Cracking the Code in Genesis 1:26?

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

Cracking the Code in Genesis 1:26?

Female Mystery ICONS “goddesses”

Here are my thoughts on the verse: “Genesis 1:26”

Then the bible God oddly said, Genesis 1:26 “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

*I Would like to start in this part of the statement: “in our likeness, so that they may rule”

I see it as maybe relating to the how, at the agriculture revolution there was, to me, the birth of paganism an offshoot from shamanism-totemism seen in hunter-gathers before the Neolithic. I see this early paganism with male animal-familiar/consorts deities and female-human goddesses. To me, this early paganistic-shamanism theology evolved out of the shamanism thinking they originated from. Paganism: Goddesses around 12,000 years ago then Male Gods after 7,000 years ago.

Therefore as I see it most likely the mythology packet of goddess (once a special ancestor shaman?) and male animal-familiar/consorts deities (connecting to the preexisting Phallus Phenomena (A Bull Horn) and the Shamanism Phenomena beginning around 30,000 years ago and the Hunting Ancestor Cult of the Clan Leader/Special “MALE” Ancestor Totem Poles At Least 13,500 years ago), simply an evolution from the shaman who was generally a woman if we go by the archaeology record and the general theme accumulation once one fully understands shamanism historically early. Shaman burial in Israel 12,000 years ago and the Shamanism Phenomena and lets not forget 12,000 – 10,000 years old Shamanistic Art in a Remote Cave in Egypt or 9,000-8500 year old Horned Female shaman Bad Dürrenberg Germany.

According to Norse Mythology for Smart People, Odin, the father of the gods, who possesses numerous shamanic traits. Odin, the chief of the gods, is often portrayed as a consummate shamanic figure in the oldest primary sources that contain information about the pre-Christian ways of the Germanic peoples. His very name suggests this: “Odin” (Old Norse Óðinn) is a compound word comprised of óðr, “ecstasy, fury, inspiration,” and the suffix -inn, the masculine definite article, which, when added to the end of another word like this, means something like “the master of” or “a perfect example of.” The name “Odin” can therefore be most aptly translated as “The Master of Ecstasy.” The Germanic peoples, like other Indo-European peoples, originally had a three-tiered social/political hierarchy: the first tier consisted of rulers, the second of warriors, and the third of farmers and others occupied with production and fecundity. The gods and goddesses can be profitably mapped onto this schema, and Odin a war-god, along with Tyr, corresponds to the first tier, the rulers. ref, ref

Many of the greatest Germanic heroes, such as Starkaðr and the Volsung family, have enjoyed Odin’s patronage. He maintains particularly close affiliations with the berserkers and other “warrior-shamans” whose fighting techniques and associated spiritual practices center around achieving a state of ecstatic unification with certain ferocious totem animals, usually wolves or bears, and, by extension, with Odin himself, the master of such beasts. ref, ref

The eleventh-century historian Adam of Bremen confirms this when he translates “Odin” as “The Furious.” This establishes a link between Odin and the ecstatic trance states that comprise one of the defining characteristics of shamanism. And Odin’s shamanic spirit-journeys are well-documented. The Ynglinga Sagarecords that he would “travel to distant lands on his own errands or those of others” while he appeared to others to be asleep or dead. Another instance is recorded in the Eddic poem “Baldur’s Dreams,” where Odin rides Sleipnir, an eight-legged horse typical of northern Eurasian shamanism, to the underworld to consult a dead seeress on behalf of his son. Odin, like shamans all over the world, is accompanied by many familiar spirits, most notably the two ravens Hugin and Munin. ref, ref, ref

In shamanistic practices, the animal familiar is not a physical being at all, but a thought-form or spiritual entity. It often travels astrally (relating to, emanating from, or resembling the stars), or serves as a magical guardian against those who might try to psychically attack the shaman. In some Scandinavian countries, familiars were associated with spirits of the land and nature (later becoming earth and sky gods?). Fairies, dwarves, and other elemental beings were believed to inhabit the physical bodies of animals. ref

The shaman must typically undergo a ritual death and rebirth in order to acquire his or her powers, Shamanism in Seidr shows us that goddess Freya, one of the preeminent goddesses in Norse mythology was also a divine archetype of the völva, a practitioner of the Germanic magical tradition known as seidr mainly preformed by women (to me, Household Female Ancestor Cults relate to Household Mother Goddess Cults). A man who practiced seidr could expect to be labeled argr (Old Norse for “unmanly;” the noun form is ergi) by his peers – one of the gravest insults that could be hurled at a Germanic man. There were other forms of shamanism that were much more socially acceptable for men to practice. One of the central institutions of traditional Germanic society was the band of elite, ecstatic, totemistic warriors. ref

These were no ordinary soldiers; the initiation rituals, fighting techniques, and other spiritual practices of these bands were such that their members could be aptly characterized as “warrior-shamans.” The divine guide and inspiration of such men were the same as for the seidr-workers: Odin. The Ynglinga Saga has this to say about them: “Odin’s men went armor-less into battle and were as crazed as dogs or wolves and as strong as bears or bulls.” ref

In Catal Huyuk “first religious designed city” around 9,500 to 7,700 years ago (Turkey) who practiced this early paganism connected to shamanistic ‘Sky Burial’ theory and its possible origins at least 12,000 years ago to likely 30,000 years ago or older. Which is expressed in the pre-pottery “Neolithic Skull Cult” around 11,500 to 8,400 Years Ago. Moreover, at Catal Huyuk there was art of bulls and bears in religious iconography as well as what looks like hunting cult behavior with totemistic warrior-shaman early paganist males seen taunting and ritually playing with the horned animals likely in demonstrations of bravery. ref

Could a 12,000-year-old Bull Geoglyph at Göbekli Tepe relate to older Bull and Female Art 25,000 years ago and Later Goddess and the Bull cults like Catal Huyuk?

*Bible-God oddly said, Genesis 1:26 “Let us make mankind in OUR image,

The Book of Psalms (Psalm 82:1), states “God (elohim) stands in the divine assembly; He judges among the gods (elohim)”. The meaning of the two occurrences of “elohim” has been debated by scholars, with some suggesting both words refer to Yahweh, while others propose that the God of Israel rules over a divine assembly of other Gods or angels. In the Hebrew Bible, there are multiple descriptions of Yahweh presiding over a great assembly of Heavenly Hosts. ref

The Old Testament description of the “divine assembly” all suggest that this metaphor for the organization of the divine world was consistent with that of Mesopotamia and Canaan. One difference, however, should be noted. In the Old Testament, the identities of the members of the assembly are far more obscure than those found in other descriptions of these groups, as in their polytheistic environment. Israelite writers sought to express both the uniqueness and the superiority of their God Yahweh, the Hebrew deity, Elohim (“gods”) and Adonai (“my lords”). ref

Archaic Sumerian, One of the first records of a divine council appears in the Lament for Ur, where the pantheon of Annunaki is led by An with Ninhursag and Enlil also appearing as prominent members. In the Old Babylonian pantheon, Samas (or Shamash) and Adad chair the meetings of the divine council. Akkadian, divine council was led by Anu, Ninlil, and Enlil. Marduk appears in the Babylonian Enûma Eliš as presiding over a divine council, deciding fates and dispensing divine justice. Canaanite, texts from Ugarit give a detailed description of the Divine Council’s structure of which El and Ba’al are presiding gods. ref

“Religion is an Evolved Product” and Yes, Religion is Like Fear Given Wings…

Atheists talk about gods and religions for the same reason doctors talk about cancer, they are looking for a cure or a firefighter talking about fires because they burn people and they care to stop them. We atheists too often feel a need to help the victim’s of mental slavery, held in the bondage that is the false beliefs of gods and the conspiracy theories of reality found in religions.

