About that "cultural back seat..."

[onager]

Long, rambling screed...

BMUS recently linked to a thread that started with a tiresome Xer ranting about the Evil Secularists having too much control in the Democratic Party and the general culture. Etc.

That was rightly denounced as BS by most of us.

On the frigging contrary!

Over the weekend, I got an example...okay, a fairly stupid example...of just how much the Judeo-Xian myths permeate our culture.

I was watching that gigantic pile of steaming pickled ham from 1963, Cleopatra. (Richard Burton looks drunk or hungover in most of his scenes. According to the DVD documentary, he was.)

Anyhow, Julius Caesar's troops set fire to the Egyptian navy. Burning debris threatens the great library of Alexandria.

At this point, Cleopatra's Greek advisor Sisogenes (Hume Cronyn) comes in with a news update.

He starts mentioning the books that will burn in the library: all the plays by the great Greek dramatists, the works of science and mathematics, the philosophies of Plato, Aristotle, etc.

Camera zooms in for a close-up and he mutters solemnly: "The testament of the Hebrew God. The...the...BOOK OF BOOKS!"

Pfft! No educated Greek of that time (circa 40 BCE) would have considered the Greek translation of the Old Testament as the "Book Of Books."

It would have been seen as just one more text in the Alexandria Library's huge Barbarian Religion collection. The Ptolemies gathered hundreds of works in comparative religion for the library and had them translated into Greek.

In fact, if they hadn't financed that translation of the Old Testament, you could make a case that Rome and New York might be good pagan cities to this very day.

The Ptolemies did that to increase the general store of human knowledge, not because they had any particular affection for the Jewish religion. (Though they certainly did it up right. Ptolemy asked for the 6 smartest religious scholars from the 12 Jewish tribes. Then he put all 72 of them up for free in a seaside villa. The number of scholars is the reason it's called "Septuagint"--Greek for "seventy.")

But in this case, AGAIN, Hollywood obviously thought it was necessary to give the monotheists a big, sloppy wet kiss and reassure them that they belong to the "right" religion.

Religionists are some of the most insecure people on Earth.

[NMMNG]

1. "Religionists are some of the most insecure people on Earth."

Indeed.

Why else would they need weekly (or even more often) services to congregate and worship?

Why else would they need books of "affirmations".

Why else would they need Bible study groups?

Why else would they need to proselytize and attempt to convert every other person on the face of the earth?

Why else would they need so many rituals, holidays (holy-days), icons, etc.?

They need that constant reassurance, support and recognition to tell them they are "right", in the majority, and not alone.

[CarbonDate]

5. Funny thing....

...I was just commenting the other day that if I had actually found a Wiccan group to practice with out here, I probably wouldn't have gone atheist. Withtout that group-think backing up the religious-think, though, it eventually faded away. Just like that.

[onager]

6. Hmmm, CD. That's interesting.

So the longer you went without a support group, the less support you needed?

I see something like that...or maybe the reverse...every time I go back to where I was raised, in the South. Heck, I even saw it just week before last, when I was in North Carolina on a biz trip.

Living in Gomorrah (Los Angeles), I tend to forget how incredibly PERVASIVE religion is back there.

It certainly functions as a support group, but also as a constant reminder that any non-believers are a tiny minority and probably crazy anyway.

[beam me up scottie]

8. I wish I could forget how bad it is down here.

On the way home, teal colored Ford with a fishie and both "W/04" and "Support George W. Bush and Our Troops" bumperstickers.

If I was him, I'd be worried about driving that piece of crap in my neighborhood.
Those stickers won't make him any friends and the fishie won't save his ass.

eeeeeeeeeeewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww

I typed *'s name !!!!
Now I have to burn my keyboard.

[NMMNG]

7. Interesting

I myself went atheist about 8 years ago. For the longest time I wasn't the least bit open to anything that smacked of religion, and didn't consider myself the least bit spiritual since I couldn't separate that from religiosity. However in the past year I began dabbling in Buddhism. It's one of those things I study on-again and off-again right now. I don't see myself ever joining a Sangha or taking on any rigorous formal practice. However I do see in it some merit that is absent in the theistic religions. Likely I will just continue to study it, adopt some of the practices that work for me and leave it at that.

[Gelliebeans]

2. onager,

you pick the most interesting movies to watch :popcorn:

It is like getting the benefit of a good movie critic without the droning of siskel and ebert (wait, one of them is dead huh?)

Thanks for weighing and saving me a lot of time, I truly mean that :)

[onager]

3. Thanks! But I had to rent the DVD...

...because every time I tried to watch Cleopatra on cable, I fell asleep.

I'm not kidding. That thing is ponderous. It's worth watching just for the awesome scenery and props, but it moves very S-L-O-W-L-Y. And has a running time of about 4 hours.

Oh, and I like it for this kind of dialogue:

"Cleopatra is well versed in science and mathematics. She speaks seven languages proficiently. If she were not a woman, she would be considered an intellectual."

I realize that I tend to "drone" too. I'm trying to watch that...

But here's a Cool Goof in Oliver Stone's Alexander: the movie starts with Anthony Hopkins (playing Ptolemy Soter I) remembering Alexander The Great.

An on-screen title says: Alexandria--283 B.C.

Hopkins looks out to the sea, at the incredible, 40-story Pharos Lighthouse.

Whoops! Construction of the Pharos Lighthouse didn't even start until the reign of Ptolemy II--around 270 BCE.

[Gelliebeans]

4. oops!

someone forgot to fact check. Don't cha love it?

I love Anthony Hopkins though :loveya: