Sumer: the "black-headed" vs. the "red-faced"

[Nungali]

 " My  goodness... what a lovely coat you have ! "

 

 

Spoiler

Mulla Nasruddin went to visit his friend Masoud, but Masoud was on his way out himself to go visiting  , " Come with me. " he invited the Mulla.

 

" But I am not dressed well enough to meet new people. "

 

" Dont worry, I have a magnificent new coat you can borrow ."

 

When they get to the first house Masoud introduces the Mulla to his friends ;

 

" Hello, nice to meet you Mulla ...   My  goodness... what a lovely coat you have ! " And they fussed around him and waited on him and continued complimenting him.

 

When they left Masoud confronted him ; " You took all that attention  and compliments becasue  you where wearing my best coat. That wasnt fair . You should have confessed that it actually was not your coat and it was my coat ! "

 

" Oh ?  I should have ?  I am sorry . I shall amend  my ways in future ."

 

" Be sure that you do, thank you . "

 

They go to the next house ;

 

Masoud introduces the Mulla to his friends ;

 

" Hello, nice to meet you Mulla ... and ... what a lovely coat you have ! " ."

 

' Oh no. It isnt MY coat ... this coat belongs to Masoud ... all attention and praise relating to taste and choice should be directed towards him, otherwise he will fell left out . "

 

Masoud's friends give him a strange look and the visit passes with Masoud feeling very uncomfortable . When they leave , out on the street ; " Why on earth did you say that ! How embarrassing .... " all attention and praise should be directed towards me " what where you thinking ?'

 

" I was just telling the truth and doing what you asked ."

 

"Look, next house, dont mention the coat ... not a word about the coat ! Okay? Do you understand ? "

 

" Alright , calm down, I understand , I am NOT to talk anything about your coat . "

 

" Good! and see that you dont ! "

 

They go to the next house ;

 

Masoud introduces the Mulla to his friends ;

 

" Hello, nice to meet you Mulla ... what a wonderful coat you are wearing ."

 

Mulla looks nervously at Masoud who is glaring back at him . "

 

Mulla shakes their hands and "  Yes .. nice to meet you ... but the subject of this coat is off limits ....  I am NOT  allowed to say a word a about it or even  mention it as it upsets Masoud . "

 

 

 

[Taomeow]

4 minutes ago, Nungali said:

 " My  goodness... what a lovely coat you have ! "

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Mulla Nasruddin went to visit his friend Masoud, but Masoud was on his way out himself to go visiting  , " Come with me. " he invited the Mulla.

 

" But I am not dressed well enough to meet new people. "

 

" Dont worry, I have a magnificent new coat you can borrow ."

 

When they get to the first house Masoud introduces the Mulla to his friends ;

 

" Hello, nice to meet you Mulla ...   My  goodness... what a lovely coat you have ! " And they fussed around him and waited on him and continued complimenting him.

 

When they left Masoud confronted him ; " You took all that attention  and compliments becasue  you where wearing my best coat. That wasnt fair . You should have confessed that it actually was not your coat and it was my coat ! "

 

" Oh ?  I should have ?  I am sorry . I shall amend  my ways in future ."

 

" Be sure that you do, thank you . "

 

They go to the next house ;

 

Masoud introduces the Mulla to his friends ;

 

" Hello, nice to meet you Mulla ... and ... what a lovely coat you have ! " ."

 

' Oh no. It isnt MY coat ... this coat belongs to Masoud ... all attention and praise relating to taste and choice should be directed towards him, otherwise he will fell left out . "

 

Masoud's friends give him a strange look and the visit passes with Masoud feeling very uncomfortable . When they leave , out on the street ; " Why on earth did you say that ! How embarrassing .... " all attention and praise should be directed towards me " what where you thinking ?'

 

" I was just telling the truth and doing what you asked ."

 

"Look, next house, dont mention the coat ... not a word about the coat ! Okay? Do you understand ? "

 

" Alright , calm down, I understand , I am NOT to talk anything about your coat . "

 

" Good! and see that you dont ! "

 

They go to the next house ;

 

Masoud introduces the Mulla to his friends ;

 

" Hello, nice to meet you Mulla ... what a wonderful coat you are wearing ."

 

Mulla looks nervously at Masoud who is glaring back at him . "

 

Mulla shakes their hands and "  Yes .. nice to meet you ... but the subject of this coat is off limits ....  I am NOT  allowed to say a word a about it or even  mention it as it upsets Masoud . "

 

 

 

 

Siberia is not all no peaches and no cream.  

[Nungali]

thats one fancy icecream cone he has got !

