Merged Their Return

[King of the Americas]

Well, I'm trying to become a medieval historian (MA so far) and what I do a lot of is look at mythology and what it teaches us.

From a historical perspective, it's typically simple speculation to say that cyclops et al where taken from a specific erroneous observation. While some do have some evidence (like the medieval Beastiaries for example), most are pastiches of various beliefs. It is also somewhat irrelevant. Mythology is best seen as informing us on the society that spawns it and it's concerns and culture. Gods are always a reflection of ourselves.

If you take Christianity for example, you can see the shift in beliefs through the ages as it comes to reflect the current cultures and people who adopted it. From a mono-racial, paternalistic culture, the Yahweh of the Jews, we see it's alteration by the more philosophically inclined Greeks where we get the ideas of God as omniscient, omnipresent, etc. Zoroastrianism gives Christianity it's very defined dualism and the Roman empire gave the idea of governance through hierarchy.

In the Middle Ages you get the legions of Angels and Demons, in feudal array with specific names and duties along with a Heaven and Hell at war with each and us.

Of course, I am massively oversimplifying a very complex subject but I hope the idea is presented. Whenever you see Mythology (or religion), you see the people, not the Gods.

What I am trying to do here is draw a distinction between god and religion. Religion being the art used to depict the subject.

There's a universally accepted 'god of the heavens'...what is it?

 

[Marduk]

What I am trying to do here is draw a distinction between god and religion. Religion being the art used to depict the subject.

There's a universally accepted 'god of the heavens'...what is it?

no, what youre trying to do here is once again push your personal beliefs about aliens where they aren't valid
it's what you always do
go on, try to deny it

There is no universally accepted god of heaven, there isn't even a global one

 

[King of the Americas]

I did say generally.


Angels didn't exist until after the babylonian diaspora, they didn't start off with wings and clouds and blessings. Thats just Christianity, Old testament angels weren't very friendly.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylonian_captivity
They are the result of monotheism being born out of a polytheistic pantheon by a culture who didn't want to piss off the rest of the gods just in case. Textually prior to the captivity God had a couple of messengers, afterwards the entire hierarchy of heaven.


we've been over this, you wouldn't accept it preferring to go with your imagination over the opinion of experts

God has 'changed'...

 

[King of the Americas]

The existence of mermen and women predates any sighting of a manatee by civilisation about 3500 years.

...

I don't buy the elephant origin for cyclops either, the Greeks were familiar with elephants, they used them in their army and the earliest stories about the first mentioned cyclops in history, Polyphemus originally had two eyes.
I think the origin is much more likely due to the preponderance of the single eye symbol across the ancient near east, where it was used by characters of great stature, such as Gods and kings so its more likely due to a blending of mythology and symbolism.

Thank you, well done.

I don't know about your cyclops theory... I don't know how familiar anyone is with elephant skulls, to say they wouldn't have spawned stories of one-eyed creatures.

 

[Marduk]

Thank you, well done.

I don't know about your cyclops theory... I don't know how familiar anyone is with elephant skulls, to say they wouldn't have spawned stories of one-eyed creatures.

Think about how much more familiar the people in the ancient world were with the animals they interacted with than modern people. Would you confuse an elephant skull with a human, those people were just as smart as you were, but they were better informed. They had to be, all their dangerous animals were loose. The word Elephant is derived from ancient Greek "elephantos", Thats quite familiar.

God has 'changed'...

which one, there have been thousands. If you mean the God of monotheism, then no, not much. He turned up after literacy, its hard to change things when how they are is available in print from an authority who holds the power of life and death over heretics, if you lived 2000 years ago, your ideas would have got you killed already. If you're interested in the ultimate origins of YHWH, thats easy, but it won't validate your belief.

 

[Delvo]

An overview of how God was made up & subsequently modified by a series of different groups of people editing the supposedly sacred texts (some of which are now books of the Bible), as shown in the differences between present and original versions of them...

 

[King of the Americas]

Think about how much more familiar the people in the ancient world were with the animals they interacted with than modern people. Would you confuse an elephant skull with a human, those people were just as smart as you were, but they were better informed. They had to be, all their dangerous animals were loose. The word Elephant is derived from ancient Greek "elephantos", Thats quite familiar.



which one, there have been thousands. If you mean the God of monotheism, then no, not much. He turned up after literacy, its hard to change things when how they are is available in print from an authority who holds the power of life and death over heretics, if you lived 2000 years ago, your ideas would have got you killed already. If you're interested in the ultimate origins of YHWH, thats easy, but it won't validate your belief.

