The World would be a very sad place if Poseidon quit interacting with the World an its people.

[ZombieHorde]

Big fish would eat little fish, many children would starve, wars would break out, some people would loose hope and kill themselves, natural disasters would kill the innocent, whole habitats may be destroyed by human greed, diseases would wipe out whole communities, etc., etc.

I am really glad Poseidon is watching over us. Remember to thank him in your prayers.

[darkstar3]

1. Sounds familiar.

You even worked in a word fail, nicely done.

[ZombieHorde]

4. Poseidon deserves all the praise, but coincidentally, one of the best ways to praise Him is through

my PayPal account.

[EvolveOrConvolve]

2. Actually, I think BP fucking KILLED Poseidon

[ZombieHorde]

3. Either Poseidon's existence is proof the oil spill is a hoax, just like global warming,

or mysterious ways.

[madrchsod]

5. i`m going with mother nature and i think she`s pissed

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLrTPrp-fW8

[ZombieHorde]

6. Mother Nature lovers should just get their own forum. nt

[struggle4progress]

7. I think Greek rationalism efficiently demoted Poseidon and his cohort

several millennia ago

I suspect your entirely bogus summary of the extinct Poseidon cults may not do those old cults justice -- but even considered as a group, Poseidon's gang does not seem in retrospect to have been very challenging. Here, for example, is an ancient hymn:

About Poseidon, the Great God, I start to sing, of Earth the mover,
and of the unfruitful sea, aquatic, He who holds wide Aegae, Helicon.
Earth-Shaker; double roles the Gods allotted Thee: to be a Tamer of Horses, and a Savior of Ships.
So hail, Poseidon, Earth-upholding, Dark-haired One, and, Blest One, with a kindly heart help those who sail http://www.cs.utk.edu/~mclennan/BA/HH.html#hh22

There is, of course, nothing at all wrong with being happy that we learned to tame horses or being concerned for the welfare of sailors

Still, the link the Poseidon cults found, between horses and the sea, is unclear to me today, though it might have been obvious to someone in Homeric times; I can say only that traditions support the link, in stories of sailors drowning horses in hopes that Poseidon would calm the sea

I would, nevertheless, be interested to know whether the Poseidon cults exhibited anything like the impossibly demanding and uncompromising vision of Isaiah, who does not merely seek help taming a horse or ask for smooth seas for his sailor friends, but instead (with a stunning indifference to the advice Set realistic goals) expects the whole brutal natural order, red in tooth and claw, to be overturned on some future day

Wolves will live peacefully with lambs, and leopards sleep with young goats; calves, young lions, and fattened calves all together, led by an infant child

[darkstar3]

8. And people accuse ME of literalism...

:rofl:

[trotsky]

9. Poseidon would totally kick Yahweh's ass.

You're just jealous.

[ZombieHorde]

10. I think we all see what has happened to Greece's economy after they abandoned Him. nt

[struggle4progress]

12. I never heard that one: mystical religious views of the economy are common

around here, but they usually take the form If government would just deregulate everything and walk away, the Invisible Hand of the Free Market would automatically transform corporate greed into a cornucopia of public good

[darkstar3]

13. I think you have the wrong site.

Free market worshippers usually gather elsewhere.

[Indi Guy]

25. Spot On...

:)

[rrneck]

15. Okay, that one convinced me.

Where do I sign up. And if I buy a special hat, do I have to pay dues?

[Indi Guy]

24. Greece also abandoned it's sovereignty to the EU...

...do you think this may be a factor here?

[skepticscott]

11. And then the Romans picked him up

and changed his name. Do you have a point, or any real understanding of myth?

[struggle4progress]

14. I suspect your history is sloppy: "Neptune" is unlikely to be simply "Poseidon carted off by Roman

with name change"

[muriel_volestrangler]

16. I think you're forgetting about the earthquakes

There's not much more challenging in Greece, or around the world, than the god responsible for earthquakes.

As for 'demoted several millennia ago', he was still being worshipped in the 2nd century AD:

Pausanias, Description of Greece 2. 1. 7 - 2. 2 (trans. Jones) (Greek travelogue C2nd A.D.) :
"The Isthmos (of Korinthos) belongs to Poseidon. Worth seeing here are a theater and a white-marble race-course (where the Isthmion Games were held). Within the sanctuary of the god (Poseidon) stand on the one side portrait statues of athletes who have won victories at the Isthmian games, on the other side pine trees growing in a row, the greater number of them rising up straight. On the temple, which is not very large, stand bronze Tritones. In the fore-temple are images, two of Poseidon, a third of Amphitrite, and of Thalassa (the Sea), which also is of bronze. The offerings inside were dedicated in our time by Herodes the Athenian, four horses, gilded except for the hoofs, which are of ivory, and two gold Tritones beside the horses, with the parts below the waist of ivory. On the car stand Amphitrite and Poseidon, and there is the boy Palaimon upright upon a dolphin. These too are made of ivory and gold. On the middle of the base on which the car is has been wrought Thalassa (the Sea) holding up the young Aphrodite, and on either side are the Nymphai called Nereides . . . Among the reliefs on the base of the statue of Poseidon are the (Dioskouroi) sons of Tyndareus, because these too are saviours of ships and of sea-faring men. The other offerings are images of Galene (Calm) and of Thalassa (Sea), a horse like a whale from the breast onward, Ino (Leukothea) and Bellerophontes, and the horse Pegasos
Within the enclosure is on the left a temple of Palaimon, with images in it of Poseidon, Leukothea and Palaimon himself. There is also what is called his Holy of Holies, and an underground descent to it, where they say that Palaimon is concealed. Whosoever, whether Korinthian or stranger, swears falsely here, can by no means escape from his oath. There is also an ancient sanctuary called the altar of the Kyklopes, and they sacrifice to the Kyklopes upon it. The graves of Sisyphos (an early king of Korinthos) and of Neleus (son of Poseidon)--for they say that Neleus came to Korinthos, died of disease, and was buried near the Isthmos."

