Joseph Wilson, Department of Classics Lecturer at the University of Massachusetts Amherst: Link
Joseph Wilson, researchgate.net/profile: Link
Joseph Wilson, Twitter/X: @JosephAPWilson1
Joseph A P Wilson’s Research link:
Spider Woman Walks This Land: Traditional Cultural Properties and the Navajo Nation (review) (Jan 2002)
Mad Jesus: The Final Testament of a Huichol Messiah from Northwest Mexico by Timothy J. Knab (Jan 2005)
A New Perspective on Later Migration(s)The Possible Recent Origin of Some Native American Haplotypes (Sep 2008)
The Life of the Saint and the Animal: Asian Religious Influence in the Medieval Christian West (Jul 2009)
Material Cultural Correlates of the Athapaskan Expansion: A Cross Disciplinary Approach (Aug 2011)
The Cave Who Never Was: Outsider Archaeology and Failed Collaboration in the USA (May 2012)
Guest Editor’s Introduction: Contested Space and Value in Confucian Environmental Ethics (Feb 2016)
The Union of Two Worlds: Reconstructing Elements of Proto-Athabaskan Folklore and Religion (Mar 2016)
Book Review: All Our Relations: Native Struggles for Land and Life by Winona LaDuke (Dec 2017)
North American Indigenous Afterlife Beliefs (Jan 2018)
Postscript to the Union of Two Worlds: An Expository Note (Mar 2018)
Book Review: Time and Its Adversaries in the Seleucid Empire by Paul Kosmin (Apr 2019)
Editor’s Introduction: Contemporary World Religions and Nature in Asia and North America (Mar 2023)
Late Holocene Technology Words in Proto-Athabaskan: Implications for Dene-Yeniseian Culture History (Jul 2023)
Pseudoarchaeology
“Pseudoarchaeology (sometimes called fringe or alternative archaeology) consists of attempts to study, interpret, or teach about the subject-matter of archaeology while rejecting, ignoring, or misunderstanding the accepted data-gathering and analytical methods of the discipline. These pseudoscientific interpretations involve the use of artifacts, sites, or materials to construct scientifically insubstantial theories to strengthen the pseudoarchaeologists’ claims. Methods include exaggeration of evidence, dramatic or romanticized conclusions, use of fallacious arguments, and fabrication of evidence.” ref
“There is no unified pseudoarchaeological theory or method, but rather many different interpretations of the past which are jointly at odds with those developed by the scientific community as well as with each other. These include religious philosophies such as creationism or “creation science” that apply to the archaeology of historic periods such as those that would have included the supposed worldwide flood myth, the Genesis flood narrative, Nephilim, Noah’s Ark, and the Tower of Babel. Some pseudoarchaeological theories concern the idea that prehistoric and ancient human societies were aided in their development by intelligent extraterrestrial life, an idea propagated by those such as Italian author Peter Kolosimo, French authors Louis Pauwels and Jacques Bergier in The Morning of the Magicians (1963), and Swiss author Erich von Däniken in Chariots of the Gods? (1968). Others instead argue there were human societies in the ancient period which were significantly technologically advanced, such as Atlantis, and this idea has been propagated by some people such as Graham Hancock in his publication Fingerprints of the Gods (1995). Pseudoarchaeology has also been manifest in Mayanism and the 2012 phenomenon.” ref
“Many pseudoarchaeological theories are intimately linked with the occult/Western esoteric tradition. Many alternative archaeologies have been adopted by religious groups. Fringe archaeological ideas such as archaeocryptography and pyramidology have been endorsed by religions ranging from the British Israelites to the theosophists. Other alternative archaeologies include those that have been adopted by members of New Age and contemporary pagan belief systems.” ref
“Academic archaeologists have often criticised pseudoarchaeology, with one of the major critics, John R. Cole, characterising it as relying on “sensationalism, misuse of logic and evidence, misunderstanding of scientific method, and internal contradictions in their arguments”. The relationship between alternative and academic archaeologies has been compared to the relationship between intelligent design theories and evolutionary biology by some archaeologists.” ref
“Various terms have been employed to refer to these non-academic interpretations of archaeology. During the 1980s, the term “cult archaeology” was used by some people such as John R. Cole (1980) and William H. Stiebing Jr. (1987). “Fantastic archaeology” was used during the 1980s as the name of an undergraduate course at Harvard University taught by Stephen Williams, who published a book with the same title. During the 2000s, the term “alternative archaeology” began to be instead applied by academics like Tim Sebastion (2001), Robert J. Wallis (2003), Cornelius Holtorf (2006), and Gabriel Moshenka (2008). Garrett F. Fagan and Kenneth Feder (2006) however claimed this term was only chosen because it “imparts a warmer, fuzzier feel” that “appeals to our higher ideals and progressive inclinations”. They argued that the term “pseudoarchaeology” was much more appropriate, a term also used by other prominent academic and professional archaeologists such as Colin Renfrew (2006).” ref
“Other academic archaeologists have chosen to use other terms to refer to these interpretations. Glyn Daniel, the editor of Antiquity, used the derogative term “bullshit archaeology,” and similarly, the academic William H. Stiebing Jr. noted that there were certain terms used for pseudoarchaeology that were heard “in the privacy of professional archaeologists’ homes and offices but which cannot be mentioned in polite society.” ref
“Pseudoarchaeology can be practiced intentionally or unintentionally. Archaeological frauds and hoaxes are considered intentional pseudoarchaeology. Genuine archaeological finds may be converted to pseudoarchaeology unintentionally by unscientific interpretation. (cf. confirmation bias)” ref
“A type of pseudoarcheology of the Middle East has created a pseudo-history of Babylon, in contradiction to Judeo-Christian and Biblical history, resulting in the production of fraudulent cuneiform tablets, as clay tablets are difficult to date. “By 1904, during the early period of cuneiform tablet collecting, J. Edgar Banks, a Mesopotamian explorer and tablet dealer, estimated that nearly 80% of tablets offered for sale in Baghdad were fakes. In 2016, Syria’s Director General for Antiquities and Museums reported that approximately 70% of seized artefacts in the country are fakes.” ref
“Especially in the past, but also in the present, pseudoarchaeology has been affected by racism, which can be suggested by attempts to attribute ancient sites and artefacts to ancient Egyptians, Hebrew Lost Tribes, Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact, or even extraterrestrial intelligence rather than to indigenous peoples. Practitioners of pseudoarchaeology often criticise academic archaeologists and established scientific methods, claiming that conventional science has ignored critical evidence. Conspiracy theories may be invoked, in which “the Establishment” colludes in suppressing evidence.” ref
“Cornelius Holtorf states that countering the misleading “discoveries” of pseudoarchaeology creates a dilemma for archaeologists: whether to attempt to disprove pseudoarchaeology by “crusading” methods or to concentrate on better public knowledge of the sciences involved. Holtorf suggested a third method involving identifying the social and cultural demands that both scientific archaeology and pseudoarchaeology address, and identifying the engagement of present people with the material remains of the past (such as Barbara Bender explored for Stonehenge). Holtorf presents the search for truth as a process rather than a result and states that “even non-scientific research contributes to enriching our landscapes.” ref
Characteristics
“William H. Stiebing Jr. argued that despite their many differences, there were a set of common characteristics shared by almost all pseudoarchaeological interpretations. He believed that because of this, pseudoarchaeology could be categorised as a “single phenomenon”. He then identified three main commonalities of pseudeoarchaeological theories: the unscientific nature of its method and evidence, its history of providing “simple, compact answers to complex, difficult issues”, and its tendency to present itself as being persecuted by the archaeological establishment, accompanied by an ambivalent attitude towards the scientific ethos of the Enlightenment. This idea that there are common characteristics of pseudoarchaeologies is shared by other academics.” ref
Lack of scientific method
“Academic critics have stated that pseudoarchaeologists typically neglect to use the scientific method. Instead of testing evidence to see what hypotheses it satisfies best, pseudoarchaeologists force the archaeological data to fit a “favored conclusion” that is often arrived at through hunches, intuition, or religious or nationalist dogma. Pseudoarchaeological groups have a variety of basic assumptions that are typically unscientific: the Nazi pseudoarchaeologists for instance used the cultural superiority of the ancient Aryan race as a basic assumption, whilst Christian fundamentalist pseudoarchaeologists conceive of the Earth as being less than 10,000 years old and Hindu fundamentalist pseudoarchaeologists believe that the species Homo sapiens is much older than the 200,000 years old it has been shown to be by archaeologists. Despite this, many of pseudoarchaeology’s proponents claim that they gained their conclusions using scientific techniques and methods, even when it is demonstrable that they have not.” ref
“Academic archaeologist John R. Cole believed that most pseudoarchaeologists do not understand how scientific investigation works, and that they instead believe it to be a “simple, catastrophic right versus wrong battle” between contesting theories. It was because of this failure to understand the scientific method, he argued, that pseudoarchaeological arguments were faulty. He then argued that most pseudoarchaeologists do not consider alternative explanations to that which they want to propagate, and that their “theories” were typically just “notions”, not having sufficient evidence to allow them to be considered “theories” in the scientific, academic meaning of the word.” ref
“Commonly lacking scientific evidence, pseudoarchaeologists typically use other types of evidence for their arguments. For instance, they often use “generalized cultural comparisons”, using various artefacts and monuments from one society, and emphasizing similarities with those of another society to conclude that both had a common source—typically an ancient lost civilisation like Atlantis, Mu, or an extraterrestrial influence. This takes the different artefacts or monuments entirely out of their original contexts, something which is anathema to academic archaeologists, for whom context is of the utmost importance.” ref
“Another type of evidence used by a number of pseudoarchaeologists is the interpretation of various myths as representing historical events, but in doing so these myths are often taken out of their cultural contexts. For instance, pseudoarchaeologist Immanuel Velikovsky claimed that the myths of migrations and war gods in the Central American Aztec civilization represented a cosmic catastrophe that occurred during the 7th and 8th centuries BCE. This was criticised by academic archaeologist William H. Stiebing Jr., who noted that such myths only developed during the 12th to the 14th centuries CE, two millennia after Velikovsky claimed that the events had occurred, and that the Aztec society itself had not even developed by the 7th century BCE.” ref
Opposition to the archaeological establishment
“Pseudoarchaeologists typically present themselves as being disadvantaged with respect to the much larger archaeological establishment. They often use language that disparages academics and dismisses them as being unadventurous, spending all their time in dusty libraries and refusing to challenge the orthodoxies of the establishment lest they lose their jobs. In some more extreme examples, pseudoarchaeologists have accused academic archaeologists of being members of a widespread conspiracy to hide the truth about history from the public. When academics challenge pseudoarchaeologists and criticise their theories, many pseudoarchaeologists claim it as further evidence that their own ideas are right, and that they are simply being harassed by members of this academic conspiracy.” ref
“The prominent English archaeologist Colin Renfrew admitted that the archaeological establishment was often “set in its ways and resistant to radical new ideas” but that this was not the reason why pseudoarchaeological theories were rejected by academics. Garrett G. Fagan expanded on this, noting how in the academic archaeological community, “New evidence or arguments have to be thoroughly scrutinized to secure their validity … and longstanding, well-entrenched positions will take considerable effort and particularly compelling data to overturn.” Fagan noted that pseudoarchaeological theories simply do not have sufficient evidence to allow them to be accepted by professional archaeologists.” ref
“Conversely, many pseudoarchaeologists, whilst criticizing the academic archaeological establishment, also attempt to get endorsements from people with academic credentials and affiliations. At times, they quote historical, and in most cases dead academics to strengthen their arguments; for instance, prominent pseudoarchaeologist Graham Hancock, in his seminal Fingerprints of the Gods (1995), repeatedly notes that the eminent physicist Albert Einstein once commented positively on the pole shift hypothesis, a theory that has been abandoned by the academic community but which Hancock endorses. As Fagan noted however, the fact that Einstein was a physicist and not a geologist is not even mentioned by Hancock, nor is the fact that the present understanding of plate tectonics (which came to disprove earth crustal displacement) only became accepted generally after Einstein’s death.” ref
Academic archaeological responses
“Pseudoarchaeological theories have come to be much criticized by academic and professional archaeologists. One of the first books to address these directly was by archaeologist Robert Wauchope of Tulane University. Prominent academic archaeologist Colin Renfrew stated his opinion that it was appalling that pseudoarchaeologists treated archaeological evidence in such a “frivolous and self-serving way”, something he believed trivialized the “serious matter” of the study of human origins. Academics like John R. Cole,[5] Garrett G. Fagan, and Kenneth L. Feder have argued that pseudoarchaeological interpretations of the past were based upon sensationalism, self-contradiction, fallacious logic, manufactured or misinterpreted evidence, quotes taken out of context, and incorrect information. Fagan and Feder characterised such interpretations of the past as being “anti-reason and anti-science” with some being “hyper-nationalistic, racist and hateful”. In turn, many pseudoarchaeologists have dismissed academics as being closed-minded and not willing to consider theories other than their own.” ref
“Many academic archaeologists have argued that the spread of alternative archaeological theories is a threat to the general public’s understanding of the past. Fagan was particularly scathing of television shows that presented pseudoarchaeological theories to the general public, believing that they did so because of the difficulties in making academic archaeological ideas comprehensible and interesting to the average viewer. Renfrew, however, believed that those television executives commissioning these documentaries knew that they were erroneous, and that they had allowed them to be made and broadcast simply for the hope of “short-term financial gain.” ref
“Fagan and Feder believed that it was not possible for academic archaeologists to successfully engage with pseudoarchaeologists, remarking that “you cannot reason with unreason.” Speaking from their own experiences, they thought that attempted dialogues just became “slanging matches in which the expertise and motives of the critic become the main focus of attention.” Fagan has maintained this idea elsewhere, remarking that arguing with supporters of pseudoarchaeological theories was “pointless” because they denied logic. He noted that they included those “who openly admitted to not having read a word written by a trained Egyptologist” but who at the same time “were pronouncing how academic Egyptology was all wrong, even sinister.” ref
Nazi Archaeology was Pseudoarcheology
“Nazi archaeology was a field of pseudoarcheology led and encouraged by various Nazi leaders and Ahnenerbe figures, such as Adolf Hitler and Heinrich Himmler, which directed archaeologists and other scholars to search Germany‘s archeological past in order to find material evidence supporting an advanced, Aryan ancestry as alleged and espoused by the ultranationalist Nazi Party.
