Post by p***@conservation.orgPost by The True DoctorOn Wednesday, December 5, 2018 at 7:21:16 PM UTC-5, The True
Post by The True DoctorOn Tuesday, December 4, 2018 at 9:34:58 PM UTC-5, The True
Post by The True DoctorOn Tuesday, December 4, 2018 at 6:46:08 PM UTC-5,
On Tuesday, December 4, 2018 at 4:29:02 PM UTC-5, The
On Tuesday, December 4, 2018 at 4:43:44 AM UTC-5,
On Monday, December 3, 2018 at 10:35:38 PM
On 04/12/2018 01:02,
On Monday, December 3, 2018 at 3:35:43 PM
On 03/12/2018 18:21,
On Sunday, December 2, 2018 at 4:40:55
It's fine to be a purist about adhering to the source
material with adaptations, but if you're only getting
hung up about characters' skin colour and ignoring
other deviations that's a sign you're probably just a
racist. From the Wikipedia summary, this version is
actually more faithful to Homer than most.
Incidentally, Greeks today are moderately dark-skinned
with Mediterranean features - does that make portrayals
of Greek heroes by pale Germanic actors racist?
Achilles was the son of the king of Thessaly and Patroklus
was his biological cousin. The people of Thessaly were
originally and those descended from them still are blond,
which is why Homer who knew what people from Thessaly
looked like (having traveled around Greece) depicted
Achilles as being blond, and this being repeatedly stated
by Homer as being his distinguishing feature from other
Greeks who had darker olive colored skin.
Yes, we've established that it's not accurate for a black
actor to play Achilles. It's also a particularly strange
choice when they could have cast a black person as someone
whose hair colour was never described.
They should have not cast any black actors to play and parts
other than that of Aethiopians. Casting black actors to play
the parts of historically white people is as racist as casting
white actors to play the parts of historically black people
such as Rose Parks!
As I patiently explained to you, Aggy, you're misusing the word
"racism". Miscasting, even if it's considered culturally
insensitive miscasting, is not racist.
We're also talking about fictional characters, not historical ones.
The people who fought in the Trojan War were historical kings and
princes of Greece and Troy.
So you like to insist. What you continue to miss is that this is not
the general view - and so it wouldn't matter even if you were right.
It is the view of Homer and the view of all of the ancient Greeks and
Romans and the majority of modern Greeks. This is not your culture. Stop
being racist.
Post by p***@conservation.orgTo the rest of the world they're mythical characters, and are treated
Being mythical doesn't mean that they were not real.
Post by p***@conservation.orglike any other fictional character. Portraying Zeus as black is
considered just as legitimate as portraying Norse gods as alien
It's not your culture so its racist to portray them in any other way
than they were portrayed by the ancient Greeks.
Post by p***@conservation.orgsuperheroes. Does that become offensive if some nut in Norway decides
the Norse gods were once real people?
Those super heroes are just people with the same names as the Norse gods
and have nothing historically to do with Norway. They have no part to
play in Norse history and culture. Making the Greek gods and heroes
sub-Saharan Africans and setting them in the context and historical
setting of the Iliad is RACIST! No one would be complaining if the
writer had set Troy: Fall of a City in modern or futuristic times and
represented modern or future society in it. Setting it in historical
times is equivalent to portraying Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King,
Malcolm X, Nelson Mandela, and other black historical cultural heroes
with white actors in the historical context came from. IT IS REWRITING
HISTORY AND IS EXTREMELY RACIALLY OFFENSIVE!
If you think cultural appropriation is acceptable they why don't you
portray Kunta Kinte (who is totally fictitious) and some of his
decedents with white actors and set it in Africa? Show his tribal chief
being played by a white actor with blonde hair, and other tribal
members, and the majority can be black. Does it make any difference? Of
course it does. It's exactly what the producers have done with Troy:
Fall of a City, and it is racist and completely intolerable.
How about this as well; cast black actors to play American slave owners
and show them whipping and torturing both black and white slaves. See
the reaction that you will get with your so-called diversity which is
tantamount to racism, because it appropriates one groups culture and
misrepresents it by associating it with another's.
The only way to end racism in film and TV and the media is to stop
engaging in any form of cultural appropriation altogether.
Post by p***@conservation.orgPost by The True DoctorPost by The True DoctorMy question was: why does this matter more than any other
inaccuracy?
See above. IT IS RACIST!
Why does being racist matter more than any other inaccuracy?
Tell that to the Asian Americans calling the casting of white
actors to play Asian characters racist, when there are plenty of
Asian actors to fill those roles.
It's been a long time since John Wayne was cast as Genghis Khan.
