ex post facho posted:

ready to sage the appropriate ports, cut open an old router and remove its still-functional cpu, etc

Pepe Silvia Browne posted:

it means your balls op

Sherbert Hoover posted:

It is very complicated and differs between Hellenistic and late antique philosophy, but ancient Mediterranean philosophy was pretty obsessed with the idea that everything is made of things, both physically and metaphysically, like we are made of not only bone atoms and meat atoms, but also beauty, intelligence, man, poster, etc. Many philosophers believed that on some level there is beauty etc. by itself and these forms and all creation are emanations of the monad, a kind of singularity or godhead that exhibits perfect unity, of which everything else and all ideas are lesser and lesser copies and divisions. When Christianity took over, theologians dropped most of the numerology and physics aspects of it but kept the idea of God's omnipresence.

ex post facho posted:

i like the idea of a talisman against demonic machine spirits, thank you. i will find an appropriate deity to offer to for continued good fortune in working with devicés and technolögiẹ

ex post facho posted:

I was trying to avoid that tbqh, surely it drew that inspiration from somewhere

ex post facho posted:

i like the idea of a talisman against demonic machine spirits, thank you. i will find an appropriate deity to offer to for continued good fortune in working with devicés and technolögiẹ

BONGHITZ posted:

a monad is a 3-term complex

A → B → C
of objects in some abelian category whose middle term B is projective, whose first map A → B is injective, and whose second map B → C is surjective.

BONGHITZ posted:

a monad is a 3-term complex

A → B → C
of objects in some abelian category whose middle term B is projective, whose first map A → B is injective, and whose second map B → C is surjective.

BONGHITZ posted:

a monad is a 3-term complex

A → B → C
of objects in some abelian category whose middle term B is projective, whose first map A → B is injective, and whose second map B → C is surjective.

ex post facho posted:

i will find an appropriate deity to offer to for continued good fortune in working with devicés and technolögiẹ

ex post facho posted:

i like the idea of a talisman against demonic machine spirits, thank you. i will find an appropriate deity to offer to for continued good fortune in working with devicés and technolögiẹ

Orbs posted:

Gilgamesh is very cool and all, and I enjoy connecting the present to the past in this manner. But considering we're talking about a lot of new technologies, maybe making new patron deities is in order? I conceptualize the internet for example as being a web maintained by a giant spider spirit union (I pay my spiritual dues to these neo-wobblies every day~)

ex post facho posted:

There is Anansi, the spider god, an Akan deity, associated with trickery, knowledge, and wisdom. Not necessarily technology, but knowledge is there~ and the internet is all about deceit and trickery

ex post facho posted:

There is Anansi, the spider god, an Akan deity, associated with trickery, knowledge, and wisdom. Not necessarily technology, but knowledge is there~ and the internet is all about deceit and trickery

ex post facho posted:

I think Thoth will be the deity to whom I offer, though I find Gilgamesh and his tale extremely interesting. Maybe I can dual-fealty

Squizzle posted:

ex post facho posted:

I think Thoth will be the deity to whom I offer, though I find Gilgamesh and his tale extremely interesting. Maybe I can dual-fealty

Orbs posted:

That's totally cool too, I don't believe it's necessary to use new gods or anything, that's just how I've been leaning lately. I do still follow many of the older ones too (advantages of being pantheistic in outlook). I believe "dual-fealty" is not only possible, but it's what polytheistic deities kind of want or need.

Dr. Edward Butler, "Polycentric Polytheism" posted:

Many practices and styles of devotion within polytheism are treated by modern scholars as implying a “tendency” towards monotheism. Worshipers in ancient (as well as modern) polytheisms sometimes identify one God with another, fuse two Gods together into a third, or experience one God as the focus of all things; all the while still recognizing many Gods. Scholars have coined terms like “henotheism” to refer to this seeming dichotomy while modern polytheists often term these practices as “soft” (as opposed to “hard”) polytheism. In “soft” polytheism, so the explanation goes, the Gods are all understood to be aspects of one God, or as emanations from a single Source with no fixed identities. Only in “hard” polytheism, it is argued, are the Gods seen as unique individuals.