“The search for an inspirational, nationalistic, Aryan-centric national prehistory of Germany began after the German Empire suffered defeat in World War I in 1918. Subsequently the country faced a severe economic crisis due to the terms of the 1919 Treaty of Versailles. One of the leading experts who engaged in research and study in German prehistory was German philologist and archeologist Gustaf Kossinna (1858-1931), whose ideas and theories were picked up and further researched by the Nazi organizations such as the Amt Rosenberg (officially established in 1934) and the Ahnenerbe (founded in 1935). Researchers specialized in German prehistory, armed with funding from the Nazi Party for such studies; thus the Nazis were able to add pseudoarchaeology into their extensive propaganda campaigns directed at the German people. “According to Nazi doctrine, the Germanic culture of northern Europe was responsible for virtually all major intellectual and technological achievements of Western civilization.” ref
Nazi Pseudoarcheology Tenets
- “The Kulturkreis (“culture circles”) theory, originally by German ethnologists Fritz Graebner, but used in studies by Gustaf Kossinna, stated that recognition of an ethnic region is based on the material culture excavated from an archeological site. This theory was used by the Nazis to justify takeover and occupation of foreign lands such as Poland and Czechoslovakia. One such example of Kulturkreis is shown in Kossinna’s article “The German Ostmark,” in which Kossinna argued that Poland should be a part of the German Reich, since any lands where an artifact was titled “Germanic” were therefore ancient Germanic territory, in which the artifacts had been “wrongfully stolen” by “barbarians.”
- The Social Diffusion Theory, which stated that cultural diffusion occurred through a process whereby influences, ideas and models were passed on by more advanced peoples to the less advanced whom they came into contact with. Examples offered by Kossinna and Alfred Rosenberg presented a history of Germany equivalent to that of the Roman Empire, suggesting that “Germanic people were never destroyers of culture—not like the Romans—and the French in recent times.” Combined with Nazi ideology, this theory gave the perfect foundation for the view of Germany as the locomotive of world civilization.
- Weltanschauungswissenschaften or “World View Sciences”, which stated that culture and science were as one, and carried certain “race-inherent values”. The theory suggested that older cultural models, such as sagas, stories and legends, should be not only reincorporated into mainstream culture, but that “the guiding principle in Germany must be to emphasise the high cultural level and the cultural self-sufficiency of the Germanic people.” Examples were the use of Aryan-styled regalia such as the swastika, the use of German legends and runic symbols in the SS, and the ideas proposed by German scientists and the conclusions they made were more accurate than the views of “lesser-race” scientists.
- Deutsche Reinheit, or “Pure German Man,” argues the idea that Germans were “pure Aryans” who had survived a natural catastrophe and evolved a highly developed culture during their long migration to Germany. This tenet also makes the argument that Greeks were actually Germanic, claiming evidence that certain “Indogermanic” artifacts could be found in Greece. This theory supported the Kulturkreise theory tangentally, in that archeologists who did not approve of the uses of Kulturkreise theory (moderates) could support this theory.
- The Ahnenerbe and its own role as an organization with the purpose of using its archeological “findings” to further support the propaganda machine of the Nazi regime through the use of previously listed tenets presented and built on by German archeologists such as Gustaf Kossinna.” ref
Organisations and Operations
“The Ahnenerbe Organisation, formally the Deutsches Ahnenerbe – Studiengesellschaft für Geistesurgeschichte (German Ancestry – Research Society for Ancient Intellectual History ) was an organization started as the Research Institute for the Prehistory of Mind and was connected to the SS in 1935 by Walther Darre. In 1936 it was attached to Hitler’s Reichsführer-SS and led by chief of police Heinrich Himmler. By 1937, it was the primary instrument of Nazi archaeology and archaeological propaganda, subsuming smaller organisations like Reinerth’s Archaeology Group, and filling its ranks with “investigators”. These included people like Herman Wirth, co-founder of the Ahnenerbe, who attempted to prove that Northern Europe was the cradle of Western civilization.” ref
“The main goals of the organization were:
- To study the territory, ideas and achievements of the Indo-Germanic people
- To bring the research findings to life and present them to the German people
- To encourage every German to get involved in the organization.” ref
“Although the organization claimed to have a research goal, Himmler had no official training in archaeology and was known for his interest in mysticism and the occult. Himmler defined the organization as working towards a prehistory that would prove the pre-eminence of the Germans and their Germanic predecessors since the beginning of civilization. He is quoted as saying, “A nation lives happily in the present and the future so long as it is aware of its past and the greatness of its ancestors.” ref
“The Ahnenerbe had difficulty finding scientists to work on the projects and was run largely by scholars from branches of the humanities, which made their research both unskilled and less professional. The group went on to be responsible for pseudoarchaeology, illustrated by open-air displays honoring Germanic heritage, such as the Externsteine, a sandstone formation that was thought to have been a key Germanic cult site. Another example is the Sachsenhain, where 4500 Saxons were executed as a punishment for Widukind‘s uprising. This site was used as an idealized shrine that was considered sacred to the Germanic people and highlighted their readiness for self-sacrifice. Although there were other sites researched by Ahnenerbe, many of them were censored from the public since they did not have the correct Germanic interpretations. The sites chosen for excavations were limited to those of Germanic superiority such as Erdenburg, where the Ahnenerbe claimed to have clear evidence of the victorious campaign of the Germani against the Romans.” ref
“Some of the Ahnenerbe’s most extravagant activities include:
- Edmund Kiss tried to travel to Bolivia in 1928 to study the ruins of temples in the Andes mountains. He claimed their similarity to ancient European construction indicated they were designed by Nordic migrants that had arrived at the area millions of years earlier.
- In 1938, Franz Altheim and his research partner Erika Trautmann requested the Ahnenerbe sponsor their Middle East trek to study an internal power struggle of the Roman Empire, which they believed was fought between the Nordic and Semitic peoples.
- In 1936 an Ahnenerbe expedition visited the German island of Rügen and then Sweden, with the objective of examining rock-art which they concluded was ‘proto-Germanic’.
- Nazi theorists took a huge interest in the Bayeux Tapestry, going so far as to attempt archaeological digs to find other contemporary artwork that would support their assertion of Germanic might.
