Cruelest historical concept of a god?

[Gucumatz]

Because you keep claiming that there was human sacrifice in Southeast Asia. That's why.


Did the average Mesoamerican think certain gods were crueler than others? And if so, what made a god cruel?

My god are you serious? There was human sacrifice in SE Asia in the first millennium B.C.E. and early in the first millennium A.D. - something you yourself agreed with, now you are denying what you yourself agreed with too? Stop trolling this thread !
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And as for the 2nd question - well it depends on which Mesoamerican culture you look at to see differences in opinion on the gods. Generally most of the high gods of other cultures were relatively respected too. When we say "cruel" in this thread, we are looking at it from a western perspective. The example of the Quiche patron gods I provided I think is an interesting one. The Quiche were a regional power in the Maya world and made many enemies. Practices like the somewhat random sacrifices of men in their vassal cities made them quite a few enemies and led to several revolts/the growth of other regional powers to combat the Quiche.

 

[Masada]

Dude, I was using a shorthand. You should know what I'm talking about at this point enough to understand that.

 

[Gucumatz]

I am quibbling your point though (learned from the best it appears...) - if you are going to state your trollish idea from the last 3 pages in every post you write, then you can expect people to quibble back.

 

[Masada]

I didn't quibble, dude. And if I did, welcome to academia.

 

[Gucumatz]

Unfortunately your quibbles have all been categorically dismissed during your absence from debate [3 pages ago...]. Welcome to reality, where what you say tends to need to make sense

 

[Masada]

Nope, not at all. You haven't managed to muster a decent response to my original issues.

 

[Kyriakos]

Maybe we can move on from your 'original issues' now? I did not report this ot ranting going on for a while now, perhaps i won't need to?

Once again: the topic of the thread is about historical concepts of cruel gods, it is not about the gods having to be deemed as the cruelest by their own historic worshippers. The viewpoint on cruelty was inferred as being decisively concurrent with our own time.

 

[Erebras]

After considering the American indigenous religions and the Thuggees who served the Hindu goddess, Kali, after applying the who-would-eat-a-live-kitten litmus test, my nomination for cruelest god would be the pagan gods of the Levant -- such as Moloch and Ba'al -- and include similar objects-of-worship featuring baby sacrifice, such as whichever religion uses Breeders, which for lack of a better word is Satanism, but which "true Satanists" are all too quick to reply how misunderstood is, like modern day Grizzly Adamses trying to convince people it's okay to be friends with a wild-born grizzly bear. The Moloch worshippers didn't just drug some child and leave it on a mountaintop somewhere to pass in its sleep. It was more on the order of, "Let's hurl our babies into the flaming maw of our idol and listen to them scream." What can be more cruel than this?

 

[Kyriakos]

After considering the American indigenous religions and the Thuggees who served the Hindu goddess, Kali, after applying the who-would-eat-a-live-kitten litmus test, my nomination for cruelest god would be the pagan gods of the Levant -- such as Moloch and Ba'al -- and include similar objects-of-worship featuring baby sacrifice, such as whichever religion uses Breeders, which for lack of a better word is Satanism, but which "true Satanists" are all too quick to reply how misunderstood is, like modern day Grizzly Adamses trying to convince people it's okay to be friends with a wild-born grizzly bear. The Moloch worshippers didn't just drug some child and leave it on a mountaintop somewhere to pass in its sleep. It was more on the order of, "Let's hurl our babies into the flaming maw of our idol and listen to them scream." What can be more cruel than this?

The "flaming maw" characterisation (and its context above), in my view, was quite distinctive and aptly violent... I did not know of the term "maw" before; i just read it is some informal word denoting an animal's open mouth. Not sure if it is an equivalent of gnathos (as in gnathobdellidae, those leeches which have actual 'mouths' of some sort).

Very atmospheric post there, Erebras, thanks again for that

 

[leif erikson]

Moderator Action: Please return to the topic of the opening post. The topic is not each other, so please stop the trolling.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[Mouthwash]

The Jewish God. "Oh, I'll give you your Mashiach- but when I'm good and ready!"

There's even a story about a Rabbi who, after dying, refused to come inside the gates of heaven until God relented and sent down the Mashiach (the angels eventually dragged him in).

 

[Erebras]

Actually, my "maw" is meant in more than one sense. Perhaps you've heard of the concept of Hell Mouth, which was a common depiction in medieval passion plays, but I didn't really mean it figuratively. You see, the Molechers had large bronze bull-idols in which they would stoke a fire good and hot. Part of the religious proceedings were to cast live babies into this glowing red-hot bull, and while they're sizzling, they're screaming in agony. It was these peals of agony that delighted Molech. Dead babies wouldn't do. Live adults wouldn't do. It had to be the tortured screams of innocents, or else the god would not be satisfied. Even writing of this stirs up emotions of revulsion. I'm not totally against live human sacrifice, you understand, even though it goes against my newly-adhered-to Christian viewpoints. It's just that I think such activity should be restricted to child molesters, politicians, attorneys, terrorists, and televangelists, and leave the babies alone.