I take it you do understand there's such a thing as context? Casting
a white person in an 'Asian' role is not intrinsically racist. It is,
however, a type of casting that has been used in a racist way (i.e.
to actively avoid casting Asians) in the past, so it draws both
suspicion and undesirable parallels.
It is intrinsically racist because there is no shortage of Asian actors
to play the role.
Post by p***@conservation.orgThis is certainly not the case for Greek culture, and it's clear that
the producers of this series haven't avoided casting white people.
The have avoided casting Greek actors and instead cast sub-Saharan
African actors in their place. That is cultural appropriation and
therefore is racist.
Post by p***@conservation.orgThey decided they wanted a black person in a specific role in a
mostly white cast. It can be criticised for tokenism or
quota-filling, or for being historically inaccurate, but not for
being racist.
It was was racist since there was no shortage of white Greek looking
actors to play the roles, and did not represent Greek culture at the
time, which was not from sub-Saharan Africa. It was an attempt to
re-write Greek history and therefore extremely offensive. There were
Phoenicians, Egyptians, Colchians, and Phrygians that settled in Greece,
but no sub-Saharan Africans. Sub-Saharan Africans are a modern addition
to Greek and European society and go back no further than 400 years.
Post by p***@conservation.orgContrary to the beliefs of both you and the 'PC lobby' you decry, you
Political correctness is a form of racism, sexism, bigotry, and intolerance.
Post by p***@conservation.orgdo not win arguments by getting increasingly hysterical or vocal
about how offended you are. People seem to have forgotten that the
most appropriate response to someone whining about being offended is
"Sorry, why should I care?"
Post by The True DoctorYes, yes, we've established that. Once again my question is: why
does that matter more than any other inaccuracy? It's of no
relevance to
See above.
The question remains. You didn't even try and answer it above.
I've already answered your stupidity. See above.
Post by p***@conservation.orgPost by The True Doctorthe narrative what he looks like.
It is totally relevant to the narrative in distinguishing the
Thessalians who are the only people referred to as Hellenes from
the rest of the Greeks who are referred to as Achaean's or Danaioi
and only later identified as Hellenes. It has everything to do with
the cultural identity of the Greeks as Hellenes and their
ancestors' origins from northern Europe, not sub-Saharan Africa.
None of that is of the slightest relevance to the plot of the Iliad.
So, no, it doesn't have any impact at all on the narrative.
All of it is relevant to the plot of the Iliad. Achilles is singled out
from all the other Greeks by being repeatedly described as blond and
fair skinned. Depicting him as a sub-Saharan African when there were no
sub-Saharan Africans in Greece at the time is rewriting history at the
expense of the Greeks and offensive to Greek culture, and therefore is
racist.
Post by p***@conservation.orgStop being racist in your
Post by The True Doctordenials of Greek origns.
No one's denied anything about Greek origins. Achilles wasn't black
in Homer, and if he were real he wasn't black in reality. The article
I linked to on the subject had some interesting comments on Zeus and
on migration in the ancient world generally, but it was talking
complete nonsense when trying to claim Achilles might really have
been black.
None of that changes the point that it makes no difference whatsoever
to anything that happens in the Iliad whether Achilles was black,
white, olive or purple. They could add backstory claiming he was from
It makes no difference what happens in Marvel comics if Black Panther is
white. It makes no difference in Roots if Kunta Kinte is white. So why
aren't white actors cast to play them?
They all including Achilles represent a specific culture and their skin
colour distinguishes that culture from others. Casting someone with a
different skin colour and facial features to play them is cultural
appropriation and is therefore racist.
Post by p***@conservation.orgAlpha Centauri and, while it would be similarly unfaithful to the
source material, it wouldn't make the slightest bit of difference to
the plot. If you'd accept a black James Bond, why not a black
Achilles?
There were black people working for the secret service in 1953 when Ian
Flemming wrote his first James Bond novel and the narrative says he
played a Jamaican merchant as his cover. There were no sub-Saharan
Africans in Greece at the time of the Trojan War and there is nothing
connecting the kings of Thessaly who came from northern Europe to
sub-Saharan Africa. Casting a sub-Saharan African to play Achilles is
falsification of history by means of cultural appropriation, and
cultural appropriation is racist.
Post by p***@conservation.orgPost by The True DoctorPost by The True DoctorWhy didn't Chibnall portray Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King
using Chinese actors if skin colour doesn't matter? It would
have achieved exactly the same effect, so why didn't he?
How would it have achieved the same effect to portray leaders of
the black civil rights movement, in an episode about black civil
rights, as Chinese? That's complete and utter drivel.
There's no reason why the Chinese don't deserve civil rights and
can not identify as black as well.
