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English is a fascinating language, particularly in that most of our words come from other languages. While most words come from some sort of root words that have travelled from ancient languages to more modern lexicons, some come from myths and stories of gods and goddesses, particularly from stories from ancient Greece. Here are a few fascinating English words with roots dating back to stories of Zeus and his fellow gods.
If you’re familiar with Greek myths, then you’ll immediately recognize the name of the Titan who was forced to hold up the heavens after angering the Olympians. Even if you didn’t recognize his name from myth though, you certainly recognized the modern use of the term for a group of maps. The connection is logical, but it wasn’t used in the cartography until the sixteenth century.
Image Via Luis Miguel Bugallo Sánchez [Wikipedia]
These words may not seem to have much in common definition-wise, but there is a good reason they start with the same root –they are both related to time. Chronology deals with the way events happened over the course of time and chronic describes something that takes place over a long period of time. Wondering where we got these words? Well, they are all related to Chronos, the god of time.
Image Via Jorbasa [Flickr]
This is one of the more famous Greek stories-turned-words. In the ancient tales, Echo was a mountain nymph who talks excessively with her gorgeous voice. Her voice was so lovely that she would often distract Zeus’ wife Hera with her long and entertaining stories while Zeus would sneak away and make love with the other mountain nymphs. When Hera found out about Echo’s role in her husband’s activities, she punished her by taking away her ability to speak, except in repetition of the words of others.
There are many differing ends to the story, but in all of them, Echo eventually dies in some heartbreaking manner, leaving her voice to haunt the earth, where it can still be heard to this day.
Pirates
and file-sharers, rejoice! The Missionary
Church of Kopimism (just say it out loud) has been recognized as a
religion in Sweden:
Since 2010 a group of self-confessed pirates have tried to get their beliefs recognized as an official religion in Sweden. After their request was denied several times, the Church of Kopimism – which holds CTRL+C and CTRL+V as sacred symbols – is now approved by the authorities as an official religion. The Church hopes that its official status will remove the legal stigma that surrounds file-sharing.
All around the world file-sharers are being chased by anti-piracy outfits and the authorities, and the situation in Sweden is no different. While copyright holders are often quick to label file-sharers as pirates, there is a large group of people who actually consider copying to be a sacred act.
Philosophy student Isak Gerson is such a religious file-sharer, and in an attempt to protect his unique belief system he founded The Missionary Church of Kopimism in 2010. In the hope that they could help prevent persecution for their beliefs, the Church then filed a request to be officially accepted by the authorities.
After two failed attempts, where the Church was asked to formalize its way of praying or meditation, the authorities finally recognized the organization as an official religion. The Church’s founder is ecstatic about this news, and hopes that it will motivate more people to come forward as ‘Kopimists’.
Can I get "Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V, Amen?"
Calvinist preacher Roger Williams emigrated from England to the colonies with a wave of Puritans in 1630. He was fleeing religious strife, but found controversies in America as well -with the leaders of his own sect.
Williams did not differ with them on any point of theology. They shared the same faith, all worshiping the God of Calvin, seeing God in every facet of life and seeing man’s purpose as advancing the kingdom of God. But the colony’s leaders, both lay and clergy, firmly believed that the state must prevent error in religion. They believed that the success of the Massachusetts plantation depended upon it.
Williams believed that preventing error in religion was impossible, for it required people to interpret God’s law, and people would inevitably err. He therefore concluded that government must remove itself from anything that touched upon human beings’ relationship with God. A society built on the principles Massachusetts espoused would lead at best to hypocrisy, because forced worship, he wrote, “stincks in God’s nostrils.” At worst, such a society would lead to a foul corruption—not of the state, which was already corrupt, but of the church.
The philosophy Williams developed to deal with the struggle came to be called “the separation of church and state.” And although the concept is a part of what the United States is about, people have argued over what it really means ever since. Smithsonian has an extensive article on Roger Williams and his ideas. Link
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Today is Dia De Los Muertos, or Day of the Dead. It has nothing to do with Halloween, and very little to do with All Saints Day. Although the day is usually associated with Mexico, it is also celebrated in Guatemala, Brazil, Spain, and parts of the U.S.
Day of the Dead is a time for friends and family to come together to honor those who have passed away. The holiday dates back to the time of the Aztecs who celebrated a festival dedicated to the “Lady of the Dead.” Rituals of celebrating the deaths of ancestors have been observed by these civilizations for at least 3,000 years.
