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Thursday = Thor's day

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Re: Thursday = Thor's day

#81

Post by orp »

sshumaker wrote: post #67
ErrantX wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Judaism (to take an example) was a contemporary of those religions too - it hasn't changed an awful lot over the intervening time span. You seem to shrug off "what people believed 2,500 years ago" as, perhaps, silly or illogical and then chasten someone for doing the same to current religion :)

2,500 years ago, Jews were slaughtering goats and offering them as burnt offerings on altars in order to absolve themselves of sin. Modern Judaism is distinctly different than what was practiced two millenia ago.

To my knowledge, the religious decree about slaughtering goats is the same today in judaism as it was 2,500 years ago.

The reason it's not practiced today is 'just' because the decree also states that you have to perform the sacrifice at the great temple on temple mount. That poses a technical problem, since: 1. The temple was destroyed 2k years back, and there's a pretty famous mosque standing in its place. 2. Religious jews have to do a special kind of purification in order to even be on temple mount, and this purification is impossible at the moment, again for weird technical reasons (they need a red cow, don't ask).

BUT, if there was a temple, and there was a purification rite, religious jews would, in all likelihood, be happily burning offerings 3 times each year.

In short, not as different as you may think.

Re: Thursday = Thor's day

#82

Post by darthpanda »

TomOfTTB wrote: post #28

This just makes me sad to be honest with you. The idea that “we believe in 519 out of 520 Gods” means anything shows a fundamental misunderstanding of religion. You may not like the beliefs of some religious people but the point of religion is the beliefs. It’s not that a God created the world it’s that a benevolent God created the world and left teachings which lead to benevolence. On that note I’d point out that he…

Or maybe he did see that and avoided discussing it, instead deciding to keep a personal belief personal. Everyday doesn't have to be epiphany day after all.

Re: Thursday = Thor's day

#83

Post by shrikant »

martythemaniak wrote: post #22
huherto wrote: post #7

Interesting. Knowing a little bit of English/Spanish you can guess the origin of most of the days of the week. * Sunday/Domingo - Sun/? * Monday/Lunes - Moon/Luna * Tuesday/Martes - ?/Mars * Wednesday/Miercoles - ?/Mercurio * Thursday/Jueves - Thor/Jupiter * Friday/Viernes - ?/Venus * Saturday/Sabado - Saturn/?

Interestingly, Bulgarian (and by extension probably all Slavic languages) don't follow this model. (translations based on word roots) Monday - ponedelnik - "after no work" Tuesday - vtornik - "second" Wednesday - sryada - "middle" Thursday - chetvurtuk - "fourth" Friday - petuk - "fifth" Saturday - subota - from Sabath Sunday - Nedelia - "no work"

Sanskrit (and hence Hindi and Tami;l) largely does. would clarify more but a bit too drunk now to tyep too ciherentyl. sorry. just thought you should know before i forgot in the morning..

Re: Thursday = Thor's day

#85

Post by ErrantX »

jboydyhacker wrote: post #77
ErrantX wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Judaism (to take an example) was a contemporary of those religions too - it hasn't changed an awful lot over the intervening time span. You seem to shrug off "what people believed 2,500 years ago" as, perhaps, silly or illogical and then chasten someone for doing the same to current religion :)

I could be wrong, but I was under the impression that Judiasm was originally multiple gods. They got the idea for monotheism from the Egyptians during the brief period where a pharaoh actually tried to have monotheism. The Jews adopted that even tho the Egyptians reverted relatively quickly to multiple gods under King Tut. Mostly because the priests of all the various gods that had been shut down wanted power back. F…

Heh, my fault - I simplified it a little forgetting this is HN :D

To answer your point - the answer is yes, and no.

Ultimately it is next to impossible to be sure (assuming we can take the critical rather than the religious view of the history) when/where/how Judaism appeared.

At the time pretty much every country had their own God or gods and considered them superior to the others (though, ironically, appear to have been accepting of the other gods - just considered them inferior). General thinking simply says that at that time one particular country believed in one God - they were imprisoned for the Babylonians for a long while but the religion survived very devoutly.

I'm not sure what the common thinking is about why Judaism survived beyond that and grew to be so important.

Then, yes, Judaism influenced or started pretty much all of the modern religions.

EDIT: I find the birth of religions a fascinating subject, but I'm still churning through the birth/development of Christianity so not back to Judaism yet. All my knowledge above comes from a wonderful book called "A Little History of the World" which touches on the subject briefly.

