#ancient religious practices

[nickysfacts]

Crocodilopolis is basically what happens if Steven Irwin built a city!𓆌

🎂🐊👑

[yebreed]

Mythological Realism: Elemental Dragons

Four-color coiled dragons on the pillars of the Supreme Talisman (Taifu) Temple (太符觀).

The dragons are painted in the colors of the primary elements, embodying the archetypal creative forces. In Chinese religious art, almost any concept can be expressed in the language of dragons.) Their children, descendants and relatives frolic on the temple walls among curly clouds.

In view of the striking liveliness, I would classify these images as mythological realism.)

Since its construction in the fifth year of the Jin dynasty (1200), the temple has been repeatedly expanded and supplemented with new buildings over the centuries. Most of the surviving statues are from the Ming dynasty.

The Supreme Talisman Temple is located in Fenyang (汾陽), Shanxi.

Photo: ©故尔耳

[evilios]

A prominent issue that comes out of people divorcing Greek mythology from its culture is the explanation given (if any) to different variations of myths concerned with the same narratives.

I think people sometimes forget that mythology (and religion) does not exist in a vacuum. There are myths written with allusions to specific rulers, hymns and divine-aimed odes composed that betray political layers to myth-making. Sometimes particular locations become focuses of religious thought not just because of their traditional value but also because it benefits the ruling power in the region to attract attention to that spot. Sometimes different variations of myths come from people living under different rulers and supporting different ideas.

Politics plays a role in myth-creation; if mythology is a powerful way of talking to the masses, it is a priori a focus of political attention. In the same way "modern" literature is a focus of political control as well.

[asocial-skye]

as the holidays come to a close, i'm left to wonder....

how does religion work in the pjo universe?

[soath]

Of Contracts Between Gods and Men

On the Aeorian Kinsey-Deicide scale I’m a solid 5 (near exclusively god-preserving) which may seem surprising to my many dear associates who want those fundamental truths of existence wrecked. Without digging in any further, let’s do some quick religious history review on the question: Do you owe anything to the gods and do they owe anything to you?

The answer is not as universal as many raised in the nigh inescapable miasma of Christian theology may think! Reciprocal (or even unilateral) responsibility in religion comes and goes across history and geography. The Norse Aesir, for example, created humans but don’t owe them nada and only rarely bothered messing with them. The Greek pantheon are significantly more touchy on the subject of their pride but a person could manage offering no prayers or sacrifices as long as they didn’t promise any prayers or sacrifices. Probably. Compare this to Mayan theology, wherein both gods and humans have significant co-responsibility in maintaining balance; with ritual and sacrifice key to the continued safety of the polity. Divine-mortal relationships can be classified as nondirectional, unidirectional, or bidirectional with various advantages and disadvantages to each model. Gods come in lots of shapes and the demands they make aren’t universal!

A phrase that will often come up in any divinity studies is “covenant”. Originally a translation of the Hebrew berith or Greek diatheke, and also present in Islam, the Bahai’i faith, and possibly historical Phoenician religious practices, covenant theology has metastasized in Christian scholarship to the point it was genuinely hard to research this piece while dodging blogs by guys named Richard. But, broadly, it’s the idea of making an explicit deal with power(s) greater than yourself where you both have sides of the bargain to uphold.

Contract law is not the solution to every problem on earth or in fiction, but when the issue is a large disparity in power and mutual fears of future adverse behavior…. to quote Kate Bush “I’d make a deal with (the) god(s).”

Vitally, compared to other bidirectional pacts in world religion, Exandria has some advantages. For one thing, they have a godeater they’re right now helping to suppress. As long as the gods remain behind the divine gate they need mortal champions to effect their will—but that only holds true as long as the Divine Gate stays up. And unfortunately the problem with a fence someone else has erected is that you don’t know if they’ve kept a key.

If I was mortality’s lawyer? I’d ask for a second layer to that divine hamsterball I’d ask for anything left of the godkilling spark to be kept by the temples of Vasselheim—if they can’t be trusted with it no one can. And I’d promise cooperation from people of a certain degree of civic responsibility, not coerced or threatened out, whole hearted. But terms and conditions may vary.

Anyway, I guess the thesis is that it’s a terrible sin to destroy something you can’t comprehend with no idea of what the outcome will be (and a lot of you don’t seem to get the inconceivable joy of having/knowing/being a god, even just in fiction) but you can bring any monstrosity to the negotiating table. Don’t kill your gods, unionize against them.

[nateconnolly]

The gods are not aware of us. That’s what I like most about Aristotle’s cosmology. The gods are perfect, and therefore they only think about perfect things (themselves). We are imperfect, therefore we are not worth thinking about. They don’t know that they caused us. 

You’re probably more familiar with the Olympians—figures like Zeus, Athena, and Poseidon, the sort of Greek gods that appear in Percy Jackson or Disney’s Hercules. Those gods are deeply invested in human affairs. Homer portrays the gods sponsoring armies, and making alliances with humans. Aeschylus has Athena begin democracy. They have children with us, they accept offerings from us, they even lash out at us in judgment. But Ancient Greece was a huge civilization that lasted an incredibly long time. Sometimes they disagreed with each other.

For Aristotle, praying to the gods can’t ensure a good harvest or military success. It can’t even get their attention. We are able to relate to the gods, but it is a completely one-sided relationship. If your motivation for practicing religion is purely transactional, then there is no reason to care about these solipsistic prime movers. But for Aristotle, the gods can help us achieve virtue. 

