For Christians specifically but referenced similarly in virtually every religion, there are two Great Commandments in the New Testament. One is about loving your God and the other is about loving others. Insofar as they instruct humans, they are wise instructions. Written in Matthew some time before 99AD, the quote is:

Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”

Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

The mariner has pondered this quote ever since he was a young boy. There was something too neat, too overarching to be applicable to reality. It seemed too much like a plug-in. In recent decades, perhaps as long as a century, reality has pressed us with questions that seem not targeted on the wellbeing of humans but nevertheless incessantly grow more urgent.

The stories that supported the early Western religions, namely, Islam, Judaism, Christianity, and also Buddhism, are not capable of supporting today’s boundaries of knowledge. The stories do not reconcile the reality or the confrontation that 21st century humans face. Today’s Christian advocates, clinging to the old beliefs, look in disdain at the “non-believers.” They call them “secularists.” Indeed the era of change is upon us. So many scientific breakthroughs; so many industries and conveniences. Today, right now, medicine can change our genetic code to cure vulnerabilities. “Who,” the secularists ask, “needs Adam, Eve, Cain, Able, magic swords, brothers surviving in a fiery oven or a flying Son of God?”

No longer do the myths from two thousand years ago hold relevance. There was a time early in the last century when apologists attempted to validate the myths by reinterpreting them as figures of speech or story telling devices not intended to be literal. Still, the theology was laid bare without meaning.

That the church liturgy has lost much of its sacredness is only one cause of dwindling attendance at religious institutions. Perhaps more important is that modern society has not begun to replace the mythic values that underlie faith and commitment. Modern society may not be able to accomplish a new value structure for humanity for some time. The entire planet is at a crossroads. Frontiers of science and technology have ripped through the time lines that would have helped us transition across eras; we are thrust unprepared into an alien society. The tearing of cultural meaning can be seen in politics, where values are jumbled if not missing altogether. In some ways we have met the devil and he is us. We wander in rudderless ignorance as we destroy Earth’s environment and fail to repair the prejudices that lead to war, gluttony, and ecological destruction.

There is no way to escape prejudicial attitudes without a myth greater than ourselves – larger than our alien computer culture. Without a sanctified value that is permanently valued more than any earthly phenomenon, we will drift into extinction leaving behind a planet covered in human trash – unable to present a transcendent achievement for the path of evolution.

Run all religious faiths together through a homogenizing process and two principles are common: love and giving. Each of these principles, in their purity, prevents prejudice; each prevents judgment; each promotes holistic unity on the scale of the universe.

With introspection, one realizes that love and giving are rich in mythic origin. Reorganizing our understanding of evolution, where does love and giving fit in? In evolutionary terms, only recently has empathy emerged in mammals. Empathy for nursing and raising suckled young was a great leap forward in brain awareness. We often think of man’s development of abstract problem solving as the core mark of progress in evolution but the simple ability to empathize permits family awareness, sharing, and cultural understanding. Without communal empathy, humanity’s great achievements could not have been accomplished.

Using empathy as the measure of evolution’s key objective suggests there may be a future in human evolution for something similar to the “single soul” element of pantheism: “God” is the universe. Therefore, each human is a part of God. Perhaps the Islamic definition of soul as an interactive awareness between all living things including plants is the goal. Including similar ideas across philosophy implies indirectly that empathy may be spread across more than the mammalian branch of creation.

Has religion, with its empathetic two great commandments, been struggling to correct the misconception that intellectual problem solving and invention are the primary goal of evolution? Is the new myth for love and giving derived from the universe itself? Is oneness through empathy with all things the path to eventual transformation?

Rome captured the western world and dictated from that time the focus of the church, government, cultural progress and economics. Has the west been too concerned with the physical, combative models learned from the Romans? Is it time to look to another emphasis to guide us?

Let’s practice empathy. It may be more transformative than we think.

Ancient Mariner

There was enough curiosity about Cybele: What is it? Who is it? How do you say it? Why is it a holiday?…. The mariner decided to do an old fashioned treatise about Cybele as a way to cover all the questions. First information: Cybele is pronounced like the last two syllables in “possibly” with an added but diminished “uh” inbetween, SIB’uh lee.

There was a period of time from about 7500 BCE until 4000 BCE when human civilization began to show signs of organized thought, that is, something that looked like it may be perception beyond naturalism, perception beyond anthropomorphism. The first challenge to be answered was, “Where did all these people come from?” “How did they get here?” Without science, the only answers were myths.