You're either being wilfully ignorant or you really are that stupid.
The US black civil rights movement was a specific historical
phenomenon, that was deeply rooted in a longstanding social divide
between people whose ancestors were slaves living alongside people
whose ancestors used to own slaves. Neither the historical phenomenon
nor the social context that resulted in it make any sense with
Chinese actors.
Wrong! If you think that casting a sub-Saharan African to play Achilles
at a time when the people of Thessaly and especially Achilles were blond
with fair skin, makes not difference, then it makes no difference if
Chinese actors play Africans who were taken prisoner and transported to
America to become slaves. You can find lots of Chinese people in Africa
today, lots of white people too, so cast some white people as slaves as
well. Cast some black people as slave masters and British lords
persecuting these slaves. What's stopping you? If Thessalians can be
black then sub-Saharan African slaves can be yellow or white.
Post by p***@conservation.orgThere's also the pretty blatant social context that this was within
living memory and Rosa Parks is an icon to part of the show's
audience. Even if Achilles were real, there's vastly more leeway in
depicting someone who died centuries before Homer wrote about him
3,000 years ago and whose relevance to anyone is just as part of
their cultural canon than there is to someone who's been dead less
than 15 years.
If you are willing to ignore Greek cultural
I think it's pretty safe to say that if the BBC is making a series
about Troy, based on the Iliad, and filled with Greek and Trojan
characters from that story, it is not ignoring Greek culture. I doubt
the series ever claimed its Achilles wasn't Greek.
But not representing Greeks as sub-Saharan Africans in is engaging in
cultural appropriation, which is worse than ignoring Greek culture
altogether. There was nothing stopping them from setting the series in
modern times so as not to be offensive to Greeks, and other Europeans.
Post by p***@conservation.orgPost by The True DoctorPost by The True DoctorFor example there's a letter from Elizabeth I mentioning that
there were a lot of black people living in England at the
time, but the
No there isn't. We discussed this already after the
Witchfinders episode. The word used refers to Moors and other
people from northern Africa.
As I explained to you, the word 'blackamoor' referred to black
people. It's different from the word 'Moor', which has the
meaning
As I explained to you the word 'blackamoor' ONLY referred to people
from Northern Africa who were of Arab decent, as stated in the
official definition which I posted.
No, you claimed it. I explained you were wrong. That is the meaning
of "Moor". You never quite got the hang of how that works, have you -
You don't have a clue of what you are talking about. The Moors were
people from Mauritanian. Blackamoor was used to distinguish other
northern Africans from the actual Moors.
Post by p***@conservation.orgif you say something and it is either shown outright to be untrue or
disputed, you have not provided an "official definition" or
"explained" anything. You've just made a statement of dubious
accuracy (and in most cases, provably false).
I already posted the official definition in the Witchfinders thread
which shows you are wrong.
Post by p***@conservation.orgPost by The True Doctoryou describe. If 'blackamoor' had the meaning you suggest it
would just mean "Moor" - why would they have had two similar
words for the same thing? Some things just don't stick in your
head, do they?
Moor was a specific term for people from Mauritania.
Mauretania, the Roman province, comprised most of North Africa -
everywhere west of Carthage. Modern Mauritania didn't exist until the
French consolidated the local territories into a single
administrative unit in the 1920s.
The people of the Roman prince of Mauritania where white. The people of
Carthage were white. The people of Libya were white? Do you notice a
pattern here? The people of Northern Africa have been of Southern
Balkan, Anatolian, and Levantine decent for over 4000 years. It is
racist to represent them as sub-Saharan Africans.
Post by p***@conservation.orgBlackamoor was a
Post by The True Doctorgeneral term for all people from northern Africa descended from
Arabs who therefore looked darker than Europeans but lighter
skinned and with different features from sub-Saharan blacks. That
is the official meaning, usage, and definition.
Not remotely true. In fact the word blackamoor survives in reference
to Renaissance-era figurines. Figurines of, you'll no doubt be
Blackamoor figurines belong to the early modern period of art, not the
Renaissance. Using the name retrospectively is sophistry.
Post by p***@conservation.orgastonished to learn, black Africans. So will you now claim that as
well as having two words for the same people in northern Africa,
people in Renaissance Europe called art depicting black people
'blackamoors' but used the word 'blackamoor' to refer to entirely
different people?
Blackamoors referred to the people of northern Africa. We know from DNA
analysis and historical records that these people were of Southern
Balkan, Anatolian, and Levantine decent for over 4000 years.
Post by p***@conservation.orgPost by The True DoctorPost by The True Doctorfirst image of a black person in a contemporary Elizabethan
setting in English art is of a single musician at either the
end of her reign or the start of James I's.
