Greek Mythology

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03 Sep '09 18:03

Ullr
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03 Sep '09 22:363 edits
Originally posted by robbie carrobie
Also that a bible character hung himself upside down on a tree and blinded his eye so that he could gain the mead of poetry
Ullr
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03 Sep '09 22:383 edits
Originally posted by robbie carrobie
I read the sagas when i was a teenager, and found them quite tedious. so lets get this correct, you would have us believe that the story of creation as envisaged by the ancient Norsemen is similar in scope to the biblical creation account? giants, frost giants, huge cows? Also that a bible character hung himself upside down on a tree and blinded his ...[text shortened]... ood man, i have yet to find a myth in scripture with any parallels or of the nature of paganism.
Ullr
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03 Sep '09 22:39
Originally posted by robbie carrobie
rubbish, then why do in a similar fashion some of the ancient Celtic works date their genealogies back to Adam? so your claim that they are horse manure is in-itself a heap of double concentrated horse manure.

ok, so its not similar in content, but similar in nature or structure, mmm, pretty damning evidence of a real and lasting correlation, don't you think?
I didn't say anything about Celtic Mythology. I'm saying the geneologies of Norse mythology are not biblical ripoffs. I don't now Celtic mythology very well and unlike you I don't try to act like I do.
Ullr
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03 Sep '09 22:403 edits
Originally posted by Ullr
Regarding your comment about Odin and the mead of poetry
Okay this post isn't coming out so well. Here is what I tried to type.

By the way this indicates your knowledge of Norse mythology is rather poor. Rather than just shooting your mouth off why don't you get your ducks in a row first.

Odin hung himself on the tree and discovered the secret of the runes not the mead of poetry. Thus gaining knowledge and wisdom that would be shared with mankind.

Maybe not so disimilar to the ordeal of Christ's crucifixition? Yeah I know heads will spin at that thought.
Ullr
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03 Sep '09 22:51
And I just have to say. It is amazing to me how some Christians get their knickers in knot when you try to tell them that the Old Testament is Mythology.

What is even more amazing is that these same people believe that of all the peoples of the world throughout history only the Jews didn't have a mythology. What they had was the real deal. Well except when it comes to the questiion of the Messiah that is. Then they're wrong. They're right about everything else that came before but wrong about the Messiah. Amazing!
~~robbie carrobie~~
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03 Sep '09 22:521 edit
Originally posted by Ullr
Okay this post isn't coming out so well. Here is what I tried to type.

By the way this indicates your knowledge of Norse mythology is rather poor. Rather than just shooting your mouth off why don't you get your ducks in a row first.

Odin hung himself on the tree and discovered the secret of the runes not the mead of poetry. Thus gaining knowledge and w ...[text shortened]... imilar to the ordeal of Christ's crucifixition? Yeah I know heads will spin at that thought.
ok , so you are trying to be nice to me now? even though i pretend to understand things about Celtic mythology, when in reality i don't know anything? i was a teenager when i read it, can you remember things in detail from fifteen years ago? but you are correct, i will shut up and leave you guys in peace, please no sending balloons up in celebration!
Ullr
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04 Sep '09 01:551 edit
Originally posted by robbie carrobie
ok , so you are trying to be nice to me now? even though i pretend to understand things about Celtic mythology, when in reality i don't know anything? i was a teenager when i read it, can you remember things in detail from fifteen years ago? but you are correct, i will shut up and leave you guys in peace, please no sending balloons up in celebration!
No Robbie I can't remember things perfectly that I read many years ago. But here's the difference. I don't post comments about passages in the Bible unless I take the time to read and understand it first. You should give others the same courtesy.

And why should I be nice to you when my initial attempt at a reasonable discussion was immediately met by you with sarcasm and comments like "get a grip". So you can cut the passive aggressive bs you're trying to pull right now.
twhitehead
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04 Sep '09 04:54
How about the stories surrounding father Christmas? Over the years they have grown and got more and more elaborate and are often told to children as fact. I don't know any adults or religions that take him seriously though.
In society today though we often do find small religions that have started from myths or stories that the rest of us know to be fictional.
black beetle
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04 Sep '09 06:13
Interesting thread.

Let’s try a comparison between Athena and Jesus: Athena was born adult, powerful and shiny, ready for combat and at the same time ready for arts, well versed in philosophy and science and ready to rule, and she came into life jumping out of Zeus' fractured skull. And she had nothing to prove or to declare, she came simply to rule -for the ancient Greeks amongst else she was definitely a powerful and intelligent goddess. However Jesus was born as a helpless child, he declared that whoever sees him he sees the father -and he had to prove it-, and he suffered a painful death.