- In 1938 the Ahnenerbe sent an expedition to Tibet with the intention of proving Aryan superiority by confirming the Vril theory, which was based on Edward Bulwer-Lytton‘s book Vril, the Power of the Coming Race. Their study included measuring the skulls of 376 people and comparing native feature to those associated with Aryans, with the expedition’s most scientific findings abeing associated with biological findings.” ref
Amt Rosenberg
“The Amt Rosenberg was an organization dedicated to finding archeological evidence of the superiority of Germanic culture and of Atlantis, headed by Alfred Rosenberg, and was given plenty of support by the Thule Society, with support given back in turn to the society by the organization. A small, better trained team of archaeologists, with more concrete backgrounds and training with archeology, was led by Rosenberg and part of his Amt Rosenberg organization, the Reichsbund für Deutsche Vorgeschichte. It was staffed with archaeologists who signed on to some of Rosenberg’s later thinking and theory. Rosenberg saw world history as shaped by the eternal fight between the ‘Nordic Atlantic’, the pure-blooded Nordic people of Atlantis, and the ‘Semites’, or Jewish people. To him, only the Germanic people brought culture to the world, while Jews brought evil. He speculated that the people of Germany were survivors from Atlantis who had migrated to Germany, seeing the German people as a distinct race, not only in biological terms, but also in mental phenomena and in their ‘will to live’. Hence, he advocated ‘race materialism,’ stating that only the fittest race (Aryans) should survive, a tenet that would later shape the Nazi policy on the Final Solution.” ref
Goals of Nazi Psudo-archaeology
To the public
“Nazi archaeology was rarely conducted with an eye to pure research but was instead used as a propaganda tool designed to generate nationalistic pride in the German people and provide scientific excuses for hostile takeovers. The German people were drawn to the idea of Germany as the site of the origins of civilization through various means. For one, there were a series of films produced by Lothar Zotz with titles like Threatened by the Steam Plough, Germany’s Bronze Age, The Flames of Prehistory, and On the Trail of the Eastern Germans, all of which delved further into the supposed prehistory of the German peoples. These films used the appeal of myths, the glory of the ancient past, and German triumph over change to reinforce the idea that German history was something to be proud of. At the same time, they took advantage of the fact that these periods of history were not well known to the general public, allowing for heavy doses of propaganda. Additionally, public journals gained popularity, such as Die Kunde (The Message) and Germanen-Erbe (GermanicHeritage). Through these journals and films, the German people believed they were being provided with compelling visuals and interpretations of various archaeological sites, learning more about the ‘true’ German prehistory.” ref
“The Nazis also encouraged the public to get involved in the search for the past, using patriotism as a tool. For instance, the membership flyer of one amateur organization of the Amt Rosenberg stated, “Responsibility with respect to our indigenous prehistory must again fill every German with pride!” The organization’s goal was also articulated as, “the interpretation and dissemination of unclassified knowledge regarding the history and cultural achievements of our northern Germanic ancestors on German and foreign soil.” In addition to appealing to public patriotism, open-air museums were established that reconstructed Neolithic and Bronze Age lake settlements at Unteruhldingen. These public museums gained immense popularity among the general public and encouraged people to believe in and search for their Germanic past. All of these elements combined to create a strong foundation of Germanic pride among the German people, which was used to reinforce the nationalistic and fascist message that Adolf Hitler was crafting through his speeches, open-air meetings, and public image.” ref
To archaeologists
“Prior to the formation of the Ahnenerbe, there was little funding for or interest in Germanic archaeology. This allowed for the Nazi Party to easily rouse interest in the subject among the general public, which in turn made it easier to push their ethnocentric views onto the uninformed public. Another side effect of this sudden support was felt in some scholarly circles, since many German scholars who specialized in archaeology had long been envious of the advancements in archaeology their European neighbors had made during their excavations in the Middle East. With the sudden boom in interest, the scholars were finally able to put their knowledge to work. Because of Hitler, many changes occurred; funds were made available for scholars to make great advancements beyond their neighboring countries. Under Nazi rule, archaeology went from having one chair in prehistory in Marburg in 1933 to having nine chairs in the Reich in 1935.” ref
“Once archaeology started gaining popularity, scholars were able to partake in much grander projects, such as the excavation of castles, old ruins, and bring back pieces for display in museums. One specific example of these changes was that the Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum (Romano-Germanic Central Museum) in Mainz, which, in 1939, became for a time the Zentralmuseum für deutsche Vor- und Frühgeschichte (Central museum for German pre- and early history). (Note the difference between the original “Römisch-Germanisch” which denotes a historical period, and “deutsche”, implying a continuous history of a united group of people. “Anglo-Saxon” and “English” would be rough analogies.) In their enthusiasm for the Nazi regime’s support of archaeology, many German archaeologists became pawns and puppets of the real goals behind the movement. They answered to the requests of the Ahnenerbe, and not always in the interests of true archaeology.” ref
Nazi Interest in Iceland
“The country of Iceland was of particular interest to Nazi leadership due to their belief that the country was the Thule area which served as the birthplace of the Aryan race. In 1938, Ahnenerbe head Heinrich Himmler would send an archeological team to Iceland in hopes of an ancient place of worship for Nordic gods like Thor and Odin. However, the Iceland government was less interested in assisting the Ahnenerbe-led 1938 expeditions and imposed restrictions, which resulted in limited expeditions. Despite finding a cave, which the Ahnenebre-led expedition team claimed was the location of the mystic place of worship, known as the hof, it was proven that the site was uninhabited before the 18th century. With British and American forces being able to successfully occupy Iceland, all planned Nazi-led expeditions of Iceland would be canceled in 1941.” ref
The Nazi Search for Atlantis
“In their search to prove the superiority of the Aryan race, the Nazi party began searching the world for archeological evidence that would prove to the rest of the “inferior” world that the German people were not only a superior race, but that they transcended traditional human standards. One archeological exploit made popular by the movie Raiders of the Lost Ark was the search for the Ark of the Covenant. Another, perhaps less known, exploit was their attempt to discover the lost island of Atlantis. This project, originally headed by Herman Wirth and later taken over by Heinrich Himmler, was a search that lasted for nearly the entire reign of the Third Reich under Adolf Hitler’s regime. Wirth did not aspire to the widely held belief that Atlantis was located in the Mediterranean, but rather that it was located somewhere in the North Atlantic region. In Wirth’s depiction, Atlantis was a civilization that reached its height approximately 25,000 years before the modern era and was the birthplace of the Nordic race that was destined to control and influence the development of mankind and to act as their sovereign masters, with the Nordic race Wirth mentioned being the Aryan race. Soon after his rise to popularity, some members of the highest echelons in Nazi Germany began to acknowledge the supposed “truth” behind his bizarre pseudoscientific ideas.” ref
“In the year 1935, Heinrich Himmler began a joint effort with Wirth to establish the Ahnenerbe, an elite team of Schutzstaffel (SS) archeologists, scientists, and historians gathered to search sacred archeological sites around the globe for evidence that the Aryans of Atlantis were not a mere work of Nazi propaganda. Himmler desperately wanted to prove that their existence was real and verifiable. As head of the SS, Himmler was enthralled with the prospect of archeological proof to verify and confirm Nazi beliefs. Himmler was also one of the staunchest supporters of archeological discovery by the Nazi party, especially those made within the realm of pre-historic Germany. After the Ahnenerbe was formed, they began work on excavation and research into ancient archeological sites, paying especially close attention to those that were believed to be of sacred significance to their ancestors. One particularly significant excavation took place under the command of Nazi archaeologist Vilhelm Toit. This excavation took place at the Externsteine. The goal of this excursion to the Externsteine was to find evidence that it had been used for sacred ritualistic practices by the ancient Aryan people of Germany thousands of years before it became a significant site to Christianity. During the search for ancient Aryan purity, the Externsteine became a symbol to the people of Nazi Germany; a symbol of pure German blood and ancestry. As the Externsteine excavations continued, they became Himmler’s personal pet project. Shortly after the Externsteine was sealed off to the public for archeological research, rumors began to surface that the people of Germany were not, in fact, of Aryan descent. Faced with this, Himmler began to send teams of his Ahnenerbe researchers across the world to hunt for proof that such claims were false, although he and his expeditions ultimately failed to provide such further evidence.” ref
Haus Atlantis
“In the city of Bremen, Germany stands a unique example of German architecture designed by Bernhard Hoetger and inspired by a fascination with ideas by Herman Wirth that the lost city of Atlantis was originally inhabited by Germanics, thereby making Germans the oldest known race on earth. “Haus Atlantis” or “Atlantis House” was completed in 1931 and was designed with the sole purpose of studying Atlantis and its relation to the Aryan race. The façade of the building was originally adorned by a carved wooden feature depicting the Nordic God Odin (also referred to as “The Atlantis Survivor”) crucified on the tree of life. It was destroyed by fire during WWII and was not recreated when the façade was rebuilt in 1954. The architectural masterpiece is composed mostly of glass and steel. Many historians believe that the choice of materials in combination with the interior architecture was intended to represent the Aryan exodus from Atlantis. At the top of the institute there is a room named “The Heaven’s Hall.” This room, at the peak of the building, served as a teaching forum for young Nazi archeologists where they could eagerly absorb the teachings of esteemed German figures such as Herman Wirth and Hans Reinerth, along with their theories of the Germanic presence in Atlantis.” ref
Notable figures in Nazi Pseudoarcheology
Gustaf Kossinna
“The nationalistic theories of Gustaf Kossinna about the origins and racial superiority of Germanic peoples influenced many aspects of Nazi ideology and politics. He is also considered to be a precursor of Nazi archaeology. Kossinna was trained as a linguist at universities in Göttingen, Leipzig, Berlin, and Strasbourg, and eventually held the chair for Germanic Archeology at the University of Berlin. He laid the groundwork for an ethnocentric German prehistory with one of his theories, the Kulturkreis theory, being the basis on which the main pillars of Nazi archaeology were founded. Kossinna also published books for a general audience which were useful tools to spread German propaganda and created archaeological expeditions that allowed the Nazis to use Kulturkreis theory as an excuse for territorial expansion. In one of his most popular books, Die deutsche Vorgeschichte — eine hervorragend nationale Wissenschaft (German Prehistory: a Pre-eminently National Discipline), Kossinna puts forward the idea of an Aryan race, the Germani, superior to all other peoples, and shows Germany as the key to an unwritten history. The book was used to inspire the German people into the belifs of the Nazi Party regarding the origins and history of the German people, with the dedication in the beginning reading, “To the German people, as a building block in the reconstruction of the externally as well as internally disintegrated fatherland.” Kossinna died in 1931, 13 months before Hitler seized power.” ref
Alfred Rosenberg
“Alfred Rosenberg was a Nazi Party ideologist who supported archeological excavations and the study of provincial Roman Germany. He stated as a summary of his research and thoughts that “An individual to whom the tradition of his people and the honor of his people is not a supreme value, has forfeited the right to be protected by that people.” Rosenberg’s perspective on German prehistory led mainly to racist distortion of data, which did not directly apply to the Germanic people. Rosenberg’s book Der Mythos des 20. Jahrhunderts (The Myth of the Twentieth Century) gave support to the concept of a new Germanic religion. Rosenberg’s theory, Weltanschauungswissenschaften, was implicit in the idea that Germany had the right to take over other nations – or even exterminate them – since German culture was “superior” to the culture of other groups. He also tried to prove that the Nordic-Aryans originated on a lost landmass identified with Atlantis, and that Jesus was not a Jew but instead an Aryan Amorite.” ref
Hans Reinerth
“Hans Reinerth was the main archaeologist Rosenberg worked with. Reinerth is famous for his excavations at the Federsee, and he saw the Nazi Party as a tool he could use to work his way up in society. This is just what occurred, and in 1934 Rosenberg appointed him to the position of “Reich Deputy of German Prehistory”. This made him the spokesman for the “purification and Germanisation of the German prehistory.” Reinerth was an adherent of Hitler’s theory of German racial purity. Though this theory never really came into full effect, Reinerth pushed it heavily as Reich Deputy, and encouraged archaeological exploration. His archaeological group, along with the Ahnenerbe organization, was used to the Nazis’ full advantage since it was a more “professional” group.