This was 3000 years after the Iliad is set at the advent of
the African slave trade, so is in no way representative of the
people of ancient Greece.
Why do you bang on about the slave trade all the time? Look on a
map - Africa, Asia and Europe are a single landmass and people
had legs, mounts and wheeled vehicles as well as seagoing boats
sufficient to cross the Mediterranean or English Channel.
You don't have the remotest clue about ancient history. Europe,
Asia, and Africa were already broken up into individual states over
3000 years ago, and movement or populations between them would have
resulted in war.
The same way we go to war with France whenever a French person sets
foot on UK soil? There wasn't even a concept of passports until the
Middle Ages. Borders were porous and states were territorial boundary
markers more than centralised entities. And that was just in the
medieval period. "States" didn't mean anything like they do now, but
at least you're consistent in being completely unable to think of
anything in pre-modern terms.
You are talking complete and utter shit again. In ancient times borders
existed between city states rather than nation states, and all city
states were walled to keep out foreigners. Migrants would have been
slaughtered at the gate or shot down from the walls if they attempted to
enter a city without being invited, and non-citizens would have had to
camp and sleep outside the city walls if they were foreign merchants
trading with the city. Stop trying to rewrite ancient history with your
racist PC ideology. In those times people would have know the city an
individual came from just by looking at the features on their face. It's
even illustrated by Aristophanes in The Acharnians (or could could have
been another of his plays).
Post by p***@conservation.orgPost by The True DoctorStop spouting out historical revisionist PC crap trying to justify
racist supremacist ideologies which had no rational credibility whatsoever.
It's a "racist supremacist ideology" to point out that people can
move around? Is it "racist supremacist ideology" to point out that
It's racist supremacist ideology to attempt to portray migrations which
simply did not ever happen. Ancient city states were racially
homogeneous to the extent that you could recognized where someone was
from just by their facial features. The city states were effectively
self contained tribes.
Post by p***@conservation.orgAlexander made it to Afghanistan, or that Roman emissaries visited
China? Those are greater distances than between Nubia and Europe.
Alexander had the equivalent of trillions of dollars at his disposal,
all the gold in Fort Knox, so he could finance campaigns anywhere in the
known world. People from sub-Saharan Africa how nothing. There was
virtually zero trade with them, and non whatsoever in the Greek world.
Black African figurines and vase paintings only start appearing on Greek
pottery in Egypt in Hellenistic times and not before, indicating that
there was complete isolation of sub-Saharan Africans from Europe. There
would be no reason for a sub-Saharan African to even be in Europe since
the entire mercantile industry in the Mediterranean was contorted by the
Greeks and Phoenicians alone, and thus there wasn't.
Post by p***@conservation.orgPost by The True Doctorslavery in many cultures that took no account of race, just of
Sub-Saharan Africans were not sold as slaves in either Europe or
Asia by any ancient civilizations
The Romans had black people among their slaves. Why aren't you
No they did not. You are reading revisionist crap. The Romans didn't
even set foot in sub-Saharan Africa until the first century AD and there
wasn't anything there worth taking. There were no sub-Saharan African
Roman provinces.
Post by p***@conservation.orgPost by The True DoctorGiven that Homer even mentions people coming from "Ethiopia" to
what's now the Turkish mainland - in what, when he was writing,
was an event supposed to have taken place centuries in the past -
why do you have such a hard time imagining there would have been
some black people in Greece? All we've established is that
Achilles wasn't among them.
It is stated by Herodotus that there were no black people in either
Asia or Europe except for a tribe of Aethiopians near Colchis, and
that was all. The kings of Greece were not descended from African
slaves. There would have been no sub-Saharan Africans, especially
ones from West Africa in Greece, Asia, or Europe at the time.
"Herodotus believed that the Colchians (southern Black Sea area) were
introduced to Asia by Egyptian expansion as far as Thrace and Scythia
because "they have black skins and curly hair (not that that amounts
to much, as other nations have the same)"
http://courses.wcupa.edu/jones/his311/notes/herod.htm
Herodotus himself would have been surprised to hear that, it seems.
More evidence of your total lack of knowledge of history.
"[Herodotus 2.104.1] There can be no doubt that the Colchians are an
Egyptian race. Before I heard any mention of the fact from others, I had
remarked it myself. After the thought had struck me, I made inquiries on
the subject both in Colchis and in Egypt, and I found that the Colchians
had a more distinct recollection of the Egyptians, than the Egyptians
had of them. Still the Egyptians said that they believed the Colchians
to be descended from the army of Sesostris." Sesostris being Seti I.
