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Goodbye Jesus

Are The Religious Moderates Better Than The Fundies?


R. S. Martin

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Wait a tic. GH brought up the Greek legends. The "myths". How are they different from being "a product of many minds reflective of a culture’s view of the world through their humanity"? Are you saying they were considered "made up" stories to begin with as opposed to the Bible? Because I see them on equal footing in terms of being reflective of a cultural view of humanity. The bible has just historically had a better propaganda machine behind it. Do you mean to give more credibility to the bible than the greek legends, or is that just my impression?

 

I can't speak for Antlerman but I suspect it's just your impression. What I mean by that is, I am of the impression that the Greek myths such as Homer, were used as sacred canon for the millennia or two by the Greeks before Constantine replaced them with Mythraism, Judaism, and Christianity. (I'm not sure, maybe I'm giving credit to Constantine for stuff he didn't do; maybe the only thing he did was legalize Christianity.)Possibly Homer et al were subsumed under Mythraism. I'm not too strong in Greek mythology. I just know that I read somewhere that Homer (or someone) was taken by the Greeks as The Authority on Cosmological/Metaphysical Truth back in the days before the Roman Empire.

 

Hopefully someone more knowledgeable on the topic can chime in. Just wanted to clarify that there were other Authoratative Texts in the West before the Bible.

Mythraism was Persian... a contemporary of the rise of Arab monotheist thought.

 

The Greeks had no 'sacred canon', in the sense of post Trentino canon. A lot of the view of Plato is via the post Nicaea view of mythology. It's not really bourne out reading the texts.... Plato was an authority, but not a canon.

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Mythraism was Persian... a contemporary of the rise of Arab monotheist thought.

I beg to differ.

 

Mithra (without "s") and Mithras (with "s") are not the same, but Mithras could be something that evolved from Mithra.

 

Mithra is the Son God from Zoroastrianism which was Persian, and included Ahura Mazda and Zoroaster as a prophet, while Mithras is the Hero God in Mithraism which was the later Greek/Roman mystery cult. It is possible they are connected, but there's no evidence to support it.

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I beg to differ back...

 

http://www.mystae.com/restricted/streams/gnosis/mithra.html

 

http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-90530...aism#57278.hook

 

Enc. Brit.

 

The worship of Mithra, the Iranian god of the sun, justice, contract, and war in pre-Zoroastrian Iran. Known as Mithras in the Roman Empire during the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD, this deity was honoured as the patron of loyalty to the emperor. After the acceptance of Christianity by the emperor Constantine in the early 4th century, Mithraism rapidly declined.

 

Maybe a mail to the editors of the Enc. Brit. in the new year?

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AFAIC a "religious moderate" is one of the few who are either loading magazines for nutcases, or helping pack bombs for same, or providing the tools to do "something for their god" that they themselves lack the *stones* to do.

 

Moderates empower fanatics on all spectra by enabling them to do the "dirty work".

 

Falwell/Robertson/ayatollahAssahola, et al all have a nice, squeeky clean group of sheep, medianites, to fleece to provide the warriors their fodder...

 

One doesn't have to live to be the next Jihad Jonnie, or the next Clinic Clarise, but you gotta have something to hold dear and help anchor you against the explosive gist of verbage and flaming wreckage.

 

Being godless, or non-abrahamic sectarian gives one a way in life that doesn't require you blow your brother or neighbor up, especially when you find his Church is the Third Lefthanded Spannerwrench, Jesus Incanate, All Saints Saved, GLORY! Assembly.

 

And you happen to go to the Fourth.... Making THAT ASSHOLE a HEATHEN!

 

Revolt in 2100!!!

 

There are no *true moderates*....

 

kFL

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I would concur with that assessment... but you realise, you unmitigated bastard, I'll have to get that now...

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There is something that is missing without a good mythology to look to.

 

 

But I think we do have good replacement mythologies. I think they exist in literature and in film.

 

We have - Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, His Dark Materials, Doctor Who and Starwars. I think these are some very good mythologies actually.

