Fragment 50

This "Fragment" is going to ramble some. I have a lot of material to cover. The main focus of the "Fragment" shall be on the Goddess in Parmenides's poem "On Nature '' (Fragments). I have several questions I want to look at: Who is the Goddess? Was the poem based on an Initiation ceremony or an inverted Initiation ceremony? (The Mysteries)? And what is the message of the poem? In order to do this we must cover some background information. The foundational myth of Western spirituality is the myth of death and rebirth. So let us briefly examine some ancient examples of this myth. We shall look at Ishtar and Tammuz, Isis, Aphrodite and Adonis, and the Christian myth of Jesus and Mary Magdalene. So let us begin with Ishtar and Tammuz. We all know the story of Ishtar and Tammuz. Tammuz gets killed trying to please Ishtar and gets killed. Ishtar descends into the underworld to rescue her lover. At the lowest level Ishtar has to confront her sister Ereshkigal the Death Goddess. Ishtar dies as a result of the confrontation. Ishtar's servant begs the gods to help her, finally Enki does save her. Ishtar and her lover Tammuz are resurrected. Take note of the sister Death Goddess. Ishtar the Great Mother Goddess has to confront her sister Ereshkigal the Death Goddess. Next we shall move to Isis and Osiris. In the Isis and Osiris myth, Set kills Osiris and Isis and Nephthys bring him back to life. Again we see the Great Mother Goddess Isis must encounter her sister the Death Goddess Nephthys. Instead of killing Isis, Nephthys cooperates and together they bring Isis' lover back to life. Let us move to the classical Greek myth of Aphrodite and Adonis. An important point to note is Adonis is a god. If the reader is in doubt just remove the "s" off the end of his name. Adonis gets killed and Aphrodite has to go into the underworld to rescue her lover. Again we observe the encounter with the Death Goddess, Persephone. This time it is because Persephone has an attraction for Adonis and does not want to let him go. So they have Zeus arbitrate the dispute and end up sharing Adonis. Lastly, let us turn to the Christian myth. This time it is Mary Magdalene that goes to the underworld (the tomb) but finds it empty. So let us examine the Death Goddess in more detail in these myths. In the Canaanite myth Ereshkigal kills Ishtar. This probably reflects the brutal society of the Canaanites'. And I believe that a new Goddess took over as Death Goddess. Ereshkigal evolved into Hecate. The confrontation between Isis and Nephthys is different from the confrontation between Ishtar and Ereshkigal. This probably also reflects the more peaceful, and secure society of ancient Egypt. But I do think Nephthys is a different Goddess than Ereshkigal. In the classical Greek myth the two Goddesses begin in cooperation but have a conflict which is settled through arbitration. This seems a reflection of a mercantile society like the classical Greeks, also less brutal than Canaanite society. If anyone doubts the brutality of Canaanite society all they have to do is read the "Old Testament". And at last we come to the Christian myth where there is no Death Goddess, and it is not the lover that resurrects the Young God. Instead it is the Father God, who does it without female help. I am going to take a diversion here to examine what happened to the Goddesses in the Christian myth of death and rebirth. In the Christian myth it is Mary Magdalene that goes into the underworld (the tomb), but instead of finding the body and bringing it back to life the tomb is empty. Christ has risen without any female help. Why the change? One could give the Christian answer that Christ overcame death that is why there is no Death Goddess. This still leaves the question why was it not Mary Magdalene that brought her lover the Young God back to life? In order to answer this we must ask who is the God of the Bible? The first question I asked as a young child when first told about God? For over 50 years I have researched and tried every way I could think of to find out. It led to long years of dead ends, depression and false hope. When you strip the final mask off the Yahweh, he is El the Canaanite Sky Father. I am going to use a mythological approach to answer what happened to the Goddesses, and observe how El became the only god. El is the head of the Canaanite pantheon of gods,but El was deeply troubled, the other gods and especially his wife Asherah were giving El nothing but trouble. While El was pondering this his ruffian son Jah brought him the answer. Jah was the patron god of a Canaanite tribe called Israel. He was a god of a raiding tribe very concerned with how the plunder should be divided up. Recently part of Jah's tribe returned from Egypt and brought a most extraordinary God: Aten.Jah brought Aten to El. And in Aten El found his answer on what to do with the other gods; get rid of them. There can only be a single God. So El reabsorbs his son Jah, and also combines with Aten. Remember Aten is empty, he is the non resting law of non-contradiction. El divorces his troublesome wife Asherah, and declares war on the other Gods. El makes his chosen tribe into fearsome warriors to destroy all the other Gods. The Old Testament is a chronicle of the clash of Gods. El keeps looking deeply into Aten, and encounters the classical Greeks who have also discovered Aten (the law of non-contradiction) he makes a new discovery that his goal cannot be reached by violence. El takes up the reason and logic of the Greeks to again create a new religion: Christianity. El gives up the violence of the old religion to found a new religion that shall conquer the world and the other Gods by conversion. It seems that El's divorce from Asherah left El very bitter towards women, not that he was ever a supporter of women. That is why there is no Goddess in Christianity. El does not need any female principles, that is why when Mary Magdalene goes to the tomb the tomb is empty. El does not want a feminine aspect to his worship.This can also be observed in Islam where El as Allah actively works to keep women as an underclass. There should be no doubt that Allah is just another mask for El. And not even a good mask. One can hear the name El in Allah. So ends part one I shall continue this discussion in the next "Fragment" . We still have a lot of material to cover.