Is EVERYONE familiar with elephants, everywhere? While I'm sure there were some who would think them a most unusual creature, and a skull would really throw them for a loop.

I used the lower case "god" for a reason.

 

[King of the Americas]

An overview of how God was made up & subsequently modified by a series of different groups of people editing the supposedly sacred texts (some of which are now books of the Bible), as shown in the differences between present and original versions of them...

...

VERY cool.

 

[dafydd]

It was just an example of something quite fictional, having an actual basis on real evidence, just misinterpreted.

I can show you countless images of god in heaven, angels riding clouds, people gazing upward toward bright shiny silver disks, and any number of other airborne entities within old paintings.

The question is what is the reality behind this images?

I can see where this is going. Ho hum.

 

[dafydd]

There's a universally accepted 'god of the heavens

No. And before you go on we don't believe in your imaginary (non?) aliens.

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

There's always some idiot ready to make up ****. Nothing more complicated than that for the origins of the gods.

 

[bruto]

It's hard to discuss reasonably with someone who seems utterly unaware of the reams and volumes of literature that have been written over centuries about this sort of stuff. There's on one "historical god," and certainly no universally accepted god of the heavens. It would be utterly ridiculous to try to conflate all the different ideas of deity into one. The impulse for religious belief has been studied by theologians and philosophers and psychologists for millennia,

Religion is not the art used to depict god. You might start there, by trying to find out what religion really is, and work your way up from there. I would respectfully suggest that you start with the work of William James, which might give you some insight into the psychology of religion and how it is experienced, from someone who wrote with an open and sympathetic mind.

 

[King of the Americas]

It's hard to discuss reasonably with someone who seems utterly unaware of the reams and volumes of literature that have been written over centuries about this sort of stuff. There's on one "historical god," and certainly no universally accepted god of the heavens. It would be utterly ridiculous to try to conflate all the different ideas of deity into one. The impulse for religious belief has been studied by theologians and philosophers and psychologists for millennia,

Religion is not the art used to depict god. You might start there, by trying to find out what religion really is, and work your way up from there. I would respectfully suggest that you start with the work of William James, which might give you some insight into the psychology of religion and how it is experienced, from someone who wrote with an open and sympathetic mind.

You DON'T think that across the Earth, believers rest their faith in a "God of heaven"...?

Those who are religious may not think of their religion 'art' depicting god, but from the outside that's exactly what it is...

 

[Marduk]

You DON'T think that across the Earth, believers rest their faith in a "God of heaven"...?

Argumentum ad populum and quite irrelevant, most believers are believers because they have never questioned their faith, they are even less interested than you in the real origin of their God

Those who are religious may not think of their religion 'art' depicting god, but from the outside that's exactly what it is...

I'm pretty sure that everyone who's religious and who looks at religious art knows what it is, you seem to be saying that religious people are generally idiots.

I'd probably agree

 

[bruto]

You DON'T think that across the Earth, believers rest their faith in a "God of heaven"...?

Those who are religious may not think of their religion 'art' depicting god, but from the outside that's exactly what it is...

I don't think that across the earth, believers rest their faith on similar gods, or a single deity that might be said to be "god in heaven." Many are, after all, polytheists, others pantheists, animists and worshipers of idols. Some have been gnostics, and others deists, and so forth. While it's true that the most popular religions of modern times have rested their faith on a single "god of heaven," the reason for that can be as easily attributed to cultural forces, including their skill at conquest, rather than anything inherent in religion.

And no, religion is not itself the art depicting a god, even if it produces that art. Perhaps I'm misunderstanding your previous statement.

On another issue: I think most people who have encountered elephant skulls have probably encountered elephants. Since elephants and their ancestors such as mammoths have been hunted and eaten by humans more or less since humans have existed, it's pretty likely that those humans would have noticed that elephants have two eyes, and that when they butcher and eat the elephant, an elephant skull is the result. To infer a cyclops from the elephant, while not entirely out of the question, seems so far fetched a stretch of the imagination that I'd want to see true evidence of the linkage before believing it ever occurred.

 

[TheCaptn]

Well, I'm trying to become a medieval historian (MA so far) and what I do a lot of is look at mythology and what it teaches us.

You can be my forum mentor.
I'm a 3rd year undergrad in History (went back to school after a decade in IT), and it seems I'm aiming for a similar goal. Although I can't pick between my interests in Dark Age to Industrial Age seafaring cultures, or the Cold War period of modern history.

In the Middle Ages you get the legions of Angels and Demons, in feudal array with specific names and duties along with a Heaven and Hell at war with each and us.