[Taomeow]

44 minutes ago, Nungali said:

thats one fancy icecream cone he has got !

 

That's one of the functions of his staff.  It is magical/shamanic and has the following functions:

 

It can make ice cream out of anything suitable for the purpose -- it's a freezing staff.  Forcefully hitting it on the ground, however, is what causes snow, ice and frost to descend upon the land.

It repels evil spirits, and can be used to freeze anyone Grandfather Frost doesn't like.

It can manifest objects -- e.g. presents -- also accomplished by hitting it on the ground, but a bit gentler.  Three times if I remember correctly.

And finally, a modern touch -- it has GPS mounted inside, connected to an app kids can install to track his progress from the North Pole when he sets out on his way.       

[SirPalomides]

I do love the Siberian Grandfather Frosts. Their hats alone are wonderful.

[Taomeow]

From a detour to Siberia, back to Sumer -- but retracing our steps via a detour to Egypt first.

 

Here's an interesting perspective (from Rudolph Steiner study lesson, "The Threshold of The Spiritual World"):

 

 

[Nungali]

Unfortunately , the left hand side is  ......  ( I leave that to Apech )

 

Its old, outdated,  passed by  due to HEAPS of more modern research  and full of theosophic  'clap trap' .

 

But the premise holds fairly well ; Judeao-Christianity was a blend of  old regional  religion, a lot from Egypt  ( modern comparisons are interesting * )   a lot from 'Babylonian Religions' ( Sumerian, etc  )  and a good founding from Zoroastrianism ( due to the 'Captivity' )

 

* like 'Hymn to the Aten'  and Psalm 104

 

The Eight points of comparison: Psalm 104 and the Hymn to Aten

 

https://supersededotcom.wordpress.com/2012/04/17/akhenatens-hymn-to-the-aten-similarities-in-the-attributes-and-praises-with-biblical-parallels-and-psalm-104-4/

[Taomeow]

29 minutes ago, Nungali said:

Unfortunately 

 

No regrets are in order -- I am not Rudolph Steiner, I didn't post my own version  -- just a version, for educational purposes/historical perspective.  (You really don't want to know my version.)  What do you think is wrong with the left side?  The only theosophic works I read with some focus back in the day concerned themselves with anthroposophic medicine.  And I donated four volumes of The Secret Doctrine to a thrift shop, after numerous unsuccessful attempts to make heads or tails of it.     

 

You may or may not find it noteworthy that personally, I would only start a refutational response with "unfortunately" if I wanted to lord over to someone that I consider them a lesser being.  Some women even assert that it's a mansplaining technique.  I don't know if they have a point, but I feel their objections aren't entirely pointless.

 

34 minutes ago, Nungali said:

But the premise holds fairly well ; Judeao-Christianity was a blend of  old regional  religion, a lot from Egypt  ( modern comparisons are interesting * )   a lot from 'Babylonian Religions' ( Sumerian, etc  )  and a good founding from Zoroastrianism ( due to the 'Captivity' )

 

Yes, Mitra/Mithra (Maitreya to Buddhists, incidentally) even celebrates his birthday on the same day as Jesus.  Maybe there's other pages there that compare other religious systems on the left to the one on the right, I just chanced upon this one and thought, hmm...  So, no hmmm, just ho-hum?...       

[Nungali]

3 hours ago, Taomeow said:

 

No regrets are in order -- I am not Rudolph Steiner, I didn't post my own version  -- just a version, for educational purposes/historical perspective.  (You really don't want to know my version.)  What do you think is wrong with the left side?  The only theosophic works I read with some focus back in the day concerned themselves with anthroposophic medicine.  And I donated four volumes of The Secret Doctrine to a thrift shop, after numerous unsuccessful attempts to make heads or tails of it.     

 

Some of the Secret Doctrine is okay if you understand all the cross terms and referencing .... otherwise it reads like gobbldegook

 

If I may    .....  ( I Like this guy  ... and what he reads makes perfect sense  .... also it affirms my Law of 3/4    

 

Spoiler

 

 

 

Quote

 

You may or may not find it noteworthy that personally, I would only start a refutational response with "unfortunately" if I wanted to lord over to someone that I consider them a lesser being.  Some women even assert that it's a mansplaining technique.  I don't know if they have a point, but I feel their objections aren't entirely pointless.

 

Its  interesting that you, as a woman,  would start with 'unfortunately'  if you wanted to Lord it over someone.. 

 

Because, as a man ,  when I use unfortunately, that is   not my intent at all  .

 

Mains-plaining ?    < looks it up >  ..

