According to the Ghostbusters Wiki, Gozer the Gozerian (known also as Gozer the Destructor, Volguus Zildrohar, and Lord of the Sebouillia) is an ancient entity who “was originally worshiped as a god by the Hittites, Mesopotamians, and the Sumerians around 6000 BC.” When not visiting retribution on New York in the form of the Stay [...]
Tags:Akitu·Alan Lenzi·Assyria·Assyriology·Babylon·dead religions·divine messages·Ghostbusters·Gozer·Hittites·ideology·kings·Lord of the Sebouillia·Mesopotamia·Mesopotamians·mythmaking·politics·power·prophetic texts·Sennacherib·Slavitza Jovan·social construction·Stay Puft Marshmallow Man·Sumerians·Tiamat·Ur·Volguus Zildrohar
Nearly 5,500 years ago or about 3,500 BCE, the Sumerians began writing about supernatural matters; in a sense, this marks the origin of what most people today understand as “religion.” This relatively modern and provincially Western understanding of religion is on full display in Paul Raushenbush’s article introducing HuffPo Religion’s new series on religious texts [...]
Tags:Bhagavad Gita·books·Buddhist·category of religion·Christian presuppositions·doctrinal·Edward Said·essentializing·Harvey Whitehouse·Hindu·imagistic·Jonathan Z. Smith·non-written traditions·orientalism·Paul Raushenbush·religion as academic creation·religion as text·religion as writing·religions of the book·religious writings·scriptures·shamanisms·shamanist·shamans·Sumeria·Sumerians·texts·The Word·theologians·theology·transcendence·transcendent·Vedic·word·writing
Because most modern religions are constructed around — and concern themselves with — moral or ethical behavior, the common (and mistaken) assumption is that morality and religion are inextricably linked and have always been linked. This simply is not the case. As I discussed in this post, there are many societies — past and present [...]
Tags:ethics·Hammurabi·Lakota·Luther Standing Bear·morality·morals·Phillip Goldberg·prosical·Rig Veda·Sam Harris·Sumerians·Ten Commandments·the Lakota way
A few weeks ago, I watched “The Fourth Kind,” which fortuitously features Milla Jovavich as the main character. Although supposedly based on “actual events” in small-town Alaska, my research turned up little by way of fact to support that assertion. What intrigued me about the movie, however, was the Sumerian aspect (I won’t say more [...]
Tags:aliens·ancient astronauts·Egyptian technology·fourth kind encounters·Mayan king·megalithic structures·Mesopotamia·Milla Jovavich·Pakal·Palenque·Piri Reis map·Sumerians·The Fourth Kind·Ubaidian culture·Vimanas