The Catholics call Maria, the mother of Jesus, Stella Maris (Star of the Sea). The meditators of QBLH call the third sephira “Mara” too, and this means “sea”, however the root of the word means also “bitter”. Mind you, the main vision of the meditator who meditates over the third sephira is the vision of Sorrow, and Sorrow is a note that triggers the vision of Jesus on the cross -and also triggers the vision of Buddha’s doctrine (life is suffering).

So the mother of Jesus is understood also as Stella Maris and amongst else she is the symbol of the experience of the Sorrow that it is caused from virtually from Life and Death (cause-effect, therefore karma). And of course on the other hand, another “star of the sea” was Venus, who was born on the surface of the waves. Why she was born from the ocean? Because the ocean is considered the dynamic source of Life. And why on the surface? Because the “ripple” (wave) is a peak equivalent to the manifestation of Life. Now, the reader of the Mahabharata knows that the reason for the creation of the Universe is Love, whilst the believers of the Abrahamic religions amongst else they acknowledge that this is the case too. Etc, etc.

In my opinion this is a method (amongst many) that one could conduct in order to try to find out if there is indeed a synthesis between the pagan myths and the core religious beliefs. I think that it is false to believe that the pagan myths are a deviation from the so called “absolute truth”, a “truth” that one has to gain solely by means of this religion or of that religion. It seems to me that one has to really understand the meaning of the pagan myths to the people that they were practicing them, for they were a part of their “truth” just like as the NT is not considered a myth by the Christians but the apocalypse of their so called “absolute truth”
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Bosse de Nage
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04 Sep '09 07:21
Originally posted by black beetle

So the mother of Jesus is understood also as Stella Maris and amongst else she is the symbol of the experience of the Sorrow that it is caused from virtually from Life and Death (cause-effect, therefore karma). And of course on the other hand, another “star of the sea” was Venus, who was born on the surface of the waves. Why she was born from the ocea ...[text shortened]... t considered a myth by the Christians but the apocalypse of their so called “absolute truth”
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Oh good, you saved the thread.

The suggestion is that, contrary to the bedtime story theory, myth has an operational structure. Of course, that is what got Jung all excited. However, when myths lose their potency, the stories will degenerate into fairytales. Also, children would probably have been told different versions than those received by initiates, who weren't allowed to speak of their experiences. Apuleius' The Golden Ass offers a good contemporary account of this sort of thing.

I have noticed that nobody has asked what the myths before the myths were. Your example of Athena is a late myth; I've heard that her myth was devised to supplant an older archetype. Where once she would have been an aspect of the Mother, she came to serve the Father.

Chances are that Jehovah was a tribal god who once had a queen and all the rest of it, but rampant monotheism put paid to that in the text. At the same time, as you've so eruditely noted, they're all still hanging from the branches of the Tree.
Bosse de Nage
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04 Sep '09 07:43
Originally posted by Ullr

There's even Judaic Mythology - it's called the Old Testament.
Of course, in its monotheism, the OT represents a different kind of mythology to that of, say, the Canaanites.
Palynka
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04 Sep '09 08:441 edit
Originally posted by ThinkOfOne
Could have this been the origin with the gods and legends becoming more and more "real" as the stories passed from generation to generation? Seems like later generations would take them literally without question.
As stories get passed from generation to generation, they tend to get wilder and exaggerated. This may contribute to the myths becoming very elaborate, but I think it makes them less believable. (In fact, eventually the decrease in believability leads to its loss of power and subsequent substitution). I think it's unlikely that if the teller doesn't believe in its "realness", the listener will be convinced of its reality. At least in a generalized way across the society.
black beetle
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04 Sep '09 08:49
Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
Oh good, you saved the thread.

The suggestion is that, contrary to the bedtime story theory, myth has an operational structure. Of course, that is what got Jung all excited. However, when myths lose their potency, the stories will degenerate into fairytales. Also, children would probably have been told different versions than those received by initi ...[text shortened]... ime, as you've so eruditely noted, they're all still hanging from the branches of the Tree.
In my opinion the myths do have operational structures.
I tend to see the myths as a product of the mind of the human, as a synopsis of the science, of the psychology, of the philosophy and of the theology of the era associated with them, a synthesis that it was used in order to enable the Human to bring up a theory of the reality -it all boils down to the theory of the reality I reckon and to the role of everything within it, the human race included. Ask a rabbi about the origins of the concept of the Three of Life -every single one of them, no matter of their very tradition, they will reply that the first QBLH diagram was designed by "angels", ie by entities of another level of the so called creation. Ask a Muslim where from his religion evolved and regardless of his very tradition he will reply that an angel described it to the prophet. The believers of every single religious tradition in the world they all srtrictly believe that their system was designed by "angels" sent by "god" in a special misson or by the so called "god" alone.

