Mclaren-ionian: Difference between revisions

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It was in Ionia, as A. R. Burn points out, that the Iron Age first ended and the Bronze Age first began. The Ionians reigned as the experimental scientists par excellence of the ancient world. For them, the evidence of the senses was paramount—truth could be found only by studying the world as it is. Anaximander, the first to propound that life began in the oceans and that men were descended from fishes, was an Ionian; also Anaximenes, who contended that air was the primal constituent of matter. "Had he said 'dissociated hydrogen gas,'" as Erwin Schroedinger pointed out, "he would not be far from our present view." Xenophanes was an Ionian, and the first to make recorded observations of marine fossils, and to give a correct explanation of them; also Demokritos, the originator of the atomic theory of matter. The Ionians single-handedly began the sciences of geology, hydraulics, chemistry, biology, botany, palæontology.

The Athenians distrusted the senses. They held that truth could be found only by relinquishing the senses entirely in favor of pure reason: to Plato and Pythagoras (a native of Abdera—but his greatest exponents were Athenians) and Philolaus, "truth could only be found in number." In fact, this conflict twixt sight/sound/taste/touch/smell and pure intellect goes back much farther than the Greeks. It can be viewed as the modern incarnation of the eternal religious schism twixt earth goddesses and sky gods, a schism that reaches back into prehistory and beyond.

The Athenians distrusted the senses. They held that truth could be found only by relinquishing the senses entirely in favor of pure reason: to Plato and [[Pythagoras of Samos|Pythagoras]] (a native of Abdera—but his greatest exponents were Athenians) and Philolaus, "truth could only be found in number." In fact, this conflict twixt sight/sound/taste/touch/smell and pure intellect goes back much farther than the Greeks. It can be viewed as the modern incarnation of the eternal religious schism twixt earth goddesses and sky gods, a schism that reaches back into prehistory and beyond.

Historically, the sky gods (Jehovah, Zeus, Mithras, Odin, Tirawa, Byamee, Rango, Xiuhtecuhtli) reside unreachably far away—these unearthly deities are typically ascetic, intellectual, remote: they stand for power, order, rationality, discipline—but also for the freedom that comes from self-discipline. Religions which worship sky gods usually espouse submission, authority, strict hierarchy, order on heaven and earth, "cleanliness is next to godliness." The earth goddesses (Isis, Ishtar, Demeter, Gaea, Cybele, Kali Ma, Coatlicue) dwell under or in the soil, omnipresent. Earth goddesses embody the sensual, the voluptuary, the rhapsodic, the violent, the abandoned, the unpredictable—they stand for excess, riot, incorrigibility, wild Bacchic frenzy, the epiphany of the unconscious, the primal howl of ecstasy—but also for wisdom and the knowledge gained through abandonment to the senses. Religions which worship earth goddesses espouse fertility, fecundity, creation, the boiling-up of order out of chaos, and they are invariably mystery religions. The ancient Eleusinian Mysteries of the Greek 5th century B.C. (whose initiation rites were kept secret) were, in all probability, mystery-theater rituals involving hallucinogens, sex, and music...the classical primal incarnation of "sex, drugs n' rock and roll." (The modern mosh pit and the contemporary stadium rock concert are modern Eleusinian Mysteries—no laws will ever stop people who attend these things from taking drugs or having wild sex because that's the whole point.) By contrast, the initiations of the sky god religions typically involve pain, endurance, suffering, discipline and the memorization of canonic celestial law. (The modern equivalent is the bar exam and the Ph. D. oral examination—that last, a telling Freudian allusion which betrays the Greek homoerotic origin of the rite).

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 It was in Ionia, as A. R. Burn points out, that the Iron Age first ended and the Bronze Age first began. The Ionians reigned as the experimental scientists par excellence of the ancient world. For them, the evidence of the senses was paramount—truth could be found only by studying the world as it is. Anaximander, the first to propound that life began in the oceans and that men were descended from fishes, was an Ionian; also Anaximenes, who contended that air was the primal constituent of matter. "Had he said 'dissociated hydrogen gas,'" as Erwin Schroedinger pointed out, "he would not be far from our present view." Xenophanes was an Ionian, and the first to make recorded observations of marine fossils, and to give a correct explanation of them; also Demokritos, the originator of the atomic theory of matter. The Ionians single-handedly began the sciences of geology, hydraulics, chemistry, biology, botany, palæontology.
-The Athenians distrusted the senses. They held that truth could be found only by relinquishing the senses entirely in favor of pure reason: to Plato and Pythagoras (a native of Abdera—but his greatest exponents were Athenians) and Philolaus, "truth could only be found in number." In fact, this conflict twixt sight/sound/taste/touch/smell and pure intellect goes back much farther than the Greeks. It can be viewed as the modern incarnation of the eternal religious schism twixt earth goddesses and sky gods, a schism that reaches back into prehistory and beyond.
+The Athenians distrusted the senses. They held that truth could be found only by relinquishing the senses entirely in favor of pure reason: to Plato and [[Pythagoras of Samos|Pythagoras]] (a native of Abdera—but his greatest exponents were Athenians) and Philolaus, "truth could only be found in number." In fact, this conflict twixt sight/sound/taste/touch/smell and pure intellect goes back much farther than the Greeks. It can be viewed as the modern incarnation of the eternal religious schism twixt earth goddesses and sky gods, a schism that reaches back into prehistory and beyond.
 Historically, the sky gods (Jehovah, Zeus, Mithras, Odin, Tirawa, Byamee, Rango, Xiuhtecuhtli) reside unreachably far away—these unearthly deities are typically ascetic, intellectual, remote: they stand for power, order, rationality, discipline—but also for the freedom that comes from self-discipline. Religions which worship sky gods usually espouse submission, authority, strict hierarchy, order on heaven and earth, "cleanliness is next to godliness." The earth goddesses (Isis, Ishtar, Demeter, Gaea, Cybele, Kali Ma, Coatlicue) dwell under or in the soil, omnipresent. Earth goddesses embody the sensual, the voluptuary, the rhapsodic, the violent, the abandoned, the unpredictable—they stand for excess, riot, incorrigibility, wild Bacchic frenzy, the epiphany of the unconscious, the primal howl of ecstasy—but also for wisdom and the knowledge gained through abandonment to the senses. Religions which worship earth goddesses espouse fertility, fecundity, creation, the boiling-up of order out of chaos, and they are invariably mystery religions. The ancient Eleusinian Mysteries of the Greek 5th century B.C. (whose initiation rites were kept secret) were, in all probability, mystery-theater rituals involving hallucinogens, sex, and music...the classical primal incarnation of "sex, drugs n' rock and roll." (The modern mosh pit and the contemporary stadium rock concert are modern Eleusinian Mysteries—no laws will ever stop people who attend these things from taking drugs or having wild sex because that's the whole point.) By contrast, the initiations of the sky god religions typically involve pain, endurance, suffering, discipline and the memorization of canonic celestial law. (The modern equivalent is the bar exam and the Ph. D. oral examination—that last, a telling Freudian allusion which betrays the Greek homoerotic origin of the rite).