Herman Wirth
“Herman Wirth was a Dutch-German historian who co-founded the SS organization called Ahnenerbe before being pushed out of the organization by Heinrich Himmler. Wirth began his career as a German soldier in 1914, when he volunteered for service in the German Army and monitored Flemish separatists in German-occupied Belgium. In 1917, after only two years of military service, he was decorated and dismissed from service. He was later appointed as a professor and researcher by Wilhelm II and remained in the position until the fall of the Third Reich. Wirth believed that civilization was an affliction that could only be cured by a simpler way of life. Later in life, during the reign of the Third Reich, Wirth was the primary proponent for the idea that the German people descended from Atlantis, more specifically that they descended from Aryan Atlanteans who made a mass exodus from Atlantis at some point. While Wirth was a Nazi archaeologist, unlike others who worked with the Nazi Party, he was not well-liked by most of the Nazi Party and received criticism from such intellectuals as Bolko von Richthofen, Arthur Hübner, and even Hitler himself, who denounced the institute known as Haus Atlantis in Bremen’s Böttcherstraße in his 1936 speech at the Reichsparteitag. This disgraceful career led Wirth to be mostly seen as a crank among the Nazi Party. However, Wirth made claims that what may have been his crowning achievement was never published. In 1979 Wirth was interviewed by Chilean neo-Nazi Miguel Serrano. In this interview, Wirth proclaimed that his magnum opus, Palestinabuch had been stolen. While there are indications that Wirth may have actually worked on this book, there is no solid evidence to support his claims. Whether the book actually existed or not, Wirth would never see it published, as he died in 1981 in Kusel, Germany. To this day, however, there are still many pseudoarchaeologists out there who seek to find the supposed lost final book of this once-famous Nazi Atlantis truther.” ref
Other Nazi archaeologists:
“Joseph Arthur de Gobineau (14 July 1816 – 13 October 1882) was a French aristocrat who is best known for helping introduce scientific race theory and “racial demography” and for developing the theory of the Aryan master race and Nordicism. Known to his contemporaries as a novelist, diplomat, and travel writer, he was an elitist who, in the immediate aftermath of the Revolutions of 1848, wrote An Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races. In it, he argued that aristocrats were superior to commoners and that aristocrats possessed more Aryan genetic traits because of less interbreeding with inferior races.” ref
“Gobineau’s writings were quickly praised by white supremacist, pro-slavery Americans like Josiah C. Nott and Henry Hotze, who translated his book into English. They omitted around 1,000 pages of the original book, including those parts that negatively described Americans as a racially mixed population. Inspiring a social movement in Germany named Gobinism, his works were also influential on prominent antisemites like Richard Wagner, Wagner’s son-in-law Houston Stewart Chamberlain, the Romanian politician Professor A. C. Cuza, and leaders of the Nazi Party, who later edited and re-published his work. Gobineau’s ideas were influential in a number of countries, especially Romania, Ottoman Empire, Germany, and Brazil, both during his lifetime and after his death. He was a main influence to the first modern elaboration of Zionism by Moses Hess.” ref
“In 1879, Gobineau attempted to prove his own racial superiority over the rest of the French with his pseudo-family history Histoire de Ottar Jarl. It begins with the line “I descend from Odin” and traces his supposed descent from the Viking Ottar Jarl. As the de Gobineau family first appeared in history in late 15th century Bordeaux, and Ottar Jarl—who may or may not have been a real person—is said to have lived in the 10th century, Gobineau had to resort to a great deal of invention to make his genealogy work. For him, the Essai, the Histoire des Perses, and Histoire de Ottar Jarl comprised a trilogy, what the French critic Jean Caulmier called “a poetic vision of the human adventure,” covering the universal history of all races in the Essai, to the history of the Aryan branch in Persia in Histoire des Perses to his own family’s history in Histoire de Ottar Jarl.” ref
An Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races
“An Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races (originally: Essai sur l’inégalité des races humaines), published between 1853 and 1855, is a racialist work of French diplomat and writer Arthur de Gobineau. It argues that there are intellectual differences between human races, that civilizations decline and fall when the races are mixed, and that the white race is superior. It is today considered to be one of, if not the earliest example of scientific racism.” ref
“Expanding upon Boulainvilliers‘ use of ethnography to defend the Ancien Régime against the claims of the Third Estate, Gobineau aimed for an explanatory system universal in scope: namely, that race is the primary force determining world events. Using scientific disciplines as varied as linguistics and anthropology, Gobineau divides the human species into three major groupings, white, yellow, and black, claiming to demonstrate that “history springs only from contact with the white races.” Among the white races, he distinguishes the Aryan race, specifically the Nordic race and Germanic peoples, as the pinnacle of human development, comprising the basis of all European aristocracies. However, inevitable miscegenation led to the “downfall of civilizations.” ref
“Gobineau was a Legitimist who despaired at France’s decline into republicanism and centralization. The book was written after the 1848 revolution when Gobineau began studying the works of physiologists Xavier Bichat and Johann Blumenbach. The book was dedicated to King George V of Hanover (1851–66), the last king of Hanover. In the dedication, Gobineau writes that he presents to His Majesty the fruits of his speculations and studies into the hidden causes of the “revolutions, bloody wars, and lawlessness” (“révolutions, guerres sanglantes, renversements de lois”) of the age. In a letter to Count Anton von Prokesch-Osten in 1856 he describes the book as based upon “a hatred for democracy and its weapon, the Revolution, which I satisfied by showing, in a variety of ways, where revolution and democracy come from and where they are going.” ref
Gobineau and the Bible
“In Vol I, chapter 11, “Les différences ethniques sont permanentes” (“The ethnic differences are permanent”), Gobineau writes that “Adam is the originator of our white species” (“Adam soit l’auteur de notre espèce blanche”), and creatures not part of the white race are not part of that species. By this Gobineau refers to his division of humans into three main races: white, black, and yellow. The biblical division into Hamites, Semites, and Japhetites is for Gobineau a division within the white race. In general, Gobineau considers the Bible to be a reliable source of actual history, and he was not a supporter of the idea of polygenesis.” ref
“Steven Kale argues that Gobineau’s “influence on the development of racial theory has been exaggerated and his ideas have been routinely misconstrued.” Gobineau’s ideas found an audience in the United States and in German-speaking areas more so than in France, becoming the inspiration for a host of racial theories, for example, those of Houston Stewart Chamberlain. “Gobineau was the first to theorize that race was the deciding factor in history, and the precursors of Nazism repeated some of his ideas, but his principle arguments were either ignored, deformed, or taken out of context in German racial thought.” ref
“German historian Joachim C. Fest, who wrote a biography of Hitler, describes Gobineau, in particular his negative views on race-mixing as expressed in his essay, as an eminent influence on Adolf Hitler and Nazism. Fest writes that the influence of Gobineau on Hitler can be easily seen and that Gobineau’s ideas were used by Hitler in simplified form for demagogic purposes: “Significantly, Hitler simplified Gobineau’s elaborate doctrine until it became demagogically usable and offered a set of plausible explanations for all the discontents, anxieties, and crises of the contemporary scene.” However, Professor Steven Kale has cautioned that “Gobineau’s influence on German racism has been repeatedly overstated.” ref
“Although cited by groups such as the Nazi Party, the text implicitly criticizes antisemitism and describes Jews in positive terms, the Jews being seen as a superbly forged race of “ancient Greek-like strength” of cohesion. Implicitly, the folk of Judah merely represented a wandering, semi-austral variation of Ur-Aryan blood-stock. Gobineau stated, “Jews… became a people that succeeded in everything it undertook, a free, strong, and intelligent people, and one which, before it lost, sword in hand, the name of an independent nation, had given as many learned men to the world as it had merchants.” Philo-Judaic sentiment was intermixed with ethnological theories concerning the primally Indo-Iranian/Indo-Aryan archeogenetic matrix whence sprang the Jews. In these lines of speculative anthropology, the Jews were anciently (supposedly) primordially interpreted as of atypical Indo-European ethnicity: Judaic racial typology emerged from Iranid–Nordid founders, the details considered inessential, possessors of compatibly “white” “Aryan” blood being the main point.” ref
“The latter-day “Hamiticized” Jewish folk came into existence from non-Afro-Asiatic Hurrian (or Horite), Jebusite, Amorite or early-Hittite, Mittani-affiliated racial nuclei, the “consensus science” of the time asserted. The blatantly, ironically almost aggressive pro-Jewish attitude of Gobineau, akin to Nietzsche in sheer admiration and lionization of the Jews as one of the “highest races,” proved ideologically vertiginous to the Nazi propagandists and Procrustean thinkers—here Gobineau unmistakably contradicted perhaps the main pillar of Nazi political ideology, which has been described as the schizoid, neo-Gnostic dualism of “Jewish demonology.” Incompatible with Nazi ideology, the Count’s fervent Judaic positivity, and total dearth of antisemitism, the Nazis could only attempt to ignore or minimize away in the silence of hypocrisy. The book continued to influence the white supremacist movement in the United States in the early 21st century.” ref
With some of Damien Marie AtHope’s Art
“The Dark Link Between the Nazis and the Legend of Atlantis, The Nazi racial doctrine found a homeland in the fictional Lost Continent. “We find anything that has been lost, forgotten or hidden, with pin-point accuracy,” whether on land or in the sea, the high-tech company Merlin Burrows boasts. The U.K.-based firm employs historians, archaeologists, security and salvage experts, and others who, with the aid of satellites, locate sunken ships, buried treasure, and ancient sites. One of the latter, according to the company, is the most famous “lost” city in the world – more acclaimed than Shambhala, more coveted than El Dorado, and more mysterious than Shangri-La – and which, prosaically enough, lies off the coast of Spain, the company says.” ref
Nazism and occultism
See also: Nazism and occultism
“To many Nazis, the Aryan race descended from Nordic “God Men” who came straight down from Heaven and created the lost civilization of Atlantis.” ref
“Blavatsky was also inspired by the work of the 18th-century astronomer Jean-Sylvain Bailly, who had “Orientalized” the Atlantis myth in his mythical continent of Hyperborea, a reference to Greek myths featuring a Northern European region of the same name, home to a giant, godlike race. Dan Edelstein claims that her reshaping of this theory in The Secret Doctrine provided the Nazis with a mythological precedent and a pretext for their ideological platform and their subsequent genocide. However, Blavatsky’s writings mention that the Atlantean were in fact olive-skinned peoples with Mongoloid traits who were the ancestors of modern Native Americans, Mongolians, and Malayans.” ref
“The idea that the Atlanteans were Hyperborean, Nordic supermen who originated in the Northern Atlantic or even in the far North, was popular in the German ariosophic movement around 1900, propagated by Guido von List and others. It gave its name to the Thule Gesellschaft, an antisemite Münich lodge, which preceded the German Nazi Party (see Thule). The scholars Karl Georg Zschaetzsch [de] (1920) and Herman Wirth (1928) were the first to speak of a “Nordic-Atlantean” or “Aryan-Nordic” master race that spread from Atlantis over the Northern Hemisphere and beyond. The Hyperboreans were contrasted with the Jewish people. Party ideologist Alfred Rosenberg (in The Myth of the Twentieth Century, 1930) and SS-leader Heinrich Himmler made it part of the official doctrine.” ref
“The idea was followed up by the adherents of Esoteric Nazism such as Julius Evola (1934) and, more recently, Miguel Serrano (1978). The idea of Atlantis as the homeland of the Caucasian race would contradict the beliefs of older Esoteric and Theosophic groups, which taught that the Atlanteans were non-Caucasian brown-skinned peoples. Modern Esoteric groups, including the Theosophic Society, do not consider Atlantean society to have been superior or Utopian—they rather consider it a lower stage of evolution.” ref
“The Myth of the Twentieth Century (German: Der Mythus des zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts) is a 1930 book by Alfred Rosenberg, a Nazi theorist and official who was convicted of crimes against humanity and other crimes at the Nuremberg trials and executed in 1946. Rosenberg was one of the principal ideologues of the Nazi Party and editor of the Nazi newspaper Völkischer Beobachter. In 1941, history professor Peter Viereck wrote: “In molding Germany’s ‘psychology of frightfulness’ Rosenberg wields an influence as powerful as that of the much publicized Goebbels and the much feared Himmler and his secret police.” ref
“Thanks to Nazi support, the book sold more than one million copies by 1944. Hitler awarded a State Prize for Art and Science to Rosenberg for the book in 1937. The document accompanying the prize “praises Rosenberg as a ‘person who has, in a scientific and penetrating manner, laid the firm foundation for an understanding of the ideological bases of National Socialism’”. The content of the book is a mix of racist pseudo-science and mysticism which makes the claim that the “Nordic race” originated in Atlantis and that their nobility justified the enslavement and even mass murder of non-Aryan races.” ref
“During the Nuremberg Trials, Justice Robert H. Jackson referred to the book as a “dreary treatise[s] advocating a new and weird Nazi religion”. “Mythus” is written as an imitation of a scholarly book and Viereck notes that “Rosenberg bores both the uneducated and the well educated, but is the god of the semi-educated, whom earnest dullness and obscure grandiloquence impress as scholarly and authoritative”. In his Nuremberg Trials testimony, the extermination camp commandant Rudolf Höss said that this book was one of the sources of his own anti-Semitism. Some members of the Nazi leadership found some of this material embarrassing, but it was also publicly praised, often by the same Nazi leaders who disparaged the work in private.” ref
“Rosenberg followed a long line of European racist authors, including Arthur de Gobineau (author of An Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races) but his most important “source” was Houston Stewart Chamberlain. Rosenberg conceived of his book as a sequel to Chamberlain’s 1899 book The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century. Other influences included a dubious reading of Friedrich Nietzsche, Richard Wagner‘s Holy Grail romanticism (Chamberlain was Wagner’s son-in-law), Haeckelian mystical vitalism, the medieval German philosopher Meister Eckhart and the heirs of his mysticism and Nordicist Aryanism in general.” ref