 

" in a manner regarded as condescending or patronizing. "

 

Aha1 I see .    No, the answer is not directed at you at all , but at the  simplification  and interpretation  of those  Egyptian principles by Theosophists  is unfortunate  ....

 

Oh no !  I said it again .... wait  .... NO  .....   Taomeow  NOOOOOOOOOOOO  .......   arrrgghhh !

 

 

 

Quote

 

 

Yes, Mitra/Mithra (Maitreya to Buddhists, incidentally) even celebrates his birthday on the same day as Jesus.  Maybe there's other pages there that compare other religious systems on the left to the one on the right, I just chanced upon this one and thought, hmm...  So, no hmmm, just ho-hum?...       

 

 

Ummmmmm    .....  

 

 

.... pass .

Edited January 5, 2020 by Nungali

[Taomeow]

2 hours ago, Nungali said:

 

Some of the Secret Doctrine is okay if you understand all the cross terms and referencing .... otherwise it reads like gobbldegook

 

Not so much that as the absence of clear demarcation lines between facts, interpretations, hypotheses, personal fantasies and transpersonal biases.  But then, it's a "doctrine."  They're all like that.  The mainstream ones are way worse in this respect.  

 

2 hours ago, Nungali said:

 

Its  interesting that you, as a woman,  would start with 'unfortunately'  if you wanted to Lord it over someone.. 

 

My point exactly.  "I as a woman" can't do that unless I want to assume the role of an honorary male.  Which I don't.   Which is why I would do that "unfortunately" opening only if I did.  Which is why I never do.  But usually notice when someone else does.  

 

2 hours ago, Nungali said:

Aha1 I see .    No, the answer is not directed at you at all , but at the  simplification  and interpretation  of those  Egyptian principles by Theosophists  is unfortunate  ....

 

That, if that's the case, doesn't bother me, since a man can't really mansplain to another man -- and Rudolph, bless his heart, is a man.  However, unfortunately, I've seen a lot of amused dismissive vitriol aimed at Helena Blavatsky not because she is totally unworthy of any consideration whatsoever (anyone with this kind of encyclopedic knowledge and sheer scope of intellectual ambition backed up by considerable cognitive powers is not to be dismissed until at least a fair attempt to get through at least one of those volumes has been undertaken) --

but because a spiritual, intellectual, philosophical leader who happens to be a woman is a laughable idea to them by default.  Which is why I really feel bad about not liking her.  No, not really.  I'm not under any obligation to like anyone I don't merely in order to spite the patriarchal misogynists.  I like who I like.  I yum what I yum.

 

And you grossly exaggerated the injuries you purportedly sustained.  Don't be such a pussy.  (And don't tell me "it's interesting that you, as a cat, would tell someone not to be a pussy.")     

Edited January 5, 2020 by Taomeow

[Taomeow]

Back to Sumer.  

 

  -- diĝir -- a god in general, or An, the supreme father of the gods. Dingir also meant sky or heaven -- in a sense close to the taoist tian, the opposite of ki -- earth (kun to taoists).   

  -- diĝir-diĝir -- gods.  

 

  looks like the Eight Directions of the bagua to me.  I don't know what the order of the strokes was in Sumerian, but this word was most likely written beginning with the vertical line -- up to down -- with the initial indentation into the clay assuming the position of Tian in the Earlier Heaven bagua.  Whereas the last indentation in this case marks the north-east (in the mapping system that doesn't flip the poles like ours, i.e. where Fire/Sun means South, and so the South on the map is located where the Sun is, on top, and North on the bottom).  The trigram of the north-east, zhen, is the one that starts the manifestations of the Later Heaven.  

  

[Apech]

14 hours ago, Nungali said:

Unfortunately , the left hand side is  ......  ( I leave that to Apech )

 

Its old, outdated,  passed by  due to HEAPS of more modern research  and full of theosophic  'clap trap' .

 

But the premise holds fairly well ; Judeao-Christianity was a blend of  old regional  religion, a lot from Egypt  ( modern comparisons are interesting * )   a lot from 'Babylonian Religions' ( Sumerian, etc  )  and a good founding from Zoroastrianism ( due to the 'Captivity' )

 

* like 'Hymn to the Aten'  and Psalm 104

 

The Eight points of comparison: Psalm 104 and the Hymn to Aten

 

https://supersededotcom.wordpress.com/2012/04/17/akhenatens-hymn-to-the-aten-similarities-in-the-attributes-and-praises-with-biblical-parallels-and-psalm-104-4/

 