Devas, dakinis, buddhas, Metatron, gods and daemons and cliffothic entities and yidams, and tendencies and beliefs and lucid dreams and shamanic forces and the Abrahamic religions and the pagan myths and the pagan religions, and philosophy and theology and science and everything -but space and nirvana- well, they all bow to the law of cause-effect and they lack of own-being, they are empty. You see, space and nirvana are not born out of causation: we have the chance to grasp a cause for the realization of space and of nirvana but we cannot point out (yet) a cause for the production of space and of nirvana.

So methinks the pagan myths too are determined according to our intelligence, I mean according to the intelligence of our ancestors, and they are all puzzles of the miscellaneous theories of reality of our ancestors. Who knows, maybe after some thousand years the people could discuss like us right now about the "pagan myths", and they could define as myths the respectable religions and the traditions of our era...

However the primal ideas of the myths solid they remain, and we agree regarding the impression that they caused to Jung. All these abstract ideas behind every single myth, regardless its origin, are the ancestors of the metaphysical and of the philosophic systems that they evolved through time, and they are also the ancestors of the religious systems of the past and of our time. The symbols of the myths and of the religious, philosophic and metaphysic systems and traditions (the Cross, the Kyrikeion, the Fish, the Snow Lion, the Gankyyl, the Yin-Yang, you name it) are still used by the meditators like the algebric symbols by the mathematicians in order to ease the orientation of their existence whilst meditating. In my opinion the symbols are the tools that they drive the meditator to the realm of his non-conceptual awareness;
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black beetle
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04 Sep '09 08:53
At the above post of mine I wrote "Three of Life" instead of the correct "Tree of Life" at the fourth line of the first paragraph; I m sorry for the inconvenience
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04 Sep '09 08:58
Originally posted by black beetle
Interesting thread.

Let’s try a comparison between Athena and Jesus: Athena was born adult, powerful and shiny, ready for combat and at the same time ready for arts, well versed in philosophy and science and ready to rule, and she came into life jumping out of Zeus' fractured skull. And she had nothing to prove or to declare, she came simply to rule ...[text shortened]... considered a myth by the Christians but the apocalypse of their so called “absolute truth”
😵
So the mother of Jesus is understood also as Stella Maris and amongst else she is the symbol of the experience of the Sorrow that it is caused from virtually from Life and Death (cause-effect, therefore karma). And of course on the other hand, another “star of the sea” was Venus, who was born on the surface of the waves. Why she was born from the ocean? Because the ocean is considered the dynamic source of Life. And why on the surface? Because the “ripple” (wave) is a peak equivalent to the manifestation of Life. Now, the reader of the Mahabharata knows that the reason for the creation of the Universe is Love, whilst the believers of the Abrahamic religions amongst else they acknowledge that this is the case too. Etc, etc.

I think there is something sketchy about these kinds of cross-religious comparisons. For starters, the title 'Stella Maris' comes rather late in the history of Mariology. According to the wikipedia article (see 'star of the sea'😉 it only appears explicitly in the 9th century, long after the collapse of paganism. At that time, how many would have know of Buddhism or even Venus? And the title could be explained without need to invoke other myths. "Star of the Sea" could just refer to Mary's supposed role as the intercessor for sinners (like a star guiding the sailor home, so is Mary guiding the sinner back to God.) The wikipedia article also mentions that 'star of the sea' could be related to the Carmelite interpretation of the cloud, the sign of God's gentleness, which appears before Elijah. This interpretation however does not appear until the Carmelite book The Institution of the First Monks (which I think is circa 15th century). Nonetheless, the title need not be interpreted as some kind of pagan derivative.

In my opinion this is a method (amongst many) that one could conduct in order to try to find out if there is indeed a synthesis between the pagan myths and the core religious beliefs. I think that it is false to believe that the pagan myths are a deviation from the so called “absolute truth”, a “truth” that one has to gain solely by means of this religion or of that religion.

Actually, early Christians used to think that the myths of Greece and Rome were 'foreshadowings' of Christ -- not a deviation from the truth but a prepatory glimpse. Medieval scholars used to read Virgil's Aeniad to glean some hidden Christian message. Even Pope Benedict suggested the same in his book Jesus of Nazareth. It shall take some time to find, but I shall endevour to find it.

(I do have to say that the etymological point is really interesting. In Latin, the word for bitterness is 'amarities' which does sound similar to 'mare'. I don't know though whether early Christians would have been aware of this and see the connection between 'Star of the Sea' and 'Queen of sorrows'.)