 

edited to add: Ooh! And I nearly forgot Heroes

 

Babylon 5 - the paths of Molari into the dark, the path of G'Kar into the light, their dance of death along the decades ending in the sacrifice of Molari and the last act of the one true friend by G'Kar that killed them both and save the Centauri, circle of the life of Sinclair, the path to the throne of Vir, the betrayal of Lennier, and the Hero path of Sheridan.

 

And produced some of the most quotable quotes of the past 30 years...

 

"If I take a lamp and shine toward the wall, a bright spot will appear on the wall. The lamp is our search for truth, for understanding. Too often we assume the light on the wall is God, but the light is not the goal of the search, it is the result of the search. The more intense the search, the brighter the light on the wall. The brighter the light on the wall, the greater the revelation upon seeing it. Similarly, someone who does not search, who does not bring a lantern with him, sees nothing. What we perceive as God is the by-product of our search for God. It may simply be an appreciation of the light, pure and unblemished. Not understanding that it comes from us, sometimes, we stand in front of the light and assume we are the center of the universe. God looks astonishingly like we do. Or we turn to look at our shadow and assume all is darkness. If we allow ourselves to get in the way, we defeat the purpose - which is use the light of our search to illuminate the wall in all its beauty and all it flaws, and in so doing, better understand the world around us."

 

Antler is our G'Kar... 8)

 

 

WOW that is an awesome quote! I have never gotten into Babylon 5 but that certainly makes it seem tasty.

 

sojourner

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Enc. Brit.

 

The worship of Mithra, the Iranian god of the sun, justice, contract, and war in pre-Zoroastrian Iran. Known as Mithras in the Roman Empire during the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD, this deity was honoured as the patron of loyalty to the emperor. After the acceptance of Christianity by the emperor Constantine in the early 4th century, Mithraism rapidly declined.

 

Maybe a mail to the editors of the Enc. Brit. in the new year?

 

Well, okay, you might be right, but I felt that the following quote kind of gave me the understanding that the connection is only just a possible hypothesis, but not a well established fact:

 

"One of the most elusive and hotly debated issues in the study of Zoroastrianism is the precise nature of the connection between the Iranian deity Mithra and the military Roman Mithraic mystery cult, a connection which seems on the one hand so conclusive' and yet on the other so disturbingly remote. Even the historical problem of the manner of Mithra's arrival on the Roman scene remains unanswered. Some scholars have suggested that the conscription of Persian soldiers into the Roman army may account for it; others believe that Roman Mithraism was in fact a totally separate religion from its inception and was merely given a Persian 'gloss' to make it attractive to a population obsessed with the cryptic and inscrutable cast. Still others connect the Roman cult with Anatolia, where Mithra was known to be venerated in the company of other deities familiar to Zoroastrianism such as Anahita. There is little we can say about its journey west with any certainty, since it was evidently a cult which seemingly functioned without the need for texts (there are none remaining which, given the geographical area covered by the cult at its most popular, strongly suggests that none were ever written down), and the few inscriptions that do survive often merely illuminate the subjects of the carvings they accompany, revealing nothing substantial about the cult's origins. The cult which venerated Mithra in Roman circles (where he is traditionally known as Mithras), and which enjoyed a life of nearly 400 years, was esoteric, confined to male members of the Roman military and political elite (though traders and even slaves may have been eligible for membership), and demanded a series of seven graded initiation rites."

- Peter Clark, Zoroastrianism, An Introduction to an Ancient Faith, p. 157

 

or this one:

 

"It is probable...that the western Mithras had its roots in a daevic cult of the god as practiced in Mesopotamia and Anatolia, and not in the cult of the Zoroastrianized Mithra in Iran. The western Mithras is a savior god in an era of savior gods."

- Richard N. Frye, The Heritage of Persia

 

Cumont's conclusions are compelling, but that does not mean it is settled or proven.

 

 

 

Maybe a mail to the editors of the Enc. Brit. in the new year?

Btw, how does Enc. Brit define the word "atheism"?

