NationStates Jolt Archive

I don't see metaphors. lies are in there, but notes as part of an ideology.
the source (http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=myth)
I do. (http://www.hyperdictionary.com/dictionary/Myth)

"Myth: A story of great but unknown age which originally embodied a belief regarding some fact or phenomenon of experience, and in which often the forces of ture and of the soul are personified; an ancient legend of a god, a hero, the origin of a race, etc.; a wonder story of prehistoric origin; a popular fable which is, or has been, received as historical."

"Metaphor: The transference of the relation between one set of objects to another set for the purpose of brief explanation; a compressed simile."

I do assert that language is made up of both words and meanings, but rather than calling all of language both arbitrary and not arbitrary I acknoweldge that it should not be judged based on one some of it's constituent parts, so we say that language is in part arbitrary and in part not arbitrary, thus escaping the paradox.

Then we both have valid, but differing, views on the subject.

alright use your logic, but all evidence besides the first written source points to ancestral and nature-spirit worship as the first religion, including the fact that all other religions are built the back of those fundamentals. oh, and 'fundemental type' means, more closely, 'archetype', not 'metaphor'.


I can't really use any logic since I still don't know exactly what you call spirit worship. Since, in a sense, worshiping a spirit and worshiping a god/goddess are the same thing.
As well, people have organised their worship, thus organising the religion physicly, around temples since they settled areas. Civilization began by people setteling in an area and farming, they settled around temples they built.

And by organised religion, I was refering in my previous posts, to a religion with beliefs, widely accecpted and taught beliefs. Not with a physical hierarchy like say Catholocism with the Pope and all.

anyway, got to go. nice to know I have a few new enemies now. anyway...

babies :mp5: :mp5: :mp5:

Actually, the closest scholars have had to relating the story of Inannas inprisonment by her sister in Irkalla, and the subsequent use of her husband Dumuzi, who was the mortal king of one of the cities (Uruk I believe... she has a reputation of going after the leader of Uruk) as a replacement for her inprisonment in Irkalla. Since by Sumerian religious docterine, you are stuck in Irkalla once you go there, unless you can find someone to replace you.

Anyway, the closest scholars have is the crop cycle. Unfortunatly, it doesn't fit completely well in the way most people put it, since Dumuzi does not ever leave Irkalla after his inprisonment.
And besides, Nanna, the moon god, and Utu, the sun god, are already represented in a mythical sense of Irkalla, since they go there at certian times and provide judgement for the dead.
Isn't her sister's name Ereshkigal? (i.e. is my source book totally lame?)

Isn't her sister's name Ereshkigal? (i.e. is my source book totally lame?)


Yea, and Ereskigal is the ruler of the afterworld, which is called Irkalla (Or Aralli).

Unless you're gonna take the Semetic version (Akkadian, Assyrian, Babyloanian), in which case I think they had Ereskigal marry someone, and he became leader, and Inanna's name got changed to Ishtar. And plenty of other changes.

What source book are you using? Alot of stuff stuill circulated is out of date. Considering Sumer was only actually discovered in the last century.

Yea, and Ereskigal is the ruler of the afterworld, which is called Irkalla (Or Aralli).

Unless you're gonna take the Semetic version (Akkadian, Assyrian, Babyloanian), in which case I think they had Ereskigal marry someone, and he became leader, and Inanna's name got changed to Ishtar. And plenty of other changes.

What source book are you using? Alot of stuff stuill circulated is out of date. Considering Sumer was only actually discovered in the last century.
Ah, I read Irkalla as the sister's name. My bad.

My source for this myth is "The Myth of the Goddess: Evolution of an Image." The book is a bit slanted towards feminism, but if you look past that it references a lot of information and draws it together in a comprehensive look at the evolution of the goddess image from palaeolithic to Catholic times.

Ah, I read Irkalla as the sister's name. My bad.

My source for this myth is "The Myth of the Goddess: Evolution of an Image." The book is a bit slanted towards feminism, but if you look past that it references a lot of information and draws it together in a comprehensive look at the evolution of the goddess image from palaeolithic to Catholic times.


Ah, well, I'm comming at it from the stabnce of an actual practitioner of the religion.
That and I've read every book in the province regarding Sumer, Akkad, or the Assyro-Babylonians, espically their religious beliefs (since it's what I was seeking in the first place). Lots and lots of books..

An example of the ways of Irkalla is in the Penguin Classics publication of "The Epic of Gilgamesh", where it includes lengthy descriptions, as well as the entire epic in it's Babylonaian form (the only Gilgamesh for actually), and it's predecessor, the epic poems of Bilgames.

There are others, but if you want to know those books, you have to at least wait until Monday so I can go write down the names of authors from the nearest libraries, and my university library.

Ah, well, I'm comming at it from the stabnce of an actual practitioner of the religion.
That and I've read every book in the province regarding Sumer, Akkad, or the Assyro-Babylonians, espically their religious beliefs (since it's what I was seeking in the first place). Lots and lots of books..

An example of the ways of Irkalla is in the Penguin Classics publication of "The Epic of Gilgamesh", where it includes lengthy descriptions, as well as the entire epic in it's Babylonaian form (the only Gilgamesh for actually), and it's predecessor, the epic poems of Bilgames.

There are others, but if you want to know those books, you have to at least wait until Monday so I can go write down the names of authors from the nearest libraries, and my university library.
How does one be a practitioner of a religion many millennia dead? :)

Here is the gist of the palaeolithic lunar myth, which embodies not only the myth of Innana/Dumuzi, Isis/Osiris, Cybelle/Attis, Artemis/Hippolytus, Aphrodite/Adonis, but even, in a modified form, Persephone (Kore)/Hades.