The earliest religions evolved from these primitive myths to be followed by modern western religions that emerged from about 550 BCE until 500 CE. It is interesting to note how similar, even today, the rites, holidays, theologies, behaviors and celebrations continue.

Cybele ˈsɪbᵻliː/Sib’uh-lee /Phrygian_language “Phrygian Matarubileya/Kubeleya (“Kubeleyan Mother”, perhaps “Mountain Mother”). She is Phrygia’s only known goddess, and probably was its only state deity. Cybele represented nature, weather, seasons – all things environmental, including procreation.

In antiquity, c6000 BCE, Phrygia was a kingdom in the west central part of Anatolia, in what is now Turkey, centered on the Sakarya River. Phrygia was a region of Anatolia whose people spoke Phrygian. Its main cities included Ancyra and Gordium. Phrygia included the Troad, whose main city was Troy. The early Phrygians were fishermen; Phrygia gained prominence only after the 8th century BCE during the Hellenistic period, when the area was settled by Gallic Galatians and renamed Galatia.

Photograph. Seated Mother Goddess of Çatal Hüyük: the head is a restoration. The Seated Woman of Çatalhöyük (also Çatal Hüyük) is a baked-clay, nude female form, seated between feline-headed arm-rests. It is generally thought to depict a corpulent and fertile Mother Goddess in the process of giving birth. Cybele may have evolved from an Anatolian Mother Goddess of a type found at Çatalhöyük, dated to the 6th millennium BCE.

MYTH
According to myth, Cybele loved a shepherd named Attis. Because Attis was unfaithful, she drove him insane. Overcome by madness, Attis castrated himself and died. This drove Cybele into great mourning, and it introduced death into the natural world. But then Cybele restored Attis to life, an event that also brought the world of nature back to life.

Attis’s return to life took the form of his being changed into an evergreen tree – the basic idea underlying the myth is the annual vegetation cycle in spring when nature comes to life. Eventually, the Attis myth became an annual event in which worshipers shared in Attis’s “immortality.” Each spring the followers of Cybele would mourn for the dead Attis in acts of fasting and flagellation. By 300 CE, the Romans had Romanized Cybele, now mother of all gods, into a lavish celebration of eating and merriment (Does the reader recognize the word ‘celebration, celebrity’ from the Latin ‘celebrare’ or the name Sybyl, varients: Sybil, Cybil, Sibil; Sybella from Greek Sibulla”Σιβυλλα (Sibylla), meaning “prophetess”? And ‘sibling’ – archaic ‘god sibling’ transforming to Goddaughter and Godson?)

FESTIVALS AND CULTS

Festivals and cults in this document are limited to common practices in order to shorten the document and to clarify relationships to other modern practices. Christian similarities are noted. Throughout early centuries, Cybele was a Goddess in Anatopia (sixth century BCE) and was adopted by Phrygia and Greece (sixth century BCE), and Rome (218 to 201 BCE when Rome officially adopted her cult during the Second Punic War after dire prodigies, including a meteor shower, a failed harvest and famine seemed to warn of Rome’s imminent defeat).

In Greece, as in Phrygia, she was a “Mistress of animals” with her mastery of the natural world expressed by the lions that flank her, sit in her lap or draw her chariot. After a short period of time in Rome, Cybele’s origin was reinterpreted as Magna Mater (“Great Mother”). The Roman State adopted and developed a particular form of her cult after the sibyline oracle recommended her conscription as a key religious component in Rome’s second war against Carthage. Cybele’s Roman mythographers reinvented her as a Trojan goddess, and thus an ancestral goddess of the Roman people by way of the Trojan prince Aeneas. With Rome’s eventual hegemony over the Mediterranean world, Romanized forms of Cybele’s role spread throughout the Roman Empire. Cybele’s special holiday was Megalisia.

Photograph. Cybele enthroned, with lion, cornucopia and Mural crown. Roman marble, c. 50 CE.

The role of Cybele exists today, especially in the Holy Roman Catholic Church, as Mary, Mother of God. In particular the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and Eastern Catholic Church, Mary plays a more active role in liturgy. Its literal English translations include “God-bearer”, “Birth-Giver of God” and “the one who gives birth to God.” Less accurate translations include the primarily Western title “Mother of God” (Latin: Mater Dei). One of the more serious debates at the Nicene Council in 325 CE was whether God was the ultimate creator (as in definitions of the Trinity) or, because God and Jesus were of one spirit and Jesus was of human form, it follows that a human had to create God (Greek term: Theotókos.) The Trinity interpretation prevailed. The mariner speculates that at the Nicene Council, Christianity became a wholly paternalistic religion. From the book by Alice Lucy Trent: “….overwhelming historical evidence that the world’s earliest civilizations (covering the vast majority of earth’s history) were feminine in orientation, religious, social, and political.” Just as with the Roman Empire, Cybele was reduced in power from creating all things to one of significant recognition as Mother of Gods but not as the creator of all things. Until the Nicene Conference, Mary, AKA Cybele, had a role similar to the Iroquois Confederacy (American Indian’s creator Mother Earth plus female dominance in daily culture); in Sumatra, Minangkabau view women as the foundation of life and, therefore, the foundation of the entire social order.