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J. Michael Straczynski is an atheist... but he gets the joke...

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If we treat either the Bible as 'just another work of fiction' then we can compare it to LoTR, Star Wars, or the Greek Legends

I don’t think so. Those works do in fact do a lot of the same thing as Mark’s Odyssey does. But I see the difference being that the bible isn’t a work of fiction per se’, but a product of many minds reflective of a culture’s view of the world through their humanity. I suppose one could argue the Canon of scripture is a work of fiction, because it artificially chooses things to fit a doctrine. But the individual pieces are more literary vehicles using the language of the day which was largely mythological.

 

 

Wait a tic. GH brought up the Greek legends. The "myths". How are they different from being "a product of many minds reflective of a culture’s view of the world through their humanity"? Are you saying they were considered "made up" stories to begin with as opposed to the Bible? Because I see them on equal footing in terms of being reflective of a cultural view of humanity. The bible has just historically had a better propaganda machine behind it. Do you mean to give more credibility to the bible than the greek legends, or is that just my impression?

No. Actually I didn't catch the Greek bit at the end of his sentence for some reason (maybe because he was talking of LoTR and Star Wars before it, which is on a different level to me). I'm no expert in this area, but I would suspect that with things like Christianity it did follow the teachings of traditions and stories and surrounding art that blended and shaped the formations of the myths.

 

This is what I meant in another place here (I think in my debate with Kat) about it being a "bottom up" sort of creation, as opposed to a top-down one, i.e., George Lucas, Tolkien, or an assumed God. Those would be direct creations tapping into the mythos of the culture and using the signs, whereas I tend to see Christianity, Judaism, Islam, etc as all evolving products of a culture collectively over time. I think this is what I mean by man creates God in his own image and feed him, so He can feed man. It's on a different level than Star Wars, per se'. There was no real single 'top down' creator of the myth. This I suppose is what LoTR couldn't really become a religion, because it's not really a society that help shaped the face the myth took.

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Tolkien's stated intent was to construct a myth cycle for the British Isles... but it's regarded only as a fairy story...

 

From what one can gather about Greek Myth, it's not on a 'different' level to Star Wars, since there is little evidence that the 'educated class' had anymore belief in the literal truth of Heracles than we do of Han Solo...

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"Btw, how does Enc. Brit define the word "atheism"?"

 

in general, the critique and denial of metaphysical beliefs in God or spiritual beings. As such, it is usually distinguished from theism, which affirms the reality of the divine and often seeks to demonstrate its existence. Atheism is also distinguished from agnosticism, which leaves open the question whether there is a god or not, professing to find the questions unanswered or unanswerable.

 

The dialectic of the argument between forms of belief and unbelief raises questions concerning the most perspicuous delineation, or characterization, of atheism, agnosticism, and theism. It is necessary not only to probe the warrant for atheism but also carefully to consider what is the most adequate definition of atheism. This article will start with what have been some widely accepted, but still in various ways mistaken or misleading, definitions of atheism and move to more adequate formulations that better capture the full range of atheist thought and more clearly separate unbelief from belief and atheism from agnosticism. In the course of this delineation the section also will consider key arguments for and against atheism.

Atheism as rejection of religious beliefs

 

A central, common core of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam is the affirmation of the reality of one, and only one, God. Adherents of these faiths believe that there is a God who created the universe out of nothing and who has absolute sovereignty over all his creation; this includes, of course, human beings—who are not only utterly dependent on this creative power but also sinful and who, or so the faithful must believe, can only make adequate sense of their lives by accepting, without question, God's ordinances for them. The varieties of atheism are numerous, but all atheists reject such a set of beliefs.

 

Atheism, however, casts a wider net and rejects all belief in “spiritual beings,†and to the extent that belief in spiritual beings is definitive of what it means for a system to be religious, atheism rejects religion. So atheism is not only a rejection of the central conceptions of Judeo-Christianity and Islam, it is, as well, a rejection of the religious beliefs of such African religions as that of the Dinka and the Nuer, of the anthropomorphic gods of classical Greece and Rome, and of the transcendental conceptions of Hinduism and Buddhism. Generally atheism is a denial of God or of the gods, and if religion is defined in terms of belief in spiritual beings, then atheism is the rejection of all religious belief.