Steiner and his ilk are products of the tendency to project Judeo-Christian beliefs onto ... well everything they studied.  The left hand side of that list is unrecognisably Egyptian apart from some (not all) of the names.  For instance one main theme from Horus myths is that in his conflict with Set he tore off his testicles and threw them into the marshes - I find that hard to fit into the life of Christ (!).  But no blame to Steiner et al, they were trying, and not for the first time to marry Christianity or at least Bible studies to ancient history with the aim of giving authority to Christ as the fulfilment of prophecy.  But what they may have been pointing to, with which I have some sympathy, was a lineage stretching way back of mystical kingship and the like.  What they failed to grasp was that apart from a 20 - 30 year period Egypt (and everyone else) was not monotheistic.  In fact I think that this tendency was just a continuation of the fact that early Christianity actually had no philosophy or metaphysics and just lifted most of it from Neo-Platonism (many of whom were pantheist) which was actually in a tradition which does go something like Babylon-Egypt-Greece-Rome via Alexandrian mixing.  You can either say its a mess - or multifaceted depending on whether you are feeling positive or negative about it.  Even Thelemic ideas can be placed here - but then Crowley was a practitioner and not an armchair mystic.

 

The focus on Akhenaten is a good example of this tendency - because they believed that they had found something akin to Judaic monotheism among a people who otherwise worshiped animal headed gods and so on - which deep down the Victorians found distasteful - they dealt with Indian tantra in a similar way dismissing it as some kind of barbaric aberration (until proved wrong).

 

Egyptian religion was very broad, encompassing everything from state religion to what we would call shamanism, and the best way to study it is to let it speak to you through their art and texts without any grand theory or wish fulfillment.  

[Taomeow]

 

2 hours ago, Apech said:

 

Steiner and his ilk are products of the tendency to project Judeo-Christian beliefs onto ... well everything they studied.  The left hand side of that list is unrecognisably Egyptian apart from some (not all) of the names.  For instance one main theme from Horus myths is that in his conflict with Set he tore off his testicles and threw them into the marshes - I find that hard to fit into the life of Christ (!).  But no blame to Steiner et al, they were trying, and not for the first time to marry Christianity or at least Bible studies to ancient history with the aim of giving authority to Christ as the fulfilment of prophecy.  But what they may have been pointing to, with which I have some sympathy, was a lineage stretching way back of mystical kingship and the like.  What they failed to grasp was that apart from a 20 - 30 year period Egypt (and everyone else) was not monotheistic.  In fact I think that this tendency was just a continuation of the fact that early Christianity actually had no philosophy or metaphysics and just lifted most of it from Neo-Platonism (many of whom were pantheist) which was actually in a tradition which does go something like Babylon-Egypt-Greece-Rome via Alexandrian mixing.  You can either say its a mess - or multifaceted depending on whether you are feeling positive or negative about it.  Even Thelemic ideas can be placed here - but then Crowley was a practitioner and not an armchair mystic.

 

The focus on Akhenaten is a good example of this tendency - because they believed that they had found something akin to Judaic monotheism among a people who otherwise worshiped animal headed gods and so on - which deep down the Victorians found distasteful - they dealt with Indian tantra in a similar way dismissing it as some kind of barbaric aberration (until proved wrong).

 

Egyptian religion was very broad, encompassing everything from state religion to what we would call shamanism, and the best way to study it is to let it speak to you through their art and texts without any grand theory or wish fulfillment.  

 

"Modern scientific" consensus still habitually ignores China though when peeping into the origins of monotheism.  It's as though China didn't exist or didn't matter until they started manufacturing our smartphones. 

 

The earliest references to Shangdi, the god of monotheistic Chinese religion, are found in oracle bone inscriptions of the Shang Dynasty in the 2nd millennium BC.  Sima Qian, the father of Chinese history, who had access to much more early material when writing his Classic of History, lived at the time when it was something of a common knowledge that yearly sacrifices were made to Shangdi by Emperor Shun, even before the Xia Dynasty.  Which places the origins of monotheism thousands of years before "Judaic monotheism."  And here's something interesting I found...

 

9 hours ago, Taomeow said:

Back to Sumer.  

 

  -- diĝir -- a god in general, or An, the supreme father of the gods. Dingir also meant sky or heaven -- in a sense close to the taoist tian, the opposite of ki -- earth (kun to taoists).   

  

 

The Shang time oracle bone script for "god" -- di   -- which also meant sky or heaven or god in heaven or god equal to heaven.    

 

[Nungali]

6 hours ago, Apech said:

 

Steiner and his ilk are products of the tendency to project Judeo-Christian beliefs onto ... well everything they studied.  The left hand side of that list is unrecognisably Egyptian apart from some (not all) of the names.

