Esemplastic thermoplastic » religion

And while the daring boy in wonder gazed, Aurora threw wide her crimson doors and rose-filled halls

cubbi — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 17:41:18 +0000

Herbert Draper, The Gates of Dawn (1990)

Some suggest that Ôstarâ (the goddess of dawn, origin of the Old English word Ēostre and modern English Easter) is related to the Greek titaness Ἠώς (aka Roman AVRORA), and, also with Vedic उषस् and Russian Зоря is what’s left of the original proto indo-european goddess of dawn, *h₂ausos-.

I think dawn is a much nicer thing to think about in the spring, compared to dead people or painted eggs.. although multiplying bunnies are fun too! And here’s a Draper painting from 1900 to illustrate the idea.

Crossposted from LiveJournal

They are after flash games now?

cubbi — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 22:19:27 +0000

Faith Fighter: God beats Muhammad

So Organization for Islamic Conference pressured Molleindustria into removing the flash game Faith Fighter from their web site. But it’s still perfectly playable on newgrounds, and thanks to this publicity, I gave it a couple rounds, too.

Fun, although too short.

Crossposted from LiveJournal

Hail Eástre!

cubbi — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 01:05:29 +0000

Ostara by Johannes Gehrts, 1884

It is the time to celebrate old goddess of spring light and fertility Eástre, whose month Eostur-mónaþ has now begun! Feast on hare pies in her honor and do what hares do! And I hope you didn’t forget to paint your eggs red for the Zoroastrian celebration of No Ruz, which was a couple weeks ago! Isn’t it interesting how rituals from across the world mix and mingle?

Crossposted from LiveJournal

that insane NYPD cop and other people unfit to do their jobs

cubbi — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 22:28:15 +0000

So the NYPD lieutenant from Queens, named Maglione, who once reported seeing a “demon” at police headquarters and urinated on himself because he refused to stop praying to go to the bathroom, is suing New York City to get his gun and shield back, claiming supervisors took them from him because of his religious practices. news story here

While his lawsuit is, hopefully, ridiculous enough to be dismissed (after all, he was discharged by the medical board, not by an evil anti-christian supervisor), a lot of people in the USA refuse doing the jobs they’ve signed up for, citing religious conflict, from Muslim grocery store workers who don’t touch alcohol or pork (even vacuum-sealed) to Christian pharmacists who refuse selling the contraception or that nurse, Sylvia Olona, who had a habit of forcefully removing female contraception devices from her patients. And all those people are actually protected from being fired by several state legislatures and one of the last executive orders of Bush administration.
What’s also scary is that Maglione was on the force for 22 years.

crossposted from LiveJournal

obligatory post about Obama’s inauguration

cubbi — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 23:13:59 +0000

I didn’t care to watch it, knowing that it will have priests in it (how ridiculous is that?), that Obama is president effective 12:00 noon regardless of what transcribes at the ceremony (although too bad I missed the “president to the United States faithfully” mess-up), and that it will have the stupid “So help me God”, which, by the way, was never used by U.S. presidents until well into the 20th century, with the single exception of Chester Arthur; I fully support the lawsuit that attempted to bar Roberts from instructing the president to say that (naturally, injunction denied for no standing)

I liked this blog on the subject, and, in particular, this australian’s comment:
“It seems that american political life has a parasite called overt christian god talk and another called sickening patriotism and it seems to be the price that all political figures no matter how progressive have to pay.”

Crossposted from Livejournal

IO SATVRNALIA is so last year, how about Merry Modraniht?

cubbi — Thu, 25 Dec 2008 16:37:51 +0000

The sons of Mannus (Ing, Irmin, Istaev) in the 1893 edition of the Poetic Edda. Some people say these three became known later as Freyr (aka Yngvi), Odin (aka Jormun), and Thor.

The Anglo-Saxon year begins with the Yule-tide feasts (Modranect, or Mother’s Night), in which warriors make their vows for the coming year (the origin of New Year’s resolutions). As well as celebrating Midwinter, Modranect also marked the birth of Ing (Proto-Germanic *Ingwaz, meaning “son”), one of the three sons of Mannus, son of Tuisto who was born of Earth. Ing was the mythological progenitor and the uniting image of all North Sea germanic people (Frisians, Saxons, Jutes, and Angles).

As the often-quoted Bede said, Modranect/módraniht was observed on the very same day as Christmas, although I am pretty sure it was observed all over december/january with the rest of Yuletide, and was only set to 24th/25th of December when Julian calendar was adopted.

crossposted to LiveJournal