Since I am “f-cking stupid” I couldn’t figure out how to make a link. So here is the whole thing; you will find the atum = ram connection:
Some say that it was amun that was also depicted as a ram. Either way, same point.
The link doesn’t work, and if you can’t even decide which god you are talking about, it doesn’t do anything for your argument.
The interesting thing, in my opinion, is the marked absence of the usual tell-tale signs. This person is able to use the language well. His grammar is full and appropriate. He uses paragraphs well. His punctuation is satisfactory. He responds to many posts in a way that suggests meaningful contextual linkages indicative of reasonable exchanges. He appears to have read things.
Yet his logic is a complete and total FAIL. Astoundingly so. It’s a remarkable disconnection for me. How can someone of apparently reasonable intelligence argue that evidence for a position comes from the number of people who believe it is so?
I’ve started seeing his name as “Abele Dur.” Perhaps unfair, but I cannot help it.
Was the temple seen by the entire nation? Is this what you are trying to say? That not one person in that entire nation failed to see the temple with their own eyes?
I thought this was supposed to be a pit thread, not another rehashing of that inane, illogical, question-begging “principle”.
I’m not sure what bugs me more about the poster in question. Is it:
(a) the total lack of logic in the posts?
(b) the circular reasoning? (Is this redundant with (a)?)
(c) ignoring inconvenient questions from other posters?
(d) turning every thread into another “principle” rehashing?
(e) the incongruity between the “logic” in the posts and the apparent facility with language, punctuation, and spelling?
Whatever it is, I tried to be part of one of the threads and gave up on it. I can’t stand that kind of debate.
Oh for crying in the beer …
- Atum was never “the highest god of that time” even if we skip lightly over the fluidity of the Egyptian pantheon and the vagueness of “that time”. He was important but tended to get overshadowed by later gods like Amun, Ra and Ptah.
Atum was depicted as a serpent usually. Sometimes he’s shown as other Pharoahnic forms like a bull or lion. Never as a sheep.
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The sheep (or more to the point, the ram,) was the animal associated with Khnum. Khnum was the god of the Nile and originally very important but he also faded, like Atum, and ended the patron of potters and clay workers.
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That said, rams were also used sometimes for Amun. There’s a famous set of ram statues at the Temple of Amun at Karnak for example. Amun is an excellent candidate if you wanted to pick a “highest god” of the Ancient Egyptians, but he was most often associated with the sun god. His cult more or less consumed the cult of Ra-Horakty, who was the Falcon incarnation of Horus. As such, Amun was called Amun-Ra, and was shown as a falcon with the sundisk on his head.
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On the outside chance, Abele might be thinking of Aten. Aten is the sun disk and, famously, the Pharoah Akhenaten denounced all the other gods in favor Aten worship. So in that sense, Aten was certainly the ‘highest god’ during Akhenaten’s reign. But after that everyone quietly ditched the old king’s monomania and went back to worshiping Amun.
I mention Aten, partly because it sounds sort of like Atum, and partly because there are a plethora of theories about Akhenaten being the Pharaoh of the Exodus. There are various reasons for this but most of them have to do with Akhenaton’s monotheism and it’s possible relation to Hebrew monotheism, either as an influence of or influence by. Just to be clear - there’s no archeological evidence to support Akhenaton as being associated with the ancient Hebrews in anyway. Velikovsky is probably the most famous of those who suggest this, but he’s not the only one.
That would be a very good post if there was any chance of it sinking in. Just like Shmendrik’s post in the GD thread is of high quality but there’s no chance it’s going to make abele derer stop and thinking about the voluminous jibberish he is spewing.
switch that up…A DurAbel Jew…kudos for staying power
Meh. Guy getting pitted for not realizing that direct proselyting on this board is pointless.
As I’ve noticed for some time, intelligent people just have more complicated rationalizations.
I would pay to see abele derer and kanicbird in a cage match.
I would pay you to stage it far, far away.
His link (Gods, Goddesses, and Mythology, Volume 4 - C. Scott Littleton - Google Books) does actually state that Atum was depicted as a ram-headed man or bird.
Nah, didn’t everyone in the USA see that chick baring her tit before the Superbowl a few years ago? 
As a minor note, if one simply must have a religion, liberal Judaism is as good as it gets.
Missed it.
But I often sleep through sunrise, too - so I wasn’t an eyewitness to it this morning for instance.
You know what, I don’t think I’ve ever seen the footage of the WTC collapse. Not only was I not an eyewitness (the best I could do would be media), I didn’t see the media. Now, I’m pretty sure they collapsed - it was a shared experience in that I was aware it was happening at the time, I’ve talked to people who have seen the hole in the ground - people I trust. I certainly wouldn’t argue against them collapsing. But I’d be a very poor witness to that event.
(My kids were really little, but old enough to be terrified. We left the TV off at our house. I was at work when it happened, and unlike my coworkers, was not glued to the TV.)
I have no ram in this fight, but sometimes I get bored and like to click things at random just to see what’s going on, I read a bit, then think whatever might be appropriate, “huh, glad I’m not involved/glad it’s not me/glad I don’t have to deal with that moron/what the hell are they talking about?/very cool!/holy shit!/people are smarter than me/people are dumber than me/people are better than me/people suck/eeew, yuck!/wow, interesting!” or whatever. So I clicked, and read a bit.
It was worth it for this post:
I’m not going to post in that thread. GD scares the shit out of me, but I had to acknowledge this somehow. I laughed out loud. buckgully, if you’re reading, thanks!
From an anything goes standpoint, I thought Unitarians had the best of it. Even shirt and shoes are generally optional.
You haven’t even pointed out his worst habit–he’s forever putting hyphens after -ly (ie, “nationally-commemorated, nationally-whatever”). That’s just sick and wrong (worthy of a good stoning, if one wanted to get Old Testament on dat ass).
Eh, it’s merely a style question.