About Those "Fertility Cults"

I don't know about you, but over the years I've ran across mention from time to time of ancient "fertility cults" that were common in what is now the Middle East, the cradle of Western civilization. I've never had any good idea as to what that term really meant or referred to. Now I'm getting a picture.

This latest book I'm reading is The Sacred Mushroom & The Cross, by John M. Allegro. I'm going to have a lot more to say about this book as I read through it but for now let's just touch on a couple things. In the beginning of the book--which is as far as I am--the author talks about the fertility cults and describes them. This answers the question of what they were:

No one religion in the ancient Near East can be studied in isolation. All stem from man's first questioning about the origin of life and how to ensure his own survival. He has always been acutely conscious of his insufficiency. . . . Out of this sense of dependency and frustration, religion was born.

Somehow man had to establish communications with the source of the world's fertility, and thereafter maintain a right relationship with it. . . . If rain in the desert was the source of life, then the mositure from heaven must be only a more abundant kind of spermatozoa. If the male organ ejaculated this precious fluid and made life in the woman, then above the skies the source of nature's semen must be a mighty penis, as the earth which bore its offspring was the womb. It followed therefore that to induce the heavenly phallus to complete its orgasm, man must stimulate it by sexual means, by singing, dancing, orgiastic displays and, above all, by the performance of the copulatory act itself.

It all makes sense, doesn't it? If your very life depends on reproduction--of crops, animals, other humans--you have very worshipful feelings towards whatever keeps those things coming. Ergo: fertility cults, the earliest religions.

So anyway, as far as I've gotten he's still laying the groundwork for his thesis. That thesis, as far as I can tell, is that the worship of Jesus is a trick that backfired. Hallucinogenic plants, such as the amanita muscaria mushroom, were the secret to getting close to the great phallus in the sky, but to throw off all but the uninitiated, the shamans and other wise men referred to such plants as people. Only in the case of Christianity, the hoax ultimately superseded the secret.

Yes, this is a serious book. Stay tuned as I see how convincing an argument he makes.

An Interesting Quote From Helen Keller

I found this amusing. I'm reading The Story of My Life by Helen Keller.

This book is in three parts, the first of which is an autobiography she wrote while still young and in school at Radcliffe. Being blind and deaf she had never had the sort of sit-in-class-and-listen-to-the-teacher schooling most of us are familiar with. For her, learning was an adventure and extremely interactive. Then, the rest of the time, alone within herself, she had always had plenty of time to think about the things she was learning.

Now, for the first time, she was forced to just sit and try to absorb what the instructor was saying.

But in college there is not time to commune with one's thoughts. One goes to college to learn, it seems, not to think.

As I said, amusing, and also thought-provoking.

Does Monotheism Breed Intolerance?

Here's a concept that never occurred to me, but having read it I find it intriguing.

Philip Pullman is an atheist and an author. He has written a fantasy trilogy, the first of which is due out as a movie in the next couple weeks. More on that in a moment.

The first I ever heard of Pullman and his books was in an article in the latest issue (December 2007) of Atlantic Monthly, entitled "How Hollywood Saved God." The teaser for the article says "It took five years, two screenwriters, and $180 million to turn a best-selling antireligious children's book into a star-studded epic--just in time for Christmas."

Everything else the article addresses aside, what struck me was this quote from Pullman:

Every single religion that has a monotheistic god ends up by persecuting other people and killing them because they don't accept him.

Think about it. If you belong to a polytheistic culture you accept that, hey, there are lots of gods. If you have your favorite god you want to worship, and I have a different one that I want to worship, it's cool. No problem!

But if you belong to a monotheistic religion, you figure there is one and only one true god, and by god it's your god. And maybe you, yourself, would not go out and kill someone else for refusing to believe in your god. Nevertheless, you don't have to dig too deep into history--or yesterday's news--to see that some people will do exactly that.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not carrying this any further than makes sense. I'm sure that polytheistic cultures have killed plenty of people throughout history for other reasons: power, greed, whatever. And maybe Pullman is wrong. Maybe there are polytheistic cultures that have persecuted others for religious reasons. But I'm not aware of any. Are you? I hereby declare this concept officially Pretty Dang Interesting.

So anyway, just to wrap up, the movie is The Golden Compass and it is based on the book of the same name. The other two books are The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass. I haven't read any of them, just as I haven't read the Ring Trilogy or any of the Narnia books, to which Pullman's books are compared. But I'm betting we'll all be hearing a whole lot more about these books soon.

Richard Lovelace: The Quotable Unknown

It is frequently interesting to find where a familiar quote comes from. It is particularly interesting to find a couple familiar quotes that came from someone you've never heard of.