Re: Thursday = Thor's day

#86

Post by VictorHo »

ErrantX wrote: post #60
VictorHo wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with that statement, but it does pain me that this was his big takeaway. There is no decision that is more life-impacting than belief/disbelief in a God. To see someone so quickly silenced/swayed by such simple rhetoric really illustrates how many important subjects are not getting nearly as much thought as they deserve. We will spend months stressing about a job or a start-up, which might affect our lives fo…

There is no decision that is more life-impacting than belief/disbelief in a God. Disagreed (and I can find you multiple believers/non-believers who will agree with me). In many ways it's irrelevant - your life choice to make whichever way you choose (with in depth research or knee jerk reaction). There are lots of other diverting things to spend your time on. It's a cycle that sadly continues - 200 years ago everyone…

I'm merely pointing to the fact that many extremely intelligent individuals have given atheism a lot of thought and come out on both sides of the fence. Of all major world issues, topics of study, etc., I cannot think of another with bigger potential implications.

Your statement that "religious belief should be an individual thing" is exactly the mindset that I am trying to address. The existence of a God is fact, or not fact. It's either true for everyone, or false for everyone. Saying something is "individual" is healthy only to the point that it does not stop you from actually researching it, and many times the best learning is done in collaboration and reviewing the work of others.

Re: Thursday = Thor's day

#87

Post by lotharbot »

jboydyhacker wrote: post #77
ErrantX wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Judaism (to take an example) was a contemporary of those religions too - it hasn't changed an awful lot over the intervening time span. You seem to shrug off "what people believed 2,500 years ago" as, perhaps, silly or illogical and then chasten someone for doing the same to current religion :)

I could be wrong, but I was under the impression that Judiasm was originally multiple gods. They got the idea for monotheism from the Egyptians during the brief period where a pharaoh actually tried to have monotheism. The Jews adopted that even tho the Egyptians reverted relatively quickly to multiple gods under King Tut. Mostly because the priests of all the various gods that had been shut down wanted power back. F…

> "I was under the impression that Judiasm was originally multiple gods."

There's only speculation, nothing really concrete (at least not that I've ever found.)

Judaism does directly reference several Egyptian concepts. Both Genesis 1 and the plagues in Exodus draw heavily on the Egyptian pantheon (in a negative way -- explicitly rejecting Egyptian gods, calling them weak or stating that they are mere created objects.) But I don't know of anything that links Jewish monotheism to Egyptian monotheism.

Re: Thursday = Thor's day

#88

Post by Alex3917 »

roc wrote: post #79
Alex3917 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely. Modern day religious scholars are doing things like giving people psilocybin in double blind studies to elicit primary religious experiments. (And they found that they were able to create primary religious experiences in roughly 70% of the participants.) Saying that these academic papers that are being published in the top journals in the country are the intellectual equivalent of Catholicism is ridiculou…

I'm not sure why endeavors wholly separate from the practice of religion should be considered to reflect upon the state of religious practice. Surely one can be religious and practice science. But in what denomination of which religion is it a requirement? The non-religious have performed countless similar studies on religious experience, efficacy of prayer, etc. Are you suggesting their activities reflect on the sta…

Science isn't separate from religious practice, but rather it's one of our contemporary religions. Only instead of the ten commandments, you start with the unprovable beliefs that there is nothing supernatural, the universe can be explained entirely through natural laws, we can learn about these natural laws through observation and measurement, the world exists as we see it and is not an illusion, etc. So in regards to the academic studies on the efficacy of prayer, I would consider these studies to be part of modern religious belief rather than separate from it.

Re: Thursday = Thor's day

#89

Post by nocman »

grellas wrote: post #73

The logic here doesn't hold with respect to monothestic religions such as Judaism or Christianity. The Ten Commandments, which are common to these two religions, have two "tables," the first of which (commandments 1 - 5) defines the relations between God and man and the second of which defines the relations between men (6 - 10). The very first commandment is "thou shalt have no other gods before me. The next proscrip…

Thank you for that extremely well-written post. You have saved me the trouble of trying to say essentially the same thing (and I'm not so sure I would have been as successful as you have here).

Good show!

Re: Thursday = Thor's day

#90

Post by mcantor »

Interestingly, "Sunday" in Japanese is expressed with the kanji for "sun" and the kanji for "day". It's obviously pronounced differently, but the literal meaning is the same as the English phonetics.
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