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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[–] dsilverz@thelemmy.club 9 points 1 week 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 Not mythological for me, although both Sumerian and Jewish Kabbalah are generally said as "mythological" by historical references.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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[–] Boozilla@lemmy.world 8 points 1 week ago

The Demiurge. Not that I like the Demiurge itself. But explaining the human condition as being a product of bad design appeals to me. I don't believe the myth and I'm not religious. But as far as myths go, that one is my fave.

[–] daddy32@lemmy.world 7 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Perun. Kinda like Thor, but without whoring for Marvel.

[–] illi@lemm.ee 2 points 1 week ago

Axe is cooler than hammer as well.

Satan and Dionysus tie for first in my book.

[–] fubo@lemmy.world 6 points 1 week ago (2 children)

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

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[–] shinigamiookamiryuu@lemm.ee 6 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Chill out there, Heimskr.

[–] sodalite@slrpnk.net 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)
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[–] circuitfarmer@lemmy.sdf.org 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

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

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[–] Reverendender@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 week ago

Ninshubur. Dude is badass.

[–] wowsa@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

Cybele, Mithras, Harpocrates

Big fan of The Left Hand Path. It is many things to many people but my understanding is that within the left hand path comes the notion that growth is catalyzed by conflict. If all things align with your morals and situations you have reached stasis. Conflict challenges the self to overcome and grow. Thus I am able to look at a world full of conflict as full of opportunities to grow, and able to understsnd the fact that conflict will always eventually arise as the fact that we will always be able to grow.

[–] balderdash9@lemmy.zip 0 points 1 week ago (2 children)

inb4: the God of the Abrahamic religions hurr durr

[–] circuitfarmer@lemmy.sdf.org 5 points 1 week ago (2 children)
[–] Caligvla@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Ah now that's a trick question, because the Abrahamic god is in fact an amalgam of both, which is why he's so derangedly bipolar in the Old Testament!

[–] circuitfarmer@lemmy.sdf.org 6 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Yeah. I think historically it is interesting, because the Hebrew Elohim of Genesis is in the plural, and there is evidence that followers of El believed him to be one deity in a pantheon. In that sense, Elohim and the associated creation myths have their roots in a polytheistic religion.

Yhwh was more likely a figure from a belief system of a different region which ended up co-opting the earlier stories. I know your comment was tongue-in-cheek, but I think it is actually plausible that things like the Catholic Holy Trinity have roots in El and Yhwh technically being different figures.

[–] ItDoBeHowItDoBe@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Interestingly enough, when Eelohim is used to refer to the Hebrew God in the bible, it takes singular verbs, while it take plural when referring to the gods of the nations surrounding them.

[–] circuitfarmer@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

I wonder how much of that has to do with semantic drift on Elohim, i.e. by the time the oldest extant manuscripts were written, the figure was already considered singular despite retaining the noun plural morphology. The implication there would be that earlier (now lost) manuscripts may have had plural verb agreement for Elohim, or maybe simpler / more plausible, there was a time in the oral tradition where Elohim was still considered a plural figure and would have naturally gotten plural verbs.

I think the fact that the plural morphology exists on the noun at all suggests at least that the figure started as a collective.

Edit: probably also worth a mention that portions of Genesis (e.g. Garden of Eden) mirror portions of the Epic of Gilgamesh, a story which is overtly polytheistic.

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