I'm reading Sound and Sense by Laurence Perrine, which is essentially a textbook for students of poetry. The subtitle is "An Introduction to Poetry." I'm not a great lover of poetry; poets depend way too much on symbolism and allusion as far as I'm concerned. Allusion is great if you know what it is they're alluding to, but if you don't you're clueless. Still, I'm OK with that. What I really don't care for is symbolism. I don't do well when it comes to reading between the lines. I want things stated clearly and bluntly. Otherwise I generally miss them. But I digress.

My point is, I'm reading this text on poetry and I came across two poems by Richard Lovelace, who is described as being a Cavalier poet, who supported Charles I in England's civil war. I've never heard of Richard Lovelace, but it turns out I'm familiar with his work. See if this line from "To Lucasta, Going to the Wars" is familiar to you:

I could not love thee, Dear, so much,
Loved I not honor more.

So those words come from Richard Lovelace. Then, in the very next poem in the book, "To Althea, From Prison," here's this:

Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage

Lovelace obviously got around a bit, writing to Lucasta while going to war and then to Althea when going to prison for his royalist sympathies, but he also knew his way around words pretty well, too, considering that they've survived nearly 400 years.

Two well known quotes from one guy I've never heard of? That's pretty dang interesting in my book.

Our Twisted Farm Policy: Tobacco Farmers Thrive After Subsidies Cut

If this doesn't demonstrate that our farm subsidy program is doing more harm than good I don't know what does. The Wall Street Journal on Sept. 18, 2007, ran a front page article about how tobacco farmers are absolutely thriving since subsidies for the crop were ended three years ago.

How is that? Apparently what has happened is that farmers who never grew tobacco now find that they can be competitive, now that the other guys don't have us giving them loads of cash. Here's part of the article:

Since 2005, U.S. tobacco acreage has risen 20%. Fields are now filled with it in places like southern Illinois, which hasn't grown any substantial amounts since the end of World War I.

The fellow they use to illustrate the article, Martin Barbre, says he is making $1,800 per acre on tobacco, while he can only make $250 per acre on corn. That's in spite of corn hitting all-time highs due to the demand for use in ethanol.

So tell me again, why are we subsidizing other farmers to grow other things? Is that money all being wasted? Would our farmers be more profitable if we stopped throwing tax dollars at them?

I don't know the answers to these questions, and I'm not sure I even know what factors you'd need to consider to find the answers. But I think it is an absolute truth that these questions need to be asked and answered before Congress again votes a single dollar more for farm subsidies.

Early Christians Just Got The Mix Right

Back about 2,000 years ago there were a lot of religions vying for followers and each one had to differentiate themselves from the others. After all, who's going to join your religion if you're no different than the guys down the road, or don't offer some special reason to believe.

I've been reading The World of Rome, by Michael Grant, and judging from things he said earlier in the book, I got the distinct impression that he is a Christian and a believer. So I found it extremely interesting when I got to the chapter on religion to see what he had to say about how the Christians managed to stand out from the crowd. Now, true believers may say that it was inevitable--they had the truth, and the truth will out. Personally, I'm a bit skeptical of that answer. I mean, look around today. The Christians have had 2,000 years to spread the word and there are still one heck of a lot of folks in this world who haven't bought what they're selling.

So what does Grant have to say? Here's an excerpt:

It is easy to point to resemblances between the Greco-Roman Mystery faiths and Christianity, which emanated from the same world as theirs and sought to answer the same needs. For instance, the Christian and pagan worships answered similar demands for mutual support and posthumous guarantees, and sought to satisfy many of the same cravings--for a protector who was above Fate, for a priviliged status such as the world could not give, for revelation, and for an effective ritual.

Grant talks a good bit more about the similarities of various religions, and the reasons why someone trying to decide who to believe would have a hard time choosing. Then he goes on:

But the real strength of Christianity, the truly unique and exciting feature which in the end caused it to outstrip all other religions, was its Founder's message of love--profoundly original in its emphasis despite all that it has selected from earlier Rabbinical teachings. . . . The Greco-Roman philosophies and religions . . . had not presented so gloriously definite a promise of immortality.

I could quote a lot more here but I think you get the picture. To sum it up, Grant says many of the religions of the time had very similar teachings, and that they borrowed liberally from each other. The Christians emerged dominant because they added just a few new, different twists.

I really don't think Grant intended it this way but the way this comes across to me is that the Christians nailed the marketing. They copied a lot from the religions that preceeded them, they tweaked things just a bit to differentiate themselves, and they got it right. Forget about having "The Truth," they had a good PR director.

You may disagree, and you may want to send me nasty email (not a very Christian thing to do, however), but I'm not claiming revealed truth here. I'm just telling you how it struck me.

Was Gen. Lee Really A Great General?