 

 

6 hours ago, Apech said:

 

 

  For instance one main theme from Horus myths is that in his conflict with Set he tore off his testicles and threw them into the marshes - I find that hard to fit into the life of Christ (!).  But no blame to Steiner et al, they were trying, and not for the first time to marry Christianity or at least Bible studies to ancient history with the aim of giving authority to Christ as the fulfilment of prophecy.  But what they may have been pointing to, with which I have some sympathy, was a lineage stretching way back of mystical kingship and the like.  What they failed to grasp was that apart from a 20 - 30 year period Egypt (and everyone else) was not monotheistic.  In fact I think that this tendency was just a continuation of the fact that early Christianity actually had no philosophy or metaphysics and just lifted most of it from Neo-Platonism (many of whom were pantheist) which was actually in a tradition which does go something like Babylon-Egypt-Greece-Rome via Alexandrian mixing.  You can either say its a mess - or multifaceted depending on whether you are feeling positive or negative about it.  Even Thelemic ideas can be placed here - but then Crowley was a practitioner and not an armchair mystic.

 

The focus on Akhenaten is a good example of this tendency - because they believed that they had found something akin to Judaic monotheism among a people who otherwise worshiped animal headed gods and so on - which deep down the Victorians found distasteful - they dealt with Indian tantra in a similar way dismissing it as some kind of barbaric aberration (until proved wrong).

 

Egyptian religion was very broad, encompassing everything from state religion to what we would call shamanism, and the best way to study it is to let it speak to you through their art and texts without any grand theory or wish fulfillment.  

 

 

Ah!  I knew you would be able to sum up my complaint in  netter  words than I could . 

 

 

[Apech]

5 hours ago, Taomeow said:

 

 

"Modern scientific" consensus still habitually ignores China though when peeping into the origins of monotheism.  It's as though China didn't exist or didn't matter until they started manufacturing our smartphones. 

 

The earliest references to Shangdi, the god of monotheistic Chinese religion, are found in oracle bone inscriptions of the Shang Dynasty in the 2nd millennium BC.  Sima Qian, the father of Chinese history, who had access to much more early material when writing his Classic of History, lived at the time when it was something of a common knowledge that yearly sacrifices were made to Shangdi by Emperor Shun, even before the Xia Dynasty.  Which places the origins of monotheism thousands of years before "Judaic monotheism."  And here's something interesting I found...

 

 

The Shang time oracle bone script for "god" -- di   -- which also meant sky or heaven or god in heaven or god equal to heaven.    

 

 

 

Was this truly monotheistic? Or was it more henotheistic?

 

 

[Taomeow]

16 hours ago, Apech said:

 

Was this truly monotheistic? Or was it more henotheistic?

 

 

How would you define "truly monotheistic?"  Even in religions that are patently monotheistic, there's tons of other entities besides the supreme god, under various names and assigned various supporting roles.  Father, Son and Holy Ghost -- that's actually a group of three divine personages, but there's also the Virgin Mary (Mother Divine) and the "lesser spirits" many of whom are also worshipped (many Catholics, e.g., are much more likely to address their prayers to a particular saint than to "higher" authority, and Orthodox Christian women often appeal to "mother-protectress," Mary, in a way similar to taoist practitioners envoking Guanyin, etc..)  There's a large assortment of  saints, prophets and apostles and angels with or without the flaming swords, and so on.   The difference is in the titles, job descriptions, the amount of reverence allocated, etc. -- those might vary, the prophet Mohammed is mentioned in the same breath as Allah but does not push him to the background to become the main focus, unlike Jesus who stands between you and his dad as a bodyguard of sorts, or as a vigilant receptionist (can't see the boss unless I let you in), but still we don't talk of these religions as henotheistic -- although in a strict academic sense they ought to be considered that.  

 

Shangdi was originally the god of the pole star.  The Shang people identified their ancestry with ten suns (a recurrent ancient theme inherited later by taoism), but Shangdi was the one celestial body "higher than the ten suns" -- the supreme ruler of the realm.  Tian, in the meantime, was the one god of the Zhou people, and originally the sky (what later became "heaven").  The sky was the location of Shangdi and other ancestral spirits, so "Shangdi" eventually absorbed that meaning and became the god-sky, ruler of all the celestial phenomena and spirits.  The Shang rulers identified themselves with the ten suns, and the sky was understood as a spiritual force associated with patterns of time, which were revealed in the movement of the celestial bodies.  So the original tian ming ("mandate of heaven") was literally an astronomical sign, a "command" from God during the reign of King Wen, whose son Wu founded the Zhou dynasty.  Which sort of boils down to early Chinese religion being monotheistic and superseded by a polytheistic one, not vice versa.  At least monotheistic to the same extent as any religion we call "monotheistic" -- or perhaps to an even  greater extent, since Shangdi was the only god receiving massive sacrifices from the government (of course sequestered from the people.)  For thousands of years, no less.  

