How real are the Gods?

Why would aliens from wherever, capable of traveling from one world to the next, need humans to provide them food or shelter?

Because slave labor is cheaper? The food tastes better fresh? How would I know? It's not like I am one of them, I'm just a dumb human like the rest on this planet.

That idea is beyond ridiculous and can only be described as stupid.

Too bad you couldn't have told that the Sumerians or the Egyptians, maybe you could have saved them a temple or two. Or a pyramid or two. I'm sure they could have used their resources wiser if they had only known that. You know, the stuff about their gods being really stars.


[edit on 8-1-2009 by tungus]

They're trying to ignore Samuel Noah Kramer. Anyone that suggests anything that isn't written in the books they read, including the man who did pretty much the first translations of sumerian cuneiform (Kramer), is obviously a Sitchinite. Anyone that reads sumerian texts, is a Sitchinite. Anyone that mentions anything from sumerian texts is a Sitchinite. And so on.

so this guy named enki fashions his temple in the abyss, completely from metal, then raises it and floats it over the water like a lofty mountain. it glows, roars, gives advice, is connected to some star in the field constellation, has an interior that is a tangled thread beyond comprehension, BUT, if we think that sounds suspiciously advanced for the time frame, WE ARE SITCHINITES. that's right folks. the new way to read ancient texts is to ignore what they actually say.

Originally posted by tungus
Because slave labor is cheaper? The food tastes better fresh? How would I know? It's not like I am one of them, I'm just a dumb human like the rest on this planet.

So, let's get this straight...

Humans building temples to gods, providing them with sacrifices, to beings they consider just like humans (albeit supernatural and writ large) makes no sense and is just stupid.

But humans building "shelters" and providing food for aliens, who were somehow capable of traveling from planet to planet, but incapable of providing for themselves makes sense. Oh, but they needed slave labor, despite the fact if they are capable of traveling from world-to-world, their technology would have made the need for slave-labor obsolete.

Again, Tungis...it is stupidity. Absolute, unadulterated stupidity. There is no other word strong enough to describe it.

[edit on 9-1-2009 by SaviorComplex]

Originally posted by undo
so this guy named enki fashions his temple in the abyss, completely from metal, then raises it and floats it over the water like a lofty mountain.

Tell us, Undo...do you believe the water we drink is actually the urine or semen of Enki?

(Yes, mods, I know this sounds vulgar, but Enki as god of freshwater, lakes and sea is known in mythology to have filled empty riverbeds with his "water").

Or do you just ignore that little revolting bit of mythology because it does not fit the idea of him being an alien? What about all the other little bits that don't quite fit with the idea of him being an alien descended from another planet? Such as the fact he was identified with Mercury...or that he made his home in the waters beneath the Earth?

reply to post by SaviorComplex


metaphor can even be in a lesson meant to be factual. poetic license does not mean the words spoken are entirely fictional. that's the problem with your approach. it's too black and white.

Originally posted by undo
metaphor can even be in a lesson meant to be factual. poetic license does not mean the words spoken are entirely fictional. that's the problem with your approach. it's too black and white.

That does not answer my question or the points I made.

You are picking and choosing what parts of mythology fit your belief, which parts are to be taken as metaphor and which are to be taken at face-value. Anything that can be be made to fit is thrown out.

If Enki is from Nibiru or some other world, why is he identified with Mercury, a planet incapable of supporting life? Do you think he gave the world every language?

Is it just me, or does anyone else find it bfunny for being alien beings how human the gods of antiquity behave.

Originally posted by undo
They're trying to ignore Samuel Noah Kramer. Anyone that suggests anything that isn't written in the books they read, including the man who did pretty much the first translations of sumerian cuneiform (Kramer), is obviously a Sitchinite. Anyone that reads sumerian texts, is a Sitchinite. Anyone that mentions anything from sumerian texts is a Sitchinite. And so on.

Excuse me, but that is not true in the least. We have not even approached inferring that. Your claim is off base and a complete twisting of what we have said and to be frank, an outright lie. We have not said everyone is wrong or that everyone who reads Sumerian is a "Sitchinite." Every single one of us know this is not the case, you know this is not the case. We are being specific to interpretations that the myths are talking about aliens. You are using lies to advance your case.

That is a cute little tactic there, dropping in Kramer's name. You mention him as an authority, hoping it would shut us up, as if he would have agreed with Sitchin's claims or your beliefs. However, you know this is not true; it is an outright lie.

hope you won't mind my pointing out that your own link states that the above story you quoted from was written in 2008.

No I don't. It means that the person wrote the story in 2008. If one was to retell a biblical story in 2009, does that mean that the story itself was created in 2009?