 

It is necessary, however, if a tolerably adequate understanding of atheism is to be achieved, to give a reading to “rejection of religious belief†and to come to realize how the characterization of atheism as the denial of God or the gods is inadequate.

 

If the Encyclopaedia Britannica isn't at least a reasonable overview of current 'expert' view we're screwed and may as well go back to reading the entrails of goats...

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If the Encyclopaedia Britannica isn't at least a reasonable overview of current 'expert' view we're screwed and may as well go back to reading the entrails of goats...

:Wendywhatever:

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You got something to say han? 'What ever' is just playing the asshole and we both know it... if that's a path you fancy I'm game...

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EB makes the claim based on Franz Cumont's hypothesis from the early 20th century. What I presented to you were quotes from modern researchers that disagree with that idea, or at least say it's not well established or proven this as a fact. I don't consider EB as just another "Bible" to contain the "Absolute truths".

 

Here's a quote from Wikipedia:

Other theories

Other theories propose that Mithraism originated in Asia Minor, which though once within the sphere of Zoroastrian influence, by the second century BCE were more influenced by Hellenism than by Zoroastrianism. It was there, at Pergamum on the Aegean Sea, in the second century BCE, that Greek sculptors started to produce the highly standardized bas-relief imagery of Mithra Tauroctonos "Mithra the bull-slayer."

 

The Greek historiographer Plutarch (46 - 127) was convinced that the pirates of Cilicia, the coastal province in the southeast of Anatolia, were the origin of the Mithraic rituals that were being practiced in the Rome of his day: "They likewise offered strange sacrifices; those of Olympus I mean; and they celebrated certain secret mysteries, among which those of Mithras continue to this day, being originally instituted by them." (Life of Pompey 24)

 

Beck suggests a connection through the Hellenistic kingdoms (as Cumont had already intimated) was quite possible: "Mithras — moreover, a Mithras who was identified with the Greek Sun god, Helios, which was one of the deities of the syncretic Graeco-Iranian royal cult founded by Antiochus I, king of the small, but prosperous "buffer" state of Commagene, in the mid first century BCE."[6]

 

Another possible connection between a Mithra and Mithras, though one not proposed by Cumont, is from a Manichean context. According to Sundermann, the Manicheans adopted the name Mithra to designate one of their own deities. Sundermann determined that the Zoroastrian Mithra, which in Middle Persian is Mihr, is not a variant of the Parthian and Sogdian Mytr or Mytrg; though a homonym of Mithra, those names denote Maitreya. In Parthian and Sogdian however Mihr was taken as the sun and consequently identified as the Third Messenger. This Third Messenger was the helper and redeemer of mankind, and identified with another Zoroastrian divinity Narisaf.[12] Citing Boyce,[13] Sundermann remarks, "It was among the Parthian Manicheans that Mithra as a sun god surpassed the importance of Narisaf as the common Iranian image of the Third Messenger; among the Parthians the dominance of Mithra was such that his identification with the Third Messenger led to cultic emphasis on the Mithraic traits in the Manichaean god."[14]

 

If we can't trust Wikipedia... well?

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EDITED out beligerent nonsense

 

A vaild point Han.

 

Generally EB does have a reasonably good level of scholarship along lines of current consensus. It there is a bias, it tends to be Chrsitian apologetic, and the idea that Mythra<> Mythras actually is more Christian apologetic than it being the Classical incarnation of a Persian Warrior cult that was subverted into Christianity...

 

TBH the Pocket Universe view of religions doesn't work, and really is an 18th-19th conceit, when the reality is that the Silk road and the tin trade meant China and Cornwall collide in the Eastern Med. It tends to be the preserve of the loudly ignorant to assume that adjacent cultures had no communication, when the reality is archaologically covered. They well may be 'experts' but like you say, it doesn't make them 'correct' just fashionable.

