he is. Again, it's about development. Things are changing, that's his message. But the new is not refuting or replacing the old, the old is merely developing into the new. As in, the old state of things is a necessary precursor to the new.

And while we're looking at metaphors: note that §10 ends in a sentence about sleeping and dreaming, i.e. Romanticism, while §11 ends with the "break of day" of Enlightenment.

But I'm not sure yet what this "qualitative leap" is supposed to be exactly?

I cannot agree with your first as the old religions pushed looking after the poor as their first priority and not proving that their god was the most powerful. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

Which era and religion do you have in mind here?
If you're talking Bronze Age Sumeria and Egypt, then yes, we already have organized religion as well as a literary and philosophic tradition in both countries, and morals were discussed in it a lot. I would put that fully within the secondary development already.
Also, this does not replace the former. I simply meant to postulate that humans tend to recognize the divine in nature first, and conceptualize divine order and command in human social context second. But the second stage is merely an addition to the first, not a replacement.

The battle of the gods in the BCE s was more of magic and alchemy to show power. That only changed after people became literalists and theirs was the power of the sword that showed the power of their gods.

Before literalism, reared it's ugly and dumbing down head, seeking god was actually a joy to see and participate in. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

Interesting thought. I've been partial to Jan Assmanns concept of "mosaische Unterscheidung".
As in: the older polytheistic religions were full of diverging and contradictory mythology, and different tribes had different gods. However, that was not really a problem since no one insisted that only one single god or story was true. All of them were accepted. Only the monotheistic faith changed this and demanded a single, absolute truth to fit their single absolute god.
If this is more or less what you mean by literalism rearing its head, then we're in agreement.

"Most of the animals around there at that time were considered too valuable to risk on work like that. Human lives had little worth and could be risked."

I disagree. Old Kingdom Egypt did not know slavery. The workers building the pyramids were well fed and received medical care (check out Mark Lehner's publications if you're interested in the archaeological evidence). Some of them were even literate, as evidenced by them leaving graffiti on the blocks they transported.

As for the value attributed to human life in general, please consider these excepts from Papyrus Westcar:
Then His Majesty said: "Is it true what one says? Can you join a severed head?”.
And Djedi said: “Yes, I can, Sovereign, my Lord”.
Then His Majesty said: “Have a prisoner brought to me from the prisons, so that he may be executed”.
But Djedi said: "Not, pray, with a human being, Sovereign, my Lord! Behold, it cannot be commanded that one does this to the noble cattle”.
And so a goose was brought to him. Its head was cut off...
The magician refuses to use a human, even a criminal, for his magic trick. The "noble cattle" in this translation is literally the "cattle of the gods". Humans are therefore subordinated to the gods directly. And even their king, the absolute monarch, cannot command them to be used for just anything.

And from another episode:
But the fish-shaped turquoise pendant of one of the strokers has fallen into the water and now she has stopped rowing, which has upset her entire gang. When I said to her 'Why is it that you do not row', she said to me 'My fish-shaped turquoise pendant has fallen into the water'. And when I said to her ‘ ow, and behold, I will replace it', she said to me 'I prefer my own possession to a copy of it'.'

Then the chief lector priest Djadjamankh said his magic spell and he placed one side of the water of the lake upon the other and he found the pendant lying on a shard. He took it and gave it back to its owner.
Please consider that this "stroker" is a servant woman, possibly a royal concubine, who was ordered to row the king across a lake.
If human life was of little value, and servants counted for nothing, would not the king have punished the servant for refusing to row?
Instead, the king offers to replace her lost jewelry. But she politely refuses even this. Again, she isn't punished, but her request granted: the magician steps in to get her lost pendant back...



Also, from my googling, it looks like donkeys were the only available beasts of burden.

Correct. This is Old Kingdom Egypt. Early Bronze Age. We're talking mostly Neolithic technology, folks! Using an animal to carry and pull for you was a fairly new idea. They had no wagons at that time, they didn't ride and horses and camels had not yet been introduced in Egypt at all.
Donkeys were loaded with baskets to carry burden, and oxen were used to pull ploughs - that's what we know from depictions in the tombs.
They didn't have very efficient forms of yokes and harnesses yet, so while a pair of oxen could probably pull a light wooden plough, I'm wondering whether the Egyptians could have effectively harnessed them to pull stone blocks up to the construction site.
Not sure if that possibility didn't occur to them, or if they just didn't think it to be effective...

