Talk:Solar deity
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<please expand, and do answer this question: are all those people really worshipping the sun, or are they there only to see the sun's rays line up to the central avenue?>
- Supposedly this was shut down by the British police, and the site has been closed every solstice for decades.
I saw them this year on CNN
- The British police now allow limited access to the moronic masses at the Stonehenge site at the summer solstice. And with the exception of a few (ho-ho) so-called druids, who are there to bolster their loony ego-trips, very few of them are there for much other than to be stoned out of their faces. There are very few serious British sun-worshippers for fairly obvious reasons and these few are usually to be found where the sun shines i.e. on holiday in the Greek islands, etc... sjc
It seems that the Persian Mithras and the Roman Mithras were not the same God. The Roman soldiers worshipped Mithras in caves which would be an odd form of worship for a sun-god. There is apparently much scholarly debate on this subject.
- there is no end to the oddity of antique syncretism. The most recent book from the Oxford University Press on the subject of Mithra (The Origins of the Mithraic Mysteries : Cosmology and Salvation in the Ancient World, David Ulansey)sees the whole mythos NOT as a Persian dualism but, in fact, as a mythologization (a kind of back-etiology) of late Hellenistic astronomical discoveries about eclipses. Not that it got really great reviews, but Oxford published it, and it's a scholarly as you're likely to find. --MichaelTinkler
Two references for egypt mythology:
http://saxakali.com/COLOR_ASP/listof.htm
http://i-cias.com/e.o/amon.htm
[edit] Sir Gawain?
I removed
from the list. I don't see any evidence that Sir Gawain was a sun god. Dbenbenn 22:24, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)
[edit] Jesus Christ
Added entry for Jesus and cited my source. [1] --200.77.162.65 15:32, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
- I'm not sure this is an entirely appropriate entry. True, there is evidence that certain aspects of the Christian story were adapted to suit a sun-worshipping European audience, this cited source seems to be quite POV. I'm all for the examination of the differing opinions but this source claims as fact the non-existence of any person called Jesus/Yeshua and dismisses the concept as allegory in complete defiance of primary historical sources, like the works of Flavius Josephus and the like. If the entry is kept, I think its should at least mention that the view of Christ as a sun-god is a minority view and not that of main-stream Christianty as the article implies. Joe Byrne 15:20, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Chinese Solar Worship
"Unlike many other cultures, the Chinese do not personify nor worship the sun or the moon. The most likely reason is the heavy influence of Taoism and I Ching in Chinese culture because the moon represents Yin and the Sun represents Yang which are the basis of everything in nature. (See Yin and yang.)" I'm sorry, but this is completely false, as anyone remotely familiar with Daoism or Chinese Traditional Religion can tell you. I idly wonder, where does this misinformation comes from? The Sun and Moon are seen in many temples to this day, enshrined as 太陽星君 Taiyang Xingjun and 太陰星君 Taiyin Xingjun, respectively (literally named "Great Yang Star Lord" and "Great Yin Star Lord"). They often accompany Doumu Yuanjun, but often have Their own altars in larger palaces for stellar deities. Rites include the chanting of Their revealed scriptures. Nothing about yin/yang cosmogony requires that these gods need not be "personified;" indeed, they are regarded as metaphysically synonymous with the astral bodies, not merely emblematic.
In addition to these, there are two more gods of the Moon, that of 月老 Yuelao, the old lunar matchmaker god, and the incredibly famous 嫦娥 Chang'e (she's the one with the rabbit). I find it odd that the author of this passage would know about the "Nine Suns" legend, but not know how that same hunter's wife ascended to become this Moon goddess. Both Chang'e and Taiyin Xingjun are worshipped by millions of faithful (mainly women) every year at the "Moon Festival" Zhongqiu Jie, one of the most important on the Chinese religious and cultural calendar. (Chang'e's birthday is the day before that of Taiyin Xingjun.)
Unless someone vehemently objects, I would like to remove and rewrite this section to correspond with anthropological and historical reality.--Aunty Entity 09:03, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Sun Worship
there needs to be an article about the practices and ceremonies/traditions of various sun-worship groups. i'd do it myself but my research has yielded few results so far...there must be a better researcher out there
[edit] CuChulainn
CuChulainn is listed here as a solar deity in the celtic mythology section. As far as i know CuChulainn wasnt ever even treated as a deity in Celtic mythology nevermind a solar deity. This should be taken off the list as its presence brings down the entire standard of the celtic mythology section itself. Fergus mac Róich 05:23, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
