Aphrodite?
She's alive and well.
The last time I saw her..............
Posted on 03/26/2006 6:37:32 AM PST by Feldkurat_Katz
By the power of Zeus, ancient gods are back
Worship of the 12 gods of Mount Olympus associated with ancient Greece could, thanks to a decision by a first-instance court in Athens, become part of the country’s contemporary culture.
In a ruling made public yesterday, the court allowed the formation of an association whose members claim to worship Zeus and the other 11 gods.
“I support everybody’s right to practice their faith, whichever it may be, without hindrance,” said Apostolos Vrachiolidis, a journalist and one of the founding members of the association. Members of the group deny that they engage in idolatry. “We simply want to worship the gods of our ancestors freely,” a member who preferred to remain anonymous told Kathimerini.
The Church of Greece takes a dim view of this type of worship, linking it to New Age practices.
Aphrodite?
She's alive and well.
The last time I saw her..............
Likewise, morals are such a construction of idols used by the Left as a rationale for them to demand compliance to their wishes in politics, which most often are a skewed mess of fallacies in logic. Morals are a deceptive replacement for the avoidance of sin.
Today, "morals" are defined by a quasi-religious pagan philosophy based on esoteric hobgoblins. A greater number of "atheists" and "pagans" adopt the same hackneyed tenets of a false Judaic-Christian ideal (golden calf). They also subscribe to the Judaic fetishism of "sin," but will fight to their death in denial of it. Most of them are so wrapped up in their own polemics that they have become nothing more than pathetic anti-Christians with the same false hypocritical philosophy. They just slap a new label on it hoping nobody will notice - - they replace the idea of "avoiding sin" with "morals."
Morality and all of its associated concepts are from the belief some higher power defines what is correct in human behavior. Today, "morals" are a religious pagan philosophy of esoteric hobgoblins. Transfiguration is a pantheon of fantasies as the medium of infinitization. Others get derision for having an unwavering Judaic belief in Yahweh or Yeshua, although their critics and enemies will evangelize insertion of phantasmagoric fetishisms into secular law.
Plato’s Apology is a drama that portrays the current Left wing frustration with talk radio in America. The people of Athens (the Left) are demanding that Socrates (Rush) be silent. Socrates refuses and the elite of Athens demand the execution of Socrates. The modern Left wants a figurative execution of Rush Limbaugh and others like him (although ‘figurative’ would quickly become tangible, if the Left ever had the unchecked power they desire, just as it was with Socrates). In terms of this ‘figurative execution’, the cancellation of the Michael Savage and Dr. Laura Schlessinger television shows are perfect examples!
Try an experiment. The next time you are confronted by a neo-pagan, New Age animal rights eco-fascist who claims humans were not "designed" or "meant" to eat animal flesh, ask them about the origin of their creationist philosophy. Inherent in such a claim is the idea that there is a "designer" or some divinity of "meaning" in human existence. Would they apply this to abortion, embryonic stem cells, or homosexuality? No?
There is an idol associated with each one of them. I have a "neighbor" down the road (about ten miles away) that has his driveway lined with them. They are real kooks.
Oh well, nothing like advertizing "idolators live here" when the Muzzies come looking .
Nope. It's on a fish, which is on a cow, which is standing on a rock which is floating in the water- or something like that according to Muhammad.
Lots of creation myths out there. Turtles figure in more than one of them, and from different parts of the world. I'm going with the turtle thing. That's it. A bunch of gods said it. I'm going with it.
Tabari I:219 “When Allah wanted to create the creation, He brought forth smoke from the water. The smoke hovered loftily over it. He called it ‘heaven.’ Then He dried out the water and made it earth. He split it and made it seven earths on Sunday. He created the earth upon a big fish, that being the fish mentioned in the Qur’an. By the Pen, the fish was in the water. The water was upon the back of a small rock. The rock was on the back of an angel. The angel was on a big rock. The big rock was in the wind. The fish became agitated. As a result, the earth quaked, so Allah anchored the mountains and made it stable. This is why the Qur’an says, ‘Allah made for the earth firmly anchored mountains, lest it shake you up.’”
You don't want to cause another Muhamman riot do you? /s
Maybe there can be a "turtle faction" and a "tortoise faction," fighting each other for control over the religion and calling each other heretics. "The earth rests upon a giant turtle!" "No it doesn't! It rests upan a giant tortoise!" "Turtle!" "Tortoise!" "Hereitic!" "Hereitic!" BANG! BANG!