Of course, I am massively oversimplifying a very complex subject but I hope the idea is presented. Whenever you see Mythology (or religion), you see the people, not the Gods.

The late middle ages also serves to define many of our modern religious and political concepts since it gave us the Reformation, rapidly entrenching most existing Catholic/Anglican/Protestant demarcations.

Anyway, I think Marduk was on the right track, but I'd place a different chronological emphasis on the evolution of theology. I think it was Lakatos (a modern philosopher of science) who suggested that religions could viewed as research programmes, although presumably ones with a heuristic foundation which accepted immaterial causes. By contrast all our modern, scientific research programmes share a common heuristic which expects material causes (since we can only observe a material universe).

Anyway, with that in mind I think there is a kind of progression related to the fundamental questions we have about our own place in the world. It's progressive, and would go something like:
- The human life/death cycle (ancestor worship, paleolithic venus statues)
- Other natural life/death cycles (animism, shamanism)
- Elemental/natural forces (early polytheism)
- Pantheon uniting elemental with communal/social forces (late polytheism)
- Limited egalitarianism, one anthropomorphic god per community (early monotheism)
- Broadened egalitarianism, one inscrutable god for multiple communities (late monotheism)
- Limited objectivity (natural philosophy, the 'age of reason')

Of course a concept like 'community' is pretty damn fluid, and there's a lot of overlap that goes on. But that basically leads us into the modern period of strict objectivity, which describes our ideal of a rational, scientific approach to understanding the universe.

 

[King of the Americas]

I don't think that across the earth, believers rest their faith on similar gods, or a single deity that might be said to be "god in heaven." Many are, after all, polytheists, others pantheists, animists and worshipers of idols. Some have been gnostics, and others deists, and so forth. While it's true that the most popular religions of modern times have rested their faith on a single "god of heaven," the reason for that can be as easily attributed to cultural forces, including their skill at conquest, rather than anything inherent in religion.

And no, religion is not itself the art depicting a god, even if it produces that art. Perhaps I'm misunderstanding your previous statement.

On another issue: I think most people who have encountered elephant skulls have probably encountered elephants. Since elephants and their ancestors such as mammoths have been hunted and eaten by humans more or less since humans have existed, it's pretty likely that those humans would have noticed that elephants have two eyes, and that when they butcher and eat the elephant, an elephant skull is the result. To infer a cyclops from the elephant, while not entirely out of the question, seems so far fetched a stretch of the imagination that I'd want to see true evidence of the linkage before believing it ever occurred.

If you asked anyone on earth, "Where is god?"

What might your answer likely be?

 

[King of the Americas]

...

Of course a concept like 'community' is pretty damn fluid, and there's a lot of overlap that goes on. But that basically leads us into the modern period of strict objectivity, which describes our ideal of a rational, scientific approach to understanding the universe.

While that's all well and good, it doesn't really address the 'god(s) of heaven', that people report to have actually SEEN and witnessed.

Ezekiel claimed to have seen file within wheels blah blah blah.

People followed a pillar of fire through the desert that rained manna down on them.

Yes, sure people worship the sun, the moon, the earth and anything on it, but there are a great many that worship "god(s) of heaven", as in actually individuals, or maybe ONE individual. I refer to those who 'watch over us', that sometimes intercede to protect some of us.

Angels save escort Lott away from a town, then "God" rains fire and brimstone down on it...

What's the reality behind these stories?

 

[bruto]

If you asked anyone on earth, "Where is god?"

What might your answer likely be?

Well, it would depend on when and where you asked it. If you asked an ancient (or not so ancient for that matter) Hawaiian, for example, he would probably point to the nearest volcano. If you asked an ancient Greek, he would say "which god?"

Of course, since the sky is relatively inaccessible, mysterious, and full of weather, it stands to reason that the religious imagination and impulse will often point to the sky or beyond. To extrapolate from this that all religions derive from some actual beings in the sky is just plain silly, and suggests, among other things, that the person doing the extrapolating has put very little time or effort into studying the history, psychology and literature of religion.

 

[bruto]

While that's all well and good, it doesn't really address the 'god(s) of heaven', that people report to have actually SEEN and witnessed.

Ezekiel claimed to have seen file within wheels blah blah blah.

People followed a pillar of fire through the desert that rained manna down on them.

Yes, sure people worship the sun, the moon, the earth and anything on it, but there are a great many that worship "god(s) of heaven", as in actually individuals, or maybe ONE individual. I refer to those who 'watch over us', that sometimes intercede to protect some of us.

Angels save escort Lott away from a town, then "God" rains fire and brimstone down on it...

What's the reality behind these stories?

Bad weather.