first of all, I don't like the translation. You are using the fundie Bible.

second of all, the only comprehension of good or bad that the characters in tale had is the fact that God give them an instruction. An instruction which is imprinted in their soul (As ourselves we know that killing is bad (unless for self-defense) that is imprinted, yet the characters in the tale decided go their own way.
The same as the murderer (not talking about the mentally insane) decides to kill even if he/she knows it's wrong.
That's it. Human beings have some sort of moral code inprinted in their souls. Such moral code is what we know divine or eternal law from which natural and human laws are derived. Whenever a human being decides to go against such inprinted moral code, is when we have evil.

Well read what you are writing there. All you need is a big bronze staff and a flowing robe and a long white beard and you would be Moses himself proclaiming his infallibility upon the mountain. Take it down a notch. This is a casual discussion as far as I understood it.

Oh by the way Tribo, I was right about the true history of religion. And I dont need to cite any sources. I am the source. If its such a big deal to you then YOU can cite sources to prove me wrong. But you cant do it because Im NOT wrong. The best you will be able to do is maybe argue some kind of semantic definition of a particular word or two. Thats usually how these discussions go isnt it? I stand by my statements. The earth gods preceded and were replaced by the skygods. Happens in every society when it evolves from nomadic hunter/gatherers to an agricultural society. And you know the more I think about it,the more it bothers me. I deal with this stuff everyday. I live it. I dont have to prove squat.I dont have to cite sources because I know and comprehend the material. I dont need to make stuff up like other people around here do, and ask the same old questions over and over and over again Because I understand and I have the answers. You people are the ones asking the questions, not me I can answer questions from my own personal knowledge because I am the source.

Well, I didn't plagiarize anyone and its not my opinion and its not a research paper so I'm not sure what sources you and Krimsa expected me to cite.The best I could do on short notice was cite my college textbook. When you tell someone that the sky is blue you don't need to cite a source, do you? I just felt like that was an unfair expectation you and Krimsa threw on me.I'm not sure if you were accusing me of plagiarism or saying that what I stated was inaccurate. But it is accurate, and I am the source. So I guess in this instance, I could be used as a source citation.

A little more information about the "Skygods"


The Peripheral Invaders

At first it was like the proverbial biblical cloud "no bigger than a man's hand"-the activities of seemingly insignificant nomadic bands roaming the less desirable fringe areas of our globe seeking grass for their herds. Over millennia they were apparently out there in the harsh, unwanted, colder, sparser territories on the edges of the earth, while the first great agricultural civilizations spread out along the lakes and rivers in the fertile heartlands. To these agricultural peoples, enjoying humanity's early peak of evolution, peace and prosperity must have seemed the blessed eternal state for humankind, the nomads no more than a peripheral novelty. We have nothing to go by but speculation on how these nomadic bands grew in numbers and in ferocity and over what span of time.' But by the fifth millennium B.C.E., or about seven thousand years ago, we begin to find evidence of what Mellaart calls a pattern of disruption of the old Neolithic cultures in the Near East.' Archaeological remains indicate clear signs of stress by this time in many territories. There is evidence of invasions, natural catastrophes, and sometimes both, causing large-scale destruction and dislocation. In many areas the old painted pottery traditions disappear. Bit by devastating bit, a period of cultural regression and stagnation sets in. Finally, during this time of mounting chaos the development of civilization comes to a standstill. As Mellaart writes, it will be another two thousand years before the civilizations of Sumer and Egypt emerge.6 In Old Europe the physical and cultural disruption of the Neolithic societies that worshiped the Goddess also seems to begin in the fifth millenniUM B.C.E., with what Gimbutas calls Kurgan Wave Number One. "Thanks to the growing number of radiocarbon dates, it is now possible to trace several migratory waves of steppe pastoralists or 'Kurgan' people that swept across prehistoric Europe," reports Gimbutas. These repeated incursions and ensuing culture shocks and population shifts were concentrated in three major thrusts: Wave No. 1, at c. 43004200 B.C.E.; Wave No. 2, c. 3400-3200 B.C.E.; and Wave No. 3, c. 30002800 B.C.E. (dates are calibrated to dendrochronology).' The Kurgans were of what scholars call Indo-European or Aryan language-speaking stock, a type that was in modern times to be idealized by Nietzsche and then Hitler as the only pure European race. In fact, they were not the original Europeans, as they swarmed down on that continent from the Asiatic and European northeast. Nor were they even originally Indian, for there was another people, the Dravidians, who lived in India before the Aryan invaders conquered them. But the term Indo-European has stuck. It characterizes a long line of invasions from the Asiatic and European north by nomadic peoples. Ruled by powerful priests and warriors, they brought with them their male gods of war and mountains. And as Aryans in India, Hittites and Mittani in the Fertile Crescent, Luwians in Anatolia, Kurgans in eastern Europe, Achaeans and later Dorians in Greece, they gradually imposed their ideologies and ways of life on the lands and peoples they conquered.