[[ Cybele can be considered an influence on both the Old Testament and the New Testament and seasonal Christian rituals because Roman versions of rituals, including Cybele’s, were practiced in the Middle East at the same time that early New Testament documents were written. Further, on his second visit, around 50 CE, Paul spent three years proselytizing in Antioch and other large cities. It was in Antioch that the term “Christian” is used for the first time.

It may be serendipitous to the future of Christianity that Greeks, Jews, and Assyrian Semites – who still reflected Anatolian culture – had large populations in western Turkey and southern Greece during the Roman Empire; Rome contributed a common government and a common cultural perspective and a governance model referencing citizens, senators, Trumpian emperors and employed illegal immigrants also known as slaves. The Roman style of government still dominates the western world; the mix of common ancient mythologies, Indo-European language, familiarity with rituals about Greek and Roman gods, Judaism – all of which evolved from Anatolian culture – virtually mandated that Christianity would move to the west and reflect similar celebratory styles. The Holy Roman Catholic Church still reflects a mythological model similar to the Pantheon.

One can’t help but find similarities across the centuries. For example, the introduction of death by Cybele and eating the forbidden fruit in Genisus 3; mourn for the dead Attis in acts of fasting and flagellation around Easter dates AKA asking forgiveness and rebirth and the season of Lent; the celebration of spring through all the ages has been present in some form from early Antonian castrations to Roman high-dollar orgies; the female role of creating life and managing nature is similar to the Iroquois Confederacy that was not on the path of religion in the Middle East; the strong gravitation throughout of celebrating the seasons by associating them with early myths; finally, the similar requirement between Judism (Moses) Islam, (Mohammed), Christianity (Jesus), and Buddhism (Siddhārtha Gautama), to have an intermediary between man and God ]]

Looking back in the abstract, Cybele was the most influential “person” in Assyria, Greece, the Hittite Empire, Israel and intermediaries who lived on a truly fertile crescent. It is the same geography where humans first invented economic farming; it is the same geography and culture that produced Jesus, Mohammed and not far away, Buddha. Only a friendly, quite abundant Mother Nature would give Homo sapiens the time and energy to create a new iron age, farming, and three new religions.
Thanks to Cybele.

Location of Phrygia, Anatolia, Greece.

Ancient Mariner

Theodicy is a philosophy organized and documented by Saint Augustine of Hippo (354-430CE). Theodicy addresses specifically the question: “If God is good, loves all things and created all things, why is there evil in the world? Either God also created evil and therefore is not good and loving, or God does not exist.” Theodicy is a defense of God’s perfection in light of the existence of evil.

The question itself was asked as early as Plato and was posited as a reason for nominalism[1] by William of Occam, famous for Occam’s Razor. Bertram Russell, a famous British agnostic, mathematical theorist and inquisitor at large, presented the following thought experiment in an article titled, “Is there a God?”

“If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes.

But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is an intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense.

If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time.”

“The existence of this teapot cannot be disproved. We can look and scan the skies almost for eternity, and it may always just be the case that it wasn’t in the place we looked – there may be another spot we’ve overlooked, or it may have moved while we were looking. However, given the absurd nature of the specific example, the teapot, we would rightly infer that absence of evidence is evidence of absence. Russell’s audacity in the thought experiment was to question why people don’t like to apply the same, sound, logic … to the existence of any particular deity; there is no difference in the evidence base provided, therefore there is no reason to assume a God and not a celestial teapot.[2]

Theodicy addresses these logical challenges to deism – the belief in a supreme god. Saint Augustine, simply, said that God is perfectly good. It was God who created the world and the universe out of nothing and that evil is a byproduct of humanity’s sin. Evil is the punishment for original sin[3]. Augustine states that continued sin is created by human free will, an attribute made possible by eating fruit from the tree of knowledge. God remains whole and not responsible for sin and suffering.

