evilmiera posted:It is worth remembering many polytheist gods were depicted as assholes for a variety of reasons, partially to make them easier to sympathize with from a fallible mortal perspective, partially to get around the problem of evil. If the gods weren't perfect, then there was no need to think about why we didn't live in a perfect world.
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# ? Apr 23, 2020 11:04 |
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# ? Jun 3, 2024 22:08 |
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Plus, like just mentioned about the Eddas, what we think of as combined mythologies were really stitched together folk tales from a wide variety of sources over hundreds of years. Zeus was an rear end in a top hat and a gently caress up mainly because he was the patron of Olympia which had it's heyday fairly early in the city state period, so as other cities eclipsed Olympia they told their own stories that made him look foolish and by association the people of the Olympia. Just look at what a lot of us were taught about Rome, they didn't have vomitoriums or wild orgies every night and they didn't collapse because welfare efforts made the citizenry weak and lazy and unable to fight off invaders. Most of the 'scholarly' research was done during the Victorian era when the Queen of England was convinced she was Bodhicitta, famed enemy of Rome, reborn.
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# ? Apr 23, 2020 19:24 |
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You get lots of stuff that looks weird to modern eyes in the Sagas and monastic writings of the time. I'm sure I remember some hagiographic lineage of a king who converted to Christianity still including the whole "descended from the old gods" part. Then there's things like Irish legends that have Saint Patrick meeting and converting the last of the heroes from the Fenian cycle, giant men who had personal dealings with the Tuatha De Danann. They were doing their own sort of thing for quite a while. It took time to settle down to "one god, denial of all others".
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# ? Apr 23, 2020 19:42 |
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There's also interesting stuff in late Roman antiquity where really old folk beliefs about ghosts and things are blending oddly with newly absorbed ideas about the Christian afterlife and creating these really weird, interesting syncretis representations of death and the soul. I have a book about this around somewhere, I'll try to dig it up later.
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# ? Apr 23, 2020 19:47 |
goatface posted:You get lots of stuff that looks weird to modern eyes in the Sagas and monastic writings of the time. I'm sure I remember some hagiographic lineage of a king who converted to Christianity still including the whole "descended from the old gods" part. Constantine the Great who had a vision of Jesus appearing in his dreams didn't convert to christianity before he was on his deathbed. Then you have Rollo who gave silver to the church and warriors to Odin to ensure that he either got into paradise or valhall when he died.
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# ? Apr 23, 2020 19:54 |
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Nobunaga Oda was going to convert all of Japan to Christianity but Rome wouldn't give Japan special dispensation to allow divorce due to the importance of it in their politics so he ended up refusing. He then crucified 24 priests and kicked everyone but a few Jesuits out after learning of plans by Spanish missionaries to invade and force the conversion. For a long time Japan Catholicism was this very weird mix of Shinto and Buddhist beliefs mixed in.
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# ? Apr 23, 2020 22:02 |
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Macdeo Lurjtux posted:Nobunaga Oda was going to convert all of Japan to Christianity but Rome wouldn't give Japan special dispensation to allow divorce due to the importance of it in their politics so he ended up refusing. He then crucified 24 priests and kicked everyone but a few Jesuits out after learning of plans by Spanish missionaries to invade and force the conversion. For a long time Japan Catholicism was this very weird mix of Shinto and Buddhist beliefs mixed in. Kinda makes one wonder where things would have gone if that had actually happened rather than Japan going into isolation for a couple centuries
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# ? Apr 23, 2020 22:18 |
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drrockso20 posted:Kinda makes one wonder where things would have gone if that had actually happened rather than Japan going into isolation for a couple centuries I'm sure Harry Turtledove wrote a book about it.
