1905
Modern Greeks as Superstitious as Their Forefathers
"Some of the superstitions of the old mythologic religion still prevail among the peasant classes in Greece," said Dr. George Horton. "Nor are the educated classes without such beliefs, such as that harm ensues from looking at the moon over the right shoulder, the belief in the three fates, the evil eye, the vampires and the nereids in general.
"Dressed in black and appearing as old women, the fates are supposed to come down from Olympus three days after the birth of a child, and to hold a meeting to determine its fate. Consequently, a table containing many dainties is set out for their invisible enjoyment. Especial care is taken lest the old ladies be enraged at not having enough good things to eat.
"No woman desires to be left alone after her child is born, believing that the ugly old women may become jealous and wreak some awful vengeance. Smut is therefore smeared on the faces of the youngsters so that this jealousy may not become excited.
"The young Athenian women frequently go to the ancient tombs near Athens, and, calling upon the fates, beg them to reveal the identity of their future husbands, singing: 'From the top of Olympus, where are the fates, where is my own fate?' " — Washington Post.
Showing posts with label mythology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mythology. Show all posts
Friday, July 20, 2007
Friday, June 1, 2007
Dr. Eliot Offers a New Religion
1914
Future Church Will Rob Death of Terror
Spurns Biblical Stories and Rejects Miracles as Impossible
Boston, Mass., Jan. 5. — A new interpretation of the Divine Being has been advanced by President Emeritus Charles W. Eliot of Harvard in a continuation of his predictions on the religion of the future.
Dr Eliot would bar the word "God" and substitute "Our Father." Nothing so radical as his ideas on the appellation of the Divine Being has been advanced for many years. This statement has been published by the American Unitarian association. This twentieth century Christianity of Dr. Eliot does not believe in the Garden of Eden. The serpent tempting Eve and then tempting Adam he turns over to the rubbish heap. He says God did not make man out of the dust of the ground; God did not turn stonemason and give into the hands of Moses the ten commandments; neither did the sun stand still for Joshua; neither did Jonah go through his thrilling experience in the closed quarters of the whale.
These and other stories Dr. Eliot would designate pleasant reading, but not for belief. There will be nothing like dogmas or creed in this twentieth century religion. No miracle will be found in it.
"Men of science," Dr. Eliot says, "have no faith in magic or miracle."
Dr. Eliot's religion will stop speculation in theology. It puts a damper on future schools of theology, like that which has been the outgrowth of the nineteenth century in Germany. The church of the future will have more reverence for the personality of Jesus, will prefer liberty to authority, will rob death of its terror.
"No thinking person now accepts as anything but primitive myths of fanciful poetry the story of the Garden of Eden," Dr. Eliot says, "or the portrait of God in the second chapter of Genesis as a being who worked man out of the dust of the ground, as a child fashions an image of snow or clay.
"The creator is for modern men a sleepless, active energy, and will, which yesterday, today and forever actuates all things as the human spirit actuates its own body, so small, and yet so inconceivably complex.
"By savage man the gods were recognized chiefly in the irresistible catastrophes of nature — in the lightning, the earthquake, the flood, and the drought, the volcano, and the mighty wind.
"Twentieth century people recognize God chiefly in the wonderful energies of sound, light and electricity; in the vital processes or plants and animals, in human loves and aspirations, and in the evolution of human society."
Future Church Will Rob Death of Terror
Spurns Biblical Stories and Rejects Miracles as Impossible
Boston, Mass., Jan. 5. — A new interpretation of the Divine Being has been advanced by President Emeritus Charles W. Eliot of Harvard in a continuation of his predictions on the religion of the future.
Dr Eliot would bar the word "God" and substitute "Our Father." Nothing so radical as his ideas on the appellation of the Divine Being has been advanced for many years. This statement has been published by the American Unitarian association. This twentieth century Christianity of Dr. Eliot does not believe in the Garden of Eden. The serpent tempting Eve and then tempting Adam he turns over to the rubbish heap. He says God did not make man out of the dust of the ground; God did not turn stonemason and give into the hands of Moses the ten commandments; neither did the sun stand still for Joshua; neither did Jonah go through his thrilling experience in the closed quarters of the whale.
These and other stories Dr. Eliot would designate pleasant reading, but not for belief. There will be nothing like dogmas or creed in this twentieth century religion. No miracle will be found in it.
"Men of science," Dr. Eliot says, "have no faith in magic or miracle."
Dr. Eliot's religion will stop speculation in theology. It puts a damper on future schools of theology, like that which has been the outgrowth of the nineteenth century in Germany. The church of the future will have more reverence for the personality of Jesus, will prefer liberty to authority, will rob death of its terror.
"No thinking person now accepts as anything but primitive myths of fanciful poetry the story of the Garden of Eden," Dr. Eliot says, "or the portrait of God in the second chapter of Genesis as a being who worked man out of the dust of the ground, as a child fashions an image of snow or clay.
"The creator is for modern men a sleepless, active energy, and will, which yesterday, today and forever actuates all things as the human spirit actuates its own body, so small, and yet so inconceivably complex.
"By savage man the gods were recognized chiefly in the irresistible catastrophes of nature — in the lightning, the earthquake, the flood, and the drought, the volcano, and the mighty wind.
