Religous debates and questions

Why am i listening

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I think we've been sucked into Ally's bizarre parallel existence.

Is this what it's like for you every day Ally?

Could someone explain Ally's joke to me? I'm feeling mentally inadequate just now.

I'm not 100% sure Halfwise but I'm going with a pun on the word manner and manor- the first statement therefore being Eldo said it in a positive manor, as opposed to a bungalow- chinese takeaway is frankly taking a pun too far but thats Ally for you.

Yeah, that's what I got from it.

Can anyone explain to me why the Irish are so intent on doing the factional religious marches? What are they 'celebrating' or 'comemerating' by these things that just seem to have no purpose except to irk the opposite religious faction?

The (very) short version Halfwise is that they are celebrating a battle.
The longer version is they are celebrating various events but all linked to one main event- The Battle of the Boyne (1690).
The thrones of Scotland, England and Ireland were all up for grabs and the Catholics looked like they were getting their first.
Enter Prince Willaim of Orange who would become William III of England, the II of Scotland and First of Ireland.
He was Dutch and Protestant and he routed the Catholics.
Becuase of William Catholicism never got political control of the UK and as a result in years to come arts and learning would flourish.
There is a very long version too.

And most significantly, a few years later when protestant extremists were colonizing North America they chose their seed stock carefully to reflect their ideology.

You see, the native European carrot grew in every shade from beet red to turnip white, but the protestant colonists chose to only bring orange carrot stock, and carefully culled out all of the heretical colours as they cropped up. In the New World there was no native carrot stock to crossbreed, so a pure strain of orange carrot resulted that would probably not have been possible in Europe at the time.

The pure orange carrot became the standard in the USA and was reintroduced back to Europe and the rest of the world in the 19th an 20th century.

Protestants-1, Catholics-0

I had no idea that carrots ever came in different colors or that there was any significance to them being Orange. You learn something new every day.

Dulux should use that for their paint colour wheel.

I have been thinking of putting up another piece on religion if folks are interested.
Bit of a biggie this one really- Where does God from?
More specifically the God of Christianity and Islam- as they are the two dominant global religions of the moment and their God has a shared beginning.
It would look at the earliest known versions- the places and cities, times and people invovled in the earliest accounts of God- and how those ideas developed as society did until we got to modern times.

go for it.

I liked reading your other long religious posts so I'd be happy to read anything else you have, Petty.

Ok- just remember you asked for it!!

This is just a briefish introduction.

The Bible does not tell us where God came from. He was just there from the start.
"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.'
But where and when exactly did humans and God meet?
The archeological record shows that early man had some conception of at least noting death- as they put goods in the grave. As too did our human cousins Neanderthals who may have been the first to put flowers in graves as the amounts of pollen found in Neanderthal graves shows.
And it is difficult not to read into the enigmatic patterns and designs on cave walls in Europe or on Australian outcrops signs of some spiritual or even religous beliefs.
But the God we are concerend with is the one who would go on to claim to be the only God- who would found the Jewish nation and give rise to Islam.
Who is he and where the hell did he come from?

Well our begining clue is from the Bible- God created the earth, Adam and Eve, the world was populated- God didnt like it, God flooded the world, saved Noah. Noah had a lot of incestous sex and repopulated the world. One of his descendants Abram (Abraham) took God from the city of Ur to Caaninite.

It should be noted before going on that the biblical account of Abram we have to be wary of, it was clearly written much later when some things were no longer known, as it is strewn with historical mistakes- Ur is described as Ur of the Chaldeans- a name for the Babylonians who did not yet exist. There is a reference to the Philistines at least a millinum out of place.

If there was an Eden no one knows for sure where it is (for the record I place it in the Zargos Mountains) so although God and humans are present it doesn't help much in finding a starting point for our search.
Noah unfortunetly we dont know where he lived. So we cannot place him in the historical record, (although I will offer a possibility of where it was later).
Abram however gives us our first bit of meat to work with. He and his God lived in the city of Ur. And it we know something about. So lets start there.