Excuse me if I'm displaying ignorance or naivete here, but I've recently seen what appears to be a contradiction of something I've been told forever. Ever since I was a child I've been taught that Robert E. Lee was one of the greatest generals in American history, and I've believed it. I had no reason not to. Now I'm not so sure.

I've been reading the Shaaras' books, Gods and Generals by Jeff Shaara and The Killer Angels by his father, Michael Shaara, about the path to Gettysburg and the battle itself. Leading up to that battle it was not so obvious that Lee's victories were due as much to his sagacity as that they were due to the incompetence of his opponents. Between McClellan, Burnside, Hooker, and anyone else I'm forgetting, all Lee or anyone would have needed was basic competence. Lee certainly had that. At the very least he was competent, at times daring, and had the invaluable drive to act, whereas his opponents had a proclivity toward inaction.

So what happened when he got to Gettysburg? Up till then Lee had been faced with opponents who willingly ceded him the high ground and then sent blue-clad soldiers up those hills to try to overpower him. The result was predictable, and by the time they reached Gettysburg Lee's army was undefeated. And then the tables were turned. At Gettysburg Lee was faced with a Union army firmly entrenched on the higher ground and yet he sent gray-clad soldiers up that hill to try to overpower them. And just as in previous battles, the result was predictable: the Confederate troops were slaughtered.

So the competent Lee finally met some opponents who were also competent--not Meade, the officers under him who insisted on holding onto their strong positions--and he made the same mistake made by his previous, incompetent opponents. This is the action of a great general?

Why in the world would he do this? Longstreet, his trusted second-in-command, realized the folly and pleaded with Lee to take a different course. Did Lee, at this point, make the mistake of believing his own PR? "My boys are unbeatable and they'll find a way to win this battle, too"? I don't know and I don't know if anyone does, but I doubt if I will ever again think of Robert Lee as a great general, or at least as one of the greatest of American generals. Clearly he was one of the most beloved of all American generals. And clearly there are factors other than battlefield decisions that make for a great leader. Lee had those attributes.

So, in summation, I would have to say, from my admittedly limited perspective, that General Robert E. Lee was clearly one of America's greatest leaders, but only a good general--not great. Flail me if you will, or, better yet, convince me otherwise. I'm just calling it the way I see it.

Cavalry were the "eyes of the army"

I may just be showing my ignorance here but I read something pretty dang interesting in Gods and Generals, Jeff Shaara's terrific book about events leading up to the Battle of Gettysburg in the American Civil War. He mentioned at one point how the cavalry was "the eyes of the army," which I had no conception of, but which makes a lot of sense when you think about it.

We're talking zero electronic communications back then, when Indian smoke signals were probably about as advanced as anything the white men had. So you've got all these armies walking wherever they went and a much smaller band of soldiers on horseback who could cover a lot more ground. They' go out and poke around and go riding back with whatever they've learned.

Here's a bit I found on a website:

The cavalry were the eyes of the army. They traveled in the rear area of the enemy where they searched for information about the enemy force. Also, they captured enemy officers and men whom they took away as prisoners for questioning . . . When a cavalry unit became engaged they usually broke off contact at once and rode away. The advantages of the cavalry were: 1) they could search the enemy's area to learn their strength and location and, 2) they could screen their army's size and location from the enemy.

I'm sure a lot of you with military experience yawn about this, because it's old hat. But I never knew this before and now I do. And if you didn't know it before, you do now.

Stalin Saved the World for Democracy(???)

I'll bet that got your attention. What should get your attention even more is that apparently it's true.

I'm referring to a review of a number of books, titled "Stalin's Gift," that was published in the May 2007 issue of Atlantic Monthly. The reviewer, Benjamin Schwarz, looks broadly at a number of recently published books that fill in gaping holes in our knowledge about World War II's eastern front, between Germany and the Soviet Union. These books are based on information that was not available for decades, but is now that the Cold War has ended.

Among the startling bits of information are these:

• More than 400 German and Red Army divisions fought along a 1,000-mile front for four years; in the West the battle never amounted to more than 15 Allied and 15 German divisions.
• Approximately 88 percent of the German military dead were killed on the eastern front.

In fact, Schwarz quotes Norman Davies, author of Europe at War, 1935-1945, who said:

The Soviet war effort was so overwhelming that impartial historians of the future are unlikely to rate the British and American contribution to the European theatre as much more than a sound supporting role.

Not only that, according to Schwarz, Stalin himself was instrumental in the success of the Soviet effort. First, he surrounded himself with the best advisers available and trusted them, and second, he mastered the considerations of war and was actually calling the shots. Schwarz does not in any way overlook the brutality of Stalin's policies, or the mistakes he made in the learning process, but he closes the article quoting Geoffrey Roberts, author of Stalin's Wars, saying:

To make so many mistakes and to rise from the depths of such defeat to go on to win the greatest military victory in history was a triumph beyond compare . . . Stalin . . . saved the world for democracy.

