In ancient times, in most civilizations, many gods of both genders were created by humans to try to explain the inexplicable. Some of them had flaws much like the humans who invented them. In Egypt, Greece, Rome, the Nordic countries, etc, gods were plentiful and they all had their areas of responsibility.
The Abrahamic religions, by contrast, pushed the scary idea of one all-powerful, punitive, male god and creator who was perfect. It seems that with both theology and conceit, man’s soaring imagination and wishful thinking knows no limits.
The ancient Egyptians believed that when you died, you went to the Hall of the Dead. There Anubis weighed your heart against the feather of Ma’at. Ma’at, the goddess of justice, sat on top of the scales to make sure that the weighing was carried out properly. Anubis is shown steadying the scales to make the weighing fair. If your heart was lighter than the feather if meant that you had lived an exemplary life and had done good things. Your reward was that you lived for ever! Who in their right mind would want to? Can you imagine what your coffee would taste like after having had it each morning for two million years? Boring!
If your heart was heavier than the feather then it was eaten by the demon Ammit, the Destroyer. This signified your end. Ammit had the head of a crocodile, the shoulders of a lion and the rump of a hippopotamus, all frightening animals for the accomplished Egyptians. Thoth, god of wisdom and writing, stands by and records what happens. Note that none of the above gods had human heads!
Of course, in our modern world, such beliefs are considered curious by some and preposterous by most. Regardless, some of the primitive beliefs of the Egyptians still remain. For example, we still talk of "a heart as light as a feather" to mean care-free and joyful, and "heavy-hearted" to mean sad or guilt-ridden.
I suppose that the number of people in our world that have hearts lighter than a feather must be very few. How many people do you know who have led an exemplary life and done much good? The prevailing ethos in our society is: "I want it all and I want it right now and I’ll do anything to get it and stuff everyone else."
Even modern religions, which are still based upon primitive religions with their superstitious, completely implausible beliefs, have embraced this selfish philosophy and the ‘camel passing through the eye of a needle’ admonishment no longer has any meaning and neither does ‘thou shall not kill’.
Ammit must have a very full stomach these days. Surely he’s grossly obese and has black teeth!
Mars, the god of War, is the only god we pray to now. And he is a very satisfied, gorged god. Our entire society, from the over 35,000 corporations who receive funding from the Department of “Defense”, our sprawling military-industrial complex, our mighty armed forces, our nebulous network of global “enduring bases” in over 140 countries around the globe, our network of “back site” prisons hidden from the public eye, and the hundreds of billions we spend annually to fund it all:
The U.S.A is indeed a devout, true, enthusiastic follower of Mars. We sacrifice thousands on his altar every day, and we do so with gusto and a big Boo-Yah!!!
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Year, America is into war in a big way, Demon.
Problem is that war is counterproductive: sometimes it achieves short-term solutions but inevitably it creates long-term problems such as hate and the desire for revenge.
Soon, America is going to reap a reward that it won’t enjoy.
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not all Americans are evil or support War…there are millions that don’t…( so far that I know of atleast 17 Million this primary season at least…and probally more)….
so right now after reading those two comments my heart , if it was weighed would weigh many pounds……
I will as always apologize for America…I did not ever VOTE for Bush, and this country was hijacked in two elections in a row….it is Hell here…
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Enigma, 17 million out of 300 million is, sadly, small bikkies. Where all this is going to end I don’t know but I fear the worst!
Hang in there.
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And even more sad is the fact that there are still a significant percentage of Americans who believe in the Iraq war, love George W. Bush, think that “those terr’usts deserve to be tortured!”, and that God does, truly and literally, bless America and its citizens above all other people in the world. And they wholeheartedly applaud our military and every bomb that we drop.
Sorry, but I have no hope. As David stated, America is going to be reaping the “rewards” of its global bullying and self-righteous war-mongering for a long, long time. It is just a matter of time before the next 9-11. And when that happens, our knee-jerk reaction will be 10 times worse than it was the first time: the rest of the world will cringe for our mindless military lashback, we will be submerged completely into an Orwellian martial-law type governance here at home devoid of freedoms and civil liberties, and we can kiss any semblance of a decent economy completely bye-bye.
It IS going to happen. Just a question of when. And most of us on the left have been warning of it for about 7 years now. Reap what you sow, indeed.
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