Those who date the patriarchs from the Bible place Abram at about 2018bce- that would seem about right to me for Ur and possibly even telling.
Ur is located in at the site of modern Tell el-Muqayyar in Iraq. It existed as an inhabited functioning city from approximetly 3800bc (early bronze age) until 550Ad (iron age).
Ur was a major ceremonial and religous centre complete with ziggarut (built about 2100bce). It was also home to the shrine of a God- the Moon-God called Nannar in Sumerian and Sin in Akkadian.
This moon god left Ur when it fell into less favourable times- although Ur surived a remarkable amount of time it lost its prestige. The deltas on which the cities were built shifted over time, so the river which provided your wealth might end up miles away within a few generations. Ur survived its fall from grace to continue on but it was never again as influential or important as during its initial period.
It fell from grace sometime between its glory days of its founding and 2000bce. It was restored to splendour by Nebuchadrezzar II and finally was deserted when Mesopotamia was encorporated into the Achaemenid Empire in 550AD. But by then its moon-god had long since left and gone much further west and taken root mainly in Syria.

This brief overview of Ur tells us some important things- that it was a religous centre during a time of many Gods. That the God Sin was the most prominant God of the City and almost certainly its patron and considered to literally dwell in the Temple within the City (as this was the common belief in all the cities across the region at the time and each city had its own God or Goddess in residence).
And we know from the story of Sin that Gods can leave a city- and go elsewhere.
On last thing of note about Ur- between the earliest layers of the city and the classical Ubaid period of approx 3500bce there is a eight foot thick layer of deposited clay. It would seem the city and surrounding land suffered a very large and near catastrophic flood that flattened everything for miles and miles. The later Ur was slowly rebuilt on top of the old, leaving the thick layer of clay untouched.
This may well be the Flood recorded in the Bible and if so would also place Noah in the region of Ur in 3500bce, some 1200 years before Abram who the Bible says was the 10th generation from Noah.

Next- a closer look at Ur in the time of Abram- and a closer look at its religions and if any were likely contenders for leaving with Abram and why.

I always get Ur and Uruk mixed up. When does Gilgamesh arrive in your story?

Uruk was occording to some the first true city. The Uruk period was from 3800bce to 3200bce.
It was much further south than Ur. And unlike the Ubaid period where the control was fairly local Uruk seemed to be the centre of a unified mesopotamia- one of the big mysteries about Uruk is exactly how its culture and its urbanism got so far spread so quickly.
It was in Uruk the first cylinder seals were produced and the forerunners to writing.
Uruks main God was An, Father of Gods and head of the list of dieties- he shared his patronage of the city with the Goddess Inanna (later Ishtar) Queen of Heaven and Mistress of the Skies.
When the Uruk period came to an end the following period would remember its fall in tales by explaining that Inanna had left the city, much as Sin did Ur and Abram with his God.

Gilgamesh was either a real King in the Early Dynastic period at Uruk or is a mythical King Arthur type figure- no one really knows- but he is credited in tales with building the monumental city walls- which do exist.
The walls are 9 kilometres of ramparts, over 7metres tall and have gates protected by towers- it was by far the most significant bit of construction undertaken in that period.
Quiet possibly a King called Gilgamesh ordered it, less likely he built it all himself.

I'm not surprised that the Uruks were much stronger and better engineers than the Bronze Age humans of Mesopotamia. Just look at that armor they wore in The Two Towers!

Spoiler:

Why do I bother?

If it's worth anything at this point, I do enjoy reading your analyses! I'm afraid I don't have anything substantial to offer though since this isn't an area of history I'm well-versed in.

That era of history is a snap, Eldo: just watch all the Conan the Barbarian movies and you'll have it down pat.

Well at least you are in the right place to learn a little bit of it Eldo!

2. Who's Who? (Sumerian edition)

The Sumerians never threw away a Deity- it is estimated that there were about 3600 different dieties in the Sumerian pantheon.
But some were more important with others.

The chief God was An, Great Father of the Gods, King of the Sun. His symbol was a star. He was the original head honcho- however despite this and having the title Father of the Gods his popularity wained over time- by the period of Abram An's powers had been transferred to Enlil (see below).

Enki was Lord of water, wisdom, creation and fertitlity. He was the inventor of writing. His symbol was two serpents entwined on a staff. In the Sumerian tradition it was Enki who warned Ziusudra (the original Noah) of the impending flood. He was patron of the city Eridu where he resided.

Enlil was Lord of Rain, wind and air. He invented agriculture and he caused the Deluge to destroy mankind but was thwarted by Enki telling Zisudra. Enlil usurped An's position as Head of the Pantheon and took on many of the formers traits. His symbol was seven small circles.

Ninhursag was the Great Mother Goddess, Godess of Childbrith and Queen of the Mountains. She took part in the creation of humans by bearing children to term to create the first modern humans.