“Understanding Religion Evolution: Animism, Totemism, Shamanism, Paganism & Progressed organized religion”

Understanding Religion Evolution:

• Pre-Animism (at least 300,000 years ago)
• Animism (Africa: 100,000 years ago)
• Totemism (Europe: 50,000 years ago)
• Shamanism (Siberia: 30,000 years ago)
• Paganism (Turkey: 12,000 years ago)
• Progressed organized religion (Egypt: 5,000 years ago), (Egypt, the First Dynasty 5,150 years ago)
• CURRENT “World” RELIGIONS (after 4,000 years ago)
• Early Atheistic Doubting (at least by 2,600 years ago)

“An Archaeological/Anthropological Understanding of Religion Evolution”

It seems ancient peoples had to survived amazing threats in a “dangerous universe (by superstition perceived as good and evil),” and human “immorality or imperfection of the soul” which was thought to affect the still living, leading to ancestor worship. This ancestor worship presumably led to the belief in supernatural beings, and then some of these were turned into the belief in gods. This feeble myth called gods were just a human conceived “made from nothing into something over and over, changing, again and again, taking on more as they evolve, all the while they are thought to be special,” but it is just supernatural animistic spirit-belief perceived as sacred.

Quick Evolution of Religion?

Pre-Animism (at least 300,000 years ago). So, it all starts in a general way with Animism (such as that seen in Africa: 100,000 years ago) (theoretical belief in supernatural powers/spirits), then this is physically expressed in or with Totemism (Europe: 50,000 years ago) (theoretical belief in mythical relationship with powers/spirits through a totem item), which then enlists a full-time specific person to do this worship and believed interacting Shamanism (beginning around 30,000 years ago in Siberia) (theoretical belief in access and influence with spirits through ritual), and then there is the further employment of myths and gods added to all the above giving you Paganism (beginning around 12,000 years ago in Turkey) (often a lot more nature-based than most current top world religions, thus hinting to their close link to more ancient religious thinking it stems from). My hypothesis is expressed with an explanation of the building of a theatrical house (modern religions development). Progressed organized religion (around 5,000 years ago as sen in Egypt) with CURRENT “World” RELIGIONS (after 4,000 years ago).

Historically, in large city-state societies (such as Egypt or Iraq) starting around 5,000 years ago culminated to make religion something kind of new, a sociocultural-governmental-religious monarchy, where all or at least many of the people of such large city-state societies seem familiar with and committed to the existence of “religion” as the integrated life identity package of control dynamics with a fixed closed magical doctrine, but this juggernaut integrated religion identity package of Dogmatic-Propaganda certainly did not exist or if developed to an extent it was highly limited in most smaller prehistoric societies as they seem to lack most of the strong control dynamics with a fixed closed magical doctrine (magical beliefs could be at times be added or removed). Many people just want to see developed religious dynamics everywhere even if it is not. Instead, all that is found is largely fragments until the domestication of religion.

Religions, as we think of them today, are a new fad, even if they go back to around 6,000 years in the timeline of human existence, this amounts to almost nothing when seen in the long slow evolution of religion at least around 70,000 years ago with one of the oldest ritual worship. Stone Snake of South Africa: “first human worship” 70,000 years ago. This message of how religion and gods among them are clearly a man-made thing that was developed slowly as it was invented and then implemented peace by peace discrediting them all. Which seems to be a simple point some are just not grasping how devastating to any claims of truth when we can see the lie clearly in the archeological sites.

Jehovah? Jah-hovah/ Intersex “Two-Spirit” god?

Jehovah is the Romanization of Hebrew יְהֹוָה, a vocalization of the Tetragrammaton (YHWH, also transcribed Yahweh), the proper name of the God of Israel in the Hebrew Bible. The Jewish “Deity name Jehovah, is a compound of two words, viz of Jah (y, i, or j, Yôdh, the tenth letter of the alphabet) and hovah (Hâvah, or Eve),” says a Kabalistic authority, Mr. J. Ralston Skinner of Cincinnati, U.S.A. And again, “The word Jehovah, or Jah-Eve, has the primary meaning of existence or being as male female”. ref

Genesis, 26 in the IVth chapter of Genesis, reads “then pelivers in this religion to call upon the name of the Lord”, then began men to call themselves by the name of Jah-hovah” or males and females, which they had become after the separation of sexes. In fact the latter is described in the same chapter, when Cain (the male or Jah) “rose up against Abel, his (sister, not) brother and slew him”(spilt his blood, in the original). Genesis Chapter 5, the allegorical, anthropological, and where the Sons of God took as their wives the daughters of men or of the giants. ref

↑ Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, The Theosophical Glossary (Krotona, CA: Theosophical Publishing House, 1973), 163-164. ref

The primitive Jewish monotheism, of tribes that left from Mesopotamia, was not a monotheism founded on the belief in a universal God, God the Creator of all things, all beings, God of all men. Jehovah was [and is] the God of the followers of Abraham, a patriarch [chief of a clan] originating as far as anyone knows, the city of Ur, in Chaldea, ie, in Mesopotamia, a region that hosted the famous Babylon, current Iraq. The name of the “Jewish” people derives from the ancient name, Yah-oudi, applied to them and, in the begining – a name that was, for them, considered offensive! Yah-oudi can be understood as “Jeovitas” (Yah-ouvits, Jahouvists), “Jhaevoadianos” (Yah-oudians, Jahouvidians), “Jodhadious” or simply, followers of Jah-hovah. ref

The name Jehovah is the simplification from original word, that in hebrew (hebraic), is a composed word – Jah-hovah: JAH or JOD or – even – YOD, that means phallus, penis, male: “The Hebrew letter Jod membrum represented the virile.” Hovah means vessel (container, receptacle), cavity, a shell – (like a marine shell, a conch). It is female (and, later, it gained another synonimous, the word “vagina”, from Latin – that means sheath. Thus, It is a metaphor related to the fact or gestual of the warriors of keeping or put his sword in the sheath or in vagina, (a case, a holster). ref

The rise of Gods as well as Men and the Lowering of Goddess as well as Women/Two-Spirited

What Yahweh explains is that, in the past, he had only made himself known to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as El-Shaddai, In Hebrew the word שד shad means “breast.” The noun itself is masculine in form even though it refers only to female breasts. Shaddai comes from the word which means “breast” or “mountain”, thus El-Shaddai means “God of Breast(s)” and/or “God of the mountain(s).” Early Israelite religion may once have shared the Canaanite belief in El and other gods, before the Jewish monotheistic tradition emerged. And Canaanite religion seems to have involved a rich mythological tradition which served as a bridge between the more ancient Mesopotamian religions and the later Greek and Roman gods. The supreme deity of the Canaanite pantheon was El, together with his consort, Asherah.