http://www.theoi.com/Cult/PoseidonCult.html

and there are many more descriptions of Poseidon worship at that reference. And note that Pliny the Elder equates Neptune and Poseidon:

Pliny the Elder, Natural History 4. 18 (trans. Rackham) (Roman encyclopedia C1st A.D.) :
"Cenchreae, on the south side of the Isthmus (of Korinthos), with the temple of Neptunus (Poseidon), famous for the Isthmian Games celebrated there every four years."

[struggle4progress]

20. Interesting link. Thanks.

Of course, shrines to various local seagods could appear at various ports, and be used by various sailors, with a variety of local legends and customs, and the various cultural traditions associated with the various local shrines could vary from one place to another and all the land-based traditions could vary from the traditions of various groups of seafarers

"I want to visit the Temple of Poseidon when I'm ashore" might perfectly well meet with "You will find Poseidon worshipped there under the name Neptune" without signifying the Roman and Greek traditions had a common origin or that the traditions even overlapped much; it means that Greek seafarers who wanted to thank "the ruler of the seas" in Roman territory found conveniently that the Romans acknowledged a "ruler of the seas" under a different name. The Romans long had a "Neptune" tradition; the Greeks long had a "Poseidon" tradition; one expects some gradual cross-fertilization of these traditions over the centuries by merchants/seafarers/travelers. A culture of seafarers who believed in "the seagod" would, over time, naturally amalgamate local traditions into a single entity

Pliny writes centuries after the Roman conquest of Greece, a conquest which brought Greek ideas to Rome and forced Roman ideas into Greece

[ZombieHorde]

17. Poseidon's gang? Poseidon cults?

I see you are one of those "Religions are just cults with more members" types.

Blatant religious bigotry.

[laconicsax]

19. Appeal to majority.

HE is the One True God whether you believe in Him or not. Just as the Seas exist whether or not you have seen them, His Glory is eternal, immutable. Perhaps you're too narrow-minded to grasp the Majesty of P-n! If you cannot grasp the connection between the Sea and horses, then I'm not going to bother to take the time to try to explain it to you. Your mind is already made up and you have closed it to P-n's beneficence. If you don't believe, you can't possibly understand.

What's more, your argument that He is somehow inferior to a lesser, false god because one man made a prophecy that did not come true, while many of P-n's faithful prayed to him for a great many things. I take it if I could find a case of a number of believers in the Abrahamic god asking for petty things, that would be persuasive evidence that the Christian, Jewish, and Muslim cults are made of simpletons.

[struggle4progress]

21. My post actually did not address the gods themselves but their devotees' imagination

The question, What do you expect from your god? might be answered in various ways:

The tradition Poseidonist expects something like, Poseidon will calm the waves if I drown some horses in his name. My reaction is, Meh. OK. I'm not so big on drowning horses

Another answer might be, I acknowledge no gods. It is not an unreasonable answer, but then the discussion pretty much stops there: it has nowhere to go from there

Isaiah, on the other hand, astonishingly expects the whole creation should be remade to satisfy his humane sensibilities: he wants the wolves and lions to repent their violent carnivorous ways and behave themselves around lambs and fatted calves and infants. Such enlightening chutzpah! without compromise, he wants the impossible!

[laconicsax]

22. How is drowning horses any different from burnt offerings?

Isaiah's prophecy is little different from a childish fantasy and there's nothing commendable about that. There's little difference between the primitive superstition of ancient mariners praying to P-n and ancient Jews praying to their god. We modern believers in the wonder of P-n understand that He represents the mystery of existence. The ancients of all religions made the same mistake in thinking that they could understand such an unfathomable being.

We modern believers know that He is more than the limited sea god of ancient thought. There's no question that he controls the seas and that his benevolence is conditional. What can't be known is what precise conditions He favors. While horses were acceptable in the past, we can't know if P-n was pleased by the horses themselves, a gift in general, or just the thought behind it.

To criticize believers in His might based on the rituals of ancient believers ignores the important historical and cultural context to make sense of the meaning behind the rituals. It also unfairly paints all those who believe in Him with the same slanderous brush. Somehow I'm not surprised that you'd so quickly stoop to making broad-brush attacks and ignoring context.

[struggle4progress]

23. Well, I think I have walked as far down this particular road as far as I care to.

Listening thoughtfully to Isaiah's ancient childish madness somehow demands more authenticity from me than a pretend conversation with a pseudo-Poseidonist

[laconicsax]

26. It's not my problem you require a higher standard for non-Christian religions.

Thanks for participating in my little experiment. So far, all predictions have been confirmed. Your input has been invaluable.

[trotsky]

27. Well played.

Very well played.

[Flipper999]

28. Actually, there's still a small bunch of folks who still worship P-dude and his friends

And here they are: http://hellenismos.us/f/YaBB.pl

Too bad that he's a dead god. Guess they didn't hear, a roid raging spartan kicked the immortality right out of him (Warning: Video is violent as hell): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEQc8n-844k&feature=related

[laconicsax]

18. How dare you print His name!

The One True GOD, in all His oceanic glory will NOT be demeaned by having His name spoken or written! :grr:

I better not catch you making any pictures of Him either!