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# ? Apr 24, 2020 00:42 |
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Macdeo Lurjtux posted:Most of the 'scholarly' research was done during the Victorian era when the Queen of England was convinced she was Bodhicitta, famed enemy of Rome, reborn. for my own sanity: you meant Boudicca, right? Macdeo Lurjtux posted:Nobunaga Oda was going to convert all of Japan to Christianity but Rome wouldn't give Japan special dispensation to allow divorce due to the importance of it in their politics so he ended up refusing. He then crucified 24 priests and kicked everyone but a few Jesuits out after learning of plans by Spanish missionaries to invade and force the conversion. For a long time Japan Catholicism was this very weird mix of Shinto and Buddhist beliefs mixed in. is this not a shitpost? I thought this was a joke about Henry VIII
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# ? Apr 24, 2020 06:30 |
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LordSaturn posted:for my own sanity: you meant Boudicca, right? Yes, Boudicca, I couldn't quite remember the spelling so I started typing an approximation and went with the first hit. And no, the Jesuits straight up lobbied the Pope to allow the Japanese special dispensation to divorce. This was during the high point of the Catholic/Protestant civil wars in Europe so there was a mad rush on both sides to colonize new lands for both more believers and money to pay for the various wars. Portugal, where most Jesuits came from, was making money hand over fist facilitating the silk trade between Japan and China after China closed it's borders to Japan following a failed invasion. To this day there's heavy Portugese influence all throughout coastal Asia, from Macau which started as a Portugese settlement to cuisine, Tempura and Katsu are both loan European loan words, Tempura is from Tempore referring to the Latin name for the Catholic restriction on eating meat on Fridays and Katsu is form the Portugese word for cutlet.
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# ? Apr 24, 2020 18:26 |
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goatface posted:You get lots of stuff that looks weird to modern eyes in the Sagas and monastic writings of the time. I'm sure I remember some hagiographic lineage of a king who converted to Christianity still including the whole "descended from the old gods" part. Then there's things like Irish legends that have Saint Patrick meeting and converting the last of the heroes from the Fenian cycle, giant men who had personal dealings with the Tuatha De Danann. The bible itself has lots of polytheism in it, particularly the old testament where there's gods that are acknowledged as real, but you better only be worshiping Yahweh if you know what's good for you.
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# ? Apr 24, 2020 19:01 |
Random Stranger posted:The bible itself has lots of polytheism in it, particularly the old testament where there's gods that are acknowledged as real, but you better only be worshiping Yahweh if you know what's good for you. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henotheism
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# ? Apr 24, 2020 23:38 |
How Wonderful! posted:There's also interesting stuff in late Roman antiquity where really old folk beliefs about ghosts and things are blending oddly with newly absorbed ideas about the Christian afterlife and creating these really weird, interesting syncretis representations of death and the soul. I have a book about this around somewhere, I'll try to dig it up later. The absolute best unholy blending of belief systems affecting mythologies is the arthurian myths. Some of the revisions and additions happened centuries apart, and the cultural attitudes of the writers were completely alien to those that came before and after. Somehow you have this guy who was chosen by the gods, except maybe it was just the one god, working with a demon wizard, trained in rome, or was it britain, etc etc. It's so horrifically inconsistent and messy no matter which version you read. And it's one of the biggest influences on the high fantasy genre, so that weird contradictory blend of christianity, folk legends, paganism, and various other stuff is reflected in everything from Conan the Barbarian to Dungeons and Dragons to World of Warcraft. Stories are stupid.
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# ? Apr 25, 2020 04:48 |
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Lurdiak posted:The absolute best unholy blending of belief systems affecting mythologies is the arthurian myths. Some of the revisions and additions happened centuries apart, and the cultural attitudes of the writers were completely alien to those that came before and after. Somehow you have this guy who was chosen by the gods, except maybe it was just the one god, working with a demon wizard, trained in rome, or was it britain, etc etc. It's so horrifically inconsistent and messy no matter which version you read. And it's one of the biggest influences on the high fantasy genre, so that weird contradictory blend of christianity, folk legends, paganism, and various other stuff is reflected in everything from Conan the Barbarian to Dungeons and Dragons to World of Warcraft. My favorite to think about is Perlesvaus, which is absolutely out of control and almost incoherent but super lurid and visceral, to the point that a number of scholars think the author was working through intense trauma from the Fourth Crusades, so you have in the midst of all the normal Arthurian syncretism bits and stray bobs of Middle Eastern folklore as well as a much more horrific and horrified approach to war-violence (and unfortunately a much much much more pronounced streak of anti-Semitism). I also completely love the hagiography of Barlaam and Josaphat, a pair of mythical Christian saints whose narratives are likely very garbled retellings of the Guatama Buddha story filtered through Georgia by way of Constantinople by way Baghdadian scholars who got it from Manichean sources that got it from an Indian Mahayana text.