Post by p***@conservation.orgPost by The True DoctorThe people of Greece were racially homogeneous until the 20th
Post by The True Doctorcentury, just like everyone else from the Balkans and
Anatolia.
How on Earth were the peoples of Anatolia 'racially homogenous
until the 20th Century'? The Turks alone didn't arrive in the
region from Central Asia until the 11th Century, and they didn't
eradicate the native Mediterranean populations when they
arrived.
Most Turks are actually of Greek, Armenian, Kurdish, Arab or
indigenous Anatolian decent.
Which is a non-homogeneous mix right there
They are homogeneously white.
Post by p***@conservation.orgThe Turkish tribes which invaded Asia-Minor numbered
Post by The True Doctorvery little, and of course they themselves were homogeneous. There
were no sub-Saharan Africans among them.
Who said they were? I was simply illustrating that you were wrong to
claim that the people of the region have been homogenous and without
any population movement for millennia.
They have been homogeneously white.
Post by p***@conservation.orgPost by The True DoctorI suggest you stop making up crap to substantiate racist PC
ideology.
You mean it's okay for you to make up crap to substantiate racist
ideology, just because you don't call it 'PC'?
The only racist ideology in this discussion are your clueless
partitioning denials of other peoples racial and cultural identity.
Post by p***@conservation.orgPost by The True DoctorPost by The True Doctorwouldn't be racist even if it could be demonstrated that it
denied opportunities for marginalised blond white men to
play Greek heroes. Racism requires active discrimination.
Why didn't Chibnall cast Chinese actors to play Rosa Parks and
Martin Luther King again? Why weren't the other non-white
people on the bus played by Japanese and Korean actors? It
would have made no difference to the story doing so. Why didn't
he?
It would have made a pretty significant difference in a story
specifically about race relations in America.
It would have made no difference whatsoever to the message since
Japanese and Koreans are not white.
See above. It was referencing a specific historical event in a
specific historical context specific to conflict between blacks and
whites in the US. You wouldn't take a story about the Battle of
Hastings and set it in Turkey between Japanese and Huron forces.
You wouldn't take a story about the Battle of Hastings and have King
Harold played by a black sub-Saran African actor either, and yet you
think Achilles who was blond and fair skinned can be played by a black
actor in historical context. How much more stupid can you get?
Post by p***@conservation.orgPost by The True DoctorPost by The True DoctorAgain you're using the same false logic as the people you
accuse of being 'politically correct', the ones who flare up
and insist it's sexist not to consider casting James Bond as
a female or racist not
Have you read any of the James Bond novels? The character of
James Bond is that of a man. Casino Royale makes it impossible
for him to be played by a woman.
That's my point. So why are you using the same reasoning to
decry casting a black man as racist that people agitating for a
female James Bond use?
I am not opposing the casting of a black man to play James Bond,
except for the fact that he is described as looking like Hoagey
Carmichael, but 007 is a code number and James Bond could very well
be a made up cover name.
Why would it have to be a cover name? Are you now onto the stage
where you suggest that black people invariably have African names?
It has to be a cover name because the James Bond that Fleming describes
looked like Hoagey Carmichael, who in cased you haven figured out yet,
was white. It's better that you just leave James Bond alone and let a
black writer or producer create something different of their own,
instead of a white PC racist appropriating white characters and
transferring them to black people and thus suggesting that black people
have no culture or literary characters of their own that are worth anything.
Post by p***@conservation.orgPost by The True DoctorAnd yet, changing Achilles into a black man has no influence
whatsoever on who the character is or on the plot. Now do you see
the point?
There were no sub-Saharan Africans in Greece at the time of
Achilles, and since Troy: Fall of a City is not set in modern
times, casting a black actor to play him is RACIST! Do you not
understand that it is racially offensive to appropriate the
historical culture of one race and attempt to pass it off as that
of another?
Do you not understand that showing a single character with a skin
colour not mentioned in the source material is not tantamount to
attempting to 'pass off' one culture as another? The story and
characters are presented as entirely Greek.
Since the story and the characters are entirely Greek then they should
be represented as Greek. Sub-Saharan African culture has nothing to do
with the Iliad. The Iliad has nothing to do with sub-Saharan African
culture. Stop trying to pass of a sub-Saharan African actor as if he
were a Greek from 1200 BC. It's racist and insulting both to Greek,
European, and African people alike.
Instead let the BBC put an end to institutionally racist ideology and
allow black producers and writers to make programmes about black society
and culture themselves, instead of having white people make programmes
for them that have nothing whatsoever to do with their history or culture.
