this post was submitted on 12 Sep 2024
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What is your favorite mythological figure (of ancient religions only)?

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 days ago
[–] [email protected] 16 points 6 days ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 days ago
[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 days ago (13 children)

I'm going to drop a low key Loki here

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 6 days ago (2 children)

Anubis and Thoth weighing the heart of the dead to see if it is as light as a feather before letting them into the afterlife.

I love the idea that there's no "do this, do that", or a concrete set of rules or commandments. But the idea that if you can look back on your life, and if your heart isn't weighed down with the burden of all of the things that you did that know we're just wrong...then you can go on to the afterlife.

It's just no much more of a reasonable, adult approach to morality.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 days ago (1 children)

So, the guy who kicked a kitten at age three and still broods about it goes to hell, and the war criminal who feels justified for bombing civilians gets off scot free?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 days ago

Actually...yes. At least for the "war criminal". I think the point is that you can't hide your inner feelings from the feather. So if you genuinely, in the deepest depths of your heart, have no qualms about bombing civilians then you're fine.

I think this points out the fundamental relativistic nature of morality and how the feather copes with it. Everyone has some sort of moral compass, and the feather measures how true you were to it. And really, what more can you ask of anyone? Decide, for yourself, what is right and what is wrong and stick to it.

Putting aside the fact that a toddler probably lacks the intellectual or emotional development to have a truely personal morality, I cannot imagine that someone who "broods" all their life over kicking a kitten when they were three is anything other than the nicest most moral person you'll ever meet. I don't think that have any trouble with Anubis and Thoth.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 days ago

Anub

I'd pick Anubis if I was a furry.

So...Anubis.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 days ago
[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Demeter is up there.

Her baby father (Zeus), aka the big douchebag, married away her daughter Persephone to his brother Hades. Patriarchy does what patriarchy does. The brothers were aware neither Persephone nor Demeter would approve of the deal so Hades had to kidnap Persephone and force the deal upon her.

So Persephone were abducted and her mother were beyond herself with worry about her absence. Once Demeter learnt about the deal she threw the hissy fit that all hissy fits are measured against. Plants stopped growing, livestock stopped giving birth and the world soon was in a cataclysmic state. Behold a mother's justified wrath and tremble.

Douchebag-in-chief was forced to negotiate but wouldn't anull the whole deal. Only that Persephone would spend half her time with her mother (spring, summer) and the other half with the husband forced upon her (autumn, winter).

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 days ago (2 children)

This comment alone is making me interested in Greek mythology. I'd like to know more. Any reading suggestions toward that end?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Not as much reading but I'm taking much of my cues regarding mythology from Red over at Overly Sarcastic Productions (https://www.youtube.com/@OverlySarcasticProductions).

Two related videos
Wrath of Demeter https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhhANZKerug
Hades and Persephone https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ac5ksZTvZN8

What I especially like about their content is that there is plenty of source critique. Things are seldom presented as "this is the exact truth". Mentioned in the video about Hades and Persephone is "we don't know the original myth" which I find telling of much of their mythology work.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 days ago

This is great stuff, thanks!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Im currently listening to an audiobook by Arthur C Clarke called 'The Greeks' which is about ancient greek history.

Ive also listened to Stephen Fry's 'Mythos' which is about ancient Greek mythology.

I would strongly recommend them both.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 days ago

Thanks a lot for the suggestions!

[–] [email protected] 9 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Mainly, Lilit(h). Not mythological for me, although both Sumerian and Jewish Kabbalah are generally said as "mythological" by historical references.

I believe in a Goddess that extends beyond a single archetype, while I try to blend archetypes and concepts from various religions and "myths" in order to materialize my own understanding of existence and cosmos.

For me, She is Lilith/Lilit (the fearsome Sumerian Goddess of Winds as well as the Demoness and First Woman not banished from Eden as She fled on Her Will), She is Kali (the fearsome Hindu Goddess and Demoness of destruction and transformation), She is the Yin (the receptive Darkness complementing whilst opposing the Yang light) and the Tao (the wholeness and oneness), She is Al-Lat / Allatu (the Pre-Islam Arabic Goddess of War and Fertility), She is Isis and Bastet and Naunet (Egyptian Goddesses) She is Asherah (Hebrew Goddess consort/sister of Yahweh), She is Ereshkigal and Inanna (Sumerian Goddesses), She is Nuit and She is the Scarlet Woman (Thelemite Goddesses), She is Hekate (the Greek Goddess of Magic and Moon) and Aphrodite (the Greek Goddess of Love) and Athena (the Greek Goddess of Wisdom and Warfare) and Gaia (Goddess of Earth), She is Morana (Slavic personification of Death) and a feminine counterpart of Thanatos (Greek personification of Death as well), and so on, but mainly, Lilith Herself, as beautifully multifaceted as She is, both motherly nurturing and darkly reaping, neither good nor evil, just... Her nature.

I believe in a Sacred and Dark Feminine energy that's inside and outside everywhere, reaching scientific and philosophical concepts such as the entropy, the fields (as in electromagnetic field), the primordial soup from the beginning of earthly life, the quantum fluctuations, the apeiron, the Nietzschean Abyss. She's the shining Darkness, infinite nothingness, omnipresent wholeness and the cosmic Oneness.

In summary, the Dark Mother Goddess, often manifesting to me by Her Lilith's archetype.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 days ago

Satan and Dionysus tie for first in my book.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 days ago (2 children)

I think Odyssey is a pretty cool guy. Eh trojans hores and doesnt afraid of anything.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 days ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 days ago

Chill out there, Heimskr.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 days ago

Ezekiel.

That guy want on a peyote trip in the middle of the desert and literally saw God.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 days ago

Lord Enma (or Yama) rules over a pretty cool buddhist hell

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naraka_%28Buddhism%29

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 days ago

Diomedes, he got eaten by horses, which sounds metal as fuck.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 days ago (1 children)

The Shintō sun goddess Amaterasu is quite interesting. As is the whole Shintō origin story.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 days ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wicked_%2B_The_Divine

the tl, dr is that every 90 years a dozen young people become reincarnations of various ancient gods from all over the world. Amaterasu is one of these.

Fun book and worth a look

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 days ago

The ghost of Christmas future

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 days ago
[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 days ago

Baron Samedi

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