oops "Muhammadan"
Moses... United States' Library of Congress. [14] An image, in the most strict signification of the word, is the resemblance of something visible: in which sense the fantastical forms, apparitions, or seemings of visible bodies to the sight, are only images; such as are the show of a man or other thing in the water, by reflection or refraction; or of the sun or stars by direct vision in the air; which are nothing real in the things seen, nor in the place where they seem to be; nor are their magnitudes and figures the same with that of the object, but changeable, by the variation of the organs of sight, or by glasses; and are present oftentimes in our imagination, and in our dreams, when the object is absent; or changed into other colours, and shapes, as things that depend only upon the fancy. And these are the images which are originally and most properly called ideas and idols, and derived from the language of the Grecians, with whom the word eido signifieth to see. They are also called phantasms, which is in the same language, apparitions. And from these images it is that one of the faculties of man's nature is called the imagination. And from hence it is manifest that there neither is, nor can be, any image made of a thing invisible. [15] It is also evident that there can be no image of a thing infinite: for all the images and phantasms that are made by the impression of things visible are figured. But figure is quantity every way determined, and therefore there can be no image of God, nor of the soul of man, nor of spirits; but only of bodies visible, that is, bodies that have light in themselves, or are by such enlightened. Hobbes, Thomas. Leviathan: with selected variants from the Latin edition of 1668. Ed. Edwin Curley. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1994. Part IV. Of the Kingdom of Darkness
Chap. xlv. Of Demonology and other Relics of the Religion of the Gentiles.
http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/texts/hobbes/leviathan-contents.html
Sorry. I've read entirely too much Steven King...
I just thought it was fascinating that that debate's still going on almost two thousand years later. The more times change...
I have always understood those (art scholars do teach this) as rays of light and wisdom that emanated from his being.
Moses was one tough S.O.B. in his own right as a man, let alone being considered a divinely inspired warrior.
Though, he was an agent of a lot of pandemonium for the pagan Egyptians, wasn't he???
There are a number of examples in Oedipus Rex that show some similarities to Judaic tradition. Moses was also cast off into the world like Oedipus as an infant. They were taken into royal households to become kings. Both could have claimed the kingdoms of two nations. Ultimately, neither of them did. Moses was forbidden entry into the Promised Land and declined to take the crown of pharaoh in the kingdom of Egypt, a crown which he very well could have taken.
...and objects bearing the names of Amenhotep II, Thutmose IV and Amenhotep III.
Confusing... I have noticed many stories written about such topics are so convoluted in chronology...
“In this connection it is interesting that Oedipus, whose parentage is regularly ascribed to Laius, is also called in some ancient sources the son of Helios (sun)1 Oedipus’ descent from Laius is a vital element in the legend; such an unmotivated change in the parentage of the legendary hero seems strange but is understandable if the prototype of the legendary hero was Akhnaton.A royal son and descendent of the god Ra, like other pharaohs before him, his claim to divinity soon demanded an equality with his father, Aton, the sun.
"Thou art an eternity like the Aten, beautiful like the Aten who gave him being, Nefer-kheperu-ra (Akhnaton), who fashions mankind and gives existence to generations. He is fixed as the heaven in which Aten is." 2
So wrote his foreign minister in a panegyric to the king. Next Akhnaton insisted that he had created himself, like Ra. Of Ra-Amon it was said he was the "husband of his mother." The "favorite concrete expression for a self-existent or self created being (was) ‘husband of his mother.’" 3
He claimed to be Ra-Aton, and in this spirit he also took over his father’s name, Nebmare (Neb maatre), as if he himself was his own father.
1. "Auch ein Helios wurde als Vater des Oedipus genannt." L.W. Daly’ in Pauly-Wissowa, Real- Encyclopädie der classichen Altertumswissenschaft, article "Oedipus," Vol. XVII, Col. 2108. Cf.Also W.H. Roscher, Ausführliches Lexikon der griechischen und römischen Mythologie, article "Oedipus" by O. Höfer, Vol. III, Cols. 703, 708.
2. The Tomb of Tutu (Davies, the Rock Tombs of el-Amarna, VI, 13).
3. W.M. Flinders Petrie, "Egyptian Tales" (XVIII-XIX Dynasties) (1895), pp. 125-126. More properly translated "bull of his mother."
He claimed to be Ra-Aton, and in this spirit he also took over his father’s name, Nebmare (Neb maatre), as if he himself was his own father.”
_
(Velikovsky, Immanuel. Oedipus and Akhnaton; Myth and History. New York: Doubleday, 1960., p 71-72)
Wasn't Akhenaten also Amenhotep IV, and had his father's name (Amenhotep III) effaced from all the temples (which was akin to murdering his soul)???
“Behold, I am Set, the creator of confusion, who creates both the tempest and the storm throughout the length and breadth of the heavens.”(Naville, Edouard, trans. Egyptian Book of the Dead of the XVIII to XX Dynasties, Berlin, 1886, p. 39.)