Post by p***@conservation.orgIt would make no difference
Post by The True Doctorwhatsoever to the character or the plot to cast a white actor to
play Black Panther,
In the specific story told in the film it would have done, since race
relations did come into it.
The white actor could have been Russian and dealt with race relations
between Eastern Europeans and Western Europeans. Or he could have been a
Chinese communist played by a white actor.
Post by p***@conservation.orgwhy didn't Disney do it, and why aren't you campaigning
Are you really taken in by the notion that media companies actually
have some enlightened agenda when they make casting decisions? They
made a film about black heroes because it hadn't been done with such
a high profile and there was an audience that would buy it. Simple as
I asked why didn't Disney cast a white actor to play Black Panther, not
why the made the right decision of casting a black actor to play a role
created of a black character.
Post by p***@conservation.orgthat. Any time you see 'representing diversity' hailed in any kind of
product that's for sale, it's code for 'representing the groups of
people we expect to buy our products' - which is why you see so much
representation of black, Hispanic and Asian people in American dramas
and almost none of Native Americans or Polynesians. Those groups
aren't important consumer demographics.
All the more reason to have cast a white actor to play Black Panther
then, and made him of Hispanic decent, since Hispanics are the largest
ethnic minority group in the US, and whites from the overwhelming
majority, and thus Disney would have killed two birds with one stone.
Why are you avoiding giving the obvious answer? If Disney had cast a
white or Asian actor to play Black Panther, who was created and
portrayed in Marvel Comic as being black, it would have faced a total
backlash and violence and rioting spreading from the theaters and in the
streets.
Post by p***@conservation.orgPost by The True Doctorpeople don't. They don't read Herodotus, Philo or Porphyry and as
far as they're concerned the gods are completely mythical
entities to be treated however the whims of artistic licence
demand. Plato et al.
Here you go again trying to justify racism if the form of cultural
appropriation. The ancient Greeks believed that the gods were all
former kings of Greece
So, which king did Plato think Eros, the one he describes as having
two heads, four arms, four legs and two sets of sexual organs, was?
IMBECILE! Have you actually read Symposium you idiot? Clearly not. That
wasn't the opinion of Plato about what Eros looked like, it was a joke
made by Aristophanes about the origin of mankind as being a mixture of
both sexes and then the men-women splitting into men and women, and
men-men splitting into gay men, and women-women into gay women. This of
course was the original version of the story of Adam and Eve which had
nothing to do with ribs. The Greek word used is plevra or side, not rib.
Post by p***@conservation.orgThis fact is stated categorically by
Post by The True DoctorHerodotus and reinforced by Philo. Porphyry and Eusebius.
Where?
Herodotus Histories book 2, and Perpetration for the Gospel by Eusebius,
somewhere around book 1.9.
Post by p***@conservation.orgPost by The True Doctorwere also all very much later than the origins of those myths -
even if they had held the beliefs you imagine they had, that was
simply a secondary interpretation.
NO! It was the primary interpretation. Nobody not even Homer
believed the gods to be anything else, and this is made perfectly
clear in the Iliad and Odyssey when Homer makes the gods come down
in mortal form in the image and physical presence of the heroes
themselves,
The Iliad makes it explicit on multiple occasions that, while they
can breed, humans and gods are entirely different types of organism.
You are talking CRAP! Achilles was the son of Peleus and the goddess
Thetis, thus gods and mortals were no different biologically. Peleus'
homunculus is what produced Achilles. The only thing that differentiated
the gods and mortals was that the gods became immortal by feasting on
nectar and ambrosia, otherwise they were no different to mortals, and
this is the means by which Herakles became a god.
Post by p***@conservation.orgIn the Homeric view, gods were essentially a separate, more powerful
species that existed alongside humans.
You are making this up out of your arse. The gods in the Iliad are
depicted in the manner of a bickering family from a human soap opera,
because they were essentially human, not an alien race. All men were
descended from Phoeoneus the first man, who was the son of Inarchus the
son of the Titan Oceanus; or from Deukalion and Phyrrah the son of
Prometheus and Daughter of Epimethius; with various other gods having
affairs with their offspring.
Post by p***@conservation.orgAs memorably quoted from the Iliad by Leonard Nimoy in Civilization
"Not at all similar are the race of the immortal gods and the race of
men who walk upon the earth."
He's talking about moral virtues you ignorant fool. First there was the
golden age, ruled over by Kronos, then the less virtuous silver age
ruled over by Zeus, then the non-virtuous first brazen age, ruled over
by men who did not honour the gods and perished, then the second brazen
age where heroes flourished and honored the gods, and finally the iron
age where man prayed on his fellow man and was driven by lust and greed.