The Canaanite pantheon was conceived as a divine clan, headed by the supreme god El; the gods collectively made up the elohim. Some of the related referenced deities are Anat—goddess of war, ever-virgin sister-wife of Baal, honored as a protector, agent of vengeance, and bearer of life and sometimes referred to as the Queen of Heaven.A Jewish inscription from the post-Babylonian period in Elephantine, Egypt, honors a goddess called Anat-Yahu (Anat-Yahweh).  Like Inanna in the ancient Epic of Gilgamesh, ‘Anat complains to El and threatens the old father of the gods himself if he does not allow her to take vengeance on Aqhat. El concedes. ref, ref

Genesis 35:11 God says to Jacob, “I am El Shaddai: be fruitful and multiply; a nation and a company of nations shall be of thee, and kings shall come out of thy loins”.

Exodus 6:2–3, (the bible God supposedly did not make himself fully known to (Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob) Shaddai the God known to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, thus associated in tradition with Abraham, the inclusion of the Abraham stories into the Hebrew Bible may have brought the northern name with them.

The name Shaddai (Hebrew) is often used in parallel to El later in the Book of Job.It has been speculated that the tell in Syria called Tell eth-Thadeyn (“tell of the two breasts”) was called Shaddai in the Amorite language. There was a Bronze-Age city in the region called Tuttul, which means “two breasts” in the Sumerian language. It has been conjectured that El Shaddai was therefore the “God of Shaddai” and that the inclusion of the Abrahamic stories into the Hebrew Bible may have brought the northern name with them (see Documentary hypothesis). ref

An Asherah pole is a sacred tree or pole that stood near Canaanite religious locations to honor the Ugaritic mother-goddess Asherah, consort of El. The relation of the literary references to an asherah and archaeological finds of Judaean pillar-figurines has engendered a literature of debate. The asherim were also cult objects of worship of the fertility goddess Asherah, the consort of either Ba’al or, as inscriptions from Kuntillet ‘Ajrud and Khirbet el-Qom attest, Yahweh, and thus objects of contention among competing cults. ref, ref

Yahweh was the national god of the Iron Age kingdoms of Israel (Samaria) and Judah. His exact origins are disputed, although they reach back to the early Iron Age and even the Late Bronze: his name may have begun as an epithet of El, head of the Bronze Age Canaanite pantheon, but the earliest plausible mentions of Yahweh are in Egyptian texts that refer to a similar-sounding place associated with the Shasu nomads of the southern Transjordan. ref

Was Elohim of Gen.1:26-27 both male and female?

It is widely recognized that Genesis contains two, very different, creation accounts; for example:

• The creator is identified as Elohim in the Cosmic Creation story (Gen.1:1-2:3) and Yahweh in the Garden of Eden story (starting at Gen.2:4).
• Elohim and ‘adam are both spoken of as plural in the first, whereas Yahweh and ‘adam are singular in the second.
• ’adam is differentiated as zakar and nĕqebah in Gen.1 (male/female) and ‘ish and ‘ishshah in Gen.2 (man/woman).
• Male and female are each created in the creators’ image in the first, and the second emphasizes the man and woman’s likeness to each other.

Because of these and other differences, critical scholars suggest the two accounts preserve distinct creation traditions within the development of the text. Both stories could be fully explored for hints about God’s gender – the Jewish mystical tradition, for example, opens an interesting possibility for thinking YHWH a dual-gender deity. But for this question, examining ‘Elohim in plurality’ in Gen.1:26-27 is highly suggestive: “Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness.” This plurality is also present in Gen.3:22, Gen.11:7, and Is.6:8. ref

There’s no avoiding that ‘image’ (tselem) and ‘likeness’ (dĕmuwth) allude in some concrete sense to Elohim’s bodily form as the divine pattern after which the male and female humans were modelled (Gen.5:3 and 9:6 suggest the same).1 This parallels the more common use of tselem for sculpted idols (or in Ez.23:14, a painting) where the image’s only physical quality is its presumed resemblance to the original; e.g. bronze Baal, terracotta Asherah, golden calf. Verse 27 therefore describes the images of Elohim as male and female, referring to their physical sex, not masculine and feminine (gender) or some other abstract quality. Centuries later, when the bodily, predominantly male descriptions of God in the Hebrew Bible were increasingly viewed as theological metaphor, God could be conceived as transcending body, sex, and more recently, gender. But within the earlier worldview, and given the Hebrew Bible’s almost exclusive presentation of God as a male figure, the ’image and likeness of God’ implies ‘of the male sex’. After whom, then, is the female human modeled? As the OP observes, this is a genuine challenge of this text. ref

Various theories for ‘Elohim in plurality’ are posited, some of them theological and anachronistic (e.g. Trinitarian foreshadowing). The word elohim referred to ‘the gods’, as it did in hundreds of other Hebrew Bible verses. Nothing in the text specifies elohim is the Israelite/Judahite god, and a generic word may have been chosen deliberately for its universality. The plural elohim recalls the pantheons of other ancient Near East religions which included both male and female deities who could function here as the divine models for the male and female human images. This would make Gen.1 a thoroughly polytheist creation story, perhaps a foreign story told for contrast to the Yahwist story it precedes (i.e. myth/anti-myth). However, if this reading reflects a very early tradition, it is unlikely to have been shared by later priestly redactors who included this beautifully-crafted story without critique. ref

Elohim (the traditional Israelite god) speaking on behalf of a ‘heavenly court:

Psalm 82 “For a long time I have kept silent, I have been quiet and held myself back. But now, like a woman in childbirth, I cry out, I gasp and pant.”

