Timeo Christianos, et dona ferentes...
Jan. 24th, 2004 09:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
I'm currently rereading Virgil's Aeneid, and I've gotta say, I never realized it was as... blatantly political as I'm now finding it, but that may just be due to Fred's influence. There's an entire stanza in the first book devoted to the greatness and perpetuity of the Roman empire, and Rome (from the point of view of the characters in the poem, at least) hasn't even been founded yet. Gotta love those self-fulfilling prophecies. Virgil certainly knew what his clients wanted, I'll say that for him. Propaganda or not, though, it's still a great poem.
I find myself wondering: I grant that the ancient Israelites created an absolutely bang-up divinity, one so amorphous and self-referential that he's virtually unchallengeable (and we're still dealing with the fallout 3000+ years later. Fuckers.) So why, then, couldn't they have bothered to come up with some cool stories to teach their god's lessons, instead of the almost entirely boring collection of navel-gazery known as the Bible? No plot, no personalities, no dramatic tension... and the parentals wonder why I hate church. All monotheistic religions, as far as I can tell, are soul-crushing, joyless exercises in pointless asceticism. The pagans had the right idea... religion as human nature. But, I guess that kind of faith doesn't attract enough wacko zealots willing to go out and slaughter infidels for Jesus (or Allah, or Yahweh, or whom-the-fuck-ever).
Sometimes I despair of progress.
And, just as a side note, this song is actually making me want to be somewhere sunny and warm. I think the ice machine in hell got stuck in the "on" position or something.
I find myself wondering: I grant that the ancient Israelites created an absolutely bang-up divinity, one so amorphous and self-referential that he's virtually unchallengeable (and we're still dealing with the fallout 3000+ years later. Fuckers.) So why, then, couldn't they have bothered to come up with some cool stories to teach their god's lessons, instead of the almost entirely boring collection of navel-gazery known as the Bible? No plot, no personalities, no dramatic tension... and the parentals wonder why I hate church. All monotheistic religions, as far as I can tell, are soul-crushing, joyless exercises in pointless asceticism. The pagans had the right idea... religion as human nature. But, I guess that kind of faith doesn't attract enough wacko zealots willing to go out and slaughter infidels for Jesus (or Allah, or Yahweh, or whom-the-fuck-ever).
Sometimes I despair of progress.
And, just as a side note, this song is actually making me want to be somewhere sunny and warm. I think the ice machine in hell got stuck in the "on" position or something.