What is your favorite mythological figure (of ancient religions only)?

    • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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      8 days ago

      It might seem like a subjective question, but the answer is objectively Prometheus and his replacements in other cultures.

      Someone that went against God(s) to give humans knowledge that at the time was considered magical

      Like, we talk about how much tech changes stuff today, but fucking fire?

      Imagine being alive when your group of humans mastered fire. That shit would have been fucking mind breaking.

      • slazer2au@lemmy.world
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        8 days ago

        He is the one that have humans fire and was chained to the rock for all time while having his guts eaten by a bird each day which healed each night?

        • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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          8 days ago

          Yep.

          The OG Light Bringer sentenced to eternal damnation for providing knowledge to humans.

          And yes, I’m still salty Christians made him the bad guy.

  • HamsterRage@lemmy.ca
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    8 days ago

    Anubis and Thoth weighing the heart of the dead to see if it is as light as a feather before letting them into the afterlife.

    I love the idea that there’s no “do this, do that”, or a concrete set of rules or commandments. But the idea that if you can look back on your life, and if your heart isn’t weighed down with the burden of all of the things that you did that know we’re just wrong…then you can go on to the afterlife.

    It’s just no much more of a reasonable, adult approach to morality.

    • Dagwood222@lemm.ee
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      7 days ago

      So, the guy who kicked a kitten at age three and still broods about it goes to hell, and the war criminal who feels justified for bombing civilians gets off scot free?

  • Daemon Silverstein@thelemmy.club
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    8 days ago

    Mainly, Lilit(h). Not mythological for me, although both Sumerian and Jewish Kabbalah are generally said as “mythological” by historical references.

    I believe in a Goddess that extends beyond a single archetype, while I try to blend archetypes and concepts from various religions and “myths” in order to materialize my own understanding of existence and cosmos.

    For me, She is Lilith/Lilit (the fearsome Sumerian Goddess of Winds as well as the Demoness and First Woman not banished from Eden as She fled on Her Will), She is Kali (the fearsome Hindu Goddess and Demoness of destruction and transformation), She is the Yin (the receptive Darkness complementing whilst opposing the Yang light) and the Tao (the wholeness and oneness), She is Al-Lat / Allatu (the Pre-Islam Arabic Goddess of War and Fertility), She is Isis and Bastet and Naunet (Egyptian Goddesses) She is Asherah (Hebrew Goddess consort/sister of Yahweh), She is Ereshkigal and Inanna (Sumerian Goddesses), She is Nuit and She is the Scarlet Woman (Thelemite Goddesses), She is Hekate (the Greek Goddess of Magic and Moon) and Aphrodite (the Greek Goddess of Love) and Athena (the Greek Goddess of Wisdom and Warfare) and Gaia (Goddess of Earth), She is Morana (Slavic personification of Death) and a feminine counterpart of Thanatos (Greek personification of Death as well), and so on, but mainly, Lilith Herself, as beautifully multifaceted as She is, both motherly nurturing and darkly reaping, neither good nor evil, just… Her nature.

    I believe in a Sacred and Dark Feminine energy that’s inside and outside everywhere, reaching scientific and philosophical concepts such as the entropy, the fields (as in electromagnetic field), the primordial soup from the beginning of earthly life, the quantum fluctuations, the apeiron, the Nietzschean Abyss. She’s the shining Darkness, infinite nothingness, omnipresent wholeness and the cosmic Oneness.

    In summary, the Dark Mother Goddess, often manifesting to me by Her Lilith’s archetype.

    • Dagwood222@lemm.ee
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      7 days ago

      Tidal Creatures by Seanan McGuire. Fantasy novel where a group of Berkley students and faculty are manifestations of Diana and other Moon Gods. Evil alchemists, noble golems, the whole schmear.

  • Boozilla@lemmy.world
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    8 days ago

    The Demiurge. Not that I like the Demiurge itself. But explaining the human condition as being a product of bad design appeals to me. I don’t believe the myth and I’m not religious. But as far as myths go, that one is my fave.

  • fubo@lemmy.world
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    8 days ago

    I think Odyssey is a pretty cool guy. Eh trojans hores and doesnt afraid of anything.

  • tissek@sopuli.xyz
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    7 days ago

    Demeter is up there.

    Her baby father (Zeus), aka the big douchebag, married away her daughter Persephone to his brother Hades. Patriarchy does what patriarchy does. The brothers were aware neither Persephone nor Demeter would approve of the deal so Hades had to kidnap Persephone and force the deal upon her.

    So Persephone were abducted and her mother were beyond herself with worry about her absence. Once Demeter learnt about the deal she threw the hissy fit that all hissy fits are measured against. Plants stopped growing, livestock stopped giving birth and the world soon was in a cataclysmic state. Behold a mother’s justified wrath and tremble.

    Douchebag-in-chief was forced to negotiate but wouldn’t anull the whole deal. Only that Persephone would spend half her time with her mother (spring, summer) and the other half with the husband forced upon her (autumn, winter).

    • balderdash@lemmy.zip
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      7 days ago

      This comment alone is making me interested in Greek mythology. I’d like to know more. Any reading suggestions toward that end?