“Racism substituted myth for reality; and the world that it created with its stereotypes, virtues and vices, was a fairytale world, which dangled a utopia before the eyes of those who longed for a way out of the confusion of modernity and the rush of time. It made the sun stand still and abolished change. All evil was blamed on the restless inferior races who lacked appreciation of the settled order of things. — George L. Mosse, Towards the final solution: A history of European Racism (1978).” ref
“Rosenberg’s Nazi racial theories involve a mix of made up biology and invented history about the putative negative influence of the Jewish race in contrast to the Aryan race. He equates the latter with the Nordic peoples of northern Europe and also includes the Berbers from North Africa (this story apparently deriving from the Kabyle myth invented by French colonists) and the upper classes of Ancient Egypt (all presumably migrating from Atlantis). According to Rosenberg, modern culture has been corrupted by Semitic influences (cf. anti-Semitism), which have produced degenerate modern art, along with moral and social degeneration. Rosenberg believed that the higher races should rule over the lower and not interbreed with them. He argues that the Nazis must purify the race soul by eliminating non-Aryan elements in much the same ruthless and uncompromising way in which a surgeon would cut a cancer from a diseased body. These arguments were used to justify Nazi crimes, crimes against humanity, and the Holocaust.” ref
“In Rosenberg’s mythological take on world history, migrating Aryans founded various ancient civilizations which later declined and fell due to inter-marriage with lesser races. These civilizations included the Aryan, ancient pre-Islamic Persia, Greece, India, and Rome. He saw the ancient Germanic invasions of the Roman empire as saving its civilization, which had been corrupted both by race mixing and by Judaized-cosmopolitan Christianity. Furthermore, he claimed that the persecutions of Protestants in France and other areas represented the wiping out of the last remnants of the Aryan element in those areas, a process completed by the French revolution. In contemporary Europe, he saw the northern areas that embraced Protestantism as closest to the Aryan racial and spiritual ideal, however referred to both Catholicism and Protestantism as Negative Christianity, seeing Protestantism as only half a protest. He held much higher regard for pre-Christian Germans and the earlier Arian Christian church.” ref
“Following H. S. Chamberlain and other völkisch theorists, Rosenberg claimed that Jesus was half German which he extended to Aryans and half Jewish, and that original Christianity was a German-Aryan (Iranian) religion admixed with the Jewish cult of Jehovah, but had been corrupted by the followers of Paul of Tarsus. The Mythus is both anti-Catholic and anti-Protestant, seeing the Church’s cosmopolitanism and Judaised version of Christianity as one of the factors in Germany’s spiritual decline. Rosenberg particularly emphasizes the supposedly anti-Judaic teachings of the heresies Marcionism and Aryo-Persian Manicheanism as more representative of the true, anti-Judaic Jesus Christ and more suited to the Nordic world-view. Rosenberg saw Martin Luther and the Reformation as merely step toward reasserting the Aryan spirit but still opposed Protestantism as not going far enough, equating it with an invasive form of Christianity from Charlemagne unsuited to the German spirit.” ref
“When he discussed the future of religion, he suggested that a multiplicity of forms be tolerated, including Positive Christianity. He stated that both the cult of Jehovah and the cult of Wotan were dead, but respected Wotan due to being German and equated him with later German philosophers. This angered the Catholic Church which falsely claimed Rosenberg had converted to Germanic Heathenism. Rosenberg rejected this claim and in his defence merely respected Wotan as an historical figure. Rosenberg wrote anti-Indian racist statements regarding Hinduism, but respected the earlier forms of it which he saw as not being racially admixed with the natives of India.” ref
“Another myth, to which he gave credence, was the idea of Atlantis, which he claimed might preserve a memory of an ancient Aryan homeland: And so today the long derived hypothesis becomes a probability, namely that from a northern center of creation which, without postulating an actual submerged Atlantic continent, we may call Atlantis, swarms of warriors once fanned out in obedience to the ever renewed and incarnate Nordic longing for distance to conquer and space to shape. Johannes Steizinger writes “Rosenberg clearly played a major role in the establishment of Nazi ideology” and that “Ideology is regarded as a necessary, but not sufficient cause for participation in genocide.” ref
“Despite Nazi support for The Myth of the Twentieth Century and Rosenberg’s prominent role in promoting Nazi ideology, in private, some of the Nazi leaders had reservations about its mysticism. Adolf Hitler declared that it was not to be considered official ideology of the Nazi Party and he privately described the book as “mysticism” and “nonsense”. Albert Speer claimed that Goebbels mocked Alfred Rosenberg. Goebbels also called the book a “philosophical belch”. Hermann Göring said: “if Rosenberg was to decide … we would only have rite, thing, myth and such kind of swindle.” Gustave Gilbert, the prison psychologist during the Nuremberg Trials, reported that none of the Nazi leaders he interviewed had read Rosenberg’s writings.” ref
“However, Gilbert’s notes from the Nuremberg trials repeatedly show Rosenberg’s influence. At lunch von Papen commented, “Dodd asked him if he knew that Hoess, the Commandant of Auschwitz, had read his works. That was, of course, the crux of the whole thing. Rosenberg just gave an evasive answer.” Although he did take very high-level positions within the Nazi state in managing propaganda, looting artworks, and overseeing Nazi rule in the Baltics and Soviet territories, the overt anti-Christian sentiment in Rosenberg’s book made it awkward to give Rosenberg positions of prominence when the Nazis ascended to power.” ref
“Even in their stronghold Hamburg only 0.49% of the inhabitants identified as belonging to the anti-Christian neopagan faith movement (in 1937), whereas the German Christians and their Positive Christianity had a strong standing. Many of the attacks on the book after its 1930 publication came from its explicit anti-Christian message. Rosenberg wrote two supplements to the work, replying to Catholic and Protestant critics. In the first, On the Dark Men of Our Times: A Reply to Critics of the Myth of the Twentieth Century, he accused Catholics of attempting to destroy the national character by promoting separatism within Catholic parts of the country. His second reply, Protestant Pilgrims to Rome: The Treason Against Luther and the Myth of the Twentieth Century, argued that modern Lutheranism was becoming too close to Catholicism.” ref
Edgar Cayce
“The clairvoyant Edgar Cayce spoke frequently of Atlantis. During his “life readings”, he claimed that many of his subjects were reincarnations of people who had lived there. By tapping into their collective consciousness, the “Akashic Records” (a term borrowed from Theosophy), Cayce declared that he was able to give detailed descriptions of the lost continent. He also asserted that Atlantis would “rise” again in the 1960s (sparking much popularity of the myth in that decade) and that there is a “Hall of Records” beneath the Egyptian Sphinx which holds the historical texts of Atlantis.” ref
Recent times
“As continental drift became widely accepted during the 1960s, and the increased understanding of plate tectonics demonstrated the impossibility of a lost continent in the geologically recent past, most “Lost Continent” theories of Atlantis began to wane in popularity. Plato scholar Julia Annas, Regents Professor of Philosophy at the University of Arizona, had this to say on the matter: The continuing industry of discovering Atlantis illustrates the dangers of reading Plato. For he is clearly using what has become a standard device of fiction—stressing the historicity of an event (and the discovery of hitherto unknown authorities) as an indication that what follows is fiction. The idea is that we should use the story to examine our ideas of government and power. We have missed the point if instead of thinking about these issues we go off exploring the sea bed. The continuing misunderstanding of Plato as historian here enables us to see why his distrust of imaginative writing is sometimes justified.” ref
“One of the proposed explanations for the historical context of the Atlantis story is that it serves as Plato’s warning to his fellow citizens against their striving for naval power. Kenneth Feder points out that Critias’s story in the Timaeus provides a major clue. In the dialogue, Critias says, referring to Socrates’ hypothetical society: And when you were speaking yesterday about your city and citizens, the tale which I have just been repeating to you came into my mind, and I remarked with astonishment how, by some mysterious coincidence, you agreed in almost every particular with the narrative of Solon. … Feder quotes A. E. Taylor, who wrote, “We could not be told much more plainly that the whole narrative of Solon’s conversation with the priests and his intention of writing the poem about Atlantis are an invention of Plato’s fancy.” ref
“In order to give his account of Atlantis verisimilitude, Plato mentions that the story was heard by Solon in Egypt, and transmitted orally over several generations through the family of Dropides, until it reached Critias, a dialogue speaker in Timaeus and Critias. Solon had supposedly tried to adapt the Atlantis oral tradition into a poem (that if published, was to be greater than the works of Hesiod and Homer). While it was never completed, Solon passed on the story to Dropides. Modern classicists deny the existence of Solon’s Atlantis poem and the story as an oral tradition. Instead, Plato is thought to be the sole inventor or fabricator. Hellanicus of Lesbos used the word “Atlantis” as the title for a poem published before Plato, a fragment of which may be Oxyrhynchus Papyrus 11, 1359. This work only describes the Atlantides, the daughters of Atlas, and has no relation to Plato’s Atlantis account.” ref
“In the new era, the third century CE Neoplatonist Zoticus wrote an epic poem based on Plato’s account of Atlantis. Plato’s work may already have inspired parodic imitation, however. Writing only a few decades after the Timaeus and Critias, the historian Theopompus of Chios wrote of a land beyond the ocean known as Meropis. This description was included in Book 8 of his Philippica, which contains a dialogue between Silenus and King Midas. Silenus describes the Meropids, a race of men who grow to twice normal size, and inhabit two cities on the island of Meropis: Eusebes (Εὐσεβής, “Pious-town”) and Machimos (Μάχιμος, “Fighting-town”).” ref
“He also reports that an army of ten million soldiers crossed the ocean to conquer Hyperborea, but abandoned this proposal when they realized that the Hyperboreans were the luckiest people on earth. Heinz-Günther Nesselrath has argued that these and other details of Silenus’ story are meant as imitation and exaggeration of the Atlantis story, by parody, for the purpose of exposing Plato’s ideas to ridicule.” ref
But is Atlantis real?
No. Atlantis (an allegory: “fake story” interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning) can’t be found any more than one can locate the Jolly Green Giant that is said to watch over frozen vegetables. Lol
May Reason Set You Free
There are a lot of truly great things said by anarchists in history, and also some deeply vile things, too, from not supporting Women’s rights to Anti-Semitism. There are those who also reject those supporting women’s rights as well as fight anti-Semitism. This is why I push reason as my only master, not anarchist thinking, though anarchism, to me, should see all humans everywhere as equal in dignity and rights.
We—Cory and Damien—are following the greatness that can be found in anarchist thinking.
As an Anarchist Educator, Damien strives to teach the plain truth. Damien does not support violence as my method to change. Rather, I choose education that builds Enlightenment and Empowerment. I champion Dignity and Equality. We rise by helping each other. What is the price of a tear? What is the cost of a smile? How can we see clearly when others pay the cost of our indifference and fear? We should help people in need. Why is that so hard for some people? Rich Ghouls must End. Damien wants “billionaires” to stop being a thing. Tax then into equality. To Damien, there is no debate, Capitalism is unethical. Moreover, as an Anarchist Educator, Damien knows violence is not the way to inspire lasting positive change. But we are not limited to violence, we have education, one of the most lasting and powerful ways to improve the world. We empower the world by championing Truth and its supporters.
Anarchism and Education
“Various alternatives to education and their problems have been proposed by anarchists which have gone from alternative education systems and environments, self-education, advocacy of youth and children rights, and freethought activism.” ref
“Historical accounts of anarchist educational experiments to explore how their pedagogical practices, organization, and content constituted a radical alternative to mainstream forms of educational provision in different historical periods.” ref
“The Ferrer school was an early 20th century libertarian school inspired by the anarchist pedagogy of Francisco Ferrer. He was a proponent of rationalist, secular education that emphasized reason, dignity, self-reliance, and scientific observation. The Ferrer movement’s philosophy had two distinct tendencies: non-didactic freedom from dogma and the more didactic fostering of counter-hegemonic beliefs. Towards non-didactic freedom from dogma, and fulfilled the child-centered tradition.” ref
Teach Real History: all our lives depend on it.
Damien sees lies about history as crimes against humanity. And we all must help humanity by addressing “any and all” who make harmful lies about history.
My favorite “Graham Hancock” Quote?
“In what archaeologists have studied, yes, we can say there is NO Evidence of an advanced civilization.” – (Time 1:27) Joe Rogan Experience #2136 – Graham Hancock & Flint Dibble
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.
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!
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
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.
My thoughts on Religion Evolution with external links for more info:
- (Pre-Animism Africa mainly, but also Europe, and Asia at least 300,000 years ago), (Pre-Animism – Oxford Dictionaries)
- (Animism Africa around 100,000 years ago), (Animism – Britannica.com)
- (Totemism Europe around 50,000 years ago), (Totemism – Anthropology)
- (Shamanism Siberia around 30,000 years ago), (Shamanism – Britannica.com)
- (Paganism Turkey around 12,000 years ago), (Paganism – BBC Religion)
- (Progressed Organized Religion “Institutional Religion” Egypt around 5,000 years ago), (Ancient Egyptian Religion – Britannica.com)
- (CURRENT “World” RELIGIONS after 4,000 years ago) (Origin of Major Religions – Sacred Texts)
- (Early Atheistic Doubting at least by 2,600 years ago) (History of Atheism – Wikipedia)
“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 talks about fires because they burn people and they care to stop them. We atheists too often feel a need to help the victims 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:
- 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) pre-religion is a beginning that evolves into later Animism. So, Religion as we think of it, to me, all starts in a general way with Animism (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 (Siberia/Russia: 30,000 years ago) (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 (Turkey: 12,000 years ago) (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 (Egypt: 5,000 years ago) 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.
