Hubris from Revelation: the Social Engineering of Ultimate Truths [Monday, Period 2]

[atreideslioness]

"Good morning," Ghanima said cheerfully as the students trickled into class today. "I see most of you managed to survive your families! Thank whatever god you believe in and grab some coffee, because we have a lot to cover today."

"Polytheism is the belief in and worship of multiple deities, called gods and goddesses. These are usually assembled into a pantheon, along with their own mythologies and rituals. Many religions, both historical and contemporary, have a belief in polytheism, such as Hinduism, Shinto, Ancient Greek Polytheism, Roman Polytheism, Germanic Polytheism, Slavic polytheism, Chinese folk religion, Neopagan faiths and Anglo-Saxon paganism."

"Now, Polytheists do not always worship all the gods equally, but can be monolatrists, specialising in the worship of one particular deity. Other polytheists can be kathenotheists, worshiping different deities at different times," she said.

"The deities of polytheistic religions are agents in mythology, where they are portrayed as complex personages of greater or lesser status, with individual skills, needs, desires and histories. These gods are often seen as similar to humans in their personality traits, but with additional individual powers, abilities, knowledge or perceptions."

"Polytheism cannot be cleanly separated from the animist beliefs prevalent in most folk religions. The gods of polytheism are in many cases the highest order of a continuum of supernatural beings or spirits, which may include ancestors, demons, wights and others. In some cases these spirits are divided into celestial or chthonic classes, and belief in the existence of all these beings does not imply that all are worshipped."

"Some well-known historical polytheistic pantheons include the Sumerian gods and the Egyptian gods, and the classical attested pantheon which includes the Ancient Greek religion, and Roman Religion. Post classical polytheistic religions include Norse Æsir and Vanir, the Yoruba Orisha, the Aztec gods, and many others. Today, most historical polytheistic religions are pejoratively referred to as "mythology", though the stories cultures tell about their gods should be distinguished from their worship or religious practice. For instance deities portrayed in conflict in mythology would still be worshipped sometimes in the same temple side by side, illustrating the distinction in the devotees mind between the myth and the reality," Ghanima continued crisply. "Generally, mythology is considered one component or aspect of religion. Religion is the broader term: besides mythological aspects, it includes aspects of ritual, morality, theology, and mystical experience. A given mythology is almost always associated with a certain religion, such as Greek mythology with Ancient Greek religion. Disconnected from its religious system, a myth may lose its immediate relevance to the community and evolve—away from sacred importance—into a legend or folktale."

"Today's religion will be tomorrow's mythology, simply because that is how humanity operates. Things become lost to the corridors of time and changing belief, until no one remembers the source anymore."

"For your assignment today, I have handouts regarding various early polytheistic religions. Please pick a religion and a deity from that pantheon, and discuss with a friend or two why you think people during that era might have worshiped such a god."

[OCD up!]

Comments

Sign-In

[atreideslioness]

Like you're thanking all the gods that your parents left...

Re: Sign-In

[cutsthestrings.livejournal.com]

Fiona Post

Re: Sign-In

[solo_sword]

Jaina Solo

During the Lecture

[atreideslioness]

Take notes, pass notes, wonder what has your teacher so cheerful.

Re: During the Lecture

[cutsthestrings.livejournal.com]

Fiona looked down to the copy of the Mythica that was in her bag and then scrunched her eyes up tight.

This was so not what she needed today. So. Not. At. ALL what she needed today. She couldn't think of any reason to worship gods. In fact, right now she kind of wanted to scream at quite a few of them.

Re: During the Lecture

[solo_sword]

Jaina still didn't know how she felt about the weekend, but mostly there was a lot of irritation going on at the moment. Considering who all was in the class, in order to get her attention away from the lecture, you'd probably have to set yourself on fire and stand in front of her.

It helped that she knew a little about the subject. Being a fake goddess of a polytheistic religion and all.