Humans building temples to gods, providing them with sacrifices, to beings they consider just like humans (albeit supernatural and writ large) makes no sense and is just stupid.

...Again, Tungis...it is stupidity. Absolute, unadulterated stupidity. There is no other word strong enough to describe it.

I might have agreed with you if there weren't giant pyramids, temples, sacrificial sites scattered all over the world from prehistory. What I find hard to believe is that all this effort was to appease non existing entities, like Santa Clause. But let's assume that the ancients didn't know any better and did all this for fictional characters. When was the last time the fictional characters of our time, like Superman, Catwoman, captain Kirk, etc. bestowed wisdom and knowledge upon the people? (Um, never?) One can project upon the world their wishes and fantasies all they want, but these cannot, and do not, exceed the mental abilities and wisdom of the people who project them. So what we are left with is that the ancients, who did not understand how the world around them worked on one hand, were somehow capable of advanced mathematics, incredible engineering and astronomy on the other. Not to mention biology and gentecis, because that is what is needed to change the hard inedible wild seeds into digestible wheats, you have to change the instruction code. This is the fundamental problem with the mythological approach.
And please, let's not use the word "evolved" frivolously, because it becomes quickly the modern equivalent of "magically transformed into" of the past.


[edit on 9-1-2009 by tungus]

Originally posted by tungus
But let's assume that the ancients didn't know any better and did all this for fictional characters. When was the last time the fictional characters of our time, like Superman, Catwoman, captain Kirk, etc. bestowed wisdom and knowledge upon the people? (Um, never?)

You are dense. We have already explained this.

While they may all be non-existent entities, there is no comparison between Superman and the gods of antiquity. It is, and always has been, explicit that Superman is a fictional character; at no point has anyone offered that he is real or used him in an etiological sense. That is not the case with the gods; it was explicit to the ancients, even without seeing them, that the gods were real.

Originally posted by tungus
So what we are left with is that the people who did not understand how the world around them worked on one hand, were somehow capable of advanced mathematics, incredible engineering and astronomy on the other.

And this is any different than today, how? The more things change...

While they did have advanced understanding of certain things, there was still a lot they did not know or could explain. Etiological myths are created to explain those things.

With aliens, you are doing the exact same thing, whether you realize it or not. You don't understand why certain things happened in the ancient world, so aliens are the only way to explain it!

Originally posted by tungus
Not to mention biology and gentecis, because that is what is needed to change the hard inedible wild seeds into digestible wheats, you have to change the instruction code.

What they understood about those fields, they understood through observation. They could observe if you cross two things with certain desirable traits, you will find the resulting offspring will have those traits exaggerated. Do this for only a few generations (not human generations) and you have something altogether different than what you started with. (Yes, yes, I know this was the very simplified version). You do not need advance knowledge of genetics or biology to achieve this; you just need simple observation.

Originally posted by tungus
And please, let's not use the word "evolved" frivolously, because it's just the modern equivalent of "magically transformed into" of the past.

And there we go. That is all we need to know about you.


[edit on 9-1-2009 by SaviorComplex]

Originally posted by SaviorComplex

Originally posted by tungus
So what we are left with is that the people who did not understand how the world around them worked on one hand, were somehow capable of advanced mathematics, incredible engineering and astronomy on the other.

And this is any different than today, how? The more things change....

It is different from today in the way that we have a record of who discovered what and what discoveries were combined to create new discoveries and so on. The ancients records leads straight up to the gods. This is the difference. I don't know how to simplify it any further for you.

Originally posted by SaviorComplex
if you cross two things with certain desirable traits, you will find the resulting offspring will have those traits exaggerated. Do this for only a few generations (not human generations) and you have something altogether different than what you started with.

That is true if you are crossing green peas like Mendel did. It doesn't take long. Turning wild wheats into edible wheats involves increasing the number of chromosomes in the genes. This is what I mean when say that we might as well say that the wild grasses magically turned into edible wheats.

Originally posted by SaviorComplex

Originally posted by tungus
And please, let's not use the word "evolved" frivolously, because it's just the modern equivalent of "magically transformed into" of the past.

And there we go. That is all we need to know about you.

What, is this a club or something? I didn't know I had to pledge allegiance to the Book of Evolution as told by the prophet Darwin. I thought that's what the other guys did.

Originally posted by tungus
It is different from today in the way that we have a record of who discovered what and what discoveries were combined to create new discoveries and so on. The ancients records leads straight up to the gods. This is the difference. I don't know how to simplify it any further for you.

