pantheons as knowedge classifiers

29.Ix.mcdxxx

mythological pantheons embody a classification of all things & of knowledge in the world. eg, asclepius is the father of hygeia and panacea; asopus personifying a river is son to oceanus and another larger river personification Tethys.

the cases where allegory agrees with the natural order are many. eg, when we consider that rivers are a consequence of the rains collected from oceans, or flow from larger rivers.

but it gets more interesting when the we consider the function of a pantheon as an organizing principle for the branches of knowledge and even the content of each branch, serving as both cosmogony and cosmology.

while on the subject of pantheons and cosmogonies it is worth recalling the conspicuous contrast between the personified origin in classical mythologies and that in the abrahamic religion.

for instance in greek mythology (which draws on the more ancient ones) it all starts with chaos! who then begets a dark progeny: nyx, erebus, tartarus, and dark gaia herself.
even the Sky, the heaven, Uranus is attributed to the grace of Gaia.

In the abrahamic system the plain vanilla and more esoteric origin organizations are much more "enlightening".

In the plain vanilla lowest common denominator description, it all starts with God who is every positive thing (as well as dark) and is essentially described as Light, High, Creator, Orderer, Governer. It is no dark chaos here or a horrific vacuum (horror vacui). It is a Light Good Intelligent Fair Beautiful Imaginative principle, etc.

In the more esoteric organizations of the hierarchy of existence we find that from that Godhead emanates the Intellect (`aql) , the Pen (qalam, indispensable for a Designer or an Imaginer), the Tablet (again recalling a Designer, a record Keeper) the Soul , and so on.

In addition, the multitude of personifications are elegantly simplified and integrated as only facets of a Single Person.

The contrast is clear that while one set of cosmogonies is founded in darkness and confusion and unknown, the abrahamic system envisages an origin in light reason and order.

(common origin of all such systems is undoubted here and the darkness in the classical "heathen" systems is attributable to corruption of an initial description, better preserved in the abrahamic system.)


It is also worth noting that all human grappling with organizing the world into a rational order, originates with a belief in God, which seems to motivate the very human conception of "reason" as represented by those cosmogonies. This puts atheism in a funny and unstable position - for if all reason stemmed from the idea of God, then the negation of God is unreasonable.

and where does atheism live? it lives in exactly the same places that assume possession and control of most of the world's wealth and most of the world's institutions of power (political martial academic and media institutions) and which comprises about 1% to 5% of the world's population.

It is fair to say that the powers that be in humanity today have long imposed on us an age of Unreason.