Also, Τα σαγόνια του καρχαρία may be an approximation of maw, presuming it doesn't translate as "fish mouth" and has the connotation of a predator's wide-open fang-and-tooth-filled orifice. The online dictionary would not translate Τα σαγόνια του καρχαρία, so I don't really know if it means what I hope it does. The "normal" translation of maw into Greek has the meaning of mouth or neck, which doesn't quite have the "ominous" meaning I'm trying to convey.

[I had to look up Mashiach. It's another word for Messiah (as I suspected).]

 

[PhroX]

Actually, my "maw" is meant in more than one sense. Perhaps you've heard of the concept of Hell Mouth, which was a common depiction in medieval passion plays, but I didn't really mean it figuratively. You see, the Molechers had large bronze bull-idols in which they would stoke a fire good and hot. Part of the religious proceedings were to cast live babies into this glowing red-hot bull, and while they're sizzling, they're screaming in agony. It was these peals of agony that delighted Molech. Dead babies wouldn't do. Live adults wouldn't do. It had to be the tortured screams of innocents, or else the god would not be satisfied. Even writing of this stirs up emotions of revulsion. I'm not totally against live human sacrifice, you understand, even though it goes against my newly-adhered-to Christian viewpoints. It's just that I think such activity should be restricted to child molesters, politicians, attorneys, terrorists, and televangelists, and leave the babies alone.

And yet is this any more cruel than an ominipetent God who permits humanity to perpetrate these horrors in the name of a false god, despite having the power to stop it?

 

[Pangur Bán]

A rather obvious point, but worth making. These gods don't actually exist, so there is nothing inherently cruel about any god. Also, they are not literary characters--gods only become literary characters when scholars write them down for other cultures.

Anyway, gods are projections by humans onto the cosmos. Their societies invent them, therefore the characters differ from time to time, place to place, situation to situation.

What a god wants varies depending on what the human's needs are at any given moment. So a god is not going to make two years of drought end just for his usual sheep head offerings. He may require a human. Perhaps even a virgin (after all men want virgins more than post-virginal women, so a god would too).

Therefore your cruelest god will come from the most violence-driven society in times of stress.

 

[Gucumatz]

Sacrificing babies into fire? - You win Moloch

 

[Lord Baal]

And yet is this any more cruel than an ominipetent God who permits humanity to perpetrate these horrors in the name of a false god, despite having the power to stop it?

Yeah, I recall watching The Avengers and wondering how exactly Loki was the bad guy. His ends should justify his means.

 

[Erebras]

Several have raised the point that, presuming the Almighty is omnipotent, God is cruel for allowing others to commit atrocities or not using boundless divine fiat to put a final end to death, murder, anal warts, and so forth. That somehow a god that demands horrific sacrifice is not nearly as bad as a god who claims to be Love incarnate lovingly stands idly by while the bad guys do their dirty deeds done dirt cheap. Human morality requires a certain level of action to respond to immorality -- in other words, inaction would be an unacceptable response if you have it in your power to affect an outcome -- but I wonder if the realm of the divine is governed by human morality or a completely different standard altogether. Two movie scenes come to mind. The Blind Man (D. Carradine) in Circle of Iron (1978) breaks this kid's nose, smashes some guy's boat, and mends a wall, all seemingly to no purpose, so says his companion, Cord (J. Cooper), yet you find out later that these senseless actions save each of these people's lives. In Merlin (1998) after Merlin (S. Neill) accuses Queen Mab (M. Richardson) of killing his mother, she tells the wizard how his mother died, with an ingratiating smile on her face: "No, I didn't. I only let her die." [Settle down. I don't have movie facts and lines memorized. I had to look these up.]

But my point is that mortal man does not and can not see the whole picture. And, perversely, not stopping something from happening does not necessarily make one an accomplice to said atrocity. I'm not saying I actually agree with the concepts wholeheartedly, but I believe you see where I'm going with these two movie scenes I've quoted.

 

[PhroX]

Several have raised the point that, presuming the Almighty is omnipotent, God is cruel for allowing others to commit atrocities or not using boundless divine fiat to put a final end to death, murder, anal warts, and so forth. That somehow a god that demands horrific sacrifice is not nearly as bad as a god who claims to be Love incarnate lovingly stands idly by while the bad guys do their dirty deeds done dirt cheap. Human morality requires a certain level of action to respond to immorality -- in other words, inaction would be an unacceptable response if you have it in your power to affect an outcome -- but I wonder if the realm of the divine is governed by human morality or a completely different standard altogether. Two movie scenes come to mind. The Blind Man (D. Carradine) in Circle of Iron (1978) breaks this kid's nose, smashes some guy's boat, and mends a wall, all seemingly to no purpose, so says his companion, Cord (J. Cooper), yet you find out later that these senseless actions save each of these people's lives. In Merlin (1998) after Merlin (S. Neill) accuses Queen Mab (M. Richardson) of killing his mother, she tells the wizard how his mother died, with an ingratiating smile on her face: "No, I didn't. I only let her die." [Settle down. I don't have movie facts and lines memorized. I had to look these up.]

