Nope, just the Greeks, not anybody else. This isn't a trite commentary on Abrahamic religions.
And our future selves will absolutely be that petty. It's one of the defining characteristics of humanity!
Mythical beings
- Thread starter Kyriakos
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And our future selves will absolutely be that petty. It's one of the defining characteristics of humanity!
Linkman226
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I remember reading someone writing about how he thinks it's because there must have been an OCD guy some hundreds or thousands of years ago that got fixed on that number, thereby making that number holy for posterity for the given religion.
Because Norse and Slavic deities sound awesome initially but then you start to look into things and they turn out to be really kind of stupid. (Especially ****ing Chernobog.) With the Greeks, what you see is what you get.
Hmm... well... With Norse you also pretty much get what you see.
And with Slavic gods there're just too few sources left: as you know the Christianization of Slavs was extremely bloody and repressive. All we got is basically old folk songs, rituals, embroidery ornaments, some inscriptions and secondary sources. So the reconstruction of Slavic mythology in all it's entirety is pretty much next to impossible. Or shall we say really really hard. And Greek mythology is thoroughly documented and spread, so we know its complex cosmogony.
Belobog/Chernobog duality is more a West Slavic thing. As far as we know, this myth wasn't very wide spread among us Easties.
I certainly don't think they are stupid, quite the contrary actually - they are unbelievably osom.
But sometimes it's unclear which god is responsible for what.
For example, Veles is known throughout all the Slavic world as skotiy bog - the lord of cattle. There still are songs in rural areas invoking him to bring good health to cattle and make them breed. But in old Russian ballads like The Tale of Igor's Campaign or Beyond the Don Veles is mentioned as a grand father and a patron of musicains. In primal Slavic cosmologic myth of World Tree, Veles is the part of a duo with Perun the Thunderer. In this myth Veles is depicted as a zmei (a dragon) and a ruler of Underworld. There's also an established etymologic connection between his name and an old Slavic word volhv, meaning a magican, a sorcerer, a healer, a fortune teller and all that. Hence the name of the river on which Velikiy Novgorod is located - Volhov. So Veles is also the supposed lord of magic and supernatural powers.
Another instance is the solar gods. There're actually 5 of them in Slavic pantheon: Dazhbog, Yarilo, Kupala, Koleda and Hors. The first being the Sun in general. In some early church writings he is likened to Appolo. In Russian epic poetry the Slavs are being called Dazhbog grandsons. The latter 4 are supposedly Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter sun respectively, though it's not clear. There's also very archaic god Svarog, having its roots in Indo-European pantheon, who is also the god of Heaven and Sun. And then again there's also Sviatovid...
And actually it's unclear who is the boss in this Pantheon. The late paganism seemed to favour Perun the Thunder for that role. Earlier myths seemed to prefer the forefather Rod and Lada, the love goddess. And earlier - Mother Earth (Mati Syra Zemlia) or Rojanitse who gave birth to all and weave the strings of fate for humans, quite like the Norns or Moiras of Greek mythology.
So this uncertainity may seem uncool to somebody. Other than that - I dunno.
The fact is that Greece offered much more then just pantheon of gods. The achievement of Greece in its time (and many centuries to follow) is quite unmatched. To try to compare the Slavs or Norse achievement with that of Greece can be at times kinda...ehmm stupid..
The Norse deities are kinda dumb, comparatively, for some of the same reasons that the Theater of the Absurd is pointless and ridiculous. I suppose "stupid" is a bit of an overreaction; Odin's probably one of the most interesting deities out there, especially in his highly amoral (or immoral, depending on your point of view) gallows-god aspect. But while a collection of con men can make for some interesting stories, it just doesn't have legs.
The Slavic pantheons are kind of dumb because of what Veles said: we basically have extremely limited actual information on them. And when monks and whatnot deigned to talk about the pagans' gods, they invariably made them seem way more awesome than what they actually were (as far as we know). Take Chernobog, who was a sort of dualistic guy with his brother (?) Belobog; the Catholic monks with the German Order referred to him as a god of evil, with a kickass hammer that puts Mjolnir to shame. Yeah, not so much. They might also have got him confused with Perun into the bargain. I'm sure that if we had more surviving stories and information about the various Slavic gods, they'd be way more awesome.
Berzerker
Deity
Some more than others, but 1-12 I imagine given the strange case of #13. In both Incan and Toltec religion 13 is the # of levels in heaven with the creator occupying 2 levels. The Incan "Genesis" is depicted in Skywatchers of Ancient Mexico by Anthony Aveni and the creator appears as an ellipse joining or dividing 4 celestial bodies from 5 with the Sun and Moon on either side. Below the heavens appears the Earth with 7 dots...
Compare that symbolism with the hands of the Nazca Monkey and the 9 Lords of the Night in Toltec religion and the 9 stepped pyramid at Chichen Itza where each equinox the sunshine creates a 7 humped Serpent ascending and descending the pyramid.
Not in Mesoamerica
The Sumerians gave us the pantheon of 12 deities, and the hebrew calendar has a start date going way back to ~3960 BC supposedly based on the calendar of Nippur. But they also gave us the 360 circle and 12 double hours to a day along with a bunch of other stuff related to astronomy.
or was that 3760 BC?
Linkman226
#anarchy
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This seems rather ex post facto. it's easy to attribute whatever to whatever because of whatever after the fact, but it's hard to say that that's the actual reason why. I honestly doubt that some guy sat around and though, "Hmmm, 3 is the third prime number, yay! It must be divine!"
Also 3 is not the third prime number. One is not counted as prime, ergo five is the third prime number.
holy king
Deity
"Rhinocéros" by Ionesco is definitely not pointless!
But we were just talking about mythology per se, not its impact on the world culture.
