The Cauldron: A Pagan Forum

...I literally don't understand why you think that settlement aided by agriculture inherently encourages competition over cooperation because being able to settle and farm actually opens up a lot more time for you to get know your neighbors and form communities that can provide a form of stability to one's life that would also encourage other artistic pursuits and cultural exchange. I would think roving bands of hunter gatherers would be more likely to feel like they were in competition with other bands whereas a community of farmers would be able to stockpile their food and feel less threatened by other groups of people because they had a surplus, and as a result may actually be more welcoming of strangers as they are less of a threat.

I think it's entirely possible to have a egalitarian society that is based on agriculture tbh.

I'm just now reading a book that discusses this sort of thing: Paleofantasy by Marlene Zuk. I'm not all the way through yet and it spends more time discussing Paleo lifestyle fads and evo psych, but at one point there is mentioned a study on causes of death in the archaeological record. Apparently the ratio of death by weapons (ie violence between humans) was very high in prehistoric times.

The study in question (which I'm referring to at third hand here, so pass the salt) suggested that simply living in larger groups, as made possible with agriculture, would favor people with more cooperative natures within the group, which would then lead to less violence between groups. Not sure if I support this hypothesis myself, but it seems plausible.

I think I also mentioned Hera is a previous post, and I have similar issues with her as a goddess of marriage. While I acknowledge that this is a significant aspect of her historical worship, it's something I struggle with, as marriage is a patriarchal institution in which women are treated like property. I personally prefer to see her as a goddess of women, and females of all creatures, as well as the female reproductive powers in nature. It's my preference, I'm not saying I have the true Gospel when it comes to the Hellenic goddesses.

Well, the purpose of marriage as an institution is to produce legitimate children in the father's lineage in societies that use a system of patrilineal descent. Once again, I'm not an expert, but as far as I know, societies that use a matrilineal system of descent, in which lineage is traced through the mother, the concept of marriage is pretty irrelevant. The brother of the mother is the male guardian of the children, not the biological father, and the women can take whatever lovers they choose.

I thought I said several times that I was talking about my own understanding and the way I personally approach a deity, not about what is correct and incorrect. I guess I can't get away with using the word patriarchy without my words being spun to make me out to being a hysterical bra-burner. I don't even recall saying anything about Christianization at all, but apparently I've been automatically lumped into that group of people who think evil, patriarchal Christianity is to blame for everything in society. Considering I am a practicing Christian, I wonder how I manage to hold that world view.

"I get my spirituality from nature and biology" is a valid point of view, but it seems very odd to apply it specifically to a Hellenic goddess as a reason to discount her central historical attributes. Of course, if that's your UPG for Demeter, that's how it goes and I wouldn't try to convert you to a different view, but you posted here saying that it's the true way to understand her and that agriculture is an undesirable pop-culture addition that does not reflect her real nature.

Which is demonstrably untrue. As I pointed out upthread, we have no textual source on Demeter that predates her association with agriculture.



"Agriculture and civilization were a harmful disruption of our natural hunter-gatherer ways" is a common belief. It's also totally unsupported logically and scientifically. Yes, human beings spent a long time living as hunter-gatherers (although there's more and more evidence for agricultural developments in societies we usually think of as Noble Savages purely based in hunting and gathering--in many times and places in history there was no single agricultural revolution, but a more complicated series of steps into farming). That doesn't mean it's the best way for us to live.

You know what is is super new on planet Earth, relatively speaking? Complex multicellular life. Prokaryotes ruled with an iron fist for billions of years; eukaryotes only showed up in the past few hundreds of millions of years. I don't think this means we'd be better off going back into the sea, even if things were simpler then (and even if the Eleusinian Mysteries do require a cleansing in the sea).



Every goddess was reduced to shallow misogynist stereotypes in some myths, because ancient Greece was a patriarchal culture.

Personally, I very much doubt that Aphrodite's sexual associations came solely from her strong Ancient Near Eastern connections as a Greek counterpart to Ishtar or Astarte. My own research strongly suggests that the Eastern connection was absorbed into an existing complex of Hellenic Powers perhaps derived from Minoan Crete (not that we're likely to ever know for sure on that count); take a look at the festivals of Ariadne-Aphrodite on Amathus (one of the primary seats of Aphrodite's worship) for some ideas on this.

You're very right that Hellenic society was horrifically patriarchal--to be honest, that's a gentle word for it. The societal erasure of women's stories, as well as the social sanctioning of forced marriage for many teenage girls (which often led to their death in childbirth) was borderline gynocidal. It was also deeply interwoven with the fabric of Hellenic life.

One of the major reasons I work with Hellenic Powers is this: they have existed amidst--and been a touchstone for--some of the worst gendered oppression we know of in human history. I work from the assumption that gods, like people, learn from their experiences. I figure they're likely to know a thing or two that could be useful today, in our increasingly globalized but still misogynist society.