The Origin
Of
Our Belief In God
by Erik Langkjer
Part II: The Sun Hero
The Olmec culture at the East coast of Mexico (800 AC) is rich on carved stones almost an illustration to the "animated stones" invented by Uranos acc. to Philo of Byblos.
In an article (in German), "The Glass Mountain"[1], Otto Huth has focused on a central idea in prehistoric religion. The "Glass Mountain" is high and steep with slippery sides, and the hero has to climb this mountain. In doing this he only succeeds by using a horse quick as lightening, or by using a bird or a ladder. The Glass Mountain shines with a light that comes from within. Acc to Huth glass is a word whose stem is closely connected with "glitter", and German "Glanz" and "glatt", and Huth thinks that these words originally came from a word meaning "amber".
This means that the motif could be much older than the use of glass, and the original meaning of the "Glass Mountain" would then be the "Amber Mountain", the "Glowing Mountain", the "Amber Island" in the midst of the North Sea.
In Egyptian cosmogony the early earth is seen as an island emerging out of the primordial waters, and this primordial hill is the mythological reality pictured in the pyramid. In the pyramid the deceased is returned to primeval reality, to the paradise mountain. The Egyptian pyramids with their gigantic polished stone surfaces shining in the sharp sun, and the Mesopotamian stepped pyramids, are two different variations of the primeval mountain. In a pyramid text it is said: "A ladder to heaven is made for the king, that he can ascend to heaven"(267,Huth p.17). Also the Mesopotamian "Stepped Pyramid" with its system of stairs is "a ladder to heaven". And even its smallest model, the Hebrew Betel, the stone raised as an eternal house (Hebrew: bet) for the presence of El (either God or a deceased soul becoming a god) can be seen as a ladder. At the temple of Adonis in Byblos as in Betel, the centre of the cult was a big stone-stele. In Byblos it was the picture of Gebal, the Semitic name for Byblos meaning the "Stone", the mythical mountain at the centre of the world, the "Cedar Mountain".
Looking through European folk tales Huth tries to show that the "Glass Mountain" is understood as a 3-storied mountain, and the hero's ascent of the mountain is the soul ascending to heaven through 3 heavens marked by the 3 great heavenly signs: sun, moon and morning-star, or the 3 metals: gold, silver and copper. The Indian god, Visnu climbs the cosmic mountain in 3 steps, and also in Iran there is a description of the king ascending the 3 storied mountain. The hero ascending the cosmic mountain is transfigured and changed into makr'anthropos.
The "Amber Mountain" can also be a very distant island. It can be depicted as surrounded by 3 concentric channels or circular oceans: the red, black and white sea, cf the channels surrounding the central island in Plato's description of Atlantis.
El, the Ugarit highgod lives in Mt. Lel, and calls out "from the seven chambers, through the eight entrances of the closed room". Also the Cheop's pyramid has 7 chambers, 2 big and 5 smaller ones on top of the "king's chamber". An important motif is dealt with in G.Garbini, "The Stepped Pinnacle in Ancient Near East" [2]. This architectural motif is seen on temples, altars, ziggurats, on seals from Mohenjo Daro, cylinders from Ur III, and goes back to Susa, 4th mill. B.C.
Part 2 is about the sun-hero travelling in the course of the sun, breaking room in the primordial massive darkness for the sun to shine: Ex.: Jason sailing on the Argo ("Bright One", i.e. ship of the sun). In this great epos told by Apollonios Rhodios we come across the scene of Apollo appearing in divine glory over a sea covered with chaotic darkness shooting with his bow at the two mountains of the horizon, thereby causing the sun to rise. By this first sailing, a route is traced, creating cosmos out of a chaotic and closed universe.
The sun hero can be the panther separating heaven and earth, thereby creating room for the sun and for female fertility. Early Susa[3]. The first seal shows the panther sailing with the two spears, symbols of the Heracles-pillars. The second shows him lifting the primordial mountains.
But more often he is identified with the calf (Marduk = "calf of Utu"). He is seen as the one who raises the two Heracles columns, thereby securing the free course of the sun. Philo of Byblos tells us about mighty rain-storms and forest-fires (fire and water surpassing their limits), turning everything into chaos in a primordial universe without peras ("border"): apeiros. But then Usoos, the hunter, sets out on the very first trip by boat, and he finally sets up the 2 steles, thereby securing cosmos (cf that the Planctae/Symplegades were always clashing together, but on the first journey of the Argo passing between them they were fixed). They are a very important symbol: the cosmic paradise mountain divided into two, thereby giving space to the world-scene: the sun, the rain, the wind, the life to grow,- but also threatening to collapse into massive primordial stone.
[1] SYMBOLON, 2,1961
[2] East and West, New Series, 9, 1958, pp.85-91.
[3] Frankfort, fig.8, Amiet, RA 50, 1956, p.125, fig.10
Disclaimer:
Some material presented will contain links, quotes, ideologies, etc., the contents of which should be understood to first, in their whole, reflect the views or opinions of their editors, and second, are used in my personal research as "fair use" sources only, and not espousement one way or the other. Researching for 'truth' leads one all over the place...a piece here, a piece there. As a researcher, I hunt, gather and disassemble resources, trying to put all the pieces into a coherent and logical whole. I encourage you to do the same. And please remember, these pages are only my effort to collect all the pieces I can find and see if they properly fit into the 'reality aggregate'.