The festival that became the modern Day of the Dead fell in the ninth month of the Aztec calendar, about the beginning of August, and was celebrated for an entire month. In modern times, the celebration occurs on November 1 and 2 in connection with the Catholic holidays All Saints’ Day (Nov. 1) and All Souls’ Day (Nov. 2).
Read about the meaning and traditions of this holiday at IBTraveler. Link -via The Daily What
Now here’s a place Homer Simpson could really worship, the Wat Pa Maha Chedi Kaew Temple in Thailand. It’s made from over 1.5 million green Heineken and brown Chang beer bottles.
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Photo: Shutterstock
Researchers from the Northwestern University noticed there’s something strange about religion: it’s making people fatter.
We don’t recall any of the commandments saying "thou shall eat chocolate cake," but an unusual new study has found that people who regularly attend religious activities are 50 percent more likely to battle obesity by middle age.
God only knows why. The scientists sure don’t.
"We don’t know why frequent religious participation is associated with development of obesity," said Matthew Feinstein, the study’s lead investigator and a fourth-year student at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. "It’s possible that getting together once a week and associating good works and happiness with eating unhealthy foods could lead to the development of habits that are associated with greater body weight and obesity."
The study tracked nearly 2,500 men and women over 18 years. They filtered for age, race, sex, education, income and baseline body mass index. The last one’s important, because it shows that the religious were getting fatter, not that fat people were getting religious.
See also: Dear Lord, If You Can’t Make Me Skinny, Please Make My Friends Fat!
When I was working on my geeky cross stitch article, I happened to come across this amazing piece, but I couldn’t include it because it just wasn’t nerdy. Even so, I thought that you guys would appreciate this stunning rendition of the Sistine Chapel done in cross stitch. There’s more detail at the link.
Quick: do you think that the future will be more or less religious?
Robert Rowthorn, an emeritus professor of economics, likened religion as a gene (after all, you are most likely to "inherit" your parents’ religion) and came to an interesting conclusion:
Rowthorn’s model shows that, even when the religious defection rate is high, the overall high fertility rate of religious people will cause the religiosity allele to eventually predominate the global society. The model shows that the wide gap in fertility rates could have a significant genetic effect in just a few generations. The model predicts that the religious fraction of the population will eventually stabilize at less than 100%, and there will remain a possibly large percentage of secular individuals. But nearly all of the secular population will still carry the religious allele, since high defection rates will spread the religious allele to secular society when defectors have children with a secular partner. Overall, nearly all of the population will have a genetic predisposition toward religion, although some or many of these individuals will lead secular lives, Rowthorn concluded.
VIAGRA FOR YOUR AFTERLIFE
(Image credit: Flickr user sweart)
Packing for the hereafter just got easier. According to a Chinese tradition, when a person dies, mourners should burn replicas of household items so the deceased can enjoy these in the afterlife. The hope is that if the dead are appeased with burnt offerings, their ghosts will refrain from haunting the living. But like many traditions, this one has evolved to reflect the times. Today, it’s not uncommon to see mourners burning paper replicas of cars, laptops, credit cards, iPods, Louis Vuitton handbags, or even bottles of Viagra!
SPINNING INTO CONTROL
(Image credit: Flickr user Anton Kan)
For members of the Sufi Mawlawi order, pondering the nature of life can literally make your head spin. As part of the Sema ceremony, these “Whirling” Dervishes meditate by twirling in circles, an act that’s meant to bring them closer to Allah. But don’t mistake the spinning for carefree fun. In order to perform the centuries-old ritual, each dancer must undergo 1,001 days of training in seclusion during which they study music, poetry, and Sufi prayers. The clothing is also distinct; participants wear white gowns that flare out like poodle skirts, and they can twirl in ecstasy for hours.
more …
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You might think that modern America is losing ground on one of its founding principles: religious freedom. But the concept was never universal. Since the first settlers, people are all for the freedom of their own religion, but not so much for other people’s religions.
In newly independent America, there was a crazy quilt of state laws regarding religion. In Massachusetts, only Christians were allowed to hold public office, and Catholics were allowed to do so only after renouncing papal authority. In 1777, New York State’s constitution banned Catholics from public office (and would do so until 1806). In Maryland, Catholics had full civil rights, but Jews did not. Delaware required an oath affirming belief in the Trinity. Several states, including Massachusetts and South Carolina, had official, state-supported churches.