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Okay, okay. I don't want to fight over it.

 

If you look a bit closer, in one of the links you gave me, you have those two quotes I gave you for my argument from contemporary researchers.

 

Quote from Mithraism.org:

This website is dedicated to amassing information on and stimulating a greater understanding of Roman Mithraism, one of the most successful Mystery Religions of Late Antiquity. Because the relationship between Roman Mithraism and Mithraism as found in Zoroastrianism are no longer held as being intimately along the same continuum of religious evolution, as was held a century ago by the illustrious Belgian archaeologist and scholar, Franz Cumont, this site does not intend to present nearly as much information on Mithraic worship in Zoroastrianism. Having originally started here, (which, incidentally was far more focused on the cult within Zoroastrianism) this site aims at completely supplanting the previous one.

 

Designed and authored by Walter M. Shandruk, this site is the culmination of three and a half years of research, starting in the fall of 1998. Because of the breadth of material available concerning Roman Mithraism, this site is not and could not be exhaustive in its treatment of the subject, but it strives to nonetheless supply the Internet with accurate and reliable information on the Roman cult. The impetus behind the original site and now this one is to offset the largely scant and outdated information concerning the cult, mostly based on the work of Franz Cumont, that is today available on the Internet.

It's quite telling that there are more voices out there. At least I don't feel alone.

 

It's true that Zoroastrianism influenced Judaism and Mithraism and indirectly Christianity , but they're not the same religions, that's all I'm saying. They have same roots and they have similar ideas, and there's a lot of overlap, but I read somewhere that it was Ahriman (Satan) that was fighting with the Bull, and not Mithra, which means the overlaps aren't that clear or distinct.

 

-edit-

 

I view the evolution of religion the same was as natural evolution. We have different species. A cat is not a dog, and a human is not an ape, but we share common ancestors, and through mutations and selection we've become different branches of the same tree. Religion has gone through the same thing. It has mutated and evolved into different "species" of religion. Mithraism is a separate "species" than Zoroastrians Mithra cult, but they do share common roots. I hope that make sense to someone...

 

-edit-

 

Damn, I'm trying to find some biography on Prof Reinhold Merkelbach, and I sometimes get hints that he's dead, and others that he still holding lectures in Cologne. Maybe he's a postmortem educator? :shrug:

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This should be another debate topic: Who is the True Mithrain™?

 

(Pulls out foam hands and waves them about, "God Hans! Kill 'em Gramps! )

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This should be another debate topic: Who is the True Mithrain™?

Don't count me in, I got a headache. One attempt is enough.

 

(Pulls out foam hands and waves them about, "God Hans! Kill 'em Gramps! )

I'd like to try those sumo-wrestling-suits. :grin:

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(Pulls out foam hands and waves them about, "God Hans! Kill 'em Gramps! )

I'd like to try those sumo-wrestling-suits. :grin:

Sounds kinky. I'm sure "Cupcake" Harley might be up to it, if he's rested since his last death match in it.

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Looks like fun.

 

aaa_1.jpg

 

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Okay, okay. I don't want to fight over it.

 

If you look a bit closer, in one of the links you gave me, you have those two quotes I gave you for my argument from contemporary researchers.

 

Quote from Mithraism.org:

This website is dedicated to amassing information on and stimulating a greater understanding of Roman Mithraism, one of the most successful Mystery Religions of Late Antiquity. Because the relationship between Roman Mithraism and Mithraism as found in Zoroastrianism are no longer held as being intimately along the same continuum of religious evolution, as was held a century ago by the illustrious Belgian archaeologist and scholar, Franz Cumont, this site does not intend to present nearly as much information on Mithraic worship in Zoroastrianism. Having originally started here, (which, incidentally was far more focused on the cult within Zoroastrianism) this site aims at completely supplanting the previous one.