Post by p***@conservation.orgwhich would
Post by The True Doctorhave been considered an act of blasphemy if the Greeks considered
the god in the way modern (not ancient) Christians consider their
god.
Who said they did consider their god the same way? You're the one
drawing parallels by applying a Christianised notion of divinity - in
which a religion is founded on an identifiable historical individual
- onto a religion for which that was an alien world view.
More evidence of your total cluelessness.
The ancient Greeks considered their gods to be deified human kings who
ruled over them and thus behaved like any other ruler of privileged
individual. You are the one implying modern notions of divinity to them.
To the ancient Greeks they were no different to JR Ewing, or Blake
Carrington; subject to the same passions as mortals, engaging in
intrigue to entertain themselves, and committing serial adultery.
Post by p***@conservation.orgThe
Post by The True Doctorancient Christians engaged in ancestor worship themselves by
worshiping Christ, a dead Jew as a god.
That's essentially my point - you're taking the idea of a god that
evolved from that tradition and applying it to a culture that had no
such background.
You are talking out of your arse as usual. Ancient Greek and Roman
ancestor worship existed long before Christianity. You are the one
taking Christianity and trying to derive the practices of the ancients
from it. I don't need to, because the practices of the ancients are
written down by them themselves. Herodotus states that the Greek gods
were their own ancestors, and not only the ancient Greeks, but the
Egyptians, and Phoenicians too were ancestor worshipers, as does
everyone who follows him, and those who preceded him. Even the old
testament shows Rebecca? carrying statues of family gods around with her.
Post by p***@conservation.orgPost by The True DoctorAncestor worship also doesn't mean what you imagine it does. In very
It doesn't mean what you think does.
few cases are ancestors envisaged as the same discrete
individuals they were when alive. Rather they become part of some
aggregate
Yes they were. Have you watched Gladiator, which actually gets
this right? The ancient Romans and Greece carried statues or dolls
of their deceased family members with them, and worshiped them as a
the Christians do saints, which is where the Christians got the
whole idea from.
I think you're referring to house gods. Those may or may not have
been representations of ancestors, but they don't appear to have been
identified with any specific known individual and they were believed
to have the same sorts of protective powers of typical animist
traditions.
They were made in the image of and identified with specific deceased
family members.
Post by p***@conservation.orgPost by The True Doctorspiritual force, or individual unnamed spirits, within an
animist
NO THEY DID NOT! That is bullshit invented by the Victorians at the
same time they invented Wiccanism and pseudo-Celtic religions which
have no resemblance to any genuine ancient religions.
Wiccanism was invented in the 1940s. It's not Victorian.
Whatever.
Post by p***@conservation.orgNo one needs to invent any "bullshit". There are ancestor-worshipping
religions today with genuinely ancient roots, most prominently
Shinto, and their belief systems are as I described. Like many forms
Their belief systems have become corrupted over time.
Post by p***@conservation.orgof 'ancestor-worship', shrines are established to honour and remember
the ancestors and that may confuse outsiders into thinking the
individuals are being worshipped as deities, but that isn't the
case.
They are being worshiped as ancestors. The Arabs at the time of Mohamed
did exactly the same.
Post by p***@conservation.orgPost by The True Doctortradition. "X is dead, now he's a god/angel etc." is another
very modern Christianised way to view the world. It wasn't wholly
alien to Greek tradition - after all they had supposedly real
kings like Perseus and Dionysus who became demigods on death -
but Greeks generally made a distinction between those characters
and the major deities.
Having ordinary ancestors intervene in people's lives runs contrary
to the beliefs of the ancient Romans and Greeks.
And yet that's exactly what the house gods were believed to do, yet
you claim they were Roman ancestors.
Of course they were Roman ancestors. They were the deceased family
members of those that worshiped/venerated them.
Post by p***@conservation.orgPost by The True DoctorPost by The True DoctorGreek culture is European
Post by The True Doctorcultures, therefore Europeans can play Greeks, as long as
they try to look Greek, just like Asians find it acceptable
for Koreans to play Japanese (see Heroes).
This makes no sense. Either you're a purist or you aren't.
An English-descended Australian is just as inaccurate as
Paris Trojan as a black actor is as Achilles.
What the hell are you going on about?
The Australians are English-descended, unless you're talking
about aboriginals.
Australians are immigrants from various places - I specified
English-Australian (based on the surname) in case you decided to
invent a story that the actor was of Greek descent.
What the hell are you still raving on abut? What actor?
The one portraying Paris, who's just as inappropriate for the role as
the one playing Achilles because by your own reasoning he has no
known association with Greek culture.
So you mean the black sub-Saharan African actor playing Paris.