Now that(!!) is pretty dang interesting!

Here are a few of the other books mentioned in the article:

Thunder in the East: The Nazi-Soviet War, 1941-1945 - by Evan Mawdsley

800 Days on the Eastern Front - by Nikolai Litvin

A Writer at War: A Soviet Journalist with the Red Army, 1941-1945 - by Vasily Grossman, translated by Antony Beevor and Luba Vinogradova

Ivan's War: Life and Death in the Red Army, 1939-1945 - by Catherine Merridale

Moscow 1941: A City and Its People at War - by Rodric Braithwaite

Today's "Private" Used To Be A "Private Soldier"

You don't see it much today but apparently what we now call a "private" in the army was once universally known as a "private soldier." Which raises the question, was this in contrast to a "public soldier"? I don't think so, but it makes me wonder about the term.

I did some digging and I found out about the term "soldier." Here's what I found:

A Soldier is one who serves in the Army and fights for pay. The name originates from Latin word soldus, short for the classical Latin word solidus. Solidus was an ancient Roman coin used for paying soldiers.

But what about "private soldier"? I've seen this is in a lot of old writings, such as a book of the collected writings of George Washington and, more recently, the book Andersonville. Andersonville is the first-hand story of a Union soldier captured during the Civil War, and the full title of the book is:

Andersonville
A Story of Rebel Military Prisons
Fifteen Months a Guest of the So-Called Southern Confederacy
A Private Soldier's Experience in Richmond, Andersonville, Savannah, Millen Blackshear, and Florence

I found this:

Private - The earliest record of this word dates to 1384, derived from the classical Latin word privatus, meaning to "set apart, belonging to oneself" (rather than the state or feudal lord). The phrase Private soldier meaning "one below the rank of a non-commissioned officer" - also known as a common soldier - entered usage in 1579 when individual citizens gained the privilege of enlisting or entering private contracts to serve as private soldiers in army units. It later became known as privateer in 1664, from the term private man of war, as in volunteer or buccaneer.

So it seems that what was once a privilege—the choice to enlist and get paid for fighting—has been replaced with the simple usage of just being the grunt who is low man on the totem pole. And the term has been shortened to just "private" in the same way that "general officer" has been shortened to "general."

Pretty dang interesting how language evolves.

Those English Just Spell Differently Than We Do

We all know the English spell certain words differently than we do here in the U.S. What is "color" to us is "colour" to them. We "realize" things and they "realise" things. And let's not even get into the different meanings they have for words.

So I wouldn't make a point of pointing out a different spelling except that I recently ran into one that was new for me. And at the age of 56, if it's new to me I'll bet there are a lot of other people who have either never run across it, either, or never figured it out. Actually, now that I say that, it occurs to me I have seen it before but never knew the meaning.

OK, quite beating around the bush. What's the word?

Gaol

Is that a misspelling for the thing the English kick a soccer ball (excuse me, football) through?

No, that's something we know as a "jail." As in "jailbird/gaolbird," or "jail/gaol house rock."

I was reading a collection of pieces by Oscar Wilde and one was entitled The Ballad of Reading Gaol. And I was clueless. Fortunately, my wife lived in England for six months so she clued me in.

Just another "pretty dang interesting" bit of information I've run into.

Want to Pay to Sleep with a Total Stranger? It Used to be the Norm

You've been on the road all day, you're exhausted, and all you want to do is drop into bed and get a good night's sleep. So you check into the hotel and go to your room and . . . there's a total stranger in your bed. Or maybe two of them. What do you do? Why you climb in and go to sleep. That's the way it used to be.

I first ran across this while reading the An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt. Then I ran across it in a book about Abraham Lincoln, The Lincoln Reader. It seems that back in those days it was absolutely normal to share not just your hotel room but your bed with total strangers. Of the same sex, of course.

None of these 200-room establishments with pool, bar, and gift shop. You were lucky if the place had four rooms to rent and you took whatever quarters they had to offer. I guess you just hoped the other guys took their boots off and didn't snuggle up to you too much in their sleep.

Get the News on Your Money

Think about it. A couple millennea ago communication was a little tougher than today. So the Romans came up with an ingenious idea. They printed news on their money. On the back side of their coins, to be exact.

According to Michael Grant, in his book The World of Rome:

. . . in the absence of modern media of communication, the only official announcements which the central government could be sure that very many people would see were those on the enormous network of official coinages that circulated throughout the empire. . . there was no better medium for the diffusion of news . . .

Grant says the Romans might issue as many as 150 new versions of a coin in a year. Nothing different on the front, but the hottest news on the obverse. Pretty dang interesting.