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Thoughts on Eris?

Started by Nephew Twiddleton, September 09, 2010, 08:28:11 PM

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Telarus

Quote from: The Great Pope of OUTSIDE on September 26, 2010, 04:08:48 PM
So....Solomon was effectively worshiping Eris when he turned away from YHWH?

Also, having read up on the early worship of Asherah, I wouldn't say he was "turning away from YHWH", but that the propagandists who recorded those events gave that spin to it. From the Cabalist stuff I've read, what the YHWH priests had a problem with was worshiping other deities "above" him. From a review of "household and family religion in antiquity, edited by John Bodel and Saul M. Olyan":
QuoteNext comes the first of the chapters on Mesopotamia. Here, Karel van de Toorn makes a distinction between the god the family worships and devotion to one's ancestors. The family's god tended not to be one of the great Mesopotamian deities, like Anu, Enlil, and Ishtar, because those were too grand. The family gods might intercede on the family's behalf with the great gods, but the great gods were beyond the family's immediate reach. These chapters were eye-openers.

In the next chapter, Daniel E. Fleming looks at how households integrate private and public social lives, the role of the god Dagan, and asks questions about the family's ancestor worship. I found myself lost in the Dagan area and the next chapter, on Ugarit, filled with transliterated cuneiform (?) will require greater concentration at a later date. So I skipped to the sections on Greece and Rome, which continued the theme of ancestor worship coupled with worship of another set of gods, and then went back to those on Egypt, which seems to have included the dead among the gods, and then Israel/Judaea. It was the last that startled me.

Judaism is a monotheistic religion, although the Commandment to hold no gods above Yahweh suggests that there really were other gods. Still, I thought, the ancient Hebrews would all have worshiped Yahweh, even if they sometimes put him a level with some of the Babylonian deities. Apparently, I was wrong. As is suitable to a book about the distinction between public and private forms of worship, Yahweh was above the household gods on a national or extra-familial level, but pre-exile Hebrew families did not necessarily perform any rituals to honor Yahweh. Instead, in times of trouble other gods, like the mother-goddess Asherah were invoked to mediate with Yahweh. Requests from the family could also be made to Baal or spirits of the dead, instead of Yahweh, since families chose their own family gods. The chapter "Family Religion in Ancient Israel" is by Rainer Albertz.

Similarly, we have the 5 Apostles, especially St. Gulick (the "messenger", who is a roach).

The Blessing of St. Gulik:

O blessed St Gulik, Guru of the Ganja, beloved of hitchhikers, protector of dumpster divers, and others of much ilk, ride shotgun with me. May the highway patrol be distracted by shiny objects. May the axe murderers give me a smile and a nod and let me go on my way. May the sun shine on my road, except when it rains. May the beers be cold and my fellow travelers beautiful. May the weed stay lit and most powerful. May the rental car be blessed and brought into your fold. And if you don't listen to prayer, then to hell with you.
Telarus, KSC,
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(0o)  Tender to the Edible Zen Garden, Ratcheting Metallic Sex Doll of The End Times,
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