The Clash of the Titans in Greek mythology

Nygdan,

quote: believe the planets changed their positions as well during this time
?
How would this happen? You are familiar with Velikovsky no?

I think lostinspace is more likely refering to EPH theory on this one. The EPH theory which goes on about how the asteroid belt as well as most moons / planetoids / rings etc. in the solar system origionated from a planet that was between Mars and Jupiter that was destroyed millions of years ago. The destruction of this planet caused a major disruption to the orbital paths of the inner planets (including Earth). This disruption thus gave rise to many of ancient religions such as the ones in Egypt and Mesopotonomia.
www.world-mysteries.com...

Most scientists have of course discounted this theory but there is still a great many proponents that support it.

Originally posted by Amethyst
I have a copy of Alexander Hislop's "The Two Babylons," where he demonstrates how, in turn, Catholicism is based on that same religion. That is a good book to read, and it was written in the mid-19th century.

I also have that book. My late step father obtained the book long ago and now I have it in my collection of books. It's very interesting. I've flipped through a few pages and read a few portions. I need to read it from cover to cover. A Catholic would definitely have no love for this book.

It's very interesting how he shows how ancient the Cross was and that many the Pagans used it in their form of worship. The Mesoamerican used it before the arival of the Europeans. The Babylonian Messiah, Bacchus is decorated with a head-band covered with Crosses. If memory serves me right, I think Quetzalcoatl (the Aztec god) is shown with a cloak covered with crosses.
Enough said here. I need to collect interesting material on the Titans of Greek mythology.

Terrible movie (save for the Ray Harryhausen effects) but an interesting topic. There are a lot of misconceptions and misinterpretations being bandied about here from people on all side of the topic. I wish I could somehow get an oath from the users of these boards to not speak in absolutes about topics which we only have fragments of information about. While you may think this makes your arguments sound more valid because you're speaking "authoritatively" it actually weakens your viewpoint because what you are doing is lying. We have retained next to nothing of the ancient Greek knowledge and all we can do is glean what we can from what we have and what we will discover in the future. Don't shut people down because they have a new or different concept about something that no one has the full answer on.

It is recognized that the Indo-European languages all share a common origin. Obviously if elements of language are being transmitted over vast geographic areas over long periods of time then elements of culture are going to be passed along as well and this certainly includes characters and legends from folklores and mythologies. Language and stories told in the language are inseparable.

Indo-European Languages

Proto-Indo-European Religion

Here's a good article regarding the Indo-European origins of Greek mythology:

Ancient "Sources" for Greek Myths

Actually, I'm prepared to say that there is one absolute at play behind all of these mythological comparabilities, and that all of you are missing it. It's astronomy. The stories themselves reveal this if we are able to separate our cultural biases from our reading of them, something that is excessively hard to do when one is dealing with translations of translations of fragments of a particular written narrative of a far older oral tradition.

As I have already pointed out to at least one of the individuals posting on this thread, the term Titans translates as the Straining Gods. The etymology of this can be found here:

Titans

The significance of this is great but the subject is complex. I'm linking to a thread of my own that discusses some of these matters in great detail. I urge you to take the time to read this thread if you are truly interested in the subject of comparative mythology:

Ragnarok as Celestial Allegory

Nygdan, we've had this discussion before, but your Campbell take on the relationships
of generations of deities to cultural transitions is limited. These myths do speak of these things, but in what direction does the allegory go? Would something that everyone was personally experiencing, the tensions of converting from an old cultural paradigm to a new one, need to be described in mythological terms? isn't it just as or more likely that these familiar conflicts were utilized to describe phenomena that were not readily or easily understood through personal experience? The same holds true of the many seasonal features found in mythologies. Obviously the story of Demeter, Persephone and Hades is an allegory of winter, but did Homo sapiens of any time period really need winter explained to them? Or could it be that the observable and experienced cyclical event of winter is being utilized as an allegory to describe relative celestial positions over long periods of time? Which to you sounds more like an abstract concept requiring poetic language to describe it?

Anu and Ouranos/Uranus are parallel figures in many ways. This does not mean that we should expect these figures to display exactly the same characteristics, relationships, etc. Think about the names of the week, named after the seven "planets" of observable astronomy, and as everyone should know, in English derived from the Norse/Germanic pantheon. In Latin the seven days are Dies Solis (Sunday, the sun), Dies Lunae (Monday, the moon), Dies Martis (Tuesday, Mars and the Norse Tyr, both war and clear sky gods), Dies Mercurii (Wednesday, Mercury and Woden/Odin, both wisdom gods), Dies Jovis (Thursday, Jupiter and Thor, both storm gods), Dies Veneris (Friday, for Venus and Freya, both love and fertility goddesses), Dies Saturni (for Saturn, the god of time, the highest measurer. Interesting that Saturn's day is the same as the Sabbath of Yahweh).

Origin of the Seven-Day Week

An interesting point made by the above link:

It is interesting to note that these exact same solar system objects, and in the same sequence, were also used to name days in ancient India, Tibet and Burma. This is also true of names for Japanese days of the week, but the custom there has been traced back only a thousand years.

There's an alternate explanation for how the same heavenly objects came to be used to name days of the week in their present order. It assumes that the sequence of hours dedicated to these sky gods resulted from the length of their orbital periods in Earth-days. But this would have required using Earth's year in place of a value for the Sun, and lunation's instead of the Moon's yearly period. It also requires "planetary leaps," skipping two planets at a time when assigning day names, all very improbable procedures.

I make this digression to point out how the figure representing Mercury, usually a son of the Thunder God as is the case with mercury/Hermes, has the parent child reltionship reversed in the Norse tradition, with Odin the father and Thor the son. The characteristics of the figures are all strikingly similar but various details should be expected to vary. Spotting a detail that doesn't match in no way serves as evidance that a comparison is invalid.

So here's some more Anu info:

Anu

Particularly interesting is:

In Hurrian mythology, Anu was the progenitor of all gods. His son Kumarbi bit off his genitals and spat out three deities, one of whom, Teshub, later deposed Kumarbi.

Sound familiar? As demonstrated in my Ragnarok thread, the castration of Uranus by Chronos/Saturn may refer to the "event" that created the tilt of the Earth's axis, creating measurable time. There is controversy regarding Cronus/Saturn and Chronos time, but it is perfectly sensible to associate this figure with time. As the outer most observable planet Saturn becomes the master measurer.

To me, claiming these commonalties between world pantheons, including the ATS incessant and shortsighted claim that all the World-Flood legends came from local observations of floods, as products of parallel evolution is rather naive. I understand parallel evolution as a biological phenomenon that occurs over vast periods of time to develop adaptations that facilitate survival and reproduction. It's a mistake though to too broadly apply Darwinian principles to cultural matters, especially because any notion of cultural development as an evolutionary process is an utterly ethnocentric chimera. Of course there are going to be some cultural elements that occur in reaction to similar stimuli, but to contend that the bulk of mythological parallels is due to this potentiality is absurd and dependent on a belief of incredible coincidences.

I'm so curious about everything you all have been saying. i am no expert on any of these topics. rather i am a curious person seeking information. i agree with the advice for no one here to be so adament on the absolute correctness of their views/ opinions/ interpretations/ inferences. if not but for this reasn only, peoplel like me enter searches into google and pull up pages like this one in order to learn a little more. and now all of you have simply made it even more difficult for me to understand. anyone know of a place that i can learn about these subjects without the debate-style of presentation????

kalibos is not athena's mother