Sunday, April 8, 2012

Springtime, eggs, and other stuff


We have Easter. All religious significance aside I was wondering exactly how all this came about. First got me thinking about eggs. I like colored eggs especially the ornate Ukrainian variety. But what was their original purpose? A digging through some encyclopedias come to find out that they were originally done as an offering to a pagan god Dazhboh. Dazhboh was a sun god and revered for providing warmth and growth to the country folk. I can follow that logic. These were pre christian times. Put yourself in their shoes (okay they probably didn't even have shoes). I'm sure life back then was pretty brutal with farming and foraging the primary means of survival. The egg therefore would be an example of a sacrifice and a symbol. The eggs used after all were whole with their contents still intact. The symbol was of course that of fertility, spring time rebirth and all that. So I can see how easy it was for them to create superstitions. We know from artifacts that there were human sacrifices back then. I can only imagine being chosen for that duty. " What do you mean I get to lay out on the alter and have a dagger thrust through my heart? Couldn't you pick somebody older or ill? And what about crazy Ivan the village idiot? Wouldn't he be a better candidate?"

To the past populace the sun revolved around the earth and the earth was flat. Everybody knew that because it was obvious until someone questioned the ideas. But the burning question still gnaws at our subconscious. Is there something after this material life? Hard to say as nobody's come back to inform us. No I don't buy the near death experiences. I chalk them up to the mind creating an experience to a bodily function. It's said that the visual cortex is the last to fail on a person's death.
But I won't rule out the mystical all together because we still have quite a bit to learn about quantum physics. As we know facts can be stranger than fiction and myth. I'm sure we'll look like the pagans of old some 500 years from now and the obvious questions will come up like: "how could they have lived like that?" That is assuming we make it that far. I wouldn't be taking odds on that bet.

So celebrate the day as you wish. It is sunny here. Now that's a reason to celebrate for us anyway.

4 comments:

BBC said...

I'm out at Granny's Cafe and leaving tomorrow to the wilderness area, but for now I have WiFi, or whatever the fuck it is.

Easter is simply the result of monkeys fucking with their brains.

Ah, sun, very nice, Terry and I sat outside without coats on and had a beer while bullshitting and playing with something I had made with gun powder. Good day.

S.W. Anderson said...

Beliefs of various kinds, including superstitions, myths and religions, help fill in blank areas in man's ongoing effort to understand his world and existence. Just as nature abhors a vacuum, the mind of man tends to find something to fill in blanks, when filling them in with objective facts isn't possible.

BTW, in lumping religions in with myths and superstitions above, I'm not making a value judgment about any particular religion or about all of them. I'm just pointing out that they all require that people believe some thing or things without objective proof.

Randal Graves said...

The sun's gonna go red giant, so, as long as they aren't douchebags about it, folks can believe whatever they want.

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