From: pciszek@isis.cs.du.edu (Paul Ciszek)
Subject: Re: Worship of the Greek gods
Organization: University of Denver, Dept. of Math & Comp. Sci.
Date: Fri, 10 Apr 92 05:59:34 GMT

pharvey@mipos3.intel.com (Paul Harvey) writes:

>The stone age was no "Garden of Eden", there was life and death and infant
>mortality and all the other opposites. Stone age people had a more varied diet 
>than we do today, certainly more varied than neolithics. For example, the 
>Native SF Bay Californians had easy access to salmon, trout, oysters, clams, 
>whale, deer, abalone, seals, birds, elk, onions, berries, acorns, seaweed, 
>tule reed, ... Food gathering required only an hour or so per day, most

SF Bay was one of the more hospitable spots on earth.  In a documentary I saw
a reconstruction of a camp in scandinavia that had been used during the last
glaciation.  Apparently the local animals were virtually the only resource
available to these people; their dwellings were made entirely out of parts
of animal bodies.  *These* folks had no onions and seaweed.
Even a non-health-concious american, on the other hand, might begin the day
with Rice Crispies and bananas, hit Taco Bell for lunch and consume maize
from the new world and various spices from who knows where, and for dinner
consume plants and animals that did not even exist in paleolithic times.
In the course of a month, s/he will probably eat a little something from
most areas of the world, irregardless of season.  We seem to grow taller,
have sturdier skeletons, and live longer too.


>Warfare is an invention of men, (the masculine), and perhaps even defines
>modern man. To turn a goddess, (typically the source of life), into a

Ah, yes.  The central paradox of modern paganism:  When an ancient culture
is obsessed with making exagerated, unrealistic images of women and considers
sex and preganancy to be the core of female power and function, it is
called "matriarchal".  When a 20th century man is obsessed with exagerated,
unrealistic images of women and considers sex and procreation to be the
primary function of women, he is a sexist pig.

Why do we assume that people in an earlier age were fundamentaly different
than they are now?  What little we know of these cultures can be explained
just as easily by the desires, ambitions, lusts, and hungers that people
experience now as by assuming any Golden Age.

>goddess of war is obviously a male trick to subvert female power. When

Obvious?  How?

>you find a goddess of war, this is ussually an indication that the culture
>was originally female centered and underwent a change to male centered
>as warfare was introduced.

The Irish whom I used as an example invaded the island from the continent,
and both their own legends and the present day genetic makeup of the Irish
population indicate that they couldn't have been too gentle about it.  Thus,
they had to have been warlike since before they came to Ireland.  Now, the
continental Celts that they were descended from were quite content to have
male war gods; thus a people who were already warlike decided to throw
away a perfectly servicable male war god in favor of a female one.  They 
already had a different goddess for the "source of life" stuff.
--
Paul Ciszek, pciszek@nyx.cs.du.edu | Saddam Hussein still has a job; do you?