Smithsonian magazine looks at how religious intolerance reared its head over the course of American history. Link
(Image credit: The Granger Collection, New York)
Photo: English Russia
‘Fess up – who though that Gadget Hackwrench from the Disney TV series Chip ‘n Dale Rescue Rangers back in the early 90s, was adorable? Well, a group of Russian fans thought that the pilot, mechanic and inventor squirrel mouse (note: Apparently I’ve committed a sin! Thanks AlisonCJ!) was much more than that – so they’ve decided to created a new religion around her:
Well, believe it or not, a group of Russian fans of Gadget Hackwrench have created a new religion, with the above mentioned cartoon character as the idol. They pray to posters of her, gather to talk about how incredibly great she is, compose songs about her, and spread stickers of Miss Hackwrench, wherever they go. It’s pretty unbelievable, but if Maradona has his own cult, why couldn’t Gadget Hackwrench?
Here’s what some of her worshipers think of their rodent goddess: “She is the divine being, the most untouched and perfect sibling of the great God on Earth”. “Why I love her? It’s a stupid question, how could I not love the Goddess?”. “She is strict, cute, optimistic and her level of technical knowledge is unachievable for a mortal being.”
Oddity Central has more: Link | More at English Russia – via Now That’s Nifty
The undying devotion of fanboys to Apple is nothing new, but researchers have reframed Apple’s relationship to its consumers/fans into something else: religion.
There are scholars who study Apple’s consumers as religious devotees. Consumer behavior specialists Russell Belk of York University and Gulnur Tumbat of San Francisco State, even put together a framework for assessing Apple’s mystical mythology. The company
was built on four key myths, they argued.Here are the four narratives, as summarized by media scholar Texas A&M’s Heidi Campbell, who distilled their work for her May paper "How the iPhone became divine":
- a creation myth highlighting the counter-cultural origin and emergence of the Apple Mac as a transformative moment;
– a hero myth presenting the Mac and its founder Jobs as saving its users from the corporate domination of the PC world;
– a satanic myth that presents Bill Gates as the enemy of Mac loyalists;
– and, finally, a resurrection myth of Jobs returning to save the failing company…
Rene Descartes’ health may have been troubled, but his genius was completely intact. His survival led to an amazing perspective about why we are here, and the truth behind that notion.
Thus the whole of philosophy is like a tree. The roots are metaphysics, the trunk is physics, and the branches emerging from the trunk are all the other sciences, which may be reduced to three principal ones, namely medicine, mechanics and morals. By “morals” I understand the highest and most perfect moral system, which presupposes a complete knowledge of the other sciences and is the ultimate level of wisdom.
From the Upcoming 
ueue, submitted by lannaxe96.
Infographic: GOOD Magazine and Column Five
Does believing in God help make you wealthy? If so, can a particular religion make you wealthier than others? GOOD Magazine in collaboration with Column Five takes a look at America’s wealthiest religions:
It’s no secret that the distribution of wealth is inequitable in the United States across racial, regional, and socio-economic groups. But there is a distinct variance among and within America’s faiths as well. This transparency takes a look at the income levels of America’s major religious groups, as compared to the average U.S. income distribution.
Apparently, it’s good to be Hindu (43% earning more than $100,000) and Jewish (46%).
From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by jadalan.
In the February issue, National Geographic magazine takes a in-depth look at the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS), who still practice plural marriage. Pictured is the family of Joe Jessop, who has five wives, 46 children, and 239 grandchildren.
Members of the faith describe the life that the Jessops and other founding families have built as idyllic, one in which old-fashioned devotion and neighborly cooperation are emphasized and children are raised in a wholesome environment free of television and junk food and social pressures. Critics, on the other hand, see the FLDS as an isolated cult whose members, worn down by rigid social control, display a disturbing fealty to one man, the prophet Warren Jeffs—who has claimed to be God’s mouthpiece on Earth.
To spend time in Hildale and Colorado City is to come away with a more nuanced view. That view is revealed gradually, however, due to the insular nature of the community. Many of the oversize homes are tucked behind high walls, both to give children a safe place to play and to shield families from gawking Gentiles, as non-Mormons are known. Most residents avoid contact with strangers. National Geographic was given access to the community only on the approval of the church leadership, in consultation with the imprisoned Warren Jeffs.