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# ? Apr 25, 2020 05:13 |
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Batman Secret Files #3: A villain named Gunsmith who brags about being able to turn anything into a gun just made a kid shoot Batman by holding his brother hostage. This is post-Batman saving the brother. and hey if you want to bring this from touching to unfortunately relevant to today, here's the story's ending:
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# ? Jun 13, 2020 21:15 |
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How Wonderful! posted:There's also interesting stuff in late Roman antiquity where really old folk beliefs about ghosts and things are blending oddly with newly absorbed ideas about the Christian afterlife and creating these really weird, interesting syncretis representations of death and the soul. I have a book about this around somewhere, I'll try to dig it up later. Do you have the name of the book? Sound really interesting.
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# ? Jun 19, 2020 17:32 |
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I think the book I'm thinking of is The Ransom of the Soul: Afterlife and Wealth in Early Western Christianity by Peter Brown.
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# ? Jun 19, 2020 20:27 |
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Miles Morales - Spider-Man #17
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# ? Jun 27, 2020 03:48 |
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I'm glad to see Miles doing so well.
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# ? Jun 27, 2020 06:24 |
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Malachite_Dragon posted:I'm glad to see Miles doing so well. I don't know how old he is in the comics, but definitely hear Into the Spider-verse Miles in those bubbles
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# ? Jul 1, 2020 01:02 |
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Jack Charlton, World Cup winner with England and former manager of the Republic of Ireland, died last week, and David Squires dedicated his weekly comic to him and goddamn if that last panel doesn't get my room all dusty
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# ? Jul 14, 2020 15:21 |
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evilmiera posted:It is worth remembering many polytheist gods were depicted as assholes for a variety of reasons, partially to make them easier to sympathize with from a fallible mortal perspective, partially to get around the problem of evil. If the gods weren't perfect, then there was no need to think about why we didn't live in a perfect world. The venality and cruelty of the gods also reflected a more authoritarian worldview. If you read the Iliad, one of the central themes is, "the gods are tyrannical autocrats, and justly so - they are more powerful than us, and therefore it is folly to defy them". Hubris is the defining sin of ancient Greek narrative for a reason - because it reflects an ingrained social belief that trying to upset the social order and disobey your betters is dangerous and foolish. It's explicit in a lot of ancient Greek myth and writing that the gods rule purely by virtue of their ability to exert their will with brute physical (or magical) force, not because of any extraordinary reserve of wisdom, justice, or moral rectitude. More bizarrely to our modern egalitarian worldview, this is often also presented as a natural good. See: the myth of Arachne, where a woman who is a better weaver than Athene gets turned into a spider because she bruised a god's pride, and the moral of the story is "don't try to exceed your betters, don't act out of turn, cower before authority or you'll be punished". A lot of ancient Greek myth-making reflects a culture deeply enamoured with brutal oligarchy.
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# ? Jul 15, 2020 05:54 |
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Malachite_Dragon posted:I'm glad to see Miles doing so well. I am really happy to see authors giving him moments like these. Those are some of the best Peter Parker moments and Miles getting his own is excellent.
