Posts about religion, skepticism, and how it fits into the scientific world.
Intro: Thank You So much for this platform I am so Grateful! I always wanted to write ✍🏾 a book. How far this goes for me depends on you. Thank you so much for your support. Namaste
Nyx is the Greek goddess of the night. She is one of the very first deities in Greek mythology. Her siblings are Gaia, Tartarus, Eros, and Erebus. Erebus is also her consort. There isn't much surviving mythology about her but it is very clear that she has immense power and beauty so much that even Zeus himself fears Nyx.
Zeus is the child of Chronos and Rhea, the king and Queen of the Titans, he's the brother of Poseidon and Hades, and Hera (yes his wife), Demeter and Hestia. His wife is Hera but he is not faithful at all. He has many children and is an all-father that rules the Greek pantheon. He is the god of lightning, sky, and thunder. He is also associated with Wisdom, awareness, war, authority, destiny, and power.
Cernunnos was a Gaelic horned god of the wild, beast, fertility, and prosperity. He is a very mysterious god, with not too many details known about him. His original mythology has been lost. He is originally found in ancient Gaul many gods are very similar to him including Pan from ancient Greece.
History is not just the evolution of technology; it is the evolution of thought - James Redfield, The Celestine Prophecy. Today, this evolution of thinking has created a Virtual Global Village, where we're beginning to view a centralized world. Or maybe we can say: development is returning to the source because it might all have started as one big village! Before I elucidate my point, let's go through a broader grouping of popular thought processes. As of now, we have four notable outlooks:
Hi, I'm Nathan, and I'm a recovering evangelical. It's been 12 years since my last quiet time. My childhood was spent in the church. Son of a Baptist minister. At church every Sunday morning, Sunday night, and Wednesday evening. Saved at six, baptized at seven, rededicated by the last night of summer camp in 8th grade. I ate the crackers, drank the grape juice, and knew the books of the Old Testament, New Testament, and page numbers for the greatest hits in the hymnal by memory.
Picture this, Hollywood 2012, a young girl named Jennifer is attending the 40th birthday party of her Jewish friend Mike. (Ok so I’m stealing a line from Golden Girls Sophia Petrillo.)
When people think of "pagan" or "magic", they often think of donning a ceremonial robe, waving a wooden wand carved with runes, and kneeling before an elaborate altar covered with statues, stones, and other magical bric-a-brac. What people fail to recognize is that the "magic" itself comes from personal connection and intention. No fancy costumes or tools are required for that.
Being apart of many facebook groups surrounding psychedelics, I've gotten to know common themes that emerge during peoples experiences. DMT, being one of the most powerful visual psychedelics, often immerses people into a realm outside of our own reality. Many people report encountering intelligent otherworldly beings often described as being, well, indescribable. Some people, however, describe what they believe to be encounters with extraterrestrials, Angel's, demons, gods and goddesses, as well as a slew of other "beings" including elves, insects, tricksters and so on. One of the most common experiences is a feeling of familiarity with the beings they encounter. Unfortunately people often also experience great discomfort during some of their encounters and a sense of "I shouldn't be here" as opposed to belonging. Whether these experiences are, as Carl Jung would suggest, archetypes of the collective unconscious, or true encounters with sentient beings outside of this realm of existence, is not what I came here to discuss. Instead, I am going to share my own encounters with the Jester "archetype" or "beings" over the course of the last couple of years.
I just saw a slideshow with a beautiful song tributed to a rather young looking man who was an Uncle to the person. He seemed like a great person to be around and I have no idea why he passed on. The tribute was beautiful. Last week I saw that a close family friend died. I searched through our mutual friends on Facebook to find out why but didn’t find the cause anywhere. It seemed to be a car wreck. From as far back as I can remember, my people in the Caribbean die from car accidents way too often. I don’t know about you but 2020 questioned my mortality on more than one occasion and I’ve concluded that there are worst things than death. Let me explain...
It is my understanding that organized religion is relative to whomever is relating to the idea. There are many people who do not identify with any religion, as there are people who devote their entire lives to the doctrines and morality of a religion, and of course everything in between. David Steindl-Rast proposed his idea of organized religion in a way that truly got me thinking about how I see it now, and how it has been a part of my life all along. He begins by explaining the roots, or the experience of mystical awareness, in order to illustrate how organized religions comes about. Steindl-Rast goes on to explain that it is in the moment we begin to make sense of our experiences that organized religion begins to sprout. “Moment by moment, as we experience this and that, our intellect keeps step; it interprets what we perceive. This is especially true when we have one of those deeply meaningful moments; our intellect swoops down upon that mystical experience and starts interpreting it” (Steindl-Rast 12).
What links the Ladybird, a versatile Norse goddess, her Roman counterpart, every woman in Germany and a Christmas office party ritual? Furthermore, what has all that to do with paraskavedekatriaphobia and the reason for setting fire to your socks on the roof of a skyscraper?