The General Religion, Mythology, and Theology Thread

>For what it's worth, there is some Early Installment Weirdness with Abrahamic religion. In very early Abrahamic religion (before Genesis was written) there was some myth about Yahweh killing and Eldritch Abomination called Leviathan, and the world being its corpse IIRC. The old myth is alluded to in Job (likely the oldest book of the bible) in a Badass Boast along the lines of "Cthulhu is my bitch!" by Yahweh, though very few consider it 'canon' anymore.

>Or maybe that humanity can only subjugate nature with the help of God? I mean, if you believe God gave humanity knowledge, such an interpretation is not a stretch.

In my mind, a straight reading of Gen 1:26-30 is that Humanity is to turn the wild into garden. In essence, God rules over all things, Humanity rules over nature, but must tame nature rather then being it's master outright.

Incidentally, this is where Christian Environmentalism can come in, we are commanded to take care of the earth rather then destroy it.

Edited by Soban on Apr 13th 2019 at 4:01:10 AM

The reverse interpretation has been sadly popular: that if you can overcome nature and impose "civilized" agriculture on "primitive" nature, that means God has blessed your choices.

mind you that in Classical Mythology humanity has various origin stories and "ages". I think humanity first started during Kronos's rule? but there's not quite a myth for how those came to be. There's also the myth involving Prometheus and his bro which is probably the most known one, since it leads to stealing fire and Pandora.

Edited by alekos23 on Apr 13th 2019 at 11:49:05 AM

Yeah, that would be the enviromentalist approach to the matter, as God did all that is good, with nature in all its wilderness included, humanity must take care of the creation as another show of its devotion to God, acting like a shepherd and gardener instead of a tyrant.

To be fair, an interpretation of the story of Cain and Abel shows the exact opposite as the nomad shepherd Abel is blessed whereas the settled farmer Cain is not. That said, I remember reading a version long ago that also explained that Cain gave the worst of his harvest to God whereas Abel sacrificed the best of his cattle.

Edited by raziel365 on Apr 13th 2019 at 7:06:28 AM

>That said, I remember reading a version long ago that also explained that Cain gave the worst of his harvest to good whereas Abel sacrificed the best of his cattle.

That is a popular interpretation, but The problem is that based on the text, we don't actually know what the reason was.

Pretty logical to infer that that's the case, though, considering the context.

If we consider how part of the Genesis has its moralist implication and that the banishment of Adam and Eve was due to the cardinal sin of pride, then Cain should be the next two cardinal sins: Greed and Envy.

Greed, because he refused to part with the best of his harvest to give his due to God; and Envy, because instead of realising his mistake, he preferred to hate his brother for being blessed instead of him.

Mind you as the first murderer, one might think Cain gets Wrath.

Yeah but it's pretty much stated outright if I recall that he got angry and murdered Abel because he was jealous that Abel's sacrifice was accepted and his wasn't.

Mind you, I've always heard it explained (in religious education... long story) that Abel sacrificed from the best of his herd and Cain from the worst of the harvest.

It's entirely possible that part of the problem was that when these stories were written down and started to be codified the exact reasons were left out because they were assumed knowledge.

There's a similar section later on in Genesis with Noah after the flood. There's a section where one of his sons (Ham) is said to enter his father's tent and "saw him naked." That's usually as interpreted as a euphemism for something much worse given what follows but no one in the modern days is sure exactly what for.

Yeah it is very much possible that the real reason was assumed to be known and thus either they felt it redundant to spell it out or were relying on this assumption so they wouldn't talk about something they considered taboo or uncomfortable. (Like in the Noah example the most common interpretation I saw was that the boys saw Noah get way too drunk and Noah stripped in his drunkenness. Why it is that Noah only gets mad at the son who is actually tactful enough to cover his father up, though, is beyond me.)

I always assumed that the original myth was a slur against the farmers told by the herdsmen living nearby.

Might have to do with what you do with the sacrifice after burning it. Burned fruit isn't as usable as burned meat.

Also, how would "sacrificing your best wheat" or whatever even work?

Here is the whole story as we know it

That is literally the whole story. The story with Noah and getting drunk? Here it is.

... Every time I read the Bible, the horror is renewed.

I tend to think people try to make that story deeper than it is. Jealousy plain and simple.

But everyone hear about Notre Dame's fire and the hate crimes against churches across Europe?

I heard of the former, but not the latter.

Flame Bait is Flame Bait.

https://www.newsweek.com/spate-attacks-catholic-churches-france-sees-altars-desecrated-christ-statue-1370800

Here we go.

What Im hearing is that the ND fire was probably connected to the restoration work going on at the time.

It's the Bible talking about the first generation of Earth-born humans. Of course people will read more into it than was intended. A lot of people have built their entire lives, down to the smallest detail, around this book. I don't know if calling Bellisario's Maxim is some comic or dramatic missing of the point, or if it's a deliberate highlighting of its artificial, flawed nature.

I didn't mean for my statement to be flame bait. I wanted to voice my frustration in a way that could be taken as harmless ("there's very few stories in the Bible that go happily and without misery and violence, we know that, we know, there there"). But ambiguity can be construed as an invitation to the worst interpretation, so I'll fill the gaps.

For me, specifically, the horror comes from the patterns of narcissism and parental abuse that God and his Prophets demonstrate over and over. Favouritism, blatant unfairness, and arbitrary kindness without rhyme or reason are big parts of the pattern. I'm not the first to notice. This therapist goes into the problem at length, both on the Doylist and Watsonian perspective.

I strongly disagree with that interpretation but the whole point of the Cain story was not God's wrath to me. It's the fact God gives Cain protection against being murdered for his crime, which to me is the first sign of God's infinite forgiveness and love.

I had a similar feeling regarding the Job story.

Besides Cain kind of, you know, murdered his brother.

Maybe God wasn't being truly fair in that story, depending on how you choose to read it, but fratricide is a bit of an overreaction.

Well, the thing is, back then, that's how people related to each other. Life was harsh, and the concept of each individual as an end in themselves wouldn't be invented for thousands of years. We really shouldn't be surprised if this is reflected in the religious stories they told themselves.

I've always wondered if Adam and Eve were the first humans and Cain and Abel were their first children, who are all the people waiting around to kill Cain for his crime....