I wish people fought as hard for the actual values as they fight for the group/clan names political or otherwise they think support values. Every amount spent on war is theft to children in need of food or the homeless kept from shelter.
Here are several of my blog posts on history:
- To Find Truth You Must First Look
- (Magdalenian/Iberomaurusian) Connections to the First Paganists of the early Neolithic Near East Dating from around 17,000 to 12,000 Years Ago
- Natufians: an Ancient People at the Origins of Agriculture and Sedentary Life
- Possible Clan Leader/Special “MALE” Ancestor Totem Poles At Least 13,500 years ago?
- Jewish People with DNA at least 13,200 years old, Judaism, and the Origins of Some of its Ideas
- Baltic Reindeer Hunters: Swiderian, Lyngby, Ahrensburgian, and Krasnosillya cultures 12,020 to 11,020 years ago are evidence of powerful migratory waves during the last 13,000 years and a genetic link to Saami and the Finno-Ugric peoples.
- The Rise of Inequality: patriarchy and state hierarchy inequality
- Fertile Crescent 12,500 – 9,500 Years Ago: fertility and death cult belief system?
- 12,400 – 11,700 Years Ago – Kortik Tepe (Turkey) Pre/early-Agriculture Cultic Ritualism
- Ritualistic Bird Symbolism at Gobekli Tepe and its “Ancestor Cult”
- Male-Homosexual (female-like) / Trans-woman (female) Seated Figurine from Gobekli Tepe
- 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?
- Sedentism and the Creation of goddesses around 12,000 years ago as well as male gods after 7,000 years ago.
- Alcohol, where Agriculture and Religion Become one? Such as Gobekli Tepe’s Ritualistic use of Grain as Food and Ritual Drink
- Neolithic Ritual Sites with T-Pillars and other Cultic Pillars
- Paganism: Goddesses around 12,000 years ago then Male Gods after 7,000 years ago
- First Patriarchy: Split of Women’s Status around 12,000 years ago & First Hierarchy: fall of Women’s Status around 5,000 years ago.
- Natufians: an Ancient People at the Origins of Agriculture and Sedentary Life
- J DNA and the Spread of Agricultural Religion (paganism)
- Paganism: an approximately 12,000-year-old belief system
- Paganism 12,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism” (Pre-Capitalism)
- Shaman burial in Israel 12,000 years ago and the Shamanism Phenomena
- Need to Mythicized: gods and goddesses
- 12,000 – 7,000 Years Ago – Paleo-Indian Culture (The Americas)
- 12,000 – 2,000 Years Ago – Indigenous-Scandinavians (Nordic)
- Norse did not wear helmets with horns?
- Pre-Pottery Neolithic Skull Cult around 11,500 to 8,400 Years Ago?
- 10,400 – 10,100 Years Ago, in Turkey the Nevail Cori Religious Settlement
- 9,000-6,500 Years Old Submerged Pre-Pottery/Pottery Neolithic Ritual Settlements off Israel’s Coast
- Catal Huyuk “first religious designed city” around 9,500 to 7,700 years ago (Turkey)
- Cultic Hunting at Catal Huyuk “first religious designed city”
- Special Items and Art as well as Special Elite Burials at Catal Huyuk
- New Rituals and Violence with the appearance of Pottery and People?
- Haplogroup N and its related Uralic Languages and Cultures
- Ainu people, Sámi people, Native Americans, the Ancient North Eurasians, and Paganistic-Shamanism with Totemism
- Ideas, Technology and People from Turkey, Europe, to China and Back again 9,000 to 5,000 years ago?
- First Pottery of Europe and the Related Cultures
- 9,000 years old Neolithic Artifacts Judean Desert and Hills Israel
- 9,000-7,000 years-old Sex and Death Rituals: Cult Sites in Israel, Jordan, and the Sinai
- 9,000-8500 year old Horned Female shaman Bad Dürrenberg Germany
- Neolithic Jewelry and the Spread of Farming in Europe Emerging out of West Turkey
- 8,600-year-old Tortoise Shells in Neolithic graves in central China have Early Writing and Shamanism
- Swing of the Mace: the rise of Elite, Forced Authority, and Inequality begin to Emerge 8,500 years ago?
- Migrations and Changing Europeans Beginning around 8,000 Years Ago
- My “Steppe-Anatolian-Kurgan hypothesis” 8,000/7,000 years ago
- Around 8,000-year-old Shared Idea of the Mistress of Animals, “Ritual” Motif
- Pre-Columbian Red-Paint (red ochre) Maritime Archaic Culture 8,000-3,000 years ago
- 7,522-6,522 years ago Linear Pottery culture which I think relates to Arcane Capitalism’s origins
- Arcane Capitalism: Primitive socialism, Primitive capital, Private ownership, Means of production, Market capitalism, Class discrimination, and Petite bourgeoisie (smaller capitalists)
- 7,500-4,750 years old Ritualistic Cucuteni-Trypillian culture of Moldova, Romania, and Ukraine
- Roots of a changing early society 7,200-6,700 years ago Jordan and Israel
- Agriculture religion (Paganism) with farming reached Britain between about 7,000 to 6,500 or so years ago and seemingly expressed in things like Western Europe’s Long Barrows
- My Thoughts on Possible Migrations of “R” DNA and Proto-Indo-European?
- “Millet” Spreading from China 7,022 years ago to Europe and related Language may have Spread with it leading to Proto-Indo-European
- Proto-Indo-European (PIE), ancestor of Indo-European languages: DNA, Society, Language, and Mythology
- The Dnieper–Donets culture and Asian varieties of Millet from China to the Black Sea region of Europe by 7,022 years ago
- Kurgan 6,000 years ago/dolmens 7,000 years ago: funeral, ritual, and other?
- 7,020 to 6,020-year-old Proto-Indo-European Homeland of Urheimat or proposed home of their Language and Religion
- Ancient Megaliths: Kurgan, Ziggurat, Pyramid, Menhir, Trilithon, Dolman, Kromlech, and Kromlech of Trilithons
- The Mytheme of Ancient North Eurasian Sacred-Dog belief and similar motifs are found in Indo-European, Native American, and Siberian comparative mythology
- Elite Power Accumulation: Ancient Trade, Tokens, Writing, Wealth, Merchants, and Priest-Kings
- Sacred Mounds, Mountains, Kurgans, and Pyramids may hold deep connections?
- Between 7,000-5,000 Years ago, rise of unequal hierarchy elite, leading to a “birth of the State” or worship of power, strong new sexism, oppression of non-elites, and the fall of Women’s equal status
- Paganism 7,000-5,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism” (Capitalism) (World War 0) Elite & their slaves
- Hell and Underworld mythologies starting maybe as far back as 7,000 to 5,000 years ago with the Proto-Indo-Europeans?
- The First Expression of the Male God around 7,000 years ago?
- White (light complexion skin) Bigotry and Sexism started 7,000 years ago?
- Around 7,000-year-old Shared Idea of the Divine Bird (Tutelary and/or Trickster spirit/deity), “Ritual” Motif
- Nekhbet an Ancient Egyptian Vulture Goddess and Tutelary Deity
- 6,720 to 4,920 years old Ritualistic Hongshan Culture of Inner Mongolia with 5,000-year-old Pyramid Mounds and Temples
- First proto-king in the Balkans, Varna culture around 6,500 years ago?
- 6,500–5,800 years ago in Israel Late Chalcolithic (Copper Age) Period in the Southern Levant Seems to Express Northern Levant Migrations, Cultural and Religious Transfer
- KING OF BEASTS: Master of Animals “Ritual” Motif, around 6,000 years old or older…
- Around 6000-year-old Shared Idea of the Solid Wheel & the Spoked Wheel-Shaped Ritual Motif
- “The Ghassulian Star,” a mysterious 6,000-year-old mural from Jordan; a Proto-Star of Ishtar, Star of Inanna or Star of Venus?
- Religious/Ritual Ideas, including goddesses and gods as well as ritual mounds or pyramids from Northeastern Asia at least 6,000 years old, seemingly filtering to Iran, Iraq, the Mediterranean, Europe, Egypt, and the Americas?
- Maykop (5,720–5,020 years ago) Caucasus region Bronze Age culture-related to Copper Age farmers from the south, influenced by the Ubaid period and Leyla-Tepe culture, as well as influencing the Kura-Araxes culture
- 5-600-year-old Tomb, Mummy, and First Bearded Male Figurine in a Grave
- Kura-Araxes Cultural 5,520 to 4,470 years old DNA traces to the Canaanites, Arabs, and Jews
- Minoan/Cretan (Keftiu) Civilization and Religion around 5,520 to 3,120 years ago
- Evolution Of Science at least by 5,500 years ago
- 5,500 Years old birth of the State, the rise of Hierarchy, and the fall of Women’s status
- “Jiroft culture” 5,100 – 4,200 years ago and the History of Iran
- Stonehenge: Paganistic Burial and Astrological Ritual Complex, England (5,100-3,600 years ago)
- Around 5,000-year-old Shared Idea of the “Tree of Life” Ritual Motif
- Complex rituals for elite, seen from China to Egypt, at least by 5,000 years ago
- Around 5,000 years ago: “Birth of the State” where Religion gets Military Power and Influence
- The Center of the World “Axis Mundi” and/or “Sacred Mountains” Mythology Could Relate to the Altai Mountains, Heart of the Steppe
- Progressed organized religion starts, an approximately 5,000-year-old belief system
- China’s Civilization between 5,000-3,000 years ago, was a time of war and class struggle, violent transition from free clans to a Slave or Elite society
- Origin of Logics is Naturalistic Observation at least by around 5,000 years ago.
- Paganism 5,000 years old: progressed organized religion and the state: related to “Anarchism and Socialism” (Kings and the Rise of the State)
- Ziggurats (multi-platform temples: 4,900 years old) to Pyramids (multi-platform tombs: 4,700 years old)
- Did a 4,520–4,420-year-old Volcano In Turkey Inspire the Bible God?
- Finland’s Horned Shaman and Pre-Horned-God at least 4,500 years ago?
- 4,000-year-Old Dolmens in Israel: A Connected Dolmen Religious Phenomenon?
- Creation myths: From chaos, Ex nihilo, Earth-diver, Emergence, World egg, and World parent
- Bronze Age “Ritual” connections of the Bell Beaker culture with the Corded Ware/Single Grave culture, which were related to the Yamnaya culture and Proto-Indo-European Languages/Religions
- Low Gods (Earth/ Tutelary deity), High Gods (Sky/Supreme deity), and Moralistic Gods (Deity enforcement/divine order)
- The exchange of people, ideas, and material-culture including, to me, the new god (Sky Father) and goddess (Earth Mother) religion between the Cucuteni-Trypillians and others which is then spread far and wide
- Koryaks: Indigenous People of the Russian Far East and Big Raven myths also found in Tlingit, Haida, Tsimshian, and other Indigenous People of North America
- 42 Principles Of Maat (Egyptian Goddess of the justice) around 4,400 years ago, 2000 Years Before Ten Commandments
- “Happy Easter” Well Happy Eostre/Ishter
- 4,320-3,820 years old “Shimao” (North China) site with Totemistic-Shamanistic Paganism and a Stepped Pyramid
- 4,250 to 3,400 Year old Stonehenge from Russia: Arkaim?
- 4,100-year-old beaker with medicinal & flowering plants in a grave of a woman in Scotland
- Early European Farmer ancestry, Kelif el Boroud people with the Cardial Ware culture, and the Bell Beaker culture Paganists too, spread into North Africa, then to the Canary Islands off West Africa
- Flood Accounts: Gilgamesh epic (4,100 years ago) Noah in Genesis (2,600 years ago)
- Paganism 4,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism” (First Moralistic gods, then the Origin time of Monotheism)
- When was the beginning: TIMELINE OF CURRENT RELIGIONS, which start around 4,000 years ago.