God presides in the great assembly; he renders judgment among the “gods”

Gen.1:26: “God speaks as the Creator-King, announcing his crowning work to the members of his heavenly court.” Elohim speaking on behalf of a ‘divine council’ and the mythic motif of the heavenly court pre-dates ancient Israel. In Canaanite religion, El was the chief of the elohim, the gods. Like other ancient Near East pantheons, Canaan’s elohim included males and females: e.g. Asherah, Baal, Astarte, and other gods known to Bible readers as Yahweh’s primary rivals prior to the Exile. Many scholars suggest that as heterodox Yahwism grew in prominence, it assimilated the titles, names, attributes, symbols, and mythology of El and competing cults, including the very names El and ‘sons of elohim’ (El’s divine council of 70 gods and goddesses) and eventually aspects of the dying goddess religions as well.5 It likely took centuriesfor Judaism’s increasingly exclusive monotheism and increasingly desexualized divinity to emerge from poly- and heno-theist predecessors. ref

At an interim step in this development – before the full flowering of exclusive monotheism – Elohim could be seen to speak on behalf of a council that included the divine daughters and sons of Elohim, as suggested in Gen.6:4, Dt.32:8, Ps.29:1, and Jb.1:6 and 28:7. Gen.1 is widely believed to have been written before the 2,500 years ago, before Elohim’s divine council (option 3) was ‘demoted’, in the interpretation of some readers, to the status of non-divine heavenly court (option 2) after the expansion of angelology in late- and post-biblical Judaism.7 According to this view, the male and female humans of Gen.1 were fashioned after male and female members of Elohim’s divine council. ref

Could it be that it is referring to Elohim speaking on behalf of himself and a female consort (Asherah). As mentioned, Canaan’s pantheon was composed of the 70 children of El; their mother was Asherah. Like its neighbors, Canaan was represented by a divine couple, El and Asherah, his consort. Together they were co-creators in Canaan’s creation story. There is ample biblical evidence for the Asherah cult in Israel/Judah – 40 mentions in nine books – including the installation of her statue in Yahweh’s temple in Jerusalem (2Ki.21:7). Evidence including inscriptions and thousands of terracotta figurines likely bearing her image, suggests Asherah was venerated in the folk cults of Israel/Judah from the 3,000 – 2,600 years ago and was, for long periods, also part of its official religion as Yahweh’s consort. Asherah worship was purged with the emergence of monotheistic Judaism after the Exile, but 5th century papyri indicate Anat-Yahu, another wife or consort of Yahweh, was worshiped by Judahite exiles in a Yahweh temple in Egypt. ref

Interpretations of the image of God, therefore, may swing between two extremes: the absolute, literal, physical resemblance, which seems to be supported in Genesis 5:1-3 where the image of God is clearly paralleled with Seth as the image of his father, Adam; and over against this, the necessary spiritual interpretation supported by Jesus’ classic definition of God, namely, that ‘God is spirit’.” ‘Image of God’, International Standard Bible Encyclopedia. The word elohim is always plural; in fact, the KJV translates elohim as ‘gods’ 244 times. But when it refers to the primary god of Israel/Judah, English translators follow the LXX model and render it as capital-G ‘God’ (2,346 times), which is also the English word they use for El (213 times) and Eloah (52 times). The Hebrew text retains the original. ref

“Genesis 1:26” Then the bible God is reported to have said,

*So that they may rule over the fish in the sea,

(could be fish associated cult of god Dagon, Dagun; or Dagan is an ancient Mesopotamian, Sumerian, Phoenician, and ancient Canaanite deity. An Assyro-Babylonian inscription as a powerful and warlike protector, sometimes equated with Enlil. Enlil appears to have been worshipped as a fertility fish god and Athirat, “walker of the sea”, Mother Goddess, and wife of El). ref

“Genesis 1:26” Then the bible God is reported to have said,

*And the birds in the sky,

(possibly referring to sky burial/star worship-Elite Clan Ancestor worship, with similar DNA observed among Canaanite commoners and their elites, as seen in a 3,600-year-old burial chamber some holding “abstract bird motifs” in northern Israel and the ancient Canaanite city-state of Megiddo “Tell el-Mutesellim” that contained an unprecedented number of monuments, including palaces, temples, and city walls dating from around 5,300-2,586 years ago), ref

“Genesis 1:26” Then the bible God is reported to have said,

*And over the livestock,

(bull-horned animal/goddesses or gods, such as the many hornd goddeses on Canaan, Egypt or Mesopotamian or Ēl, Dagnu (that is Dagon), and Ba’l Ṣapān, that is the god Haddu or Hadad, the epithet ‘ôlam appearing in Hebrew form in the Hebrew name of God ’ēl ‘ôlam “God Eternal” in Genesis 21.33. He is ḥātikuka (“your patriarch”). Patriarch in this context is a male ancestor, who exercised autocratic authority as a pater familias over an extended family. “El” Father of Heaven / Saturn and his major son: “Hadad” Father of Earth / Jupiter, are symbolized both by the bull, and both wear bull horns on their headdresses, called again and again Tôru ‘Ēl “Bull Ēl” or “the bull god”. Or called bātnyu binwāti “Creator of creatures”, ’abū banī ’ili “father of the gods”, and ‘abū ‘adami “father of man”). ref

“Genesis 1:26” Then the bible God is reported to have said,

*And all the wild animals,

(could it be the likes of some wild male fertility gods (Pan) whose earliest appearance in literature, Pindar’s Pythian Ode iii. 78, is associated with a mother goddess, perhaps Rhea or Cybele; Pindar refers to maidens worshiping Cybele and Pan near the poet’s house in Boeotia. Pan is famous for his sexual powers and is often depicted with a phallus. The constellation Capricornus is traditionally depicted as a sea-goat, a goat with a fish’s tail (see “Goatlike” Aigaion called Briareos, one of the Hecatonchires). A myth reported as “Egyptian” in Hyginus‘ Poetic Astronomy that would seem to be invented to justify a connection of Pan with Capricorn says that when Aegipan like Pan in his goat-god aspect — was attacked by the monster Typhon, he dove into the Nile; the parts above the water remained a goat, but those under the water transformed into a fish. ref

Pan is often represented as a satyr, half-goat and half man — with cloven hooves and a goat’s tail. Pan was known to Jews of Jesus’ day. In fact, there was a shrine to Pan, called Banias, located on the slopes of Mount Hermon in northern Israel. A spring there is considered to be the headwaters of the River Jordan. An ancient Egyptian god Min, whose cult originated in the predynastic period (6,000- 5,000 years aago). He was represented in many different forms, but was most often represented in male human form, shown with an erect penis which he holds in his left hand and an upheld right arm holding a flail. As Khem or Min, he was the god of reproduction; as Khnum, he was the creator of all things, “the maker of gods and men”.

Psalm 75:10 “I will cut off the horns of all the wicked, but the horns of the righteous will be lifted up.” Then there is The Egyptian god Ammon-Ra was depicted with ram horns. Rams were considered a symbol of virility due to their rutting behavior. In Revelation 12: 3-9, the devil referred to as a red dragon with seven heads, 10 horns and seven crowns. Or possibly relating to North African ram-shaped oracle god whose name is unknown, but possibilities are “Baal Hamon – Phoenician / Carthaginian” was worshiped by Libyan tribes at Siwa. The figure was incorporated by the Egyptians into depictions of their god Amun that’s considered an “Interpretatio graeca” of the Greek Zeus-Ammon.