You miss my point. Despite our knowledge of physics, mathematics, biology and so forth, we still believe in things like gods, angels, and the like. Even though we have a far better understanding of the world around us than our ancestors, we still subscribe to similar beliefs.

reply to post by SaviorComplex


i have NEVER said the sumerian texts were referring to the sumerian gods as aliens (i said the bible may be referring to some races of angels as capable of intergalactic travel, yeah. and that these angels and the gods of sumer may be identical in some cases. do you even read the texts? it's my contention that WE humans are the extra-terrestrials anyway)

it was YOUR assumption because in your mind, anyone who thinks the sumerian texts are not mundane and are explaining something extraordinary, must be a sitchinite. samuel noah kramer's translation of enki's e.abzu being built in the abyss, and rising up and floating over the water, is seen as a statement right out of sitchin's earth chronicles, even though it's samuel noah kramer's translation work.

Enki the Lord who decrees the fates, Built his house of silver and lapis lazuli; Its silver and lapis lazuli, like sparkling light, The father fashioned fittingly in the abyss.

Then Enki raises the city of Eridu from the abyss and makes it float over the water like a lofty mountain. Its green fruit-bearing gardens he fills with birds; fishes too he makes abundant. Enki is now ready to proceed by boat to Nippur, where he will obtain Enlil's blessings for his newly built city and temple. He therefore rises from the abyss

When Enki rises, the fish.... rise, The abyss stands in wonder, In the sea joy enters, Fear comes over the deep, Terror holds the exalted river, The Euphrates, the South Wind lifts it in waves.

Enki Builds the E.Engurra (the E.Abzu) by Samuel Noah Kramer
www.gatewaystobabylon.com...

does that sound mundane to you? sure doesn't to me.

Originally posted by tungus

where did you get that the Sumerians had pharmacy and a judicial system from the get-go?

From "History Begins at Sumer: Thirty-Nine Firsts in Recorded History" by Samuel Noah Kramer. Just go through the table of contents.

From your source:

CHAPTER 10--Medicine

THE FIRST PHARMACOPOEIA
AN ANONYMOUS Sumerian physician, who lived
toward the end of the third millennium B.C., decided to collect
and record, for his colleagues and students, his more valuable
medical prescriptions. He prepared a tablet of moist clay, 3 ¾
by 6 ¼ inches in size, sharpened a reed stylus to a wedge-shaped
end, and wrote down, in the cuneiform script of his day, more
than a dozen of his favorite remedies. This clay document, the
oldest medical "handbook" known to man, lay buried in the
Nippur ruins for more than four thousand years, until it was
excavated by an American expedition and brought to the Uni­
versity Museum in Philadelphia

My emphasis.
Source: Kramer
Note that Kramer tells us the first Pharmacopea (that we know of) dates from the end of the third millenium. That's just before the year 2,000 BCE (as Kramer indicates when he says "four thousand years.")

That's about 3,000 years after the Sumerians came to Mesopotamia. Hardly "sudden" or "right out of the blue," so it's time for you to retract this claim, isn't it?

Originally posted by tungus

Where is your evidence that, for example, the Ubaid people that lived in Mesopotamia before the Sumerians didn't have any judicial system?

You got me, I can't prove a negative.

Yet this is precisely what you stated. Why did you say it was true if it's not? Another claim for you to retract, it seems.

Originally posted by tungus

So, the copper saws left behind by the Egyptians were just to throw us off?

No, they just didn't tell us in all the
records how they cut the granite blocks with copper saws, since granite is almost as hard as diamond.

"All" what "records"?

The saws were certainly used to saw granite.

The Great Pyramid is not the only edifice in Egypt that contains sawn granite blocks, you know.

Originally posted by tungus

Another indisputable fact is that Sneferu's red pyramid, comparable in size to the Great Pyramid (though smaller,) was built in about 17 years.

One look at this pyramid is enough to see that it it is nothing like the Great pyramid. Sneferu was trying to copy something he had no idea how to do. This would be analogous to after being able to build the B-2 stealth bomber, we can't build a Cesna-150. It doesn't make sense.

Sorry, but Sneferu was around before the Great Pyramid was built. He was Kuhfu's father.

"One look?"
Look again, my friend.
The Red Pyramid is similar to, or exactly the same as, the Great Pyramid in many particulars. Simply because your worldview requires that the Red pyramid be inferior, that does not make it so.

The Red Pyramid today is 105 meters high. The Great Pyramid today is 139 meters high.

Both pyramids contain multiple chambers, both were tombs of Egyptian Kings from the 4th dynasty and both had smooth sides (created by casing stones) when they were new.

So, one is a Stealth Bomber and the other a Cessna? Perhaps you could give us some indication of why you believe this rather than just making statements as if they were facts.