- Early Religions Thought to Express Proto-Monotheistic Systems around 4,000 years ago
- Kultepe? An archaeological site with a 4,000 years old women’s rights document.
- Single God Religions (Monotheism) = “Man-o-theism” started around 4,000 years ago with the Great Sky Spirit/God Tiān (天)?
- Confucianism’s Tiān (Shangdi god 4,000 years old): Supernaturalism, Pantheism or Theism?
- Yes, Your Male God is Ridiculous
- Mythology, a Lunar Deity is a Goddess or God of the Moon
- Sacred Land, Hills, and Mountains: Sami Mythology (Paganistic Shamanism)
- Horse Worship/Sacrifice: mythical union of Ruling Elite/Kingship and the Horse
- The Amorite/Amurru people’s God Amurru “Lord of the Steppe”, relates to the Origins of the Bible God?
- Bronze Age Exotic Trade Routes Spread Quite Far as well as Spread Religious Ideas with Them
- Sami and the Northern Indigenous Peoples Landscape, Language, and its Connection to Religion
- Prototype of Ancient Analemmatic Sundials around 3,900-3,150 years ago and a Possible Solar Connection to gods?
- Judaism is around 3,450 or 3,250 years old. (“Paleo-Hebrew” 3,000 years ago and Torah 2,500 years ago)
- The Weakening of Ancient Trade and the Strengthening of Religions around 3000 years ago?
- Are you aware that there are religions that worship women gods, explain now religion tears women down?
- Animistic, Totemistic, and Paganistic Superstition Origins of bible god and the bible’s Religion.
- Myths and Folklore: “Trickster gods and goddesses”
- Jews, Judaism, and the Origins of Some of its Ideas
- An Old Branch of Religion Still Giving Fruit: Sacred Trees
- Dating the BIBLE: naming names and telling times (written less than 3,000 years ago, provable to 2,200 years ago)
- Did a Volcano Inspire the bible god?
- Dené–Yeniseian language, Old Copper Complex, and Pre-Columbian Mound Builders?
- No “dinosaurs and humans didn’t exist together just because some think they are in the bible itself”
- Sacred Shit and Sacred Animals?
- Everyone Killed in the Bible Flood? “Nephilim” (giants)?
- Hey, Damien dude, I have a question for you regarding “the bible” Exodus.
- Archaeology Disproves the Bible
- Bible Battle, Just More, Bible Babble
- The Jericho Conquest lie?
- Canaanites and Israelites?
- Accurate Account on how did Christianity Began?
- Let’s talk about Christianity.
- So the 10 commandments isn’t anything to go by either right?
- Misinformed christian
- Debunking Jesus?
- Paulism vs Jesus
- Ok, you seem confused so let’s talk about Buddhism.
- Unacknowledged Buddhism: Gods, Savior, Demons, Rebirth, Heavens, Hells, and Terrorism
- His Foolishness The Dalai Lama
- Yin and Yang is sexist with an ORIGIN around 2,300 years ago?
- I Believe Archaeology, not Myths & Why Not, as the Religious Myths Already Violate Reason!
- Archaeological, Scientific, & Philosophic evidence shows the god myth is man-made nonsense.
- Aquatic Ape Theory/Hypothesis? As Always, Just Pseudoscience.
- Ancient Aliens Conspiracy Theorists are Pseudohistorians
- The Pseudohistoric and Pseudoscientific claims about “Bakoni Ruins” of South Africa
- Why do people think Religion is much more than supernaturalism and superstitionism?
- Religion is an Evolved Product
- Was the Value of Ancient Women Different?
- 1000 to 1100 CE, human sacrifice Cahokia Mounds a pre-Columbian Native American site
- Feminist atheists as far back as the 1800s?
- Promoting Religion as Real is Mentally Harmful to a Flourishing Humanity
- Screw All Religions and Their Toxic lies, they are all fraud
- Forget Religions’ Unfounded Myths, I Have Substantiated “Archaeology Facts.”
- Religion Dispersal throughout the World
- I Hate Religion Just as I Hate all Pseudoscience
- Exposing Scientology, Eckankar, Wicca and Other Nonsense?
- Main deity or religious belief systems
- Quit Trying to Invent Your God From the Scraps of Science.
- Archaeological, Scientific, & Philosophic evidence shows the god myth is man-made nonsense.
- Ancient Alien Conspiracy Theorists: Misunderstanding, Rhetoric, Misinformation, Fabrications, and Lies
- Misinformation, Distortion, and Pseudoscience in Talking with a Christian Creationist
- Judging the Lack of Goodness in Gods, Even the Norse God Odin
- Challenging the Belief in God-like Aliens and Gods in General
- A Challenge to Christian use of Torture Devices?
- Yes, Hinduism is a Religion
- Trump is One of the Most Reactionary Forces of Far-right Christian Extremism
- Was the Bull Head a Symbol of God? Yes!
- Primate Death Rituals
- Christian – “God and Christianity are objectively true”
- Australopithecus afarensis Death Ritual?
- You Claim Global Warming is a Hoax?
- Doubter of Science and Defamer of Atheists?
- I think that sounds like the Bible?
- History of the Antifa (“anti-fascist”) Movements
- Indianapolis Anti-Blasphemy Laws #Free Soheil Rally
- Damien, you repeat the golden rule in so many forms then you say religion is dogmatic?
- Science is a Trustable Methodology whereas Faith is not Trustable at all!
- Was I ever a believer, before I was an atheist?
- Atheists rise in reason
- Mistrust of science?
- Open to Talking About the Definition of ‘God’? But first, we address Faith.
- ‘United Monarchy’ full of splendor and power – Saul, David, and Solomon? Most likely not.
- Is there EXODUS ARCHAEOLOGY? The short answer is “no.”
- Lacking Proof of Bigfoots, Unicorns, and Gods is Just a Lack of Research?
- Religion and Politics: Faith Beliefs vs. Rational Thinking
- Hammer of Truth that lying pig RELIGION: challenged by an archaeologist
- “The Hammer of Truth” -ontology question- What do You Mean by That?
- Navigation of a bad argument: Ad Hominem vs. Attack
- Why is it Often Claimed that Gods have a Gender?
- Why are basically all monotheistic religions ones that have a male god?
- Shifting through the Claims in support of Faith
- Dear Mr. AtHope, The 20th Century is an Indictment of Secularism and a Failed Atheist Century
- An Understanding of the Worldwide Statistics and Dynamics of Terrorist Incidents and Suicide Attacks
- Intoxication and Evolution? Addressing and Assessing the “Stoned Ape” or “Drunken Monkey” Theories as Catalysts in Human Evolution
- Sacred Menstrual cloth? Inanna’s knot, Isis knot, and maybe Ma’at’s feather?
- Damien, why don’t the Hebrews accept the bible stories?
- Dealing with a Troll and Arguing Over Word Meaning
- Knowledge without Belief? Justified beliefs or disbeliefs worthy of Knowledge?
- Afrocentrism and African Religions
- Crecganford @crecganford offers history & stories of the people, places, gods, & culture
- Empiricism-Denier?
I am not an academic. I am a revolutionary that teaches in public, in places like social media, and in the streets. I am not a leader by some title given but from my commanding leadership style of simply to start teaching everywhere to everyone, all manner of positive education.
To me, Animism starts in Southern Africa, then to West Europe, and becomes Totemism. Another split goes near the Russia and Siberia border becoming Shamanism, which heads into Central Europe meeting up with Totemism, which also had moved there, mixing the two which then heads to Lake Baikal in Siberia. From there this Shamanism-Totemism heads to Turkey where it becomes Paganism.
Not all “Religions” or “Religious Persuasions” have a god(s) but
All can be said to believe in some imaginary beings or imaginary things like spirits, afterlives, etc.
Paganism 12,000-4,000 years old
12,000-7,000 years old: related to (Pre-Capitalism)
7,000-5,000 years old: related to (Capitalism) (World War 0) Elite and their slaves!
5,000 years old: related to (Kings and the Rise of the State)
4,000 years old: related to (First Moralistic gods, then the Origin time of Monotheism)
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
ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref
“These ideas are my speculations from the evidence.”
I am still researching the “god‘s origins” all over the world. So you know, it is very complicated but I am smart and willing to look, DEEP, if necessary, which going very deep does seem to be needed here, when trying to actually understand the evolution of gods and goddesses. I am sure of a few things and less sure of others, but even in stuff I am not fully grasping I still am slowly figuring it out, to explain it to others. But as I research more I am understanding things a little better, though I am still working on understanding it all or something close and thus always figuring out more.
Sky Father/Sky God?
“Egyptian: (Nut) Sky Mother and (Geb) Earth Father” (Egypt is different but similar)
Turkic/Mongolic: (Tengri/Tenger Etseg) Sky Father and (Eje/Gazar Eej) Earth Mother *Transeurasian*
Hawaiian: (Wākea) Sky Father and (Papahānaumoku) Earth Mother *Austronesian*
New Zealand/ Māori: (Ranginui) Sky Father and (Papatūānuku) Earth Mother *Austronesian*
Proto-Indo-European: (Dyḗus/Dyḗus ph₂tḗr) Sky Father and (Dʰéǵʰōm/Pleth₂wih₁) Earth Mother
Indo-Aryan: (Dyaus Pita) Sky Father and (Prithvi Mata) Earth Mother *Indo-European*
Italic: (Jupiter) Sky Father and (Juno) Sky Mother *Indo-European*
Etruscan: (Tinia) Sky Father and (Uni) Sky Mother *Tyrsenian/Italy Pre–Indo-European*
Hellenic/Greek: (Zeus) Sky Father and (Hera) Sky Mother who started as an “Earth Goddess” *Indo-European*
Nordic: (Dagr) Sky Father and (Nótt) Sky Mother *Indo-European*
Slavic: (Perun) Sky Father and (Mokosh) Earth Mother *Indo-European*
Illyrian: (Deipaturos) Sky Father and (Messapic Damatura’s “earth-mother” maybe) Earth Mother *Indo-European*
Albanian: (Zojz) Sky Father and (?) *Indo-European*
Baltic: (Perkūnas) Sky Father and (Saulė) Sky Mother *Indo-European*
Germanic: (Týr) Sky Father and (?) *Indo-European*
Colombian-Muisca: (Bochica) Sky Father and (Huythaca) Sky Mother *Chibchan*
Aztec: (Quetzalcoatl) Sky Father and (Xochiquetzal) Sky Mother *Uto-Aztecan*
Incan: (Viracocha) Sky Father and (Mama Runtucaya) Sky Mother *Quechuan*
China: (Tian/Shangdi) Sky Father and (Dì) Earth Mother *Sino-Tibetan*
Sumerian, Assyrian and Babylonian: (An/Anu) Sky Father and (Ki) Earth Mother
Finnish: (Ukko) Sky Father and (Akka) Earth Mother *Finno-Ugric*
Sami: (Horagalles) Sky Father and (Ravdna) Earth Mother *Finno-Ugric*
Puebloan-Zuni: (Ápoyan Ta’chu) Sky Father and (Áwitelin Tsíta) Earth Mother
Puebloan-Hopi: (Tawa) Sky Father and (Kokyangwuti/Spider Woman/Grandmother) Earth Mother *Uto-Aztecan*
Puebloan-Navajo: (Tsohanoai) Sky Father and (Estsanatlehi) Earth Mother *Na-Dene*
ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, 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
Knowledge to Ponder:
Stars/Astrology:
- Possibly, around 30,000 years ago (in simpler form) to 6,000 years ago, Stars/Astrology are connected to Ancestors, Spirit Animals, and Deities.
- The star also seems to be a possible proto-star for Star of Ishtar, Star of Inanna, or Star of Venus.
- Around 7,000 to 6,000 years ago, Star Constellations/Astrology have connections to the “Kurgan phenomenon” of below-ground “mound” stone/wood burial structures and “Dolmen phenomenon” of above-ground stone burial structures.
- Around 6,500–5,800 years ago, The Northern Levant migrations into Jordon and Israel in the Southern Levant brought new cultural and religious transfer from Turkey and Iran.