Or it could be a reference to animal sacrifice as seen at the site of Tell el-Safiad that held the remains of donkeys, as well as some sheep and goats in Early Bronze Age layers, dating to 4,900 years ago. which were imported from Egypt in order to be sacrificed. One of the sacrificial animals, a complete donkey, was found beneath the foundations of a building, leading to speculation this was a ‘sacred foundation deposit” ritual placed before the building of a residential house. Canaanite deities such as Baal were represented by figures which were placed in shrines often on hilltops, or ‘high places’ surrounded by groves of trees, such as is condemned in the Hebrew Bible, in Hosea (13 1-6 “Men who sacrifice”, leads to wild sinful behavior, which would probably associate hold the Asherah pole, and standing stones or pillars “possible phallic symbolism”). ref, ref, ref, ref

“Genesis 1:26” Then the bible God is reported to have said,

*And over all the creatures that move along the ground,

(Snake = life and death fertility cults. Ancient Egyptians worshiped snakes, especially the cobra. The cobra was not only associated with the sun god Ra, but also many other deities such as Wadjet, Renenutet, Nehebkau, and Meretseger. Serpents could also be evil and harmful such as the case of Apep and Set. Referenced in the Book of the Dead, in which Spell 39 was made to help repel an evil snake in the underworld. “Get back! Crawl away! Get away from me, you snake! Go, be drowned in the Lake of the Abyss, at the place where your father commanded that the slaying of you should be carried out.” Wadjet was the patron goddess of Upper Egypt, and was represented as a cobra with spread hood, or a cobra-headed woman. She later became one of the protective emblems on the pharaoh’s crown once Upper and Lower Egypt were united. She was said to ‘spit fire’ at the pharaoh’s enemies, and the enemies of Ra. Sometimes referred to as one of the eyes of Ra, she was often associated with the lioness goddess Sekhmet, who also bore that role.

On both Ancient Mesopotamians and Semites, believed that snakes were immortal because they could infinitely shed their skin and appear forever youthful, appearing in a fresh guise every time. The Sumerians worshiped a serpent god named Ningishzida. Before the arrival of the Israelite’s, snake cults were well established in Canaan in the Bronze Age, such as serpent cult objects found relating to Bronze Age strata at several pre-Israelite cities in Canaan: two at Megiddo, one at Gezer, one in the sanctum sanctorum of the Area H temple at Hazor, and two at Shechem. In ancient Mesopotamia, Nirah, the messenger god of Ištaran, was represented as a serpent on kudurrus, or boundary stones. Representations of two intertwined serpents are common in Sumerian art and Neo-Sumerian artwork and still appear sporadically on cylinder seals and amulets until around 3,200 – 3,300 years ago.

The horned viper (Cerastes cerastes) appears in Kassite and Neo-Assyrian kudurrus and is invoked in Assyrian texts as a magical protective entity. A dragon-like creature with horns, the body and neck of a snake, the forelegs of a lion, and the hind-legs of a bird appears in Mesopotamian art from the Akkadian Period until the Hellenistic Period (2,323 –2,031 years ago). This creature, known in Akkadian as the mušḫuššu, meaning “furious serpent”, was used as a symbol for particular deities and also as a general protective emblem.It seems to have originally been the attendant of the Underworld god Ninazu, but later became the attendant to the Hurrian storm-god Tishpak, as well as, later, Ninazu’s son Ningishzida, the Babylonian national god Marduk, the scribal god Nabu, and the Assyrian national god Ashur.

In the surrounding region, serpent cult objects figured in other cultures. A late Bronze Age Hittite shrine in northern Syria contained a bronze statue of a god holding a serpent in one hand and a staff in the other. Around 2,600-2,700 years ago Babylon a pair of bronze serpents flanked each of the four doorways of the temple of Esagila. At the Babylonian New Year’s festival, the priest was to commission from a woodworker, a metalworker, and a goldsmith two images, one of which “shall hold in its left hand a snake of cedar, raising its right [hand] to the god Nabu”. At the tell of Tepe Gawra, at least seventeen Early Bronze Age Assyrian bronze serpents were recovered.). ref, ref, ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art 

ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref 

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

ref, ref, ref, ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref

The First Expression of the Male God around 7,000 years ago?

 A First Male expression of a god?

I think so, and we see a lowering of the goddess that came before, as I believe, he now sits on her old birthing stool of power (sacred throne). To me, this represents the male and female duality and the first possible god sitting on a birthing stool to signify the male on the throne previously reserved only for women. I think the bent arms of both may possibly signify metaphoric “Bull Horns.” Part of the Hamangia culture (Romania and Bulgaria) between the Danube and the Black Sea and Muntenia in the south.

• (Magdalenian/Iberomaurusian) Connections to the First Paganists of the early Neolithic Near East
• Paganism: Goddesses around 12,000 years ago then Male Gods after 7,000 years ago

The Hamangia culture began around 7,250-7,200 years ago and lasted until around 6,550-6,500 years ago It was absorbed by the expanding Boian culture in its transition towards the Gumelnitsa. Its cultural links with Anatolia suggest that it was the result of a settlement by people from Anatolia, unlike the neighboring cultures, which appear descended from an earlier Neolithic settlement. ref

Goddess relating to the three realms: heaven, earth, and the underworld.

I surmise that there is an expression in goddess representation that relates to the three realms sky goddess with the upturned arms relating to the waxing crescent, the fat sitting goddess is a representation to the full moon and the arms turned down are a representation of the waning crescent. And it this way both up and down arms represent metaphorical bullhorns and why goddesses are associated with bulls or as bulls. Especially, with paganism.

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

ref, ref, ref, ref, ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref 

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

ref, ref, ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

People don’t commonly teach religious history, even that of their own claimed religion. No, rather they teach a limited “pro their religion” history of their religion from a religious perspective favorable to the religion of choice. 

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

Do you truly think “Religious Belief” is only a matter of some personal choice?

Do you not see how coercive one’s world of choice is limited to the obvious hereditary belief, in most religious choices available to the child of religious parents or caregivers? Religion is more commonly like a family, culture, society, etc. available belief that limits the belief choices of the child and that is when “Religious Belief” is not only a matter of some personal choice and when it becomes hereditary faith, not because of the quality of its alleged facts or proposed truths but because everyone else important to the child believes similarly so they do as well simply mimicking authority beliefs handed to them. Because children are raised in religion rather than being presented all possible choices but rather one limited dogmatic brand of “Religious Belief” where children only have a choice of following the belief as instructed, and then personally claim the faith hereditary belief seen in the confirming to the belief they have held themselves all their lives. This is obvious in statements asked and answered by children claiming a faith they barely understand but they do understand that their family believes “this or that” faith, so they feel obligated to believe it too. While I do agree that “Religious Belief” should only be a matter of some personal choice, it rarely is… End Hereditary Religion!