Originally posted by tungus

To many ancient societies, the stars were the gods. Also, the changing seasons were brought by the gods.

How the stars would need food and shelter (temples, or "house of god") is beyond me.

Gotta agree here. Why anyone would need a church for God (Yahweh) is beyond me. It's perfectly clear that Jesus won't be needing a place to stay.

See? Your just being obtuse here.

Of course gods don't need temples, they don't actually exist.

Originally posted by tungusAnyone could see that the stars were still in the sky, whether there were offerings or not. I'm sure someone must have missed an offering now and again.

When you burn an offering, where does it go?

Originally posted by tungus
It is possible to determine with precision the movement of the stars from earth as a reference without having to know the shape of the planet, but only to a point. It is very difficult to observe the precession of the Equinox for example, since it moves only one degree (about the width of a toothpick against the horizon) every 72 years. (I wonder if that's where they get their 72 virgins, the Arabs were good astronomers before the Muslim conquest). It is not impossible but hard, since the projected lifetime of humans was around 55 years. It becomes very hard to imagine that the galactic years and such would be observable without instruments or tables of some sort. Indeed, the Sumerians had such tables.

No such Sumerian tables have ever been found that show any knowledge whatsoever of the precession of the Earth.

Originally posted by tungusBut the question remains, why would farmers need to know such incredible lengths of time?

Precisely. They wouldn't, and these farmers didn't

Originally posted by tungus I knew plenty of farmers in my past, none of them cared much about astronomy. Although, I must admit the subject never came up. They knew farming, but I doubt that they had any use for astronomy.

Wrong. Read the Farmer's Almanac for examples of perfectly good reasons to follow astronomy.

Originally posted by tungusWhy turn to farming in the first place? Did someone wake up one day 13,000 years ago and said, "hey, why not start cultivating these hard coarse seeds? Of course, this will bring no food to my family in my lifetime, but one day it shall be known as corn, but it will take a long time, unless I magically am able to increase the number of chromosomes. And how about these ferocious buffaloes, if I engage in selective breeding and after many years I may be able to tone down the aggression. If I can only convince my grand-grand children to continue my work, again with no immediate benefit. Now I will need a cow in the wild which has the right genetic mutation that makes her lactate all her life, and I shall have milk."

This is another question altogether. The very fact that you posed it in this fashion indicates that you have no knowledge of the subject. That by itself is no problem. However, just because you don't know, that doesn't mean nobody knows and hence it doesn't mean that you can offhandedly attribute it to extraterrestrial intervention.

Maybe you should try to find out the answer for yourself instead of taking the lazy "the aliens gave it to us" route.

Originally posted by tungus

I am sure you also take the story of Romulus at face value, don't you?

Weren't Romulus and Remus the kids of the priestess Rhea whose father was, um, the god Mars? Dang, those mythological gods again!

But I suppose the "face value" refers to the legend that they were brought up by a she-wolf in the wild, rather than who their father was. Sure I take it at face value, the prostitutes were also referred to as "she-wolves" at that time. So, it is possible that the children were brought up by a she-wolf. Nowadays we might say that they grew up in a cat house, brought up by a... cat woman?

Yeah baby! (Austin Powers impression)

Whatever you think you believe, the fact is that this answer you posted indicates the complete opposite.

IOW, what you say here is that you actually don't take this myth at face value.

I wonder why? Can't you make yourself believe in wolf-like aliens?

Harte

Originally posted by SaviorComplex

Originally posted by undo
They're trying to ignore Samuel Noah Kramer. Anyone that suggests anything that isn't written in the books they read, including the man who did pretty much the first translations of sumerian cuneiform (Kramer), is obviously a Sitchinite. Anyone that reads sumerian texts, is a Sitchinite. Anyone that mentions anything from sumerian texts is a Sitchinite. And so on.

Excuse me, but that is not true in the least. We have not even approached inferring that. Your claim is off base and a complete twisting of what we have said and to be frank, an outright lie.

I couldn't agree more here, Savior.

Undo is obviously not above blatantly lying to support his vacuous world view.

I mean, for someone "ignoring Kramer," I've certainly quoted him enough at this forum.

I wonder where Undo's and Tungus' quotes of what Kramer has to say are?

Seems to me that it is they who are "ignoring Kramer." At least, ignoring what Kramer tells us about Sumer. Or, ignoring what Kramer would think of their ideas.

And Undo, if you resent being called a Sitchinite, then stop being one for God's sake!

Where have you ever stated at ATS that Sitchin is a fraud? He is, you know.