Re: During the Lecture

[see-beyond.livejournal.com]

The weekend had been a nice, refreshing turn of events and, despite his sadness over its end, he was still feeling that spark during class. Of course, the words in this lesson grew harder to process as the lesson progressed and he was almost unable to keep up.

He honestly didn't know how people could worship so many things and not get confused on any given day of the week. After the first few lessons, he'd discovered why everyone couldn't worship one god but the mass division of religions still overwhelmed him.

Re: During the Lecture

[elephantgadget.livejournal.com]

Helen took great notes and continued to Not Think about the fact that not even one of the priests had bothered to come check up on her for Parent's Weekend.

Re: During the Lecture

[trigons_child]

Raven was not cheerful. She was quiet, eyes downcast, only half paying attention because her thoughts were elsewhere.

Re: During the Lecture

[momslilassassin]

This was Ben. This was Ben avoiding eye contact with Jaina and focusing a little too intently on Tahiri.

This was Ben also memorizing the lecture. Ben was a multi-tasking fool today.

Re: During the Lecture

[weetuskenraider]

And this'd be Tahiri fidgeting a little under the scrutiny from Ben, shooting occasional glances at Jaina, and still wondering what the hell had happened last night that had ended her up at the Magic Box with a very relieved Tara.

Which wasn't to say she wasn't paying attention to the lecture; she knew a pretty good deal about at least one polytheistic religion. Going over the handouts, she decided she'd have to do a little research of her own into the cultures these religions had come from -- some of their myths were just as violent and backstabby as what she knew of the Yuuzhan Vong gods, and nobody was talking about how crazy any of those cultures were. Huh.

Re: During the Lecture

[vanillajello]

It would take Kate a few more days to be cheerful. She felt hungover. It had been a long, long weekend.

Still, she was listening to the lecture and taking notes. And watching Ghanima and thinking about Sunday evening, and how it had all gone wrong a lot later than she had assumed it would. They'd got through dinner without anything going too wrong. It was some kind of a miracle, really.

Re: During the Lecture

[bitten_notshy]

Jack easily scratched down notes, though this kind of overview course was a bit basic by his standards. Still, he'd had a good weekend; he could play the diligent student.

Class Discussion!

[atreideslioness]

Look over the handouts regarding various early polytheistic religions that Ghanima's got stacked at the front of the room. Pick a religion and a deity from any pantheon, and discuss with a friend or two why you think people during that era might have worshiped such a god.

Re: Class Discussion!

[cutsthestrings.livejournal.com]

Fiona looked down at the handouts and tried to find a deity that she was sure she hadn't met before. Then she gave up on that and tried to find a religion that made sense to her.

...she might just sit this one out.

Re: Class Discussion!

[furnaceface]

Jono randomly grabbed the handout on the Germanic gods, kind of squinted at it for a moment, and then shook his head, amused.

It would be easy enough to worship such deities, he supposed, considering guys like Thor were totally real. And possibly hanging out with the Avengers nowadays. He didn't really pay much attention to that sort of thing.

Re: Class Discussion!

[elephantgadget.livejournal.com]

Helen looked over the information on Chinese mythology and tried to think how that correlated with what she had learned back in the temple.

Re: Class Discussion!

[trigons_child]

Raven had the Greek handout but wasn't really reading it. Maybe later, particularly the parts about Aphrodite.

Re: Class Discussion!

[weetuskenraider]

Tahiri had the handout on Chinese mythology and was studying it with a little more focus than she usually tended to, particularly the creation aspects, although the realization that the myths were adapted into three different belief systems was interesting too.

Talk to the TAs

[atreideslioness]

Once they tag in.

Re: Talk to the TAs

[rocksthescarf.livejournal.com]

Chuck was there, looking like he was trying not to fall asleep.

Re: Talk to the TAs

[walks-two-paths.livejournal.com]

Savannah -- while achy from Fight Club -- was here and looking pretty relaxed.

Talk to Ghanima

[atreideslioness]

She's there, before and after class

OOC

[atreideslioness]

Are we sure the world didn't end while we weren't looking?

Re: OOC

[weetuskenraider]

I am not so sure, actually.