We can imitate them. We will never win their favor, we will never have their love, but we can follow their example. Although we will never be perfect, we can observe perfection and try to learn from it. We can be a little better than we are today. Perhaps that is enough. 

[imsosocold]

DANA YOU CAN’T HAVE BELOS BE RELIGIOUS  AND NOT GO INTO WHAT HIS BELIEFS ARE WHEN IT’S A DRIVING FACTOR TO HIS CHARACTER !!! DO YOU KNOW HOW MANY DENOMINATIONS THERE ARE?!!! EVEN THOSE WHO ARE  SUPPOSED TO BE PART OF THE SAME RELIGIOUS GROUP CAN HAVE THEIR BELIEFS AND PRACTICES VARY!!! THEY  CAN BE INFLUENCED BY LARGE FACTORS SUCH AS TIME PERIOD AND LOCATION AND SEEMINGLY MINUTE FACTORS SUCH AS WHAT CHURCH THEY GO TO!!! ONE’S BELIEFS AREN’T STAGANT AND TEND TO EVOLVE OVER TIME  EVEN FOR THE MOST DEVOUT!!! YOU CAN’T JUST BE LIKE “HE’S A PURITAN WITCH HUNTER” AND LEAVE IT AT THAT!!!!

[optimisticaudience]

“Hades does ancient Greek culture badly because Hermes is Asian”

Buddy, in the first game, you could literally wield an assault rifle powered by a Christian angel.

[mycolortrip]

An incredible discovery has been made at Thonis-Heracleion, an ancient sunken city off the coast of Egypt. A carved slab dating from the reign of Pharaoh Nectanebo was found, setting out the list of offerings made to neighboring temples. This discovery is of great importance to the history of ancient Egypt and helps us to better understand the religious practices of the time. It's amazing to think that this slab remained hidden in the depths of the sea for centuries, preserving its history and message until it was finally discovered by archaeologists. This discovery is a true proof of the importance of preserving historical and cultural heritage for future generations.

[nickysfacts]

Scythians were the masters of the horse, the bow, and the hemp!😄

🐴🏹🌿

[yebreed]

Ancestral Hall of the Tiger Talisman in Fujian

One of those architectural gems that are scattered throughout the Chinese countryside: the Ancestral Hall of the Tiger Talisman (虎符祖殿) aka Huyan Ancestral Hall (虎岩祖殿) or Hufuyan (虎符岩) in Nanfeng (南豐村), Xinqiao, Fujian.

Built in the Song dynasty and rebuilt in the 16th year of Jiajing in the Ming dynasty (1537), the complex covers an area of about 1800 square meters. This temple is dedicated to the Taoist Leifa deity Zhang Shengjun (張聖君), the Master of Five Thunders. The papers with talismanic inscriptions are stuck under the ceiling.

Photo: ©劉江嶺

[ava-of-shenanigans]

So I’m reading through these Greek Period magical papyri, and the thing I’ve had the strongest reaction to so far aren’t the invisibility potion or the multiple spells that are like “this is how you curse a woman to be unable to sleep until she has sex with you”, it’s this one spell where the caster is supposed to endear themself to Set/Typhon by putting themself in the mythological role of assisting Set with the murder of Osiris.

Like HEY

HEY ARE YOU SURE IT’S OKAY TO SAY THAT?

[ealle]

so i am deamericanizing myself by reading russian classic lit and listening to russian music again because i strongly need to reprogram my inner monologue into thinking in russian and also that my native language is so much more complicated and beautiful and romantic than english will ever be. even though there is basically no russian culture in history left except for 18-20 century postmodern art and poetry

[in-sightpublishing]

Tor Arne Jørgensen on Women in Religious History

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2024/08/30 Tor Arne Jørgensen, 50, hails from Fevik, a small settlement near Grimstad in southern Norway. He is a dedicated teacher at the local secondary school, a devoted husband, and a proud father of two boys. From an early age, Tor Arne was driven by an insatiable thirst for…

[prolibytherium]

One of my all time biggest pet peeves with historical(ish) fantasy is when the writer constructs a religion with a clear bias that it's stupid and false and therefore only the Stupid People and/or commoners believe in it and all the smart/elite main characters are like, quasi-atheists or otherwise just routinely flout established religious conventions of orthodoxy and/or orthopraxy because they're Too Smart for it or etc.

It's usually an extension of assumptions that people in the past were just less intelligent than in the contemporary, just being like "I know that the sun is a star millions of miles away that the earth orbits, but this ancient religion describes it as a chariot flying through the sky" and not really bothering to learn the context and just (consciously or subconsciously) settling on 'that's a crazy thing to think and was probably believed in because they were Stupid'.

And that whole attitude pisses me off so much. People were as 'smart' 10,000 years ago as they are today. These beliefs aren't just desperate, random flailing to explain phenomena that could not directly be accounted for either, it's not like people just looked at the sun and went "Uhhh I don't know what the fuck that thing is, actually. I guess it might be a chariot or a boat or something?? Yeah let's go with that." and based entire religious practices on this. Every well-established belief system exists within broader contexts of cultural values/subjective perceptions of reality/knowledge systems/etc, and exist as part of a historical continuum of religious practices that came before. Even when not Materially Correct, they have context and internal logic, they're not always dead literal with zero levels of allegory, and they're never a result of stupidity.

[monotheistreal]

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