Eh? The horns on Moses were the result of a mistranslation in St. Jerome's Latin Vulgate. Instead of coming down from Mt. Sinai "with a burned face" (IIRC) Jerome translated it as "with horns." From Exodus:
34:29. And when Moses came down from the Mount Sinai, he held the two tables of the testimony, and he knew not that his face was horned from the conversation of the Lord.* Cumque descenderet Moses de monte Sinai tenebat duas tabulas testimonii et ignorabat quod cornuta esset facies sua ex consortio sermonis DeiAs for the putative neo-pagan Greeks: If they don't have Homer memorized, they are poseurs.
34:30. And Aaron and the children of Israel seeing the face of Moses horned, were afraid to come near. Videntes autem Aaron et filii Israhel cornutam Mosi faciem timuerunt prope accedere
I was merely posting connections between mythology, idol worship, religious icons, and the present discussion on worshipping Zeus in Greece.
Seems a few people at the beginning of the thread (not you) were using the occasion to show their ignorance regarding pagan influences upon christianity.
~A god/goddess by any other name is a patron saint.~
I've noticed that self-described pagans are, as a rule, always female. I know there are exceptions, but they prove the rule. The apartment complex I used to live in had several of these witches.
I tried to steer clear of them as much as possible, in the same way I try to stear clear of a jar of nitroglycerine.
Yes, I know. I thought the relation of the two topics on both threads would interest you... they are related...
Socrates saw that fallacy in Plato’s Euthyphro, when he asked Euthyphro what was pleasing to the gods, and how could someone be pious to the gods when they all wanted something different from the others. It made no sense to observe the divinity of one god and ignore the demands of another god. How could a person know what it was to be in accordance with the will of the gods in this respect?
The origins of drama come from the esoteric ideals directly related to religion. Religious ritual is psychodrama designed to conjure up images in the mind of the viewers and/or participants. This is illustrated no better than by the Greek traditions of using masks in their plays.
The actor can hide himself behind the illusion of a character’s mask, the audience can focus not on the actor, but on the image of the character represented - - one form of idolatry, among others in pagan Greek polytheism.
The Greeks were idolaters and were pagans. The images in their drama were a representation of something. What did Oedipus represent?
To the pagan Egyptians, the pharaohs were gods. Gods had their own special privileges of divinity. The pagan Egyptians had their own pantheon of gods like the pagan Greeks, several of which the Greeks adopted. (Set and Typhon are convenient examples.)
The pagan Egyptians were also idolaters like the Greeks; their temples, architecture and art are replete with sacred idols. They both practiced human sacrifice. (These practices extended to the pagan Romans as well.) Is Oedipus representative of the pharaoh Akhnaton?
One of Sigmund Freud’s earlier followers, Karl Abraham, contributed an essay to the first volume of Imago, published by Freud in 1912, entitled Amenhotep IV (Akhnaton). This was of interest in that the essay talks about how Akhnaton did not entomb his mother Tiy next to her husband after her death and that Akhnaton’s rivalry with his father for possession of his mother extended beyond death.
Dr. Velikovsky has many critics, but his assertions are most profound. There appears to be a particular level of viciousness directed toward Velikovsky from many Egyptologists. Like Akhnaton, Velikovsky is reviled for tearing down some idolatries of previously accepted thinking. Examinations of reaction concerning his other books (Peoples of the Sea and Ages in Chaos) are ample evidence of this in such historical and literary circles of research. I attribute much of this to the ancient conflict between the pagan and the Judaic that still rages (even from within Judaism itself, see the Steven Plaut article: The Rise Of Tikkun Olam Paganism) although the pagan civilizations of Greece and Egypt are long since dead. This conflict was represented by Othello, Death of a Salesman, and many other places in art, literature and science. Here with Oedipus, it is also represented in the modern arguments over historical chronology, pagan idolatry of the Greeks and Egyptians, along with modern idolatries commonly found in both domestic and international politics.
The Sun and Bacchus are Apollo and Dionysus, two gods, or two aspects of religious experience from the ancient Greeks, and their juxtaposition is of some importance - - a statement of belief in the duality of human nature, symbolized by Apollo as the light of reason, and Dionysus as the underground power of emotion (see Paglia's Sexual Personae).
Egyptians worshipped Harpocrates, the god of silence; for which reason he is always pictured holding a finger on his mouth. Athenians had a statue of brass, which they bowed to; a figure made without a tongue, to declare secrecy thereby. The Romans had a goddess of silence called Angerona, which was pictured like Harpocrates, holding her finger on her mouth, in token of secrecy.
There is an occult nature to certain politics and this progression of culture (ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome and the modern iconographic idolatry of Marxist paganism) can easily be illustrated, but is most often ignored or rejected for reasons of political expediency, like the aforementioned pagan idolatries of secrecy and silence. The use of such religion is essential for many aspects of political power over the ignorant, unwashed masses. It is no surprise that Akhnaton's monotheistic approach was completely and abruptly destroyed by the successive generation, restoring the pantheistic idolatries of previous pharaohs. This phenomenon is not historically isolated and is played out in a myriad of instances today.
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