Opposition to Imposed Hereditary Religion

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

ref, ref, ref, ref 

Animism: Respecting the Living World by Graham Harvey 

“How have human cultures engaged with and thought about animals, plants, rocks, clouds, and other elements in their natural surroundings? Do animals and other natural objects have a spirit or soul? What is their relationship to humans? In this new study, Graham Harvey explores current and past animistic beliefs and practices of Native Americans, Maori, Aboriginal Australians, and eco-pagans. He considers the varieties of animism found in these cultures as well as their shared desire to live respectfully within larger natural communities. Drawing on his extensive casework, Harvey also considers the linguistic, performative, ecological, and activist implications of these different animisms.” ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

We are like believing machines we vacuum up ideas, like Velcro sticks to almost everything. We accumulate beliefs that we allow to negatively influence our lives, often without realizing it. Our willingness must be to alter skewed beliefs that impend our balance or reason, which allows us to achieve new positive thinking and accurate outcomes.

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref 

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref 

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref

Low Gods “Earth” or Tutelary deity and High Gods “Sky” or Supreme deity

“An Earth goddess is a deification of the Earth. Earth goddesses are often associated with the “chthonic” deities of the underworld. Ki and Ninhursag are Mesopotamian earth goddesses. In Greek mythology, the Earth is personified as Gaia, corresponding to Roman Terra, Indic Prithvi/Bhūmi, etc. traced to an “Earth Mother” complementary to the “Sky Father” in Proto-Indo-European religion. Egyptian mythology exceptionally has a sky goddess and an Earth god.” ref

“A mother goddess is a goddess who represents or is a personification of nature, motherhood, fertility, creation, destruction or who embodies the bounty of the Earth. When equated with the Earth or the natural world, such goddesses are sometimes referred to as Mother Earth or as the Earth Mother. In some religious traditions or movements, Heavenly Mother (also referred to as Mother in Heaven or Sky Mother) is the wife or feminine counterpart of the Sky father or God the Father.” ref

“Any masculine sky god is often also king of the gods, taking the position of patriarch within a pantheon. Such king gods are collectively categorized as “sky father” deities, with a polarity between sky and earth often being expressed by pairing a “sky father” god with an “earth mother” goddess (pairings of a sky mother with an earth father are less frequent). A main sky goddess is often the queen of the gods and may be an air/sky goddess in her own right, though she usually has other functions as well with “sky” not being her main. In antiquity, several sky goddesses in ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, and the Near East were called Queen of Heaven. Neopagans often apply it with impunity to sky goddesses from other regions who were never associated with the term historically. The sky often has important religious significance. Many religions, both polytheistic and monotheistic, have deities associated with the sky.” ref

“In comparative mythology, sky father is a term for a recurring concept in polytheistic religions of a sky god who is addressed as a “father”, often the father of a pantheon and is often either a reigning or former King of the Gods. The concept of “sky father” may also be taken to include Sun gods with similar characteristics, such as Ra. The concept is complementary to an “earth mother“. “Sky Father” is a direct translation of the Vedic Dyaus Pita, etymologically descended from the same Proto-Indo-European deity name as the Greek Zeûs Pater and Roman Jupiter and Germanic Týr, Tir or Tiwaz, all of which are reflexes of the same Proto-Indo-European deity’s name, *Dyēus Ph₂tḗr. While there are numerous parallels adduced from outside of Indo-European mythology, there are exceptions (e.g. In Egyptian mythology, Nut is the sky mother and Geb is the earth father).” ref

Tutelary deity

“A tutelary (also tutelar) is a deity or spirit who is a guardian, patron, or protector of a particular place, geographic feature, person, lineage, nation, culture, or occupation. The etymology of “tutelary” expresses the concept of safety and thus of guardianship. In late Greek and Roman religion, one type of tutelary deity, the genius, functions as the personal deity or daimon of an individual from birth to death. Another form of personal tutelary spirit is the familiar spirit of European folklore.” ref

“A tutelary (also tutelar) in Korean shamanism, jangseung and sotdae were placed at the edge of villages to frighten off demons. They were also worshiped as deities. Seonangshin is the patron deity of the village in Korean tradition and was believed to embody the Seonangdang. In Philippine animism, Diwata or Lambana are deities or spirits that inhabit sacred places like mountains and mounds and serve as guardians. Such as: Maria Makiling is the deity who guards Mt. Makiling and Maria Cacao and Maria Sinukuan. In Shinto, the spirits, or kami, which give life to human bodies come from nature and return to it after death. Ancestors are therefore themselves tutelaries to be worshiped. And similarly, Native American beliefs such as Tonás, tutelary animal spirit among the Zapotec and Totems, familial or clan spirits among the Ojibwe, can be animals.” ref

“A tutelary (also tutelar) in Austronesian beliefs such as: Atua (gods and spirits of the Polynesian peoples such as the Māori or the Hawaiians), Hanitu (Bunun of Taiwan‘s term for spirit), Hyang (Kawi, Sundanese, Javanese, and Balinese Supreme Being, in ancient Java and Bali mythology and this spiritual entity, can be either divine or ancestral), Kaitiaki (New Zealand Māori term used for the concept of guardianship, for the sky, the sea, and the land), Kawas (mythology) (divided into 6 groups: gods, ancestors, souls of the living, spirits of living things, spirits of lifeless objects, and ghosts), Tiki (Māori mythology, Tiki is the first man created by either Tūmatauenga or Tāne and represents deified ancestors found in most Polynesian cultures). ” ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref

Mesopotamian Tutelary Deities can be seen as ones related to City-States 

“Historical city-states included Sumerian cities such as Uruk and Ur; Ancient Egyptian city-states, such as Thebes and Memphis; the Phoenician cities (such as Tyre and Sidon); the five Philistine city-states; the Berber city-states of the Garamantes; the city-states of ancient Greece (the poleis such as Athens, Sparta, Thebes, and Corinth); the Roman Republic (which grew from a city-state into a vast empire); the Italian city-states from the Middle Ages to the early modern period, such as Florence, Siena, Ferrara, Milan (which as they grew in power began to dominate neighboring cities) and Genoa and Venice, which became powerful thalassocracies; the Mayan and other cultures of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica (including cities such as Chichen Itza, Tikal, Copán and Monte Albán); the central Asian cities along the Silk Road; the city-states of the Swahili coast; Ragusa; states of the medieval Russian lands such as Novgorod and Pskov; and many others.” ref

“The Uruk period (ca. 4000 to 3100 BCE; also known as Protoliterate period) of Mesopotamia, named after the Sumerian city of Uruk, this period saw the emergence of urban life in Mesopotamia and the Sumerian civilization. City-States like Uruk and others had a patron tutelary City Deity along with a Priest-King.” ref