• – – –

During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, secularism[4] emerged as a broadly accepted philosophy. Secularism is different than agnostic or atheistic philosophies which require, more or less, theistic presumptions. Secularism has ethics derived from humanism, pragmatism, and anthropological reasoning. Secularism is a self-contained life experience where the existence or non-existence of God does not matter.

Augustine (and many other theologians) would consider secularism sin. In religious context, God is the source of goodness and love – elements that are not necessary in secularism. Secularism is founded in vanity and self aggrandizement. The original question about the existence of God is replaced by the question, “What is good?” Humans tend to answer this question in terms of convenience and privilege for the self, the community or the nation – whatever works best – especially for the individual.

It is obvious already that great questions confront humanity in the twenty-first century. Human culture is yanked back and forth by new technologies, new scientific frontiers, abuse of the planet, power shifts in national supremacy, and even the existence of humanity itself. Some will argue that only secularism will allow the best decisions to be made in the future; others will argue that, despite the vagaries of the future, the belief in a superior force – one that predefines what is good – is our only rudder.

We shall see.

Ancient Mariner

1. [1] Oxford Dictionary: “the doctrine that universals or general ideas are mere names without any corresponding reality, and that only particular objects exist; properties, numbers, and sets are thought of as merely features of the way of considering the things that exist. Important in medieval scholastic thought, nominalism is associated particularly with William of Occam. Often contrasted with realism.

[2]See: http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Russell’s_Teapot

[3] Old Testament, Genesis 3.

[4] Merriam –Webster Secularism: indifference to or rejection of religion and religious considerations.

The mariner has often commented that the comic strips are the most important part of the newspaper; he reads them first. Often, whether the reader is aware or not, an underlying reflection is triggered in the brain – evading every protective or judgmental barrier – to provoke contemplation.

Mariner has written many articles and posts that often put him at odds with his local congregation and friends. Often, it is the mariner’s use of the term “pew Christians.” It is a term implying that the Lord’s work is needed away from the pew. The term also signifies that the Church doctrine has displaced personal commitment to the works of Jesus with the priorities of managing a building, budget and charitable giving.

The mariner accepts the cultural forces that focus on the physical and personal experience provided by ecclesiastical practices; we all need rejuvenation and the role of the church as a focus on moral and spiritual behavior. But…Jesus never had a church, to oversimplify.

The mariner was provoked to write this post by a comic strip:

Very few pew Christians are comfortable focusing their faith and works out in the community – especially engaging personally with those in need. Many parishioners belong to their church first to have fellowship and second to feel that they are responsible citizens supporting a higher calling. The idea that the parishioners are called by Jesus to be among the needy, the morally lost, and the forgotten, is not a requisite. Charitable giving from a distance is acceptable but no ‘feelings,’ please – just gifts.

One need not be a biblical scholar; the two great commandments cover the subject. God does not find the parishioner – the parishioner must find God and love that relationship ‘with all one’s heart, mind, and strength.’ Further, the parishioner cannot practice elitism, vanity, prejudice or pride. It has always been difficult to be a Christian.

In this era of significant change to culture, politics, economics, and religion, the local church is under great pressure to modify its practices. There is a barrier to changing the ecclesiastical paradigm; the pew-based worship of the Trinity is the way it has always been. Whole generations have grown up and passed on who were committed to the local church and its role in the sacraments. The fellowship and gratification of belonging still is an important role for the church and will always be so. But it is time to change the manner in which church-goers execute their commitment to the Trinity.

W. Edwards Deming, a renowned economist and an influential writer about change in business and any organization undergoing change, said that a paradigm shift (changing the model of practice) cannot be created within the old paradigm. It requires a new energy, a different approach, and different priorities – to which the old paradigm is incapable of morphing. History has proven Deming correct. This does not bode well for pew-based churches.

The American culture – politics and all – is moving toward a populist ethic. This transition is brought about by the disruption of oligarchic practices which interfere with the ‘American Dream,’ a concept based on the fairness that everyone’s vote is equal, that anyone can be President, and that the profits of the nation are distributed fairly. This means that every institution and organization must move toward populist ethics. For the Christian Church, this means that prejudice, pride, exclusivity, and social obligation, are under pressure to provide a Christian role based on the public, not the pew.

The mariner has had personal experience wrestling with the shifting culture versus ecclesiastical practices that go back hundreds of years. Deming is right: there is no vision for future community-based priorities. Whatever changes are possible, those changes must accommodate the pew model. Somewhere in the community, new parishioners will forge a new role for congregations. In the meantime, pew-based churches face hard times during the transition. The public wants ‘feelings,’ not ritual.

Ancient Mariner