Harte

[edit on 1/9/2009 by Harte]

Originally posted by tungus

hope you won't mind my pointing out that your own link states that the above story you quoted from was written in 2008.

No I don't. It means that the person wrote the story in 2008. If one was to retell a biblical story in 2009, does that mean that the story itself was created in 2009?

Okay. However, I maintain that the story never existed until 2008.

So let me ask you for a second time - can you provide some reason for me to believe otherwise?

Originally posted by tungus
Turning wild wheats into edible wheats involves increasing the number of chromosomes in the genes. This is what I mean when say that we might as well say that the wild grasses magically turned into edible wheats.

Actually, ancient wild wheat was not exactly inedible.

These statements you make cause me to wonder - do you ever try to find out a thing for yourself before you accept it as a fact?
Note:

Wild wheat has very small, slightly bitter tasting seeds, and it requires a lot of processing to make it edible. The tiny wild and larger domesticated wheat seeds are compared in this picture. Domestication occurs in the space of just a few years. The first selection (accidental) is that the seeds of the domesticated ae more firmly attached to the stalk. Then as people realise they can breed in changes, they select for bigger better tasting seeds, seeds that are easier to separate from their casings, and crops that have overall larger yields. So it’s easy to tell wild and domesticated races apart.

Source

Note that the first genetic selection mentioned above was accidental.
As people started to eat this stuff, they found that they could breed certain characteristics into it. Not through hybridization, but through selection.

However, the people mentioned above weren't eating any specialized wheat, they were eating wild wheat:

Even after processing (by grinding on stone) grain will still contain flakes of stone that will damage the teeth, as seen in the dental damage to the early Natufians before they learned how to sieve the flour. None of the grains found at Kubbaniya showed signs of domestication, so the grain was being harvested from wild stands with specialised microlith sickles. The people didn’t seem to live by the wheat as it grew, they spent the growing season at Esna, a site about ninety miles North, somewhat South of Luxor/Thebes, coming back for the harvest in January. This also supports a non-farming lifestyle, simply harvesting wild grain and not planting it.

SNIP

This population movement was probably quite ancient, the oldest Northern Natufian site is about 13,000 years old, and these people showed a lot of Eurasian ancestry

Same source. My emphasis.

In fact, these folks were still hunter-gatherers.

You'll try anything when you're starving.
I should note that this particular wheat is called "Emmer wheat" IIRC, and the truth is it was itself the result of a hybridization that took place at random around 30,000 years ago:

Two different species can't usually breed to produce hybrid offspring, because their chromosomes don't match and can't pair properly during the process that produces sex cells such as eggs and sperm. But sometimes a genetic blip can produce sex cells with double the normal number of chromosomes, side-stepping the problem. If two sex cells of this type combine, a whole new fertile species with double the number of chromosomes is produced.

This rare 'duplication followed by fertilization' event has happened twice in the history of modern, common wheat. Around 30,000 years ago, a wild wheat (Triticum monococcum) hybridized with a species of goat grass (Aegilops speltoides) to generate primitive wheat called emmer, which had four sets of chromosomes. Then about 9,000 years ago, emmer wheat grown south of the Caspian Sea crossed with another wild goat grass (Aegilops tauschii) to produce a plant with six sets of chromosomes.

Source

Note that the first source has people eating wheat thousands of years before this second hybridization occurred.

In fact, Asians were eating rice 15,000 years ago. I've never looked into it's domestication, however, so I couldn't say much about that.

Harte

Originally posted by undo
i have NEVER said the sumerian texts were referring to the sumerian gods as aliens...

I will admit, I was wrong.

But you are still a liar, Undo. You are continuing to claim that somehow we accuse anyone who even translates a fantastic story is a Sitchinite, and continuing to infer that somehow Kramer agrees with you.

We do not dispute there are fantastic tales in Sumerian mythology. What we disagree with is the interpretation.

reply to post by SaviorComplex


kramer agrees with me? no, i agree with kramer.
difference.

reply to post by Harte


perhaps the problem is that i don't discount one idea over another unless the text clearly indicates the case.

for example, the various interpretations (and that's all they really are -- guesses) about what the abzu was, tend to leave out huge pieces of related data, often in the same text, so the mundane explanation can be achieved.

the abzu has been called underground streams of water
natural springs
swampland
ritual bathing pools
water receptacles
and baptismal fonts.

now it CAN be all those since the apsu in solomon's temple was clearly related, but what are the chances the abzu was all those things initially? based on the texts, i'd say slim to none.

this is one of the reasons i agree with kramer's interpretation. the abzu is the abyss. it is not an underground stream unless they are trying to tell us the e.abzu was built in an underground river. that's just not what the texts indicate.