These make up the Main Four Gods in Pantheon, however there are three more prominant Gods who together with the first four make up 'The Seven Who Decreed Fate';

Inanna was the the Goddess of Love, fertilitly, procreation and war. She was also Queen of the beasts. She resided in the city of Erech.

Sin was an Ur God, the God of the Moon. He was symbolised by a crescent.

Utu was the Sun God of Justice. And is a God little is known about.

These are followed by a further 20 dieties who make up The Annunaki.
After those there are the demigods such as Gilgamesh and Flood survivor Ziusura who was given eternal life.

To this you can add a long list of dieties, some borrowed or merged with neighbouring Akkadian Gods.

It is clear therefore that at this moment in history the notion of a single God was a long way off in theoligcal thought.
But in a sense the seed of it did exist- Dieties were associated not with some other realm, or heavenly space in the sky but to physical locations. More so actual individual rooms.
In the earliest stages these were in fact a single reed room built on a mound. Later as the first settlements developed around the shrines they were made of mudbrick and eventually stone and finally in a ziggarut- but the idea remained the same- Gods might have wide spheres of influence but they were also localised.
And they were also personal.
It does not seem that the Sumerian citizen was required to worship all the gods- certainly in any given city everyone would pay attention to the cities patron diety- you were in their territory- but what happend if you worshipped one god in your home city but had to go spend periods of time in another city?
Did you abandon your own god whilst away and worship the local god? Would that anger your own upon your return?
This was a real problem for people and at some point someone came up with the solution- and they were called arks.
Into your ark you placed a stone representation of your local diety and you took it with you- that way your god was wherever you were.
When in a foreign city it was politic to pay religous duties to whoever the local god was, it was stiltheir patch, but you could also keep your own with you and honour it too.
It is likely people travelled with more than one God- if you were from Ur for example it would be unlikely you would take the God but not the Goddess to watch over you- more likely you would take both with you for protection and possibly others-a cattle merchant might for example also take Amashilamma, a cow goddess with him whilst a merchant may go with Bogu God of Wealth.
Its possible to see from this how the idea of having an set of gods tailored with an individual could arise, and it be the very first seed of narrowing the field down to just one personal god- but that was a very long way off yet.


So a world of many Gods- but what was the Sumerian view of the world?
Well they saw the universe a bit like a snow globe- the base of it was the world, the dome part was the domain of the air and outside it was a primordeal eternal salt ocean. Beneath the base was another ocean and underworld called the Apsu- this one was fresh water.

The earliest version of the Sumerian creation myth we have comes from a clay tablet dated to 2150bc and was excatvated in Nippur- and its quite a brief tale.

The Gods create men to labour for them (the same reason as given in Genesis 'to till the earth'). Kingship descends from the Heavens and the first cities are founded.
The next bit of the tablet is missing and when it begins again it seems the gods have decided to get rid of the humans by causing a flood- the gods make the decision by council- it seems to have been put forward as a proposal to be considered and they decide not to prevent it.
However the God Enki warns the hero of the tale Zirusta of the impending doom and gives him instructions for building a vessel to ride out the flood.
The huge boat is rocked for seven days and nights before the Sun God appears again.
There is another break in the text and it resumes with the flood receded. Zirsuta lets the animals out and sacrifces to the gods- in return he is taken to Dilmun ( a sort of mythical place that may have some basis in a real place) and is given immortality.

The Epic of Gilgamesh goes back in written form to at least 2150bc- so must have been one of the first things to be widely set down- and it also contains a version of the Flood Tale and the Creation of man in more detail.
There are obvious and striking parallels in the creation story in the Epic to that told in Genesis- for example in both man is made from dust. In both his purpse is to wrok the earth and make produce. In both he is tempted then by a woman and in both he takes food from her, covers his nakedness and is cast out from his land and must find another to dwell in.
In the Sumerian the God Enki also makes an appearence and steals a seed which comes back into the story of the Epic later- Enki's symbol was two serpents giving another possible connection to the Gensis story.

So what we have here is a creation story and a flood story, remarkably similar to the later Genesis accounts in a world of many Gods.

The questions for the next part are how do you get from this to Abram leaving his city? And did he leave with one or more Gods?

halfwise wrote:I always get Ur and Uruk mixed up. When does Gilgamesh arrive in your story?

Does that make it easier Halfy