“Chinese folk religion, both past, and present, includes myriad tutelary deities. Exceptional individuals, highly cultivated sages, and prominent ancestors can be deified and honored after death. Lord Guan is the patron of military personnel and police, while Mazu is the patron of fishermen and sailors. Such as Tu Di Gong (Earth Deity) is the tutelary deity of a locality, and each individual locality has its own Earth Deity and Cheng Huang Gong (City God) is the guardian deity of an individual city, worshipped by local officials and locals since imperial times.” ref

“A tutelary (also tutelar) in Hinduism, personal tutelary deities are known as ishta-devata, while family tutelary deities are known as Kuladevata. Gramadevata are guardian deities of villages. Devas can also be seen as tutelary. Shiva is the patron of yogis and renunciants. City goddesses include: Mumbadevi (Mumbai), Sachchika (Osian); Kuladevis include: Ambika (Porwad), and Mahalakshmi. In NorthEast India Meitei mythology and religion (Sanamahism) of Manipur, there are various types of tutelary deities, among which Lam Lais are the most predominant ones. Tibetan Buddhism has Yidam as a tutelary deity. Dakini is the patron of those who seek knowledge.” ref

“A tutelary (also tutelar) The Greeks also thought deities guarded specific places: for instance, Athena was the patron goddess of the city of Athens. Socrates spoke of hearing the voice of his personal spirit or daimonion:

You have often heard me speak of an oracle or sign which comes to me … . This sign I have had ever since I was a child. The sign is a voice which comes to me and always forbids me to do something which I am going to do, but never commands me to do anything, and this is what stands in the way of my being a politician.” ref

“Tutelary deities who guard and preserve a place or a person are fundamental to ancient Roman religion. The tutelary deity of a man was his Genius, that of a woman her Juno. In the Imperial era, the Genius of the Emperor was a focus of Imperial cult. An emperor might also adopt a major deity as his personal patron or tutelary, as Augustus did Apollo. Precedents for claiming the personal protection of a deity were established in the Republican era, when for instance the Roman dictator Sulla advertised the goddess Victory as his tutelary by holding public games (ludi) in her honor.” ref

“Each town or city had one or more tutelary deities, whose protection was considered particularly vital in time of war and siege. Rome itself was protected by a goddess whose name was to be kept ritually secret on pain of death (for a supposed case, see Quintus Valerius Soranus). The Capitoline Triad of Juno, Jupiter, and Minerva were also tutelaries of Rome. The Italic towns had their own tutelary deities. Juno often had this function, as at the Latin town of Lanuvium and the Etruscan city of Veii, and was often housed in an especially grand temple on the arx (citadel) or other prominent or central location. The tutelary deity of Praeneste was Fortuna, whose oracle was renowned.” ref

“The Roman ritual of evocatio was premised on the belief that a town could be made vulnerable to military defeat if the power of its tutelary deity were diverted outside the city, perhaps by the offer of superior cult at Rome. The depiction of some goddesses such as the Magna Mater (Great Mother, or Cybele) as “tower-crowned” represents their capacity to preserve the city. A town in the provinces might adopt a deity from within the Roman religious sphere to serve as its guardian, or syncretize its own tutelary with such; for instance, a community within the civitas of the Remi in Gaul adopted Apollo as its tutelary, and at the capital of the Remi (present-day Rheims), the tutelary was Mars Camulus.” ref 

Household deity (a kind of or related to a Tutelary deity)

“A household deity is a deity or spirit that protects the home, looking after the entire household or certain key members. It has been a common belief in paganism as well as in folklore across many parts of the world. Household deities fit into two types; firstly, a specific deity – typically a goddess – often referred to as a hearth goddess or domestic goddess who is associated with the home and hearth, such as the ancient Greek Hestia.” ref

“The second type of household deities are those that are not one singular deity, but a type, or species of animistic deity, who usually have lesser powers than major deities. This type was common in the religions of antiquity, such as the Lares of ancient Roman religion, the Gashin of Korean shamanism, and Cofgodas of Anglo-Saxon paganism. These survived Christianisation as fairy-like creatures existing in folklore, such as the Anglo-Scottish Brownie and Slavic Domovoy.” ref

“Household deities were usually worshipped not in temples but in the home, where they would be represented by small idols (such as the teraphim of the Bible, often translated as “household gods” in Genesis 31:19 for example), amulets, paintings, or reliefs. They could also be found on domestic objects, such as cosmetic articles in the case of Tawaret. The more prosperous houses might have a small shrine to the household god(s); the lararium served this purpose in the case of the Romans. The gods would be treated as members of the family and invited to join in meals, or be given offerings of food and drink.” ref

“In many religions, both ancient and modern, a god would preside over the home. Certain species, or types, of household deities, existed. An example of this was the Roman Lares. Many European cultures retained house spirits into the modern period. Some examples of these include:

• Brownie (Scotland and England) or Hob (England) / Kobold (Germany) / Goblin / Hobgoblin
• Domovoy (Slavic)
• Nisse (Norwegian or Danish) / Tomte (Swedish) / Tonttu (Finnish)
• Húsvættir (Norse)” ref

“Although the cosmic status of household deities was not as lofty as that of the Twelve Olympians or the Aesir, they were also jealous of their dignity and also had to be appeased with shrines and offerings, however humble. Because of their immediacy they had arguably more influence on the day-to-day affairs of men than the remote gods did. Vestiges of their worship persisted long after Christianity and other major religions extirpated nearly every trace of the major pagan pantheons. Elements of the practice can be seen even today, with Christian accretions, where statues to various saints (such as St. Francis) protect gardens and grottos. Even the gargoyles found on older churches, could be viewed as guardians partitioning a sacred space.” ref

“For centuries, Christianity fought a mop-up war against these lingering minor pagan deities, but they proved tenacious. For example, Martin Luther‘s Tischreden have numerous – quite serious – references to dealing with kobolds. Eventually, rationalism and the Industrial Revolution threatened to erase most of these minor deities, until the advent of romantic nationalism rehabilitated them and embellished them into objects of literary curiosity in the 19th century. Since the 20th century this literature has been mined for characters for role-playing games, video games, and other fantasy personae, not infrequently invested with invented traits and hierarchies somewhat different from their mythological and folkloric roots.” ref

“In contradistinction to both Herbert Spencer and Edward Burnett Tylor, who defended theories of animistic origins of ancestor worship, Émile Durkheim saw its origin in totemism. In reality, this distinction is somewhat academic, since totemism may be regarded as a particularized manifestation of animism, and something of a synthesis of the two positions was attempted by Sigmund Freud. In Freud’s Totem and Taboo, both totem and taboo are outward expressions or manifestations of the same psychological tendency, a concept which is complementary to, or which rather reconciles, the apparent conflict. Freud preferred to emphasize the psychoanalytic implications of the reification of metaphysical forces, but with particular emphasis on its familial nature. This emphasis underscores, rather than weakens, the ancestral component.” ref

