tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6145686535514494437.post4438078469552627194..comments2023-12-14T14:59:13.175+01:00Comments on Shadows in Eden: The Prophet and the GoddessHawkwoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07993700120131916459noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6145686535514494437.post-92006623650710888042016-04-06T10:26:54.936+02:002016-04-06T10:26:54.936+02:00Good news, David! I have clicked the comment secti...Good news, David! I have clicked the comment section and have no mysterious URLS appearing in my browser's history! Whew! I think you solved it. Great job! I'm so relieved.<br />Yes, remove these comments, and I'll probably get your links back up this week. Thanks to you, too.<br />Dia Sobin (Araqinta)https://www.blogger.com/profile/03398194511342193439noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6145686535514494437.post-36187204360284822552016-03-24T10:20:50.540+01:002016-03-24T10:20:50.540+01:00Dia, thank you for all which you say here, and I d...Dia, thank you for all which you say here, and I do understand! I think that one reason why I tackle these 'hard' subjects is because writing about them is a way for me to help myself come to terms with them. I was appalled when I read the news item mentioned in this post. The Quran has been sitting on my bookshelf for quite awhile without me actually reading it. So to write this post, to try and do things justice, I finally read it - and was shocked by the things I found there. <br /><br />Now, I personally know very decent and good Muslims. In fact, they are my near-neighbours in my street here. But I believe that good people are good, and bad people are bad, irrespective of the religion they might follow, even if they might credit that 'goodness' to their religious beliefs.<br /><br />Your description of Clive Barker's book goes to the heart of one of the main themes of this blog. It might or might not be what Barker intended, but I'm reading it as a metaphor: 'City of God' is of course the title of the book which Augustine wrote propounding his doctrine that original sin was actually carnal lust. Before Augustine original sin was simply taken to be disobedience to God, but it is Augustine's view which has prevailed.<br /><br />My own belief is that Christianity as it has come down to us is a distortion of what originally was intended - the monster 'bloated with power'' - (I explain all this in my post 'Why I write this Blog'). Christianity in its formative days also banished the goddess, the mystic feminine, which also is part of the metaphor. It banished Asherah, the consort of Jahweh (Jehovah), and even turned Mary Magdalene into a whore. But these forces are beyond human power to control, and push their way through in spite of what we might decide about them - hence what I say about the Islamic star and crescent in this post.<br /><br />Well, I seem to have vented here as well, so that makes two of us! ;)Hawkwoodhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07993700120131916459noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6145686535514494437.post-78764699950142633632016-03-23T19:49:34.175+01:002016-03-23T19:49:34.175+01:00David, David... you do realize you're upsettin...David, David... you do realize you're upsetting me with these posts? Oh well, I suppose a man dragging his mother into the streets and shooting her is no worse than little girls being mutilated at knife-point.<br /><br />There was a science fiction novel written by a man named Clive Barker a number of years ago, which I found very impressive at the time. It was entitled "Imajica". The part I remember the most was the description of the male God of Imagica, Hepexamendios; a vengeful, corrupt monster, bloated with power to immense size, until the "city of God" was actually the monster's hideously deformed body. In the end, Hepexamendios is destroyed by his own fire... and his own son, whose mother we learn the god had both raped and murdered.<br /><br />I've made a point of thumbing through the end of the novel, till I found these lines (Chapter 60, page 804):<br />"Behind Him, now, the fire. As it came Gentle (the son) thought he saw his mother's face in the blaze, shaped from ashes, her eyes and mouth wide as she returned to meet the God who'd raped, rejected, and finally murdered her.. A glimpse, no more, and then the fire was upon its maker, its judgement absolute."<br /><br />I think you know what I'm driving at... Thanks for letting me vent! ;-)<br />Dia Sobin (Araqinta)https://www.blogger.com/profile/03398194511342193439noreply@blogger.com