"Would you name an entity god who did not have decent moral tenets?
Not likely."

Just the opposite: very likely, I argue.The main attribute defining a god is power, not ethics.
Humans mainly use their concepts of the divine to explain why the world is the way it is, and how it came into being. A lot of deities are either metaphorically or intrinsically likened to natural phenomena. Sun, rain, earth, ocean, birth, sickness, death - just to name a few of the obvious ones. Those phenomena influence human live, they can help us or kill us both, and there's no rational, apparent system as to why they sometimes do the one or the other. In short: These phenomena have power, and humans can't control that power. Today, we can to some extent predict nature and protect ourselves against harmful effects, but we still can't control weather, disease or earth quakes.
And nature does not conform to human notions of good and evil, an earthquake will kill the righteous as well as the wicked. Why should the gods be different?
Or from a more religious point of view: The gods have created a world that's both beautiful and cruel. If They were perfectly gentle and good, why ever would They have created the world in this way?
Logically, the gods must be either amoral, or there must be good gods and evil ones both (but none of them all-powerful).


"Religions tout themselves as being the final word in moral issues"

I believe that ethics are a secondary development in religion. It only happens when we proceed from explaining nature in religious metaphor to also conceptualizing human society and morals in religious terms.
This is when the monotheists with their all-powerful and all-good God(tm) run into the theodicy issue.
In my religion, the moral concept of Maat is central, so yes, religion and moral authority are tied together. But since my Gods and Goddesses are neither all powerful nor perfectly good the question of their existence is quite independent from their notion of ethics.

I generally agree, but I'd like to add two thoughts:

1. I wouldn't define laziness as lack of motivation only.
In addition to the insufficient positive motivation, there are factors of aversion at play, right?
(and I see no need to make a distinction between laziness and procrastination. I believe that the same mechanisms are at play here)
For example: If I have a big project, it would make perfect sense to start as soon as possible. But by starting, I am naturally reminded of the huge amount of work that needs to be done.
That's intimidating and causes feelings of pressure, of being overwhelmed, of possible failure. Thus: aversion. Avoiding the whole topic by NOT starting and instead procrastinating is not rational, but makes sense emotionally.
Other example: Cleaning out that disgusting, stinky garbage can. Doing a workout at the gym. Spending 2 hours on your knees while waxing the floor.
Prior experience as well as my imagination is warning me that this action will be uncomfortable or painful. I need to overcome my very natural aversion to pain and discomfort before I take that action.

2. from an evolutionary point of view, laziness is a valid choice.
Humans, for most of their history, were hunter-gatherers, right?
Agriculture, cities, division of labor, maximizing profit... those are comparatively new ideas.
And for a hunter and gatherer who lives off the land and doesn't store or trade goods, laziness is a valid choice.

If you're hungry or cold, that's certainly motivation enough to go and seek food or shelter.
But if your immediate needs for food, shelter and companionship are met in a given moment, why move?
Why try to gather more food that you cannot eat immediately? It will spoil.
Perhaps go hunting for practice? You'd risk injury. And a broken bone can quickly be a death sentence out in the savannah.
Find another, better shelter? Why, if the one you have is sufficient? You'd just waste energy on the trip.
For a hunter and gatherer, "laziness" is equal to conserving your strength and minimizing risk of injury.

Therefore I assume that laziness is a perfectly natural human instinct, since it was a useful strategy for a long, long time.
I see it like this: There may be some motivation or desire to act - be it social or moral duty, curiosity,desire to win or rational calculation.
But at the same time there's another, older instinct advising caution: is this action really necessary?
Is it worth the risk of failure or injury, is it worth investing that much energy? Isn't there a more efficient way to reach our goal?
Without our instict for laziness, wouldn't we be more prone to work ourselves to exhaustion, to take risks, to do unnecessary work or choose inefficient courses of action?

For "edify" and "edification" the original text uses "Erbauung".
This word ist usually used to describe a spiritual or moral type of experience. One might find Erbauung in church, in nature, or in art.
Erbauung has positive connotations ( unless you use it in an ironic fashion), as in: it strengstens your personality. But it's usually more intuitive and spiritual, not rational and intellectual.
I believe that Hegel thus connects the word to the romantic "Schwärmereien" he mocks. And when her states that philosophy may not be "erbaulich", he is trying to say that it is a strictly rational enterprise, not a vague spiritual feel-good Type of experience.