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# ? Jul 15, 2020 07:07 |
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Android Blues posted:The venality and cruelty of the gods also reflected a more authoritarian worldview. If you read the Iliad, one of the central themes is, "the gods are tyrannical autocrats, and justly so - they are more powerful than us, and therefore it is folly to defy them". Hubris is the defining sin of ancient Greek narrative for a reason - because it reflects an ingrained social belief that trying to upset the social order and disobey your betters is dangerous and foolish. This. I can only suggest John Dolan's "War Nerd's Iliad", as it re-tells the story in a fun, pulpy, interesting fashion divorced from the classics wankery. The gods are like a quarrelsome mafia family, Zeus not smarter or wiser than anyone else, just -stronger-, and mortals both just and foul, are just excuses for them to do their thing. Apollo remembers that day very well. It is like a happy song in his heart, because now it will all be avenged. All these things work out, in the long run… for the gods. He remembers leaning into the wind that day, keening with the simple blood joy of a falcon, watching the Greeks run through the alleys of the town. He knew it was all to his advantage. The girl can’t see that, of course. There are always casualties. Apollo turns his falcon eye to her for a moment, as she watches her father approach Agamemnon’s tent. Her sorrow interests him, as a musician. What happened to her interests him, as a tactician. Otherwise—just another weeping woman.
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# ? Jul 15, 2020 21:11 |
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Sephyr posted:This. I can only suggest John Dolan's "War Nerd's Iliad", as it re-tells the story in a fun, pulpy, interesting fashion divorced from the classics wankery. The gods are like a quarrelsome mafia family, Zeus not smarter or wiser than anyone else, just -stronger-, and mortals both just and foul, are just excuses for them to do their thing. This sounds dope, I'll have to check it out. Thanks for the recommendation!
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# ? Jul 16, 2020 00:47 |
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Posted by the same artist, two years apart: Source: https://twitter.com/paxiti/status/1288474386995933185
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# ? Aug 2, 2020 17:10 |
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Mikl posted:Posted by the same artist, two years apart: I remember seeing a version of that first comic that extended for several more panels as the guy admitted more and more to wanting to be a girl, of course since I saw it on 4chan it also got more and more perverted with each additional panel
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# ? Aug 3, 2020 01:08 |
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This was nice. So, Booster Gold and Blue Beetle wanted to go to the beach, but it was too crowded, so they decide to go to one year in the past, where there wasn't anybody. Problem is, 5 other future versions of Blue and Gold decided to show up (and also King Shark). But before the Blues and Golds team up, present Booster and present Beetle see a couple of old men and... I love that these two dorks are best friends FOR. EVER. Edit: It's from DC Cybernetic Summer Special. Vincent fucked around with this message at 20:45 on Aug 9, 2020 |
# ? Aug 9, 2020 17:06 |
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I'm so glad that they fixed that. They're the best bromance in the history of comic books.
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# ? Aug 9, 2020 20:04 |
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Skeets getting around on a gold-colored walker is the detail that seals it.
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# ? Aug 9, 2020 20:07 |
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Sock him in the... puss this clearly has another meaning I'm not familiar with e- Mouth?!
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# ? Aug 10, 2020 09:09 |
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Ruptured Yakety Sax posted:Sock him in the... puss Have you heard the phrase "sour-puss?" I think that's the most prevalent contemporary usage of the term in the context of the mouth/face.
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# ? Aug 10, 2020 10:07 |
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# ? Aug 10, 2020 10:14 |
Do NOT google Cookie Puss You will only find more photos of Cookie Puss
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# ? Aug 10, 2020 10:23 |
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How Wonderful! posted:Have you heard the phrase "sour-puss?" I think that's the most prevalent contemporary usage of the term in the context of the mouth/face. I always assumed sour puss meant acting like a cranky cat.
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# ? Aug 10, 2020 10:43 |
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beagle puss? not ringing any bells?
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# ? Aug 10, 2020 11:56 |
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ly35NQfZw8 P-p-picklepuss!
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# ? Aug 10, 2020 17:46 |
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How Wonderful! posted:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ly35NQfZw8 Daffy just straight up murdered those people.
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# ? Aug 10, 2020 20:52 |
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I really want to know what the knight licking the candy cane's name is. He's right at the front of the closet, so you know they had a ripping name for him.
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# ? Aug 10, 2020 21:04 |
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# ? Jun 3, 2024 22:08 |
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If it didn’t have that zoom in, an avatar of Neon Noodle would be perfect. Snake Eyes is a pretty great one too.
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# ? Aug 10, 2020 22:00 |