“William Edward Hearn, a noted classicist, and jurist, traced the origin of domestic deities from the earliest stages as an expression of animism, a belief system thought to have existed also in the neolithic, and the forerunner of Indo-European religion. In his analysis of the Indo-European household, in Chapter II “The House Spirit”, Section 1, he states:

The belief which guided the conduct of our forefathers was … the spirit rule of dead ancestors.” ref

“In Section 2 he proceeds to elaborate:

It is thus certain that the worship of deceased ancestors is a vera causa, and not a mere hypothesis. …

In the other European nations, the Slavs, the Teutons, and the Kelts, the House Spirit appears with no less distinctness. … [T]he existence of that worship does not admit of doubt. … The House Spirits had a multitude of other names which it is needless here to enumerate, but all of which are more or less expressive of their friendly relations with man. … In [England] … [h]e is the Brownie. … In Scotland this same Brownie is well known. He is usually described as attached to particular families, with whom he has been known to reside for centuries, threshing the corn, cleaning the house, and performing similar household tasks. His favorite gratification was milk and honey.” ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

ref, ref

Hinduism around 3,700 to 3,500 years old. ref

 Judaism around 3,450 or 3,250 years old. (The first writing in the bible was “Paleo-Hebrew” dated to around 3,000 years ago Khirbet Qeiyafa is the site of an ancient fortress city overlooking the Elah Valley. And many believe the religious Jewish texts were completed around 2,500) ref, ref

Judaism is around 3,450 or 3,250 years old. (“Paleo-Hebrew” 3,000 years ago and Torah 2,500 years ago)

“Judaism is an Abrahamic, its roots as an organized religion in the Middle East during the Bronze Age. Some scholars argue that modern Judaism evolved from Yahwism, the religion of ancient Israel and Judah, by the late 6th century BCE, and is thus considered to be one of the oldest monotheistic religions.” ref

“Yahwism is the name given by modern scholars to the religion of ancient Israel, essentially polytheistic, with a plethora of gods and goddesses. Heading the pantheon was Yahweh, the national god of the Israelite kingdoms of Israel and Judah, with his consort, the goddess Asherah; below them were second-tier gods and goddesses such as Baal, Shamash, Yarikh, Mot, and Astarte, all of whom had their own priests and prophets and numbered royalty among their devotees, and a third and fourth tier of minor divine beings, including the mal’ak, the messengers of the higher gods, who in later times became the angels of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Yahweh, however, was not the ‘original’ god of Israel “Isra-El”; it is El, the head of the Canaanite pantheon, whose name forms the basis of the name “Israel”, and none of the Old Testament patriarchs, the tribes of Israel, the Judges, or the earliest monarchs, have a Yahwistic theophoric name (i.e., one incorporating the name of Yahweh).” ref

“El is a Northwest Semitic word meaning “god” or “deity“, or referring (as a proper name) to any one of multiple major ancient Near Eastern deities. A rarer form, ‘ila, represents the predicate form in Old Akkadian and in Amorite. The word is derived from the Proto-Semitic *ʔil-, meaning “god”. Specific deities known as ‘El or ‘Il include the supreme god of the ancient Canaanite religion and the supreme god of East Semitic speakers in Mesopotamia’s Early Dynastic Period. ʼĒl is listed at the head of many pantheons. In some Canaanite and Ugaritic sources, ʼĒl played a role as father of the gods, of creation, or both. For example, in the Ugaritic texts, ʾil mlk is understood to mean “ʼĒl the King” but ʾil hd as “the god Hadad“. The Semitic root ʾlh (Arabic ʾilāh, Aramaic ʾAlāh, ʾElāh, Hebrew ʾelōah) may be ʾl with a parasitic h, and ʾl may be an abbreviated form of ʾlh. In Ugaritic the plural form meaning “gods” is ʾilhm, equivalent to Hebrew ʾelōhîm “powers”. In the Hebrew texts this word is interpreted as being semantically singular for “god” by biblical commentators. However the documentary hypothesis for the Old Testament (corresponds to the Jewish Torah) developed originally in the 1870s, identifies these that different authors – the Jahwist, Elohist, Deuteronomist, and the Priestly source – were responsible for editing stories from a polytheistic religion into those of a monotheistic religion. Inconsistencies that arise between monotheism and polytheism in the texts are reflective of this hypothesis.” ref

Jainism around 2,599 – 2,527 years old. ref

Confucianism around 2,600 – 2,551 years old. ref

Buddhism around 2,563/2,480 – 2,483/2,400 years old. ref

Christianity around 2,o00 years old. ref

Shinto around 1,305 years old. ref

Islam around 1407–1385 years old. ref

Sikhism around 548–478 years old. ref

Bahá’í around 200–125 years old. ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

Expressions of Atheistic Thinking:

• Around 2,600 years ago, Ajita Kesakambali, ancient Indian philosopher, who is the first known proponent of Indian materialism. ref
• Around 2,535 to 2,475 years ago, Heraclitus, Greek pre-Socratic philosopher, a native of the Greek city Ephesus, Ionia, on the coast of Anatolia, also known as Asia Minor or modern Turkey. ref
• Around 2,500 to 2,400 years ago, according to The Story of Civilization book series certain African pygmy tribes have no identifiable gods, spirits, or religious beliefs or rituals, and even what burials accrue are without ceremony. ref
• Around 2,490 to 2,430 years ago, Empedocles, Greek pre-Socratic philosopher and a citizen of Agrigentum, a Greek city in Sicily. ref
• Around 2,460 to 2,370 years ago, Democritus, Greek pre-Socratic philosopher considered to be the “father of modern science” possibly had some disbelief amounting to atheism. ref
• Around 2,399 years ago or so, Socrates, a famous Greek philosopher was tried for sinfulness by teaching doubt of state gods. ref
• Around 2,341 to 2,270 years ago, Epicurus, a Greek philosopher known for composing atheistic critics and famously stated, “Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him god?” ref

This last expression by Epicurus, seems to be an expression of Axiological Atheism. To understand and utilize value or actually possess “Value Conscious/Consciousness” to both give a strong moral “axiological” argument (the problem of evil) as well as use it to fortify humanism and positive ethical persuasion of human helping and care responsibilities. Because value-blindness gives rise to sociopathic/psychopathic evil.

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

ref, ref, ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

Damien Marie AtHope (Said as “At” “Hope”)/(Autodidact Polymath but not good at math):

Axiological Atheist, Anti-theist, Anti-religionist, Secular Humanist, Rationalist, Writer, Artist, Jeweler, Poet, “autodidact” Philosopher, schooled in Psychology, and “autodidact” Armchair Archaeology/Anthropology/Pre-Historian (Knowledgeable in the range of: 1 million to 5,000/4,000 years ago). I am an anarchist socialist politically. Reasons for or Types of Atheism

My Website, My Blog, & Short-writing or Quotes, My YouTube, Twitter: @AthopeMarie, and My Email: damien.marie.athope@gmail.com