... Interesting Reading project! Thank you for bringing this Text to my attention!
I'll be following along with the German original. I'm a German native, so the original text is actually easier for me to read... Let me know whenever you need any further explanation on German words and phrases

Being imaginary, the supernatural can cover whatever people say it covers.

If Yahweh or any other mainstream god can live in some supernatural realm, then so can Odin and Thor.

Right?


I agree.
"Imaginary" is literally correct, as in: we're creating images of things that are, per se, invisible.
These images are obviously influenced by our culture and our environment. And why should an early Iron Age Levantine weather god be more "true" than any other?

I mean, is there any category by which we could judge one image of god to be more "true" or "real" than another?
I can think of some categories, but none of them is really convincing to me.
1. Do you think that religion is a majority vote? As in: The god with the largest number of followers must be the true one? (I don't think so. That's quite unfair towards religions whose ideology never demanded that the "true faith" must be spread across the globe and all the "infidels" converted.)
2. Or is it a matter of age? The most ancient texts and traditions must be the most true?
As in: Christianity is different from a Star Trek Fanclub because the Bible is older than the Teachings of Surak? Then what's the minimum age that a religious text or movement must have in order to count?
3. It could also be a matter of quality. Is a deity more "real" if He or She demands a higher ethical standard from the followers, or offers a more coherent explanation of the world? But then, who would be qualified to judge the quality or a religion?

Not sure how exactly you define New Age Philosophy ... I follow a Neo Pagan Religion, does that count?

Life, the universe and everything aren't "safe". We base our thinking on speculation and the like because there's nothing more concrete available. If you think you know stuff - really know stuff - then you are very lucky ... or more likely, deluded. Much of "reality" is unknown and unknowable to us. Sometimes it's fiction or nothing.

Very nicely put. I agree.
I'm religious and I believe in the supernatural.
My religion helps me to organize my mind. The religious concepts and stories help me fit the world into a pattern that makes sense to me and gives me stability. Through faith, I understand my place in the world and my relation to other people, and to nature.
That being said, I'm enough of a sceptic to admit that there's no proof to my beliefs, and in the end it's a personal choice. And for me, there is no dissonance between religion and science. A god that would gift me with a rational mind and then ask me to believe blindly in incoherent concepts... that's absurd.
The supernatural is exactly that: The part of the world that we cannot grasp with science and logic. So we need to rely on intuition, metaphor and faith.

The hieroglyphs can only be interpreted and not pronounced

Well, actually, many of them can be pronounced. They're mostly consonant signs, so they're like letters and letter combinations. Save for the class of signs we call determinatives, those are true ideograms.
As Arthur Rupel said, we're unfortunately missing most of the vowels. We have and alef, an "y"-sound and a w thats similar to the Arabic waw. But there are more vowels in the words, and we don't know what they are and where exactly they go, because they're not written out. It's actually pretty similar to written Hebrew and Arabic.

Greek inscriptions helped to translate the language since there are a few biliteral inscriptions - the Rosetta Stone being the most famous.
Coptic on the other hand is a later form of the Egyptian language. Coptic has incorporated a lot of Greek vocabulary and uses a different alphabet (including vowels, thank the gods), but the grammar and a lot of words are similar. So that helps with reconstructing both the meaning and pronunciation. Still, there's a 2000 year gap between classic Middle Egyptian and Sahidic Coptic. If you consider how much the English language changed in the last few hundred years you can see how it will offer clues, but no certainties, in reconstructing the ancient language.

So yeah, the answer is "both". There are clues and we can reconstruct an approximation, but it's still a lot of guesswork.
Egyptologists don't really try with the correct pronunciation most of the time. They just use the existing consonants and stick random vowels in between for convenience.

Dear Ocean,
I'm very sorry... If you want to impress me with interpretation of ancient Egyptian symbolism your research needs to be a lot more thorough.
Dear other readers... sorry for going off topic

this is an ancient piece of art from Egypt or thereabouts. It shows the two angels each person has with them & they are holding branches which are holding soul orbs in their grip, & the person the angels are watching over is seated on top of the same type of flower