But my point is that mortal man does not and can not see the whole picture. And, perversely, not stopping something from happening does not necessarily make one an accomplice to said atrocity. I'm not saying I actually agree with the concepts wholeheartedly, but I believe you see where I'm going with these two movie scenes I've quoted.

And yet could the same not be said for the gods that demand human sacrifices? That we do not understand the full picture and that there are completely justifiable reasons for what appears to be nothing more than cruelty?

edit: Or were you including that in what you were saying anyway? I read it at first as just applying to the omnipotent God, but I'm still half asleep

 

[Kyriakos]

Thank you all for the very interesting posts indeed

I searched a bit and found some rather notable (for myself) information on the descriptions of Phoenician (in Tyre and Carthage too) ceremonial sacrifice of children.

It seems that the earliest account of those in the Greek world was given by Kleitarchos, a popular historian focusing on the life of Alexander the Great, a few decades after the start of the Hellenistic era.

A similar description of the image of Kronos is p163preserved in the scholia to Plato's Republic, I 337A, on the words ἀνεκάγχασέ τε μάλα Σαρδάνιον (ed. Bekker, vol. IX, p68): Κλείταρχος δέ φησι τοὺς Φοίνικας, καὶ μάλιστα Καρχηδονίους, τὸν Κρόνον τιμῶντας, ἐπάν τινος μεγάλου κατατυχεῖν σπεύδωσιν, εὔχεσθαι καθ᾽ ἑνὸς τῶν παίδων, εἰ περιγένοιντο τῶν ἐπιθυμηθέντων, καθαγιεῖν αὐτὸν τῷ θεῷ. τοῦ δὲ Κρόνου χαλκοῦ παρ᾽ αὐτοῖς ἑστῶτος, τὰς χεῖρας ὑπτίας ἐκτετακότος ὑπὲρ κριβάνου χαλκοῦ, τοῦτον ἐκκαίειν τὸ παιδίον. τῆς δὲ φλογὸς τοῦ ἐκκαιομένου πρὸς τὸ σῶμα ἐμπιπτούσης, συνέλκεσθαί τε τὰ μέλη, καὶ τὸ στόμα σεσηρὸς φαίνεσθαι τοῖς γελῶσι παραπλησίως, ἕως ἂν συσπασθὲν εἰς τὸν κρίβανον παρολίσθῃ.

http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Journals/JBL/16/Biblical_Notes/Image_of_Moloch*.html

The above passage is describing how the child was placed into the opening of the idol which had fire burning inside it. Probably the feet went in first, and then slowly the entire body got consumed by the flame, however due to the fact that this was not immediate the victim was making a sort of spasm in his mouth, which appeared a bit like some sort of laugh. This is the origin of the phrase "sardonic laughter" (originally it was sardanic laughter).

Sardanic laughter, which meant a laughter that was either bitter due to being in self-attacking irony, or in mocking someone else, is a phrase first found in the homeric epics. There it had the meaning of a bitter-laugh, mostly caused by pain and despair.

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=sardonic

I also noticed that some later writers of the ancient era linked the term sardanic to the island of Sardinia, claiming that it contained a poisonous plant which killed the person who ate it, but first it made him twist his facial expression, as in silent laughter, in reality in great pain.

 

[Erebras]

I've never taken a comparative religion college course, but I've probably earned the equivalent college credit just by living the life I've led. I'm not 100% certain that polytheistic religions' gods are omnipotent and omniscient -- the stories about them certainly portray them as neither -- but monotheistic religions, particularly Christianity and also the New Age bundle of beliefs ("All One"), believe God is both all-powerful and ever-present. But the spectrum or axes/axises can give you quite a range. You can have a non-present all-powerful Creator (Deism?) You can have an everpresent, unconcerned Creator (Neale Donald Walsch's conversationalist). You can have semi-present, (not-necessarily-all-)powerful gods (classical paganism). You can have a non-all-powerful Creator, just one powerful enough to create Reality, but not without its flaws (Satanism?). Or a true-believer can just throw up his hands and declare that Reality is as good as it gets and at some obscure level it's perfect. Even when I wasn't a Christian, I was never an atheist. I understand the position of atheists, but they don't really account for the paranormal aspects of Reality. Their fallback position is "Doesn't happen." Unhealthy skepticism is not very scientific, but even so, I think atheists live in a much smaller world than the ones that do believe in "fairy tales", and I don't see how they have anything to gain from clinging to atheism. If they upgraded to Agnosticism, I'd have more respect for them, since at least by this they'd admit the possibility of things beyond our understanding and scientific knowledge and discontinue their membership in what is basically a high-tech version of the Flat Earth Society.

How is this in any way directed at you, PhroX? It's not, except as an acknowledgement of questions you raised from my earlier post, without really adding to what I've already stated.