RE: Myths & Truths About Atheism
April 30, 2009 at 4:55 pm
(April 30, 2009 at 6:17 am)Kyuuketsuki Wrote: What would be a good name for a category 7 atheist (that's a straight question)?
"Theomachus" (in the Homeric sense).
Quote:Also, how do you logically justify a belief in their not being a god?
The general idea is that God is a human idea and therefore we cannot say that we lack the cognitive capability to understand it. However, it can be shown that even the idea in itself is neither the product of philosophical meditation nor the result of the ignorance of the “savage.”
Mythology and tradition teach that it was the messengers who supplied the information about immaterial gods.
A pure popular legend, uncontaminated by philosophy and theological interpretation, will demonstrate who the Messengers were and what their function was.
The legend is told by the Yorubas of Africa:
Once, long ago, all people lived in one town, called Ife, and they all spoke one simple language, Yoruba. In those days everyone was equal in all respects. Their skin was the same color, they were all good at the same things, they were all equally strong, equally beautiful, and equally healthy. Everyone had enough of what they needed, but no one had too much. If anyone needed something, they had only to inform God’s messenger, and he would tell God, who would provide them with what they needed.
There was only one problem. People were bored. They wanted a change. So they started complaining to God’s messenger, asking for different things. Some wanted a bigger house. Some wanted different color skin. Some wanted to speak differently. So it went on. In the beginning the messenger would faithfully carry all their demands to God and God would listen patiently. But after a while God became irritated. He told the messenger what to tell them. The messenger went back to the people.
God says you are to be content with what he has given you. He has deliberately arranged things in this way so that you will not have anything to quarrel with each other about.’ But the people were not happy. ‘Tell God he must give us what we ask, or we will revolt against him. We will have nothing more to do with him. We will organize our affairs the way we want them, without his help.’ (Essential African Mythology, Ngangar Mbitu and Ranchor Prime, Thorsons 1997, pg 6)
The messengers are called by the Yoruba “Eschu.” They are indispensable but nasty.
(Anne S. Baumgartner, A Comprehensive Dictionary of the Gods, Carol Communications, 1984, pg 64)
There is almost no god, in the International Mythology and traditions, without his personal Messenger.
Zeus’s Messengers were Hermes and Iris.
Cherub is the name of the familiar winged figures from Mesopotamia, with human heads and animal bodies that closely resemble sphinxes and serve as guardians of important places. They intercede with the divinities and for the divinities.
The deity Baiame, of the Australian aborigines, could be addressed only by the ‘wise men’ and only via his messenger.
In the Vedic tradition, Angirases are the mediators between gods and humans.
According to the Rig Veda Agni was the messenger of the gods.
Isimud is the name of the messenger of the Sumerian god Enki.
Most of the messengers of the Mesopotamian gods are known by their names.
In the Norse mythology the messenger of the gods is Hermod, one of the sons of Odin. Gna is the messenger of the goddess Frigga, wife of Odin.
For the natives of the Caroline Islands, the god of fire, singing and dancing, Olofad is the messenger of Lugeilan, the god of knowledge.
The god Tiki, from the Marquesas and Society Islands, is the god of virility and the messenger of the gods.
The natives of the Samoa Islands say that the creator Tangaroa created several Tangaroas; among them was Tangaroa the messenger.
Messengers are found in the Japanese tradition too, in the book known as Kojiki:
The great Mexican god Quetzalcoatl besides his other many titles is also called messenger of the gods.
The Yezidis, a Kurdish tribe, say that the divinity was the creator of the universe but not its keeper. The world is being taken care of by the seven angels (angel in ancient greek means messenger).
In the Persian tradition, Sraosh is the divine messenger and mediator between gods and humans.
The messengers in the Old Testament are called Mal’akh.
The Egyptian texts provide a definition of the term “messenger”:
I am the essence of a god, the son of a god, the messenger of a god. (Utt. 471 §920)
From the legend of the Yorubas we deduce that what people know about the gods is what the messengers told them about them.
You may have noticed the following sentence in the legend:
In the beginning the messenger would faithfully carry all their demands to God
Most probably when the conduct of the nasty messenger became unbearable to the people, they asked for the god to come to listen to their complaint in person. Then the messenger said the fatal tale: The god was not available because he chose to ascend to the sky in order not to be disturbed, or something like that, or maybe even worse if the messenger meant it as a joke!
The messengers were real persons, as nowadays are their descendants: the clergy.
As regards the gods whom the messengers were talking about –and, obviously, the people regarded as material beings somewhere not far away, where the messenger could reach them- a long story has to be told but it is the only story that can persuade an agnostic to change into an atheist (or an atheist into a theomachus!).