From the viewpoint of the pagan Platonists of late antiquity, however, this distinction would have been nonsensical. These thinkers reasoned that these (so-called “soft”) elements of devotion actually expressed the uniqueness and individuality of Gods that is the essence of polytheism itself. Consider the core principle of “hard” polytheism, namely, that the Gods possess superlative individuality and uniqueness. Supreme individuality, however, cannot be that possessed by something to which everything else is external, but rather belongs to something with all things within it. Something that is merely indivisible in an atomistic sense does not have the kind of existence we associate with a God.

Gods - as polytheists have always understood them - possess will, agency, and consciousness. These properties, however, reach their zenith in encompassing the world, rather than by excluding it. Similarly, that which is supremely unique is not what distinguishes itself from everything else by increasingly trivial differences, but rather that in which the attributes shared with other things are uniquely its own. This is the kind of existence we recognize in Beings that we call "who" rather than objects we call "what."

quote:

How does this matter to polytheists? We see this inclusiveness of each God in the practice of many polytheists. A polytheist does not call upon a God merely for concerns relating to a narrow function. Aphrodite's most intense devotees do not call on her merely as "Goddess of love," for example, but as Goddess of everything, at least potentially. At the cult centers of ancient deities, we often find the Gods and Goddesses worshiped in this expansive manner.

We also see this pattern in modern day Hinduism, although it is often misinterpreted by Westerners under the influence of hegemonic monotheism as "monism" and denying the reality of the many Gods. If Gods understood in this manner transcend narrow functions, what makes them distinct? This question, however natural, is poorly-formed: it asks a "what" question (a question more properly addressed regarding objects) about the ultimate "whos" (persons.) For this reason the Platonists said that the Gods are hyperousios, "beyond essence."

The Gods have proper names, just like we humans do. We intuitively understand the difference between proper names (applied to individual persons) and common nouns (applied to undifferentiated members of a group.) Polytheism requires that we apply this same logic to the Gods, but without carrying over the aspects of it that only apply to mortals.

quote:

Devotional Polytheism brings us closer to the Gods. Just as a jewel in Indra's net reflects the other jewels near it more clearly than those further from away, so too we "see" in the Gods to whom we are devoted more readily the other Gods who are "nearer" to Them. There are two ways in which Gods are "near" one another: first, through being part of the same divine "family" or being in the same myths together, which we usually refer to as being in the same pantheon.

Secondly, the Gods can be "near" one another through having similar characteristic patterns of activity, which we talk about across pantheons, like when we say that Hermes and Anubis are both psychopomps (Gods who conduct souls into the netherworld.) We can discern more of these relations in a God we worship, and to whom we are 'near', than in one who is more 'remote' to us. We can see this as having to do with the kind of jewels that we ourselves are: the more sensitive we become to a particular God, the more highly polished is the surface by which we reflect Her, the more Gods and the more of the universe we are able to see in our chosen God, appreciating more of Her peculiar nature and Her complex relations. This process - of perceiving and embracing more and more of the connections within and between deities while respecting their inherent individuality - is the essence of polytheistic devotion.

quote:

How does this matter to polytheists? We see this inclusiveness of each God in the practice of many polytheists. A polytheist does not call upon a God merely for concerns relating to a narrow function. Aphrodite's most intense devotees do not call on her merely as "Goddess of love," for example, but as Goddess of everything, at least potentially.

ex post facho posted:

i like the idea of a talisman against demonic machine spirits, thank you. i will find an appropriate deity to offer to for continued good fortune in working with devicés and technolögiẹ

bij posted:

Bonus: corn is widely available

Squizzle posted:

you should close every post w this