Kind of a tangent, but I think it's interesting. :)
Some thirty years ago, I went to see a museum exhibition of grave goods from an excavation of the Royal Tombs of Ur. The cemetery complex dates back to around 2600 BC, so well over 4,500 years ago. One of the items found was a small alabaster statue, about a foot tall, of a man with his hands clasped in prayer. (It's called the Standing Male Worshipper from Tell Asmar, if anyone wants to Google an image of it; I recommend taking a look.) It's the largest of a dozen similar figures found in a temple dedicated to the Sumerian god Abu.
The statues have these large, imploring eyes made of shell inlay and limestone; one even has irises of lapis lazuli. Their expressions range from devoted to utterly rapt. It's hard to describe the impact of these little figures. They're not at all realistic, but they've all got their own distinct personalities and are marvelously striking. The Standing Male Worshipper has stuck with me for decades now.
But the thing that's really stuck with me is their purpose. These statues were meant as a living worshipper's avatar. You bought one, sometimes had it personalized with an inscription, and placed it in the temple to your god as your stand-in. The idea seemed to be that your god would look out across his temple precincts, see your statue and think to himself, "That Eshkar, such a faithful worshipper, always here day and night. I should bless his barley fields."
So that Artificial Devotion (such a great term!) goes back way before the Renaissance. I wonder if it goes back to the beginning of human worship. Sort of The Lazy Man's Guide to Propitiating Capricious Deities.
Mar 27, 2023·edited Mar 27, 2023Liked by Meg Conley
My dad was a believer in the Seven Mountains thing ...can’t remember the actual movement but they seek to control first family, religion, education then business, media, law, and finally government .. They believe they were called by God to hasten the End of the World in Revelations and Isaiah.... why Christians for Jews and “Judeo-Christian” makes any sense; it’s Christian Nationalism but instead of just America, it’s the control of these seven “mountains” for the whole world.
He was Catholic and we were raised Catholic, but sometime around when I was 12 or so, he started believing the Catholic Church didn’t go far enough and started off doing his own thing. Trump reminds me of this man to a T!! (I know, but that pun really wasn’t intentional...)
I went no contact with my dad when I was 17 and hadn’t seen him again in my life (43 years, no regret, really) ... when he died 2018(?) maybe 2017... my sister sent me a big packet of notes and clippings, screeds and manifestos ... all handwritten and typed because tech was tracking him 😳 ... saying he forgives me for disrupting God’s Plan because I drove my mom to a divorce lawyer and forced him from his home... story for another day...
In this context, ALL of this crazy nutty crap makes perfect sense to me and it’s so hard to get people on the Left to understand how dangerous it is. You can’t combat this stuff with facts... alternative facts was a big joke to our media, but it was not a joke to me. I heard that and it was terrifying; even more so when our “smart” journalists dismissed it ... the “life” in “prolife” doesn’t mean “life!” The “Christian” in “Christianity” doesn’t mean “Christian.” Justice doesn’t mean fairness and CRT doesn’t mean understanding how race affects and informs our laws... everything they say and do is on a different plane of understanding who we are and why we’re here.
And they all believe they are the chosen one by a higher power, God if you will, and maybe in some cases, there are grifters who understand how to use religion to control people... but I’m not convinced that they live in a world like that for so long they forget they are grifting and begin to believe they really are a prophet. My dad did at some point, even though he started off as just a man who believed in God.
That’s where I think Trump is now and where DeSantis is headed!! Where people like KAC and Pompeo are.... Boebert is... Cruz might be... Alito absolutely is and that is the most terrifying thing rn.
What a great connection between AD & AI (and deep fakes)! I'm going to sit and think about how this is showing up ALL. OVER.
Kind of a tangent, but I think it's interesting. :)
Some thirty years ago, I went to see a museum exhibition of grave goods from an excavation of the Royal Tombs of Ur. The cemetery complex dates back to around 2600 BC, so well over 4,500 years ago. One of the items found was a small alabaster statue, about a foot tall, of a man with his hands clasped in prayer. (It's called the Standing Male Worshipper from Tell Asmar, if anyone wants to Google an image of it; I recommend taking a look.) It's the largest of a dozen similar figures found in a temple dedicated to the Sumerian god Abu.
The statues have these large, imploring eyes made of shell inlay and limestone; one even has irises of lapis lazuli. Their expressions range from devoted to utterly rapt. It's hard to describe the impact of these little figures. They're not at all realistic, but they've all got their own distinct personalities and are marvelously striking. The Standing Male Worshipper has stuck with me for decades now.
But the thing that's really stuck with me is their purpose. These statues were meant as a living worshipper's avatar. You bought one, sometimes had it personalized with an inscription, and placed it in the temple to your god as your stand-in. The idea seemed to be that your god would look out across his temple precincts, see your statue and think to himself, "That Eshkar, such a faithful worshipper, always here day and night. I should bless his barley fields."
So that Artificial Devotion (such a great term!) goes back way before the Renaissance. I wonder if it goes back to the beginning of human worship. Sort of The Lazy Man's Guide to Propitiating Capricious Deities.
From Chaucer on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/LeVostreGC/status/1638341594599522305
You can tell the hands are fake because they're normal-sized, right?
I'm going to be amazed at how many people will think that he's actually on his knees every day, much less ever, to any god but money or Putin.
My dad was a believer in the Seven Mountains thing ...can’t remember the actual movement but they seek to control first family, religion, education then business, media, law, and finally government .. They believe they were called by God to hasten the End of the World in Revelations and Isaiah.... why Christians for Jews and “Judeo-Christian” makes any sense; it’s Christian Nationalism but instead of just America, it’s the control of these seven “mountains” for the whole world.
He was Catholic and we were raised Catholic, but sometime around when I was 12 or so, he started believing the Catholic Church didn’t go far enough and started off doing his own thing. Trump reminds me of this man to a T!! (I know, but that pun really wasn’t intentional...)
I went no contact with my dad when I was 17 and hadn’t seen him again in my life (43 years, no regret, really) ... when he died 2018(?) maybe 2017... my sister sent me a big packet of notes and clippings, screeds and manifestos ... all handwritten and typed because tech was tracking him 😳 ... saying he forgives me for disrupting God’s Plan because I drove my mom to a divorce lawyer and forced him from his home... story for another day...
In this context, ALL of this crazy nutty crap makes perfect sense to me and it’s so hard to get people on the Left to understand how dangerous it is. You can’t combat this stuff with facts... alternative facts was a big joke to our media, but it was not a joke to me. I heard that and it was terrifying; even more so when our “smart” journalists dismissed it ... the “life” in “prolife” doesn’t mean “life!” The “Christian” in “Christianity” doesn’t mean “Christian.” Justice doesn’t mean fairness and CRT doesn’t mean understanding how race affects and informs our laws... everything they say and do is on a different plane of understanding who we are and why we’re here.
And they all believe they are the chosen one by a higher power, God if you will, and maybe in some cases, there are grifters who understand how to use religion to control people... but I’m not convinced that they live in a world like that for so long they forget they are grifting and begin to believe they really are a prophet. My dad did at some point, even though he started off as just a man who believed in God.
That’s where I think Trump is now and where DeSantis is headed!! Where people like KAC and Pompeo are.... Boebert is... Cruz might be... Alito absolutely is and that is the most terrifying thing rn.