drew Wrote:
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> Hang on...no abstractions?

Read it!

[www.sacred-texts.com]

Even the translators don't seem to find any abstractions. Yes, they translate several words as "god" or "magic" but the ONLY reason to believe these are abstractions is how they translate them. What you won't find are words like "thought" or "belief". You won't find taxonomic nor reductionistic words. Almost every word in every modern language has NO COUNTERPART in Ancient Language. Even out word "God" couldn't be translated into AL.

> So...Nut birthing Ra doesn't relate to the sun
> arriving upon the horizon at sunrise, after
> spending 1 whole hour offering its glow from
> beginning to end before it rises and heralding the
> end of night as the glow begins?

These myths and stories are very real and very important if they are attempts at preserving ancient knowledge. But, I believe this is all they are. They were not ancient beliefs because the ancients didn't even have the word "belief". Egyptologists simply assumed the ancients were just like them but they were not at all like them.

> There seems to be the idea describing the science
> in some way, even including the glow as being some
> other 'entity' with another name besides Ra. I do
> feel that the superstition of things merged into
> the science of things and better 'myths' were
> developed to incorporate old beliefs with new.

Yes. This is because they had a science that was based on observation and logic. They were very "smart" but they thought differently. What we think are "beliefs" is just confusion of later people who tried to understand their ancestors but lacked any science at all. They couldn't understand the ancients because you must understand science and its metaphysics to understand the language. Much of the science is preserved in the myths and later writing BECAUSE the meaning of Ancient Language lay in the literal meaning. This is why so many people today see truth in the myths; there IS truth in the myths. There IS science in the myths.

Most people just dismiss anything that was written before modern science as the musings of sun addled bumpkins.

> We certainly accept the lunar/female/matriarch
> influence as being somewhat more important than
> the solar/male/patriarch influence in its ways,
> for all manner of cultures that observed such, and
> in the case of Menes, he forced solar acceptance
> into the fore of AE lifestyle and culture which
> settled which was more important. If one
> represents a 'god' and is victorious, one's people
> adopt his own beliefs...that are not just arisen
> in the knowledge of the people but have been
> around for quite a long time, and are now front
> and centre and accepted by the conquered because
> of how much it is accepted by the conquerors.

I could go through this but then people would whine that I'm off-topic. Curiously their "beliefs" and "superstitions" are never off-topic because it is part of the imagined "cultural context". If the people were ignorant and superstitious it follows they mustta used ramps and any evidence for water is a red herring. Never mind there is vaterite in the pyramid because we know they were built with ramps by bumpkins as tombs during a 4000 year culture. Once you make assumptions there's no need for logic and facts and everything that's outside of those assumptions is off-topic. Of course there's no need to address and logic and facts that are off topic so the status quo will stand even longer than the pyramids.

> Sam, Joseph Campbell had quite a bit
> to say about such things, besides others...but I
> do like his way of presenting the skeletons inside
> the flesh of human nature.

I think I've read about him before. I'll look again. That AOM is interesting but due to recent issues on "Mysteries" I'm currently not posting on any other forums.