"No God Before Me" From A Polytheist/Contempary View

Started by Shiranu, October 01, 2022, 09:30:37 PM

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Shiranu

As I looked at Venus last night, it made me think of Aphrodite and how some of the more contemporary cults of the Middle East might have viewed the world - approach that commandment from their world view, not one that was born and raised with "monotheism".

Turns out, Aphrodite herself was a Hellenized interpretation of Athtart, a Near East goddess of the Semitic peoples.

Now, many polytheists today will tell you that they view it as metaphorical - there isn't a literal Aphrodite, but rather these stories represent something deeper than that; a way to tell the pros and cons of these emotions while keeping it presented in a form the masses will appreciate - no different for those movies that tell a good character story today, just presented in oral form and thus with infinite variations to the story.

The Gnostics and multiple Jewish, Early Christian and Islamic cults believe that "God" (Not the Creator, but the Divine Light [the Dao, almost... and it's physical manifestation being pure love) exists within everything; even the other "gods" like someone like Athtart.

So when viewed as an allegory rather than a literal statement, it says this - "Thou shall value nothing in this world, be it possession or emotion, *more than thou values love."

This is all guess work thanks to millennium of suppression, but something tells me this is much more inline with what the early prophets were attempting to say.

When you actually read their work, they aren't as "backwards" as we think (once you cut out all the political shit that got added in over the centuries, anyways) - and they often weren't overly cryptic about love being the ultimate goal of religion, so I'm not sure how people get so off track and make this a commandment of hate.
"A little science distances you from God, but a lot of science brings you nearer to Him." - Louis Pasteur

Blackleaf

Eh. I don't know if that was the intention. The Old Testament god is consistently portrayed and described as jealous. Which, of course, makes much more sense when you realize the early Hebrews were polytheists. Yahweh was neurotically possessive of his worshippers.
"Oh, wearisome condition of humanity,
Born under one law, to another bound;
Vainly begot, and yet forbidden vanity,
Created sick, commanded to be sound."
--Fulke Greville--

Shiranu

#2
Quote from: Blackleaf on October 02, 2022, 05:48:31 PMEh. I don't know if that was the intention. The Old Testament god is consistently portrayed and described as jealous. Which, of course, makes much more sense when you realize the early Hebrews were polytheists. Yahweh was neurotically possessive of his worshippers.
These cults across all three Abrahamic faiths would argue that the god you are talking about is not God - that while God resides within all things, all things are not God.

*Moses received the works from God the Divine, while many of those evil additions to the Bible are the works of God the creator (in some sects; Satan himself plays this role).  In so many early Christian sects, and across Middle Eastern theology, Duality is king; that there is a Light/Dark, Good/Bad balance to everything that we must make sure never leans too far towards Darkness less Light be lost forever. God the Divine is... light, heat, love... while God the Creator is a tl;dr by-product of a greedy emotion creating a knock-off God who, by very nature, was imperfect; hence why all his creation is imperfect but still has the Holy Spirit of God within it.

In any community where power exists, weirdos and egotistical assholes inevitably take what might have started off as a really great thing and ruin it with their corruption. It's quite possible this cult all started the same; with a prophet who was teaching a legitimate message of peace and love, and over time it became a powerful tool of manipulation - it's not like we have never seen that happen to religion before...

Also - if Christians had kept that world-view, holy shit would they have been more interesting people.
"A little science distances you from God, but a lot of science brings you nearer to Him." - Louis Pasteur