Edited January 6, 2020 by Taomeow

[Apech]

59 minutes ago, Taomeow said:

 

How would you define "truly monotheistic?"  Even in religions that are patently monotheistic, there's tons of other entities besides the supreme god, under various names and assigned various supporting roles.  Father, Son and Holy Ghost -- that's actually a group of three divine personages, but there's also the Virgin Mary (Mother Divine) and the "lesser spirits" many of whom are also worshipped (many Catholics, e.g., are much more likely to address their prayers to a particular saint than to "higher" authority, and Orthodox Christian women often appeal to "mother-protectress," Mary, in a way similar to taoist practitioners envoking Guanyin, etc..)  There's a large assortment of  saints, prophets and apostles and angels with or without the flaming swords, and so on.   The difference is in the titles, job descriptions, the amount of reverence allocated, etc. -- those might vary, the prophet Mohammed is mentioned in the same breath as Allah but does not push him to the background to become the main focus, unlike Jesus who stands between you and his dad as a bodyguard of sorts, or as a vigilant receptionist (can't see the boss unless I let you in), but still we don't talk of these religious as henotheistic -- although in a strict academic sense they ought to be considered that.  

 

Shangdi was originally the god of the pole star.  The Shang people identified their ancestry with ten suns (a recurrent ancient theme inherited later by taoism), but Shangdi was the one celestial body "higher than the ten suns" -- the supreme ruler of the realm.  Tian, in the meantime, was the god of the Zhou people, and originally the sky (what later became "heaven").  The sky was the location of Shangdi and other ancestral spirits, so "Shangdi" eventually absorbed that meaning and became the god-sky, ruler of all the celestial phenomena and spirits.  The Shang rulers identified themselves with the ten suns, and the sky was understood as a spiritual force associated with patterns of time, which were revealed in the movement of the celestial bodies.  So the original tian ming ("mandate of heaven") was literally an astronomical sign, a "command" from God during the reign of King Wen, whose son Wu founded the Zhou dynasty.  Which sort of boils down to early Chinese religion being monotheistic and superseded by a polytheistic one, not vice versa.  At least monotheistic to the same extent as any religion we call "monotheistic" -- or perhaps to an even  greater extent, since Shangdi was the only god receiving massive sacrifices from the government (of course sequestered from the people.)  For thousands of years, no less.  

 

I think there's a distinction between a polytheism which takes one god to be the top or ultimate (which changes over place and time) and monotheism which doesn't tolerate the existence of any god but the 'One' - even if there may be saints and angels and wot not.

[Taomeow]

1 hour ago, Apech said:

 

I think there's a distinction between a polytheism which takes one god to be the top or ultimate (which changes over place and time) and monotheism which doesn't tolerate the existence of any god but the 'One' - even if there may be saints and angels and wot not.

 

In theory, yes.  But how does it manifest in, e.g., Christianity?  Which god is the One?  Or even in Zoroastrianism, the prime candidate for being considered the de-facto if not de-jure mother of all Indo-European (not "Abrahamic") "monotheistic" religions?  They did have one god...  for a while.  Ahura Mazda, god-creator of the universe, the One God.  But then, he also created the twin gods,  Spenta Mainyu and Angra Mainyu (Ormazd and Ahriman), the good guy and the bad guy (interestingly, they associated the good guy with matter and the bad guy with spirit!)  And then Ahura Mazda proceeds to sort of turn into Spenta Mainyu and gets to be identified with him.  So, from one god to three to two.  But that's not the end of the story, because later, around the 3rd century, the paternity of Ahura Mazda is questioned and the twin gods are assigned a new father, Zurvan (Time!), and get to rule the world alternately.  So, from two to three (one of which is two, so maybe a total of four) to one at a time.  It can get mighty confusing.

 

I think the source of the confusion is the gratuitous over-emphasis on the importance of monotheism as the explanation for socio-political peculiarities purportedly consequential to this mindset.  One of those theories that came to be accepted as fact, whereas all the facts point to its much lesser relevance to what we're going to have concocted against us socio-economically.  Mongolian religion that managed not to clash with shamanism in any way was, after all, also monotheistic, recognizing only one god -- Tengri.  The Mongolian khans also derived their "mandate of heaven," their right to rule, from this god alone.  Sometimes they tolerated other gods and sometimes they didn't.  It doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things.  Even unequivocally polytheistic religions still had a supreme ruler, it's always a hierarchy.  If they have the same methods and share the same goals, it doesn't matter that much if whatever sits on top is One or many, or many aspects of One (what Christians call the Trinity and what my scaled and feathered informant calls The Consortium.)      