Personal Position:
I've come to realize that 'truth' boils down to what we 'believe' the facts we've gathered point to. We only 'know' what we've 'experienced' firsthand. Everything else - what we read, what we watch, what we hear - is what someone else's gathered facts point to and 'they' 'believe' is 'truth', so that 'truth' seems to change in direct proportion to newly gathered facts divided by applied plausibility. Though I believe there is 'truth', until someone representing the celestial realm visibly appears and presents the heavenly records of Facts And Lies In The Order They Happened, I can't know for sure exactly what "the whole truth' on any given subject is, and what applies to me applies to everyone. Until then I'll continue to ask, "what does The Urantia Book say on the subject?"
~Gail Bird Allen
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Urantia Book, 44:0.11 - The Celestial Artisans
Never in your long ascendancy will you lose the power to recognize your associates of former existences. Always, as you ascend inward in the scale of life, will you retain the ability to recognize and fraternize with the fellow beings of your previous and lower levels of experience. Each new translation or resurrection will add one more group of spirit beings to your vision range without in the least depriving you of the ability to recognize your friends and fellows of former estates.
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Princess Bride 1987 Wallace Shawn (Vizzini) and Mandy Patinkin (Inigo Montoya)
Vizzini: HE DIDN'T FALL? INCONCEIVABLE.
Inigo Montoya: You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. -
Urantia Book, 117:4.14 - The Finite God
And here is mystery: The more closely man approaches God through love, the greater the reality -- actuality -- of that man. The more man withdraws from God, the more nearly he approaches nonreality -- cessation of existence. When man consecrates his will to the doing of the Father's will, when man gives God all that he has, then does God make that man more than he is.
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Urantia Book, 167:7.4 - The Talk About Angels
"And do you not remember that I said to you once before that, if you had your spiritual eyes anointed, you would then see the heavens opened and behold the angels of God ascending and descending? It is by the ministry of the angels that one world may be kept in touch with other worlds, for have I not repeatedly told you that I have other sheep not of this fold?"
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Urantia Book, Foreword - 0:12.12 - The Trinities
But we know that there dwells within the human mind a fragment of God, and that there sojourns with the human soul the Spirit of Truth; and we further know that these spirit forces conspire to enable material man to grasp the reality of spiritual values and to comprehend the philosophy of universe meanings. But even more certainly we know that these spirits of the Divine Presence are able to assist man in the spiritual appropriation of all truth contributory to the enhancement of the ever-progressing reality of personal religious experience—God-consciousness.
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Urantia Book, 1:4.3 - The Mystery Of God
When you are through down here, when your course has been run in temporary form on earth, when your trial trip in the flesh is finished, when the dust that composes the mortal tabernacle "returns to the earth whence it came"; then, it is revealed, the indwelling "Spirit shall return to God who gave it." There sojourns within each moral being of this planet a fragment of God, a part and parcel of divinity. It is not yet yours by right of possession, but it is designedly intended to be one with you if you survive the mortal existence.
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Urantia Book, 1:4.1 - The Mystery Of God
And the greatest of all the unfathomable mysteries of God is the phenomenon of the divine indwelling of mortal minds. The manner in which the Universal Father sojourns with the creatures of time is the most profound of all universe mysteries; the divine presence in the mind of man is the mystery of mysteries.
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Urantia Book, 1:4.6 - The Mystery Of God
To every spirit being and to every mortal creature in every sphere and on every world of the universe of universes, the Universal Father reveals all of his gracious and divine self that can be discerned or comprehended by such spirit beings and by such mortal creatures. God is no respecter of persons, either spiritual or material. The divine presence which any child of the universe enjoys at any given moment is limited only by the capacity of such a creature to receive and to discern the spirit actualities of the supermaterial world.
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Urantia Book, 11:0.1 - The Eternal Isle Of Paradise
Paradise is the eternal center of the universe of universes and the abiding place of the Universal Father, the Eternal Son, the Infinite Spirit, and their divine co-ordinates and associates. This central Isle is the most gigantic organized body of cosmic reality in all the master universe. Paradise is a material sphere as well as a spiritual abode. All of the intelligent creation of the Universal Father is domiciled on material abodes; hence must the absolute controlling center also be material, literal. And again it should be reiterated that spirit things and spiritual beings are real.
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Urantia Book, 50:6.4 - Planetary Culture
Culture presupposes quality of mind; culture cannot be enhanced unless mind is elevated. Superior intellect will seek a noble culture and find some way to attain such a goal. Inferior minds will spurn the highest culture even when presented to them ready-made.
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Urantia Book, 54:1.6 - True And False Liberty
True liberty is the associate of genuine self-respect; false liberty is the consort of self-admiration. True liberty is the fruit of self-control; false liberty, the assumption of self-assertion. Self-control leads to altruistic service; self-admiration tends towards the exploitation of others for the selfish aggrandizement of such a mistaken individual as is willing to sacrifice righteous attainment for the sake of possessing unjust power over his fellow beings.
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Urantia Book, 54:1.9 - True And False Liberty
How dare the self-willed creature encroach upon the rights of his fellows in the name of personal liberty when the Supreme Rulers of the universe stand back in merciful respect for these prerogatives of will and potentials of personality! No being, in the exercise of his supposed personal liberty, has a right to deprive any other being of those privileges of existence conferred by the Creators and duly respected by all their loyal associates, subordinates, and subjects.
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Urantia Book, 54:1.8 - True And False Liberty
There is no error greater than that species of self-deception which leads intelligent beings to crave the exercise of power over other beings for the purpose of depriving these persons of their natural liberties. The golden rule of human fairness cries out against all such fraud, unfairness, selfishness, and unrighteousness.