(image credit: Stephanie Sinclair)
As Clark Kent, Superman was raised as a Methodist.
While growing up in Smallville, Kansas, Clark Kent attended Sunday church services at the local Methodist church with his mother, Martha Kent, every week until he was fourteen years old. These aspects of the character are not speculative, but are canonical – established by in-continuity published DC Comics.
Batman’s religiosity is a bit more complex:
…there is some disagreement among fans as well as among writers about whether the character is a mostly lapsed Catholic or a mostly lapsed Episcopalian. There is universal agreement that the character is not an active churchgoer in any faith.
The religious affiliation of hundreds of comic book characters and superheroes has been tabulated at Adherents.com. You can search through a list to find your favorites, or view them as groups. Pictured above, for example, is the Legion of Baptist Superheroes.
Link.
Everybody knows who Manson, Koresh, and Jones are. These are a few cult leaders that didn’t reach the same level in the media. But their behavior and actions were equally disturbing. Pictured is Wayne Bent (or Michael Travesser), who founded the Lord of our Righteousness Church.
Wayne, now calling himself Michael Travesser, decided that October 31, 2007 was a good day for the world to end and proceeded to relay that information to his congregation. There were stings attached, however, as he also told the congregation that God also told him that he needed to sleep with seven virgins before that happened.
Cult members offered up their daughters and Travesser obliged them by making sure God’s work was done. October 31 came and went. When the world continued to function, some cult members became disenchanted, left, and narc’d on their leader. He was arrested, tried, and convicted of criminal sexual contact with minors and was sentenced to 18 years in state prison.
From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by sish2000.
Earlier this year the Vatican issued a statement acknowledging that Darwin’s theory of evolution was compatible with Christian theology. Now the Vatican’s chief astronomer has postulated that extraterrestrial life is possible.
Writing in the Vatican newspaper, the astronomer, Father Gabriel Funes, said intelligent beings created by God could exist in outer space. Father Funes, director of the Vatican Observatory near Rome, is a respected scientist who collaborates with universities around the world. The search for forms of extraterrestrial life, he says, does not contradict belief in God.
Just as there are multiple forms of life on earth, so there could exist intelligent beings in outer space created by God. And some aliens could even be free from original sin, he speculates.
Link. The photo does not depict an alien free from original sin – just a random chestbusting alien.
Is
the belief in (or fear of, depending on your point of view) God necessary
to have a "good" society? What would a nation of atheists look
like? Would a godless country lead to lawlessness and immorality?
We actually don't have to wonder - there is a place where the great majority of people are not only not religious - they're can't even be bothered about the questions of faith, God, and life's meaning.
Sociologist Phil Zuckerman spent a year in Denmark and Sweden, the least
religious countries in the world and perhaps even in history, and interviewed
people about their religious beliefs (technically, the absence of such
beliefs). He published his findings last year (Oct 2008) in his book Society
without God: What the Least Religious Nations Can Tell Us About Contentment
TYWKIWDBI has some thought-provoking excerpts from the book:
Here's the premise of [Zuckerman's] book:
“First of all, I argue that society without God is not only possible, but can be quite civil and pleasant. This admittedly polemical aspect of my book is aimed primarily at countering the claims of certain outspoken, conservative Christians who regularly argue that a society without God would be hell on earth: rampant with immorality, full of evil, and teeming with depravity. Well, it isn’t. Denmark and Sweden are remarkably strong, safe, healthy, moral, and prosperous societies…”
He's careful not to extol the absence of religious belief as preferable for a society, while arguing strongly that when religious belief (or dogma) is absent, society can crank along just fine. Herewith some excerpts and some of my notes from the book -
p. 6 - “…their overall rates of violent crime – such as murder, aggravated assault, and rape – are among the lowest on earth. Yet the majority of Danes and Swedes do not believe that God is “up there,” keeping diligent tabs on their behavior… In fact, most Danes and Swedes don’t even believe in the very notion of “sin.” Almost nobody in Denmark and Sweden believes that the Bible is divine in origin. And the rate of weekly church attendance in these Nordic nations is the lowest on earth…” [...]
p. 10 – "When they say they are “Christian” they are just referring to a cultural heritage and history. When asked what it means to be Christian, they said 'being kind to others, taking care of the poor and sick, and being a good and moral person.' They almost never mentioned God, Jesus, or the Bible in their explanation of Christian identity. When I specifically asked these Nordic Christians if they believed that Jesus was the Son of God or the Messiah, they nearly always said no – usually without hesitation. Did they believe that Jesus was born of a virgin or that he rose from the grave? Such queries were usually met with genuine laughter – as through the mere asking was rather silly.”