 

Ahura Mazda does look familiar...  

 

Edited January 6, 2020 by Taomeow

[Apech]

On 1/6/2020 at 5:37 PM, Taomeow said:

 

In theory, yes.  But how does it manifest in, e.g., Christianity?  Which god is the One?  Or even in Zoroastrianism, the prime candidate for being considered the de-facto if not de-jure mother of all Indo-European (not "Abrahamic") "monotheistic" religions?  They did have one god...  for a while.  Ahura Mazda, god-creator of the universe, the One God.  But then, he also created the twin gods,  Spenta Mainyu and Angra Mainyu (Ormazd and Ahriman), the good guy and the bad guy (interestingly, they associated the good guy with matter and the bad guy with spirit!)  And then Ahura Mazda proceeds to sort of turn into Spenta Mainyu and gets to be identified with him.  So, from one god to three to two.  But that's not the end of the story, because later, around the 3rd century, the paternity of Ahura Mazda is questioned and the twin gods are assigned a new father, Zurvan (Time!), and get to rule the world alternately.  So, from two to three (one of which is two, so maybe a total of four) to one at a time.  It can get mighty confusing.

 

Its quite usual for polytheistic systems to have some account of creation which goes infinite/void - oneness - two - three - many without collapsing this into monotheism - I think that the key is whether or not one's One God is identified with the infinite or not.  Even in Christianity you can have the Godhead beyond the One God - and then as you mention the 'God in three persons' of the trinity - which is itself a way of dealing with the divinity of the person of Jesus (I and my father are one).  If we use the popular term 'energy' for the root/nature of everything and by analogy with physics say that energy is a measure of both motion and potential for motion (kinetic and potential energy) within a system - then if that system is infinite - then it is both infinite motion and infinite potential for motion - without becoming two infinites.  Polytheism solves this by seeing reality as an infinite number of overlapping domains - circles whose centres are everywhere and circumference nowhere (quote Bruno et al) - which can individually or collectively stand for the whole continuum - which has the potential without a great deal of painstaking clarity of seeming confusing and even arbitrary,

 

 

On 1/6/2020 at 5:37 PM, Taomeow said:

I think the source of the confusion is the gratuitous over-emphasis on the importance of monotheism as the explanation for socio-political peculiarities purportedly consequential to this mindset.  One of those theories that came to be accepted as fact, whereas all the facts point to its much lesser relevance to what we're going to have concocted against us socio-economically.  Mongolian religion that managed not to clash with shamanism in any way was, after all, also monotheistic, recognizing only one god -- Tengri.  The Mongolian khans also derived their "mandate of heaven," their right to rule, from this god alone.  Sometimes they tolerated other gods and sometimes they didn't.  It doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things.  Even unequivocally polytheistic religions still had a supreme ruler, it's always a hierarchy.  If they have the same methods and share the same goals, it doesn't matter that much if whatever sits on top is One or many, or many aspects of One (what Christians call the Trinity and what my scaled and feathered informant calls The Consortium.)      

 

Monotheism is touted as superior to polytheism - mostly I feel because it is simpler.  But then it is in the end a concealed duality - because if god is good then how do you explain the existence of evil?  Without demoting your god to one of a pair of opposing forces of light versus dark and so on.  Whereas a polytheism allows for say a positive dark and a positive light in relation to each other and ultimately non-different within an infinite field of 'power' (?)  And the dark is then something like the unknowable, the mother of all things etc.  

 

On 1/6/2020 at 5:37 PM, Taomeow said:

Ahura Mazda does look familiar...  

 

 

Bedhety?  with curly things like the Egyptian red Crown?

[Apech]

 

 

[Nungali]

Thought I would post this here for the reference library on this subject

 

Book review . The book look goods, its on my next list .

 

https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/10/14/book-review-against-the-grain/

 

Extract;

 

" Against The Grain should be read as a prequel to Scott’s most famous work, Seeing Like A State. SLaS argued that much of what we think of as “progress” towards a more orderly world – like Prussian scientific forestry, or planned cities with wide streets – didn’t make anyone better off or grow the economy. It was “progress” only from a state’s-eye perspective of wanting everything to be legible to top-down control and taxation. He particularly criticizes the High Modernists, Le Corbusier-style architects who replaced flourishing organic cities with grandiose but sterile rectangular grids.

