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Dipped back into the Iliad this afternoon to distract from worry and hypochondria (end of last year was fun, got dizzy in the bathroom, fell and broke my nose). There's so many things I love about these old books that I don't find otherwise in modern life. Unabashed, uncringeworthy talk of piety and the gods. Plain valuing of glory without false modesty. Good old fight to the death without hollywood or superhero stuff (there's divinity but that's different).
In this chapter Hector is told by Athena and Apollo to challenge one of the Greeks to single combat in order to stop the fighting that day. He issues the challenge but everyone is scared to fight him. King Menelaus gets pissed and starts putting on his armor, but his fellow Greeks stop him knowing he will get pwned. Finally, after a speech from Nestor lamenting the cowardice of kids these days, nine fighters volunteer to cast lots and Ajax is chosen.
The fight is pretty epic, starting with throwing spears at each other with enough force to pierce their many layered shields. Then they start stabbing at each other and then beating each other with huge rocks until Hector is about to die, but Apollo intervenes and ends the duel. I love what happens afterwards, they exchange gifts of friendship and both sides agree to a truce to bury their dead. They feast and give sacrifice to Zeus, yet he rumbles ominously overhead as the chapter comes to an end.
Anyway I find comfort in these trips to a different world and thought I'd share.. Also this band that I like called Echosmith just released their new album and I wanted to share some of their music. Kind of brings me back to the 80s and 90s:
+ Show Spoiler +https://youtu.be/0WMiBXIfkfM (Can't get this to embed video but great tune)
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Homer is a filthy humanist who disrespects the gods and doesn't elide his omicrons. He does have some kickass similes though.
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Northern Ireland26285 Posts
It’s amazing how much of the stuff from the ancient world holds up to this day.
I’ve always rather liked Greek mythology more than most others as their gods are all flawed in various manners in very human ways.
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On January 12 2020 20:20 Wombat_NI wrote:
It’s amazing how much of the stuff from the ancient world holds up to this day.
I’ve always rather liked Greek mythology more than most others as their gods are all flawed in various manners in very human ways.
Yeah I wonder if we'd be more forgiving of our own flaws if we viewed our gods that way instead of having one dour god obsessed with morality and worship. Seems like in the majority of cultures the gods had sex, got jealous and made mistakes sometimes. It saddens me that we no longer worship gods who can laugh and love.
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Damn is there anything Apollo can't fix these days?! Now he's even showing up in antique epics to save the day.
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I'm out of the loop, is he featuring in some current fiction or something?
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Apollo is running the new ESL Pro Tour that just got announced and is being hailed as the savior of Starcraft 2 
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Northern Ireland26285 Posts
On January 13 2020 00:50 Starlightsun wrote:Show nested quote +On January 12 2020 20:20 Wombat_NI wrote:
It’s amazing how much of the stuff from the ancient world holds up to this day.
I’ve always rather liked Greek mythology more than most others as their gods are all flawed in various manners in very human ways. Yeah I wonder if we'd be more forgiving of our own flaws if we viewed our gods that way instead of having one dour god obsessed with morality and worship. Seems like in the majority of cultures the gods had sex, got jealous and made mistakes sometimes. It saddens me that we no longer worship gods who can laugh and love.
Hey some of us still worship the Olympian Gods now ya hear?
It is interesting to ponder why our world looks the way it does now and the relative homogenous natures of our big religions.
The big two of Christianity and Islam have the mysterious perfect extradimensional god, the requirement for worship and the requirement for conversion too. Hence the expansion outwards, colonialism and empire. I wonder if the tail wagged the dog or vice-versa.
The Greek intellectual tradition, sure it does mention gods and its a factor certainly but it seems to run more in parallel as its own thing.
The Persians let you worship your own gods when they had Empire, just pay your taxes and don’t rebel. The Romans too had that laissez faire approach to religion, for quite some time.
It’s interesting to consider that the ancients lived more in the moment than those that came after them. I’m sure there are conflicts of religion all through history but you don’t see them on the large scale until Christianity and Islam arrive on the scene and the crucial difference with them is the conversion component.
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The big two of Christianity and Islam have the mysterious perfect extradimensional god, the requirement for worship and the requirement for conversion too. Hence the expansion outwards, colonialism and empire. I wonder if the tail wagged the dog or vice-versa...
...I’m sure there are conflicts of religion all through history but you don’t see them on the large scale until Christianity and Islam arrive on the scene and the crucial difference with them is the conversion component.
Yeah I'm convinced that those two succeeded mostly because of their need for proselytism. You just don't see that fanatical need to convert others in any other religions. But it is only natural that they are that way when the god they worship is so jealous and greedy for attention. It's really a shame though that that has lead to the stamping out of so many other religious traditions.
Hey some of us still worship the Olympian Gods now ya hear?
Ha I don't know if you're serious or not here. There is a Hellenic Polytheist Revival but the community seems pretty small. I actually tried to do worship at home for awhile, did lots of reading about how to do it, but I just felt wrong and disrespectful. I know there's other pagan revival communities too... would be interesting to go to one in person some day. But where I live is nothing but Christian churches, alongside smaller Buddhist and then hippie "spiritualist" communities.
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Northern Ireland26285 Posts
On January 15 2020 04:18 Starlightsun wrote:Show nested quote +The big two of Christianity and Islam have the mysterious perfect extradimensional god, the requirement for worship and the requirement for conversion too. Hence the expansion outwards, colonialism and empire. I wonder if the tail wagged the dog or vice-versa...
...I’m sure there are conflicts of religion all through history but you don’t see them on the large scale until Christianity and Islam arrive on the scene and the crucial difference with them is the conversion component. Yeah I'm convinced that those two succeeded mostly because of their need for proselytism. You just don't see that fanatical need to convert others in any other religions. But it is only natural that they are that way when the god they worship is so jealous and greedy for attention. It's really a shame though that that has lead to the stamping out of so many other religious traditions. Ha I don't know if you're serious or not here. There is a Hellenic Polytheist Revival but the community seems pretty small. I actually tried to do worship at home for awhile, did lots of reading about how to do it, but I just felt wrong and disrespectful. I know there's other pagan revival communities too... would be interesting to go to one in person some day. But where I live is nothing but Christian churches, alongside smaller Buddhist and then hippie "spiritualist" communities.
I’m an avowed godless heathen, but I can find some religions more culturally interesting than others.
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I love the Trojan Wars.
There's this awesome bit where two lauded sword fighers meet on the battle field, fully armored, and they're about to cave eachothers head in, and then the one guy says: "Hey, didn't your father once stayed over at my father's? And had wine?" And the other guy responds "Yeah man, I kinda forgot about that! Our families are friends!". And then they shake hands and say "Let's go kill other guys instead of eachother" and they both go their own way.
You don't see that much, nowadays
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On January 23 2020 04:54 _fool wrote:I love the Trojan Wars. There's this awesome bit where two lauded sword fighers meet on the battle field, fully armored, and they're about to cave eachothers head in, and then the one guy says: "Hey, didn't your father once stayed over at my father's? And had wine?" And the other guy responds "Yeah man, I kinda forgot about that! Our families are friends!". And then they shake hands and say "Let's go kill other guys instead of eachother" and they both go their own way. You don't see that much, nowadays
Haha yeah that was a great moment too. I think it was in the same chapter.. Talk about good sportsmanship.
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I highly recommend the book "Gods in everyman - Archetypes that shape men's lives" by the Jungian analyst Jean Shindoa Bolen 
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EPT