I haven't read it, but will definitely put this fascinating book on the short list of must-reads this year: Link
Here's a fascinating interview with Phil Zuckerman about, amongs other things, the difference of being a religious Christian in America and a cultural Christian in Denmark and the rise of Islam because of the immigration from Africa:
Many religious cults are based on apocalypticism, the belief that the world is going to end. Check out ten such beliefs, their founders, and followers. One such cult is the Panacea Society.
In 1792, part-time fortune teller Joanna Southcott started collecting “divine revelations” and had them sealed in a box with strict instructions to open it only for Jesus. Her followers called themselves Southcottians and were mostly early-19th century Spiritualists. Southcott dramatically announced that she was pregnant with the messiah, Shiloh, whose birth would kill all but her followers. However, Southcott was a 64-year-old virgin who showed no signs of pregnancy. To Southcott’s credit, she began doubting her beliefs when she failed to give birth but died before she was able to do anything about it. The sudden power vacuum among the Southcottians brought out all sorts of leadership, all of whom claimed they could psychically communicate with Southcott’s box, and transformed the Southcottians into a bizarre cult that refused to bury Southcott’s corpse, believing that she would be resurrected. They renamed themselves the Panacea Society under the belief that they had healing powers, and still believe that Shiloh will descend from heaven to reboot the world at a later date.
There are nine other cults profiled at Ty.rannosaur.us. Link
In India, a newly discovered color-changing frog has been worshipped as a god. Reji Kumar, the person who found it, keeps the frog in a glass jar at his home where hundreds of people come to see it every day.
Apart from the obvious biological findings this hopping lava lamp can provide, it also gives an additional insight as to how religions and spiritual groups can emerge. I don’t blame them either. Who needs color-saturating hallucinogens for spiritual transcendence when you have a kaleidoscopic animal?
I say this new rainbow frog will become the new symbol for racial equality, just as long as it doesn’t croak (which is actually a concern).
The frog was a dazzling white colour when Reji, who is from Thiruvananthapuram, the capital of Kerala, in south India, first spotted it.
Then it changed to yellow and had gone grey by the time he got it home.
“By night the frog was dark yellow, and then it became transparent so you could see its internal organs,” Reji, a life worker, reportedly said.
From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by robkullberg.
History is consistently shaped by consensus, but consensus is usually formed through old-fashioned rough-and-tumble fist fights… the intellectual kind of course.
Anyone who studies history quickly discovers that ideas don’t come cheaply and they don’t win easily. There are almost always deep divides and passionate camps surrounding big ideas, and the ensuing battles are some of the most interesting artifacts of the past. Shown are Neils Bohr and Albert Einstein, who began a debate on quantum indeterminism.
The arguments revolved around what is known as the measurement problem and whether or not particles in the quantum state were really both wave and particle at the same time until measurements were made. Einstein wanted to insist that the apparent indeterminacy at the quantum level was just a (temporary) inability to measure certain properties, while Bohr maintained the impossibility of determining precise values of certain properties because at the quantum level the values were by nature uncertain.
From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by greeneagle.
Early March saw the annual spring Festival of Color, or Holi, in the Hindu world. If you are a clean freak, then Holi may not be for you. As part of the festival it is people’s religious duty to splatter, smatter and smother as many others as possible with colored paint and water. As religious festivals go, this is one of the messier.
If you live in a large, multi-ethnic city virtually anywhere in the world it is a possibility that in the last week you have seen groups of people in parks merrily spattering each other with paint. While you might be excused for thinking that it is a new form of corporate team building – and what a great one that would be – you would be wrong. The throwing of multi-colored water and powder is in fact the popular Hindu spring Festival of Colors, also known as Holi.
Link – via webphemera
From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by taliesyn30.
Every year, this crafter makes a new sock monkey. I love this one, it’s the Hindu goddess of the arts, Sarasvati.