- “The Ghassulian Star,” a mysterious 6,000-year-old mural from Jordan may have connections to the European paganstic kurgan/dolmens phenomenon.
“Astrology is a range of divinatory practices, recognized as pseudoscientific since the 18th century, that claim to discern information about human affairs and terrestrial events by studying the apparent positions of celestial objects. Different cultures have employed forms of astrology since at least the 2nd millennium BCE, these practices having originated in calendrical systems used to predict seasonal shifts and to interpret celestial cycles as signs of divine communications. Most, if not all, cultures have attached importance to what they observed in the sky, and some—such as the Hindus, Chinese, and the Maya—developed elaborate systems for predicting terrestrial events from celestial observations. Western astrology, one of the oldest astrological systems still in use, can trace its roots to 19th–17th century BCE Mesopotamia, from where it spread to Ancient Greece, Rome, the Islamicate world and eventually Central and Western Europe. Contemporary Western astrology is often associated with systems of horoscopes that purport to explain aspects of a person’s personality and predict significant events in their lives based on the positions of celestial objects; the majority of professional astrologers rely on such systems.” ref
Around 5,500 years ago, Science evolves, The first evidence of science was 5,500 years ago and was demonstrated by a body of empirical, theoretical, and practical knowledge about the natural world. ref
Around 5,000 years ago, Origin of Logics is a Naturalistic Observation (principles of valid reasoning, inference, & demonstration) ref
Around 4,150 to 4,000 years ago: The earliest surviving versions of the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh, which was originally titled “He who Saw the Deep” (Sha naqba īmuru) or “Surpassing All Other Kings” (Shūtur eli sharrī) were written. ref
Hinduism:
- 3,700 years ago or so, the oldest of the Hindu Vedas (scriptures), the Rig Veda was composed.
- 3,500 years ago or so, the Vedic Age began in India after the collapse of the Indus Valley Civilization.
Judaism:
- around 3,000 years ago, the first writing in the bible was “Paleo-Hebrew”
- around 2,500 years ago, many believe the religious Jewish texts were completed
Myths: The bible inspired religion is not just one religion or one myth but a grouping of several religions and myths
- Around 3,450 or 3,250 years ago, according to legend, is the traditionally accepted period in which the Israelite lawgiver, Moses, provided the Ten Commandments.
- Around 2,500 to 2,400 years ago, a collection of ancient religious writings by the Israelites based primarily upon the Hebrew Bible, Tanakh, or Old Testament is the first part of Christianity’s bible.
- Around 2,400 years ago, the most accepted hypothesis is that the canon was formed in stages, first the Pentateuch (Torah).
- Around 2,140 to 2,116 years ago, the Prophets was written during the Hasmonean dynasty, and finally the remaining books.
- Christians traditionally divide the Old Testament into four sections:
- The first five books or Pentateuch (Torah).
- The proposed history books telling the history of the Israelites from their conquest of Canaan to their defeat and exile in Babylon.
- The poetic and proposed “Wisdom books” dealing, in various forms, with questions of good and evil in the world.
- The books of the biblical prophets, warning of the consequences of turning away from God:
- Henotheism:
- Exodus 20:23 “You shall not make other gods besides Me (not saying there are no other gods just not to worship them); gods of silver or gods of gold, you shall not make for yourselves.”
- Polytheism:
- Judges 10:6 “Then the sons of Israel again did evil in the sight of the LORD, served the Baals and the Ashtaroth, the gods of Aram, the gods of Sidon, the gods of Moab, the gods of the sons of Ammon, and the gods of the Philistines; thus they forsook the LORD and did not serve Him.”
- 1 Corinthians 8:5 “For even if there are so-called gods whether in heaven or on earth, as indeed there are many gods and many lords.”
- Monotheism:
- Isaiah 43:10 “You are my witnesses,” declares the LORD, “and my servant whom I have chosen, so that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he. Before me no god was formed, nor will there be one after me.
Around 2,570 to 2,270 Years Ago, there is a confirmation of atheistic doubting as well as atheistic thinking, mainly by Greek philosophers. However, doubting gods is likely as old as the invention of gods and should destroy the thinking that belief in god(s) is the “default belief”. The Greek word is apistos (a “not” and pistos “faithful,”), thus not faithful or faithless because one is unpersuaded and unconvinced by a god(s) claim. Short Definition: unbelieving, unbeliever, or unbelief.
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.
“Theists, there has to be a god, as something can not come from nothing.”
Well, thus something (unknown) happened and then there was something. This does not tell us what the something that may have been involved with something coming from nothing. A supposed first cause, thus something (unknown) happened and then there was something is not an open invitation to claim it as known, neither is it justified to call or label such an unknown as anything, especially an unsubstantiated magical thinking belief born of mythology and religious storytelling.
While hallucinogens are associated with shamanism, it is alcohol that is associated with paganism.
The Atheist-Humanist-Leftist Revolutionaries Shows in the prehistory series:
Show two: Pre-animism 300,000 years old and animism 100,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism”
Show tree: Totemism 50,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism”
Show four: Shamanism 30,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism”
Show five: Paganism 12,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism”
Show six: Emergence of hierarchy, sexism, slavery, and the new male god dominance: Paganism 7,000-5,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism” (Capitalism) (World War 0) Elite and their slaves!
Prehistory: related to “Anarchism and Socialism” the division of labor, power, rights, and recourses: VIDEO
Pre-animism 300,000 years old and animism 100,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism”: VIDEO
Totemism 50,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism”: VIDEO
Shamanism 30,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism”: VIDEO
Paganism 12,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism” (Pre-Capitalism): VIDEO
Paganism 7,000-5,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism” (Capitalism) (World War 0) Elite and their slaves: VIEDO
Paganism 5,000 years old: progressed organized religion and the state: related to “Anarchism and Socialism” (Kings and the Rise of the State): VIEDO
Paganism 4,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism” (First Moralistic gods, then the Origin time of Monotheism): VIEDO
I do not hate simply because I challenge and expose myths or lies any more than others being thought of as loving simply because of the protection and hiding from challenge their favored myths or lies.
The truth is best championed in the sunlight of challenge.
An archaeologist once said to me “Damien religion and culture are very different”
My response, So are you saying that was always that way, such as would you say Native Americans’ cultures are separate from their religions? And do you think it always was the way you believe?
I had said that religion was a cultural product. That is still how I see it and there are other archaeologists that think close to me as well. Gods too are the myths of cultures that did not understand science or the world around them, seeing magic/supernatural everywhere.
I personally think there is a goddess and not enough evidence to support a male god at Çatalhöyük but if there was both a male and female god and goddess then I know the kind of gods they were like Proto-Indo-European mythology.
This series idea was addressed in, Anarchist Teaching as Free Public Education or Free Education in the Public: VIDEO
Our 12 video series: Organized Oppression: Mesopotamian State Force and the Politics of power (9,000-4,000 years ago), is adapted from: The Complete and Concise History of the Sumerians and Early Bronze Age Mesopotamia (7000-2000 BC): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szFjxmY7jQA by “History with Cy“
Show #1: Mesopotamian State Force and the Politics of Power (Samarra, Halaf, Ubaid)
Show #2: Mesopotamian State Force and the Politics of Power
Show #3: Mesopotamian State Force and the Politics of Power (Uruk and the First Cities)
Show #4: Mesopotamian State Force and the Politics of Power (First Kings)
Show #5: Mesopotamian State Force and the Politics of Power (Early Dynastic Period)
Show #6: Mesopotamian State Force and the Politics of Power
Show #7: Mesopotamian State Force and the Politics of Power (Sargon and Akkadian Rule)
Show #9: Mesopotamian State Force and the Politics of Power (Gudea of Lagash and Utu-hegal)
Show #12: Mesopotamian State Force and the Politics of Power (Aftermath and Legacy of Sumer)
The “Atheist-Humanist-Leftist Revolutionaries”
Cory Johnston ☭ Ⓐ Atheist Leftist @Skepticallefty & I (Damien Marie AtHope) @AthopeMarie (my YouTube & related blog) are working jointly in atheist, antitheist, antireligionist, antifascist, anarchist, socialist, and humanist endeavors in our videos together, generally, every other Saturday.
Why Does Power Bring Responsibility?
Think, how often is it the powerless that start wars, oppress others, or commit genocide? So, I guess the question is to us all, to ask, how can power not carry responsibility in a humanity concept? I know I see the deep ethical responsibility that if there is power their must be a humanistic responsibility of ethical and empathic stewardship of that power. Will I be brave enough to be kind? Will I possess enough courage to be compassionate? Will my valor reach its height of empathy? I as everyone, earns our justified respect by our actions, that are good, ethical, just, protecting, and kind. Do I have enough self-respect to put my love for humanity’s flushing, over being brought down by some of its bad actors? May we all be the ones doing good actions in the world, to help human flourishing.
I create the world I want to live in, striving for flourishing. Which is not a place but a positive potential involvement and promotion; a life of humanist goal precision. To master oneself, also means mastering positive prosocial behaviors needed for human flourishing. I may have lost a god myth as an atheist, but I am happy to tell you, my friend, it is exactly because of that, leaving the mental terrorizer, god belief, that I truly regained my connected ethical as well as kind humanity.
Cory and I will talk about prehistory and theism, addressing the relevance to atheism, anarchism, and socialism.
At the same time as the rise of the male god, 7,000 years ago, there was also the very time there was the rise of violence, war, and clans to kingdoms, then empires, then states. It is all connected back to 7,000 years ago, and it moved across the world.
Cory Johnston: https://damienmarieathope.com/2021/04/cory-johnston-mind-of-a-skeptical-leftist/?v=32aec8db952d
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Cory Johnston ☭ Ⓐ @Skepticallefty Evidence-based atheist leftist (he/him) Producer, host, and co-host of 4 podcasts @skeptarchy @skpoliticspod and @AthopeMarie
Damien Marie AtHope (“At Hope”) Axiological Atheist, Anti-theist, Anti-religionist, Secular Humanist. Rationalist, Writer, Artist, Poet, Philosopher, Advocate, Activist, Psychology, and Armchair Archaeology/Anthropology/Historian.
Damien is interested in: Freedom, Liberty, Justice, Equality, Ethics, Humanism, Science, Atheism, Antiteism, Antireligionism, Ignosticism, Left-Libertarianism, Anarchism, Socialism, Mutualism, Axiology, Metaphysics, LGBTQI, Philosophy, Advocacy, Activism, Mental Health, Psychology, Archaeology, Social Work, Sexual Rights, Marriage Rights, Woman’s Rights, Gender Rights, Child Rights, Secular Rights, Race Equality, Ageism/Disability Equality, Etc. And a far-leftist, “Anarcho-Humanist.”
I am not a good fit in the atheist movement that is mostly pro-capitalist, I am anti-capitalist. Mostly pro-skeptic, I am a rationalist not valuing skepticism. Mostly pro-agnostic, I am anti-agnostic. Mostly limited to anti-Abrahamic religions, I am an anti-religionist.
To me, the “male god” seems to have either emerged or become prominent around 7,000 years ago, whereas the now favored monotheism “male god” is more like 4,000 years ago or so. To me, the “female goddess” seems to have either emerged or become prominent around 11,000-10,000 years ago or so, losing the majority of its once prominence around 2,000 years ago due largely to the now favored monotheism “male god” that grow in prominence after 4,000 years ago or so.
My Thought on the Evolution of Gods?
Animal protector deities from old totems/spirit animal beliefs come first to me, 13,000/12,000 years ago, then women as deities 11,000/10,000 years ago, then male gods around 7,000/8,000 years ago. Moralistic gods around 5,000/4,000 years ago, and monotheistic gods around 4,000/3,000 years ago.
To me, animal gods were likely first related to totemism animals around 13,000 to 12,000 years ago or older. Female as goddesses was next to me, 11,000 to 10,000 years ago or so with the emergence of agriculture. Then male gods come about 8,000 to 7,000 years ago with clan wars. Many monotheism-themed religions started in henotheism, emerging out of polytheism/paganism.
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