 

" ... Sumer just before the dawn of civilization was in many ways an idyllic place. Forget your vision of stark Middle Eastern deserts; in the Paleolithic the area where the first cities would one day arise was a great swamp. Foragers roamed the landscape, eating everything from fishes to gazelles to shellfish to wild plants. There was more than enough for everyone; “as Jack Harlan famously showed, one could gather enough [wild] grain with a flint sickle in three weeks to feed a family for a year”. Foragers alternated short periods of frenetic activity (eg catching as many gazelles as possible during their weeklong migration through the area) with longer periods of rest and recreation.

 

" And not because the new lifestyle made this happy life even happier. While hunter-gatherers enjoyed a stable and varied diet, agriculturalists subsisted almost entirely on grain; their bones display signs of significant nutritional deficiency. While hunter-gatherers were well-fed, agriculturalists were famished; their skeletons were several inches shorter than contemporaneous foragers. While hunter-gatherers worked ten to twenty hour weeks, agriculturalists lived lives of backbreaking labor. While hunter-gatherers who survived childhood usually lived to old age, agriculturalists suffered from disease, warfare, and conscription into dangerous forced labor.

 

"Scott argues that intensive grain cultivation was a natural choice not for cultivators, but for the states oppressing them. The shift from complicated and mobile food webs to a perfectly rectangular grid of wheat fields was the same sort of “progress” as scientific forestry and planned cities thousands of years later: "

Edited January 13, 2020 by Nungali

[Taomeow]

3 minutes ago, Nungali said:

Thought I would post this here for the reference library on this subject

 

Book review . The book look goods, its on my next list .

 

https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/10/14/book-review-against-the-grain/

 

Extract;

 

" Against The Grain should be read as a prequel to Scott’s most famous work, Seeing Like A State. SLaS argued that much of what we think of as “progress” towards a more orderly world – like Prussian scientific forestry, or planned cities with wide streets – didn’t make anyone better off or grow the economy. It was “progress” only from a state’s-eye perspective of wanting everything to be legible to top-down control and taxation. He particularly criticizes the High Modernists, Le Corbusier-style architects who replaced flourishing organic cities with grandiose but sterile rectangular grids.

 

" ...

And not because the new lifestyle made this happy life even happier. While hunter-gatherers enjoyed a stable and varied diet, agriculturalists subsisted almost entirely on grain; their bones display signs of significant nutritional deficiency. While hunter-gatherers were well-fed, agriculturalists were famished; their skeletons were several inches shorter than contemporaneous foragers. While hunter-gatherers worked ten to twenty hour weeks, agriculturalists lived lives of backbreaking labor. While hunter-gatherers who survived childhood usually lived to old age, agriculturalists suffered from disease, warfare, and conscription into dangerous forced labor.

 

"Scott argues that intensive grain cultivation was a natural choice not for cultivators, but for the states oppressing them. The shift from complicated and mobile food webs to a perfectly rectangular grid of wheat fields was the same sort of “progress” as scientific forestry and planned cities thousands of years later: "

 

Read it some twenty years ago.  Count this book among a dozen or so that were formative for the worldview and overall perspective I gained since then.   Glad it's on your next list.  I'd move it to the top of the list.  

[Taomeow]

On 1/8/2020 at 11:10 AM, Apech said:

 

 

 

Thanks for the reference.  I usually listen to something this long in the car if I have to travel somewhere far -- so I listened to a couple of Jordan Peterson's podcasts while going back and forth between San Diego and Los Angeles last year, though not this one.  I am more of a fan of his daughter's, one of the carnivores (there's a Youtube channel dedicated to her explorations, her name is Mikhaila Peterson).  She credits "zerocarb" with saving her life -- and she eventually got her parents on that diet too, which apparently made her dad quite energetic and consequently prolific.  I'll give a listen if I have a chance.  

[Apech]

29 minutes ago, Taomeow said:

 

Thanks for the reference.  I usually listen to something this long in the car if I have to travel somewhere far -- so I listened to a couple of Jordan Peterson's podcasts while going back and forth between San Diego and Los Angeles last year, though not this one.  I am more of a fan of his daughter's, one of the carnivores (there's a Youtube channel dedicated to her explorations, her name is Mikhaila Peterson).  She credits "zerocarb" with saving her life -- and she eventually got her parents on that diet too, which apparently made her dad quite energetic and consequently prolific.  I'll give a listen if I have a chance.  

 

This one isn't JP ... its just that the youtuber is a bit of a fan of his and tends to put his name in everything - but he doesn't really feature in this.

[Apech]

 

Just for discussion.