"Twentieth century people recognize God chiefly in the wonderful energies of sound, light and electricity; in the vital processes or plants and animals, in human loves and aspirations, and in the evolution of human society."
Wednesday, May 9, 2007
No Gabriel's Horn — The Passing of Apocalypticism
1910
The Earth Will Not End Up With a Big Fire
Old Mother Earth is here to stay. The final earthquake, the lake of fire and other Biblical terrors anent the end of the world are feeble myths, discredited and scorned by the professors of the University of Chicago Divinity School.
The university experts come forth with assurances of this old world's permanency in an editorial entitled, "The Passing of Apocalypticism," in the current issue of the Biblical World, published by the university press. The "last day" is all a fairy tale, say the theological experts, and the timorous may cheer up.
The Angel Gabriel will have no chance to blow his horn, nor will the tumults and processions of the judgment day take place as advertised, according to the view taken by the divinity experts. For, say the professors, the cosmic cataclysm which has been the cause of nervous tension for centuries, positively will not occur. Historical criticism has quashed the Biblical bug-a-boo.
As for the annihilation of the sinners and the reorganization of society on a different basis, the Biblical World dismisses them without honorable mention. The horrors of the Revelations and the fiery prophecies of the Gospels are declared to be misinterpreted when applied to a convulsion such as has been predicted.
The author of the article, who shields his identity under the authority of the 13 editors of the Biblical World, intimates that the writers of the New Testament were not above inserting scary passages in the Scriptures simply to boost their own misguided opinions. Christ's saying are distorted and falsely attributed, it is alleged.
"Our hope is set not on a kingdom of God to be ushered in by a personal, visible coming of the king in the clouds, an overthrowing of all human institutions, and the establishing of new heavens and a new earth, but on the over larger and fuller development of the kingdom of God that is now on earth," says the editorial writer. "We are preaching the gospel not till, the witness having been born, the nations shall be destroyed and the handful of the redeemed shall become the nucleus of a new era, but in the confident hope that little by little the leaven may leaven the whole lump and the nations of the earth become the kingdom of God and of His Christ.
"The inspiration of victorious Christianity lies not in the hope of rescuing one's self and others from an impending cataclysm, but in the joyful devotion of one's self to the task of helping to create for today and for the future an order of things in which God's will shall be supreme and mutual love shall govern in all human relations.
"Instead of waking for the day of the Lord as an event which is to come 'out of the clouds,' Christians increasingly find inspiration to strenuous endeavor in the thought that working with God in an age-long process, they may not only achieve something for their own day, but make some contribution, be it ever so small, toward the realization of that ultimate ideal toward which God is continually guiding the race."
—The News, Frederick, MD, Sept, 20, 1910, p. 4.
The Earth Will Not End Up With a Big Fire
Old Mother Earth is here to stay. The final earthquake, the lake of fire and other Biblical terrors anent the end of the world are feeble myths, discredited and scorned by the professors of the University of Chicago Divinity School.
The university experts come forth with assurances of this old world's permanency in an editorial entitled, "The Passing of Apocalypticism," in the current issue of the Biblical World, published by the university press. The "last day" is all a fairy tale, say the theological experts, and the timorous may cheer up.
The Angel Gabriel will have no chance to blow his horn, nor will the tumults and processions of the judgment day take place as advertised, according to the view taken by the divinity experts. For, say the professors, the cosmic cataclysm which has been the cause of nervous tension for centuries, positively will not occur. Historical criticism has quashed the Biblical bug-a-boo.
As for the annihilation of the sinners and the reorganization of society on a different basis, the Biblical World dismisses them without honorable mention. The horrors of the Revelations and the fiery prophecies of the Gospels are declared to be misinterpreted when applied to a convulsion such as has been predicted.
The author of the article, who shields his identity under the authority of the 13 editors of the Biblical World, intimates that the writers of the New Testament were not above inserting scary passages in the Scriptures simply to boost their own misguided opinions. Christ's saying are distorted and falsely attributed, it is alleged.
"Our hope is set not on a kingdom of God to be ushered in by a personal, visible coming of the king in the clouds, an overthrowing of all human institutions, and the establishing of new heavens and a new earth, but on the over larger and fuller development of the kingdom of God that is now on earth," says the editorial writer. "We are preaching the gospel not till, the witness having been born, the nations shall be destroyed and the handful of the redeemed shall become the nucleus of a new era, but in the confident hope that little by little the leaven may leaven the whole lump and the nations of the earth become the kingdom of God and of His Christ.
"The inspiration of victorious Christianity lies not in the hope of rescuing one's self and others from an impending cataclysm, but in the joyful devotion of one's self to the task of helping to create for today and for the future an order of things in which God's will shall be supreme and mutual love shall govern in all human relations.
"Instead of waking for the day of the Lord as an event which is to come 'out of the clouds,' Christians increasingly find inspiration to strenuous endeavor in the thought that working with God in an age-long process, they may not only achieve something for their own day, but make some contribution, be it ever so small, toward the realization of that ultimate ideal toward which God is continually guiding the race."
—The News, Frederick, MD, Sept, 20, 1910, p. 4.
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