There were other nomadic invaders as well. The most famous of these are a Semitic people we call the Hebrews, who came from the deserts of the south and invaded Canaan (later named Palestine for the Philistines, one of the peoples who lived in the area). The moral precepts we associate with both Judaism and Christianity and the stress on peace in many modern churches and synagogues now obscures the historical fact that originally these early Semites were a warring people ruled by a caste of warrior-priests (the Levite tribe of Moses, Aaron, and Joshua). Like the Indo-Europeans, they too brought with them a fierce and angry god of war and mountains (Jehovah or Yahweh). And gradually, as we read in the Bible, they too imposed much of their ideology and way of life on the peoples of the lands they conquered.

These striking similarities between the Indo-Europeans and the ancient Hebrews have led to some conjecture that there may here be some common origins, or at least some elements of cultural diffusional' But it is not the bloodlines or cultural contacts that cannot be found that are of such interest. It is what seems most definitely to unite these peoples of so many different places and times: the structure of their social and ideological systems. The one thing they all had in common was a dominator model of social organization: a social system in which male dominance, male violence, and a generally hierarchic and authoritarian social structure was the norm. Another commonality was that, in contrast to the societies that laid the foundations for Western civilization, the way they characteristically acquired material wealth was not by developing technologies of production, but through ever more effective technologies of destruction.

From a solipsistic viewpoint, that is a perfect (if maybe a little "impolite") expression of the solipsistic viewpoint - which is no less valid than any other viewpoint

Well - it doesn't really say - so obviously, we don't know. But that's never stopped anyone of us from having pages and pages to write about it.

Is it safe to assume that they knew what was around them was good? Since they were tossed out of the garden, it would tend to back up the idea that at least they were surrounded with all that was good. Hard to believe they didn't notice that. Obviously, they knew a lot more when they got out of the garden than when they were in it. Or did they? They likely had the same things to look at, just from two different perspectives when they got outside of the garden. It will be interesting to see where this goes though.

i'm in full agreement with you SH, never meant for it to be taken as MM not being able to summarize his own beleifs, i was looking for info that i could read to expand my knowlwdge on this that he had stated - nothing more, nothing less.

No one plagiarized that I was aware of? Did you?

i'm in full agreement with you SH, never meant for it to be taken as MM not being able to summarize his own beleifs, i was looking for info that i could read to expand my knowlwdge on this that he had stated - nothing more, nothing less.

I can understand that. My post was really just a "drive-by". I haven't followed this thread very closely. It's just that MM's post caught my eye and I though it was an interesting monologue so I thought I'd comment on it.

You admitted that you were summarizing and paraphrasing in your own words which is fine. Im not sure who brought up plagiarism. Anyway....

Mirror I added a post that went into a little more detail about who the "skygods" were exactly and where they came from. I also have dates for their invasions and what went down exactly. At least in theory.

Well thats not exactly what the post was saying. I think that's more what Mirror Mirror was claiming.

"There is evidence of invasions, natural catastrophes, and sometimes both, causing large-scale destruction and dislocation. In many areas the old painted pottery traditions disappear. Bit by devastating bit, a period of cultural regression and stagnation sets in. Finally, during this time of mounting chaos the development of civilization comes to a standstill. As Mellaart writes, it will be another two thousand years before the civilizations of Sumer and Egypt emerge. In Old Europe the physical and cultural disruption of the Neolithic societies that worshiped the Goddess also seems to begin in the fifth millenniUM B.C.E., with what Gimbutas calls Kurgan Wave Number One."

Neo pagans? So are you referring to Wiccans today? Well generally the most common Goddess found in the Wiccan tradition is the Triple Goddess. The triple moon is a Goddess symbol that represents the Maiden, Mother, and Crone as the waxing, full, and waning moon. It is also associated with feminine energy, mystery and psychic abilities. At her sacred grove at Aricia, on the shores of Lake Nemi a triplefold Diana was venerated from the late sixth century BCE as Diana Nemorensis. The Latin Diana was conceived as a threefold unity of the divine huntress, the Moon goddess, and the goddess of the nether world.

There were several Goddesses of the Neolithic period. One of the most famous excavations that you might find of interest is that of Catalhoyuk. It is one of the largest excavations ever discovered in southern Anatolia in Turkey. It dates at about 7500 BCE. A striking feature of Catalhoyuk are its female figurines. Mellaart, the original excavator, argued that these well-formed, carefully made figurines, carved and molded from marble, blue and brown limestone, schist, calcite, basalt, alabaster, and clay, represented a female deity of the Great Goddess type. Although a male deity existed as well, “…statues of a female deity far outnumber those of the male deity, who moreover, does not appear to be represented at all after Level VI”.To date, eighteen levels have been identified. These careful figurines were found primarily in areas Mellaart believed to be shrines. One, however – a stately goddess seated on a throne flanked by two lionesses – was found in a grain bin, which Mellaart suggests might have been a means of ensuring the harvest or protecting the food supply.