"The cycle of the moon is four-fold: it is born from the side of the sun (first crescent moon), lives to maturity (to fullness), wanes and dies (from full to last crescent) and then experiences a passage through the afterlife (new moon). The emphasis of this cycle is on its final stage, the passage through the unknown and subsequent rebirth into consciousness (the three days of the month when the moon is 'new' or hidden by the sun's light before it becomes visible again). The lunar myths involving the goddesses and her child/lover deal with reincarnation and the eternal cycles that fertilize life on Earth. In an endless repetition that is played out every month, the moon goddess loses the one she loves to death, the underworld. These myths touch on our fears and emotions as the goddess experiences loss and engages in a frightening journey through the afterlife to restore life. It is this period in the world of death, when she is but a ghost or soul, that the heroine acts with pure instinct to find her counterpart and start the cycle again. This journey through the unknown is a type of lunacy."

This is the symbolism of the Moon in astrology.

How does one be a practitioner of a religion many millennia dead? :)

Here is the gist of the palaeolithic lunar myth, which embodies not only the myth of Innana/Dumuzi, Isis/Osiris, Cybelle/Attis, Artemis/Hippolytus, Aphrodite/Adonis, but even, in a modified form, Persephone (Kore)/Hades.

"The cycle of the moon is four-fold: it is born from the side of the sun (first crescent moon), lives to maturity (to fullness), wanes and dies (from full to last crescent) and then experiences a passage through the afterlife (new moon). The emphasis of this cycle is on its final stage, the passage through the unknown and subsequent rebirth into consciousness (the three days of the month when the moon is 'new' or hidden by the sun's light before it becomes visible again). The lunar myths involving the goddesses and her child/lover deal with reincarnation and the eternal cycles that fertilize life on Earth. In an endless repetition that is played out every month, the moon goddess loses the one she loves to death, the underworld. These myths touch on our fears and emotions as the goddess experiences loss and engages in a frightening journey through the afterlife to restore life. It is this period in the world of death, when she is but a ghost or soul, that the heroine acts with pure instinct to find her counterpart and start the cycle again. This journey through the unknown is a type of lunacy."

This is the symbolism of the Moon in astrology.

I think it's quite moronic to assume all goddess/lover myths from everywhere are related to that exact ideal.
Espically since the sacred marriage rite performed at the Akitu (new year) is the metaphor for the lunar cycle used in the Sumerian religion.
And, indeed, the marriage rite origonated with Inanna and Dumuzi, but it was a seperate myth.

And to be a practitioner of any religion, all you have to do is believe it, and practise it.
I'm pretty limited in what I can do, so I rely on translated texts (attempting my hand at this too), and books. Hence why I've read so many books on the subject.

Another!

http://emporium.turnpike.net/C/cs/els/sld009.htm

It was in two "secular peer-reviewed journals"! Wow!

http://atl-perimeter.hiexpress.com/pages/scientific_proof_for_the_existence_of_god.html

"Conclusion 1: The odds against any one of the above four phenomena (P1-P4) being created by sheer accident from the Cosmic Energy Web are so staggering that they effectively equal zero.

Conclusion 2: In addition, the odds of the first three phenomena (P1-P3) being created from the Cosmic Energy Web by sheer accident in exactly such a way that all three of them together form the only possible conditions for P4 (life) are also so staggering as to be incalculable and are also equal to zero.

Conclusion 3: In spite of literally impossible odds, phenomena P1-P3 have been created in a building block manner from the Cosmic Energy Web in the only way possible to produce life: P1 + P2 + P 3 = P4.

Conclusion 4: P1 + P2 + P 3 = P4 = Zero Percent Probability of Random Occurrence for the Existence of Life."

Or maybe not.

I look at the earth itself and how almost "perfectly" things are in nature, the fine details and I figure that not random explosion did that. I am not a creationist or a evolutionist, I'm a theistic evolutionist. This is a mixture of both which means God had a guiding hand in creation but things also happened without him. He was there to make sure nothing went completely wrong and all life died out. I know I'll get questioned for that but whatever. So, the natural world around me is my "proof".

QUESTION? What proof can you give me of God's existence Being <----(ANSWER)

And I'm not talking about the Bible being written by God through Man line, or something you could easily infer a different meaning from. I'm talking about absolute, concrete proof. Can you give it to me?

Can you give me concrete proof he doesn't. That's what I thought. :fluffle:

I do, personally, feel a belief in something higher than us, whether a god or something different. I just still argue that it's totally unprovable either way, at least by what I've currently seen.

Ok I admit I haven't read every post in this thread but this is pretty much how I feel too. To me though, proving that there is or isn't a God is sort of missing the point: you either just have the faith and believe, or you don't. If he/she exists, I don't know that God owes us anything. God probably could prove his or her existence, but also by virtue of being omnipotent, could make him or herself unknowable by human means or minds. I don't really know what I believe, but sadly I don't think we can know one way or the other. There's just a lot of stuff that our minds can't understand completely (yet, anyway! Maybe someday we'll evolve enough to know it.)

Originally Posted by Branin
Can you give me concrete proof he doesn't. That's what I thought.

No one can disprove the existence of god because of what the idea of god means. If someone came up with some disproof of the existence of god, theists could always argue that God is all-powerful and can therefore create us to be unable to comprehend His existence. However, because god is supposedly all powerful, he could offer us proof of his existence if he does exist. Why has he not done this yet? I say it is because god does not exist.

This problem is similar to the question "How do we know that the world as we know it isn't just a computer generated matrix, like in the movies?" We can never disprove this because no matter what we observe within this world, believers of the matrix could always argue that those observances are part of the matrix. However, we could observe things that would prove that we are in a matrix, such as what Neo experienced in the movie when he escaped. Why have we not experienced anything like this yet? I say it is because we are not in a computer generated matrix.