 

Designed and authored by Walter M. Shandruk, this site is the culmination of three and a half years of research, starting in the fall of 1998. Because of the breadth of material available concerning Roman Mithraism, this site is not and could not be exhaustive in its treatment of the subject, but it strives to nonetheless supply the Internet with accurate and reliable information on the Roman cult. The impetus behind the original site and now this one is to offset the largely scant and outdated information concerning the cult, mostly based on the work of Franz Cumont, that is today available on the Internet.

It's quite telling that there are more voices out there. At least I don't feel alone.

 

It's true that Zoroastrianism influenced Judaism and Mithraism and indirectly Christianity , but they're not the same religions, that's all I'm saying. They have same roots and they have similar ideas, and there's a lot of overlap, but I read somewhere that it was Ahriman (Satan) that was fighting with the Bull, and not Mithra, which means the overlaps aren't that clear or distinct.

 

-edit-

 

I view the evolution of religion the same was as natural evolution. We have different species. A cat is not a dog, and a human is not an ape, but we share common ancestors, and through mutations and selection we've become different branches of the same tree. Religion has gone through the same thing. It has mutated and evolved into different "species" of religion. Mithraism is a separate "species" than Zoroastrians Mithra cult, but they do share common roots. I hope that make sense to someone...

 

-edit-

 

Damn, I'm trying to find some biography on Prof Reinhold Merkelbach, and I sometimes get hints that he's dead, and others that he still holding lectures in Cologne. Maybe he's a postmortem educator? :shrug:

 

 

Wow! You never know where a thread will go. Here I started a thread about nasty people and it ends up being one of the most educational threads in religious studies. This topic on Mithraism takes me to a certain classroom presentation a few years back when I was stuck with a certain book I had to talk about to classmates. It was about Mithra slaying the bull, Frank Cumont, astrology, and a whole lot of other stuff I had never heard about and wasn't keenly interested in. This time, as then, the fine details elude me but the major theme stick to my brain. Mithraism was a religion that had something to do with a young man slaying a bull and it is also somehow related to Christianity. The details are under debate. Major names regarding its origin are Persia and Zoroaster.

 

Okay, found it in case anyone is interested, which I seriously doubt. Here's the book I presented on:

 

Ulansey, David. The Origins of the Mithraic Mysteries: Cosmology and Salvation in the Ancient World. New York, Oxford University Press, 1989.

 

Looks like I also wrote a review. What I learned while studying this book is my sole basis for any astrology I know. This was in 2004 in a course on Greco-Roman Mystery Religions.

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This I suppose is what LoTR couldn't really become a religion, because it's not really a society that help shaped the face the myth took.
Actually, I have seen people over the Internet who claim to believe that they are the reincarnations of fictional characters and I've actually seen people argue this belief as being as legitmate of a religion as Christianity. I guess the Internet takes all kinds...
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This I suppose is what LoTR couldn't really become a religion, because it's not really a society that help shaped the face the myth took.
Actually, I have seen people over the Internet who claim to believe that they are the reincarnations of fictional characters and I've actually seen people argue this belief as being as legitmate of a religion as Christianity. I guess the Internet takes all kinds...

 

 

We've got people on here who take LoTR pretty seriously. The way it's been referred to on this thread gives me the impression that some of the people who have responded in this thread take it as seriously as most Christians take the Bible. It may be worth noting that many Christians don't want to be told that Christianity is a religion; it's a relationship. LoTR certainly speaks to something inside of me. There's something so earthy and "real" about it. It could be called a relationship, too, a relationship with the earth, with what is real. TBH, though, I read the series once and it was over such a long period of time that the details barely hang together in my head. I do not feel like I really know the story and I definitely have not read or talked to anybody who practices or believes in it as religion. All I am saying is that I can see why they would.

 

Actually, this would be a topic for another thread.

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As I said earlier... it's Babylon 5 for me... the technology is secondary to the characters...

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Looks like fun.

 

post-324-1198296891_thumb.jpg

 

 

If I'm to have a 'Death Match' the words 'Nude' and 'Custard have to figure...

 

and in other news... the hemiplagic migraine I've been feeling the aura of since Tuesday has finally broken and is in full swing.

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