"Or thereabouts" is correct. I'm guessing that this piece is either Roman period, or from a Levantine province, or a fake alltogether. The clothing of your "angels" looks more Assyrian to me than Egyptian. And showing winged figures in this special scene is highly untypical. Also, you would expect the flanking deities to wear different crowns, not both of them with the double crown.
This piece looks like a copy made by someone who didn't fully understand the original scene.
The source of this depiction is a very common theme in Egyptian Art: Sema Tawy, the unification of the two lands.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upper_and_Lower_Egypt
https://images.app.goo.gl/V4KgKmvVBfo5CziM7
Do an image search form "sema tawy" online and you'll find a large number of more examples, but without wings or "soul orbs".
Classically, either the gods Horus and Set or the river god Hapi tie the two heraldic plants of upper and lower Egypt together, the lotus and the papyrus. Look at the images carefully, and you'll see that it's indeed two different types of plants being tied together. In the center, there's not another plant but a hieroglyph, this glyph is 'sma', 'to join, to unite'.
The unification of the two lands is a central symbol in the coronation rites of the pharao, that's why you'll find the pharao's name or even a figure of the pharao on top of the sema glyph.
And yes, we know that this scene is about the unification and not about soul orbs, because the Egyptians were nice enough to put texts around their images, so we can read about the meaning right there at the source.

And also in this ancient Egyptian art work we can see a human seated on a flower & on the far right there is a soul orb seated on the flower.

This second image is from a Late Period temple, I can see that much from the style of the relief. Probably the Hathor temple at Dendera, since the "human" is Ihy, son of Hathor, if I get those inscriptions correctly. He is shown as a royal child (finger to the mouth, naked, carrying flail and scepter and crowned with the double crown). Him sitting on a lotus flower is an association with the sun god being born from that flower.
He is flanked by Nekhbet and Wadjet, patron goddesses of Upper and lower Egypt, sitting on their respective heraldic plants.
So yes, there's a "born from a flower" motive in Egyptian mythology, but that lotus flower rises from Nun, the primordial ocean, not from a tree. And it brings forth the sun god, or the king in the role of the sun god. Not every human.
Your "soul orb" on the far right is probably a sun disk on a lotus flower. See above.

And here we see The tree of life symbolised as an ancient goddess with flowers growing out the top of her head. And she is holding an Ankh symbol to represent that the tree holds the human soul as it is growing on her branch

Here we see the god Hapi, father of the gods. That's what those hieroglyphs above the scene are telling me.
And the Ankh symbol can be found in the hands of all kinds of gods and goddesses, not just gods of trees and vegetation. Ankh is associated with the "breath of life" owned and given by the gods. Not with tree branches. (see Pyramid texts, where Shu, god of air, is equaled with "ankh", the fact that ankh is given "to the nose" and the common phrase "tjaw n Ankh", "wind/breath of life")

Egyptian mythology has a couple of ideas as to how humans were created. Most commonly, they're thought to spring from the tears of the sun god, or they're fashioned on the potter wheel of Khnum.
Soul orbs growing from tree branches are not mentioned in any surviving text that I know of.

all ancient religions pointed to The tree of Eternal Life as the true God.

I don't think that's true. I can speak for the Ancient Egyptian Religion, which is my personal area of study. There are some elements: tree goddesses (Nut, Hathor), gods of vegetation as symbols of rebirth and virility (Osiris, Min), the young sun being born from a Lotus flower(Creation Myth of Neith). But this coherent, universal story about the tree of life and its flowers? I can't see that anywhere in Egyptian mythology, least of all at its core.

Did God exist before religion?
Interesting question. In my personal belief: Yes. My gods were born when this universe was born, and some of them may be older even. (yes, plural form. I'm a polytheist) They are neither truly eternal nor are they all-powerful, but they are far older than humanity.
However, I think that organized religion is surely a human invention and the images and concepts we have of the gods are partly made by humans.
My explanation goes like this: A god or goddess is a vast, powerful and strange creature. As a human, I am unable to understand the true nature and form of a god - I simply don't have the necessary sense perceptions and brain structure. Thus, I can only communicate with gods and speak about gods by using metaphor. And if a god wants to get in contact with a human (and I believe that they sometimes do that), they need to use concepts and images that the human can understand. Therefore, we have a multitude of images, symbols, names and mythology to describe the gods. All of them are true in the sense that they capture a certain aspect or facet of the divine, and false in the sense that they are never fully accurate or complete.

Is there only One True God(tm) as the source and core of all religions? I don't know. But I don't think so, the universe is far to chaotic and colorful.
But well, I don't claim that my beliefs are universally true, they're simply what makes the most sense to both my heart and my brain.