Since we've gotten told to stop talking generally about religion twice in the Homosexuality and Religion thread and were told that, if we want to talk generally about religion, we need to make a new thread, I have made a new thread.
Full disclosure: I am an agnostic atheist and anti-theist, but I'm very interested in theology and religion.
Mod Edit: All right, there are a couple of ground rules here:
- This is not a thread for mindless bashing of religion or of atheism/agnosticism etc. All view points are welcome here. Let's have a civil debate.
- Religion is a volatile subject. Please don't post here if you can't manage a civil discussion with viewpoints you disagree with. There will be no tolerance for people who can't keep the tone light hearted.
- There is no one true answer for this thread. Don't try to force out opposing voices.
edited 9th Feb '14 1:01:31 PM by Madrugada
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Since cremation was the default treatment of the dead in Hellenic Greece, it seems unlikely that their idea of the afterlife put a lot of store by physical intactness. However, an obol coin was traditionally interred along with the ashes as payment for Charon ... so maybe we can guess that the unclaimed dead were stuck eternally waiting at the Styx's banks, like so many disgruntled bus-stop commuters.
I thought they put coins on their closed eyes for that purpose.
I smell magic in the air. Or maybe barbecue.
King of the Rhino Men
^ I thought that as well.
Side note: I was today years old when I found out that Atlantis was completely fictional.
Like, I knew it wasn't real, per se, but I always thought Plato based it off of a real city that collapsed into the sea or something.
Chain an angry nature god at your own peril.
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π‘π
It might be somewhat based on the Minoan civilization but it's a bit farfetched.
Secret Signature
Mweheheh
Or Santorini.
It was reported
in 2011 that a city very similar to Atlantis was discovered in Spain, but I donβt know if any academic research came of it.
Edited by Spinosegnosaurus77 on May 20th 2024 at 7:02:05 AM
Peace is the only battle worth waging.
ππ©π―ππ°π
π‘π
King of the Rhino Men
The location tracks (Plato apparently mentions that Atlantis specifically sinks in the Atlantic, which meets the Mediterranean at Strait of Gibraltar).
The timeline is what seems to be throwing everything so far off that it comes right back around to the likelihood of him simply making it up as both an Aesop and touting of Athenian superiority. I think he specifically mentions the Atlantian Empire being destroyed by the Olympians some 9,000 years before, which if I recall correctly would mean that Atlantis was an empire long before Mesopotamia was even a thing and the rest of humanity were still hunter-gatherers.
Chain an angry nature god at your own peril.
It's quite possible that the story of Atlantis draws inspiration from certain real events, but ultimately Plato was telling a fictional story with a specific message in mind.
So most of it is made up, and even the parts that are inspired by real events may of been inspired by things that happened in completely different places. So the "real" Atlantis may be 3 or 4 different cities/towns that don't really have much to do with each other.
Iβve heard theories that it was at least partially inspired by Tartessos (a coastal city we know very little about beyond it being famous for fine, advanced metalworking and art, that that did disappear in a comparatively abrupt way - though by all appearances did so for much more mundane reasons than literally falling into the sea).
I think most likely is right: that the story of Atlantis as weβve come to understand it is a combination of a lot of stories about a several cities that did exist, merged together and exaggerated in memory into a single location over hundreds of years.
Edited by KnownUnknown on May 22nd 2024 at 11:32:15 AM
"The difference between reality and fiction is that fiction has to make sense." - Tom Clancy, paraphrasing Mark Twain.
Worth noting that the Bill is not attempting to actually ban the Bible (because apart from the fact that that absolutely violates both Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Religion, such an act would be political suicide and impractical to enforce anyway), but expanding the definition of antisemitism to as the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance defines it, thereby strengthen measures meant to combat antisemitism itself.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2024/05/10/defining-antisemitism-for-investigating-discrimination/73639539007/
Not that the GOP would really care about that little difference, but at the risk of getting bonked for derailing the thread, I won't go any further than that.![[lol]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/lol2v12_4863.png "[lol]")
Edit: Above is in relation to a question about the Hebrews being blamed for Jesus' crucifixion and the U.S. House of Representatives passing a bill that certain groups claim is banning the Bible (when it isn't).
Classical Mythology question:
Would Charon give a free pass for any Greek that died in battle but their bodies were unable to be recovered, either because there's too little left of a body to collect, or the body got washed out to sea? Or were there other rituals that the family of the fallen could prefer in the hopes that Charon would grant the honored dead passage over the Styx?
The question occurred to me after rewatching 300, although I know the real Leonidas' body was eventually recovered, but it left me wondering what would have happened to his soul if he wasn't given proper burial rites, or the Persians left nothing of him for his wife Queen Gorgo to bury.
Edited by Angelspawndragon on May 10th 2024 at 7:21:44 AM
Chain an angry nature god at your own peril.