Post by p***@conservation.orgPost by The True DoctorPost by The True DoctorLooking up the actor's brief Wikipedia biography, the guy
who played Achilles is British. British culture has the same
links to Greek culture as the rest of Europe. Culture is not
defined by skin colour.
They guy is of sub-Saharan African origin,
Racially. That's not the same as culture. The Celtic and
Germanic peoples who populated Britain have no racial connection
to Greece either.
Achilles was not racially from sub-Saharan African and sub Saharan
Africans contributed absolutely nothing directly to ancient-Greek culture.
Which is completely immaterial. We're discussing his culture, not his
race, at this point. A British actor's culture is British, which owes
a lot to Greek culture. The British didn't "contribute anything
directly to ancient Greek culture" - quite the reverse - so why don't
you object to white British actors playing the parts?
Do you have to really state the obvious or are you totally stupid?
A white British actor can easily be made to look Greek using makeup.
Having a black actor put on make up to look Greek is as ridiculous as
having a white actor black themselves up to look black. They will never
look convincing.
Post by p***@conservation.orgPost by The True DoctorPost by The True DoctorWhy didn't Disney cast a white actor to play Black Panther.
Unlike Achilles he's totally fictitious, so why didn't they?
Because the entire point of making a film about the character
was that they could trumpet having an black-led and almost
all-black cast as their novel take on superheroes in the
marketing spin.
Oh really, and the fact that the original character was black made
no difference. BULLSHIT! If Disney had cast a white actor to play
Black Panther they would have been called out by everyone as being
totally racist.
They wouldn't have bothered making a film about the character if they
were going to cast him as white. There are about a million identikit
white Marvel heroes, and nothing about Black Panther's powers or
technology can't be done with one of those.
Of course it can. Black Panther was based on Tarzan. You know full well
what the real reason was why Disney didn't cast a white actor to play
Black Panther and it had absolutely nothing to do with his powers or
backstory. It was the fact the original character was black, and only a
racist imbecile would cast a white actor to play him.
Post by p***@conservation.orgPost by The True DoctorThe entire narrative of the Iliad is about love and friendship
which has no root whatsoever in sexual desire, triumphing over lust
and sexual desire.
The narrative of the Iliad is nothing to do with 'love and
friendship'. For the vast majority of it the only significant mortal
Yes it does. I suggest you read it.
Post by p***@conservation.orgcharacters are Diomedes and Hector, neither of whom has any
particularly significant relationships other than Hector's with his
father (and briefly at the end his wife and child). It's mostly just
battle scenes with excessive detail given regarding how each
character dies and reciting their lineages. Not much love or
friendship to be had there.
FOOL! Take out the action scenes and what you have is the story of
Achilles. That's why Robert Graves titled his translation "The Wrath of
Achilles", because that is what the story is about.
You've not even read the fist verse, have you?
"Sing, O goddess, the anger of Achilles son of Peleus, that brought
countless ills upon the Achaeans."
Post by p***@conservation.orgAchilles would not fight because he desired Briseis even when
Post by The True DoctorAgamemnon gave her back to him, but he would fight because he
didn't desire Patroklus. The bond of friendship between him and
Patrokuls was more powerful and purer than the desire he had for
Briseis. This is contrasted with the ordinary Greeks fighting for
the love of their country while their leaders fought to bring back
Helen so that Menelaus could fuck her.
This is utterly garbled and meaningless. Achilles felt slighted by
Agamemnon stealing his prize and refused to fight. He repeatedly used
this is an excuse to continue to avoid fightng, but the story gives
very explicit prominence to his fear of the prophecy that he would
soon die - for most of it he refuses to fight out of that fear, which
makes his relationship with Patroclus significant because he values
revenge for Patroclus over his life.
It has nothing at all to do with any continuing interest in Briseis,
who's a characterless device used to create the argument with
Agamemnon.
You are talking CRAP as usual.
Achilles is slighted because he loves Briseis and Agamemnon decides to
take her from him after he has to return the girl he took for himself to
her father because he angered Apollo. The story is about Achilles
refusing to fight because of his love/lust for a woman, but coming back
to fight because of his love/friendship for his cousin.
If you can't see that, like Plato did, then you are an ignorant FOOL!
Post by p***@conservation.orgPost by The True DoctorPost by The True DoctorWikipedia describes it, was reserved for lovers. The reason he
Wikipedia is not written by experts let alone ones who speak
Greek or have read Plato or the Iliad.
No, but the specific passage I quoted cites sources who
presumably have, and it describes the specific Platonic dialogue
in detail. 'Filious' is not the word I was referring to.
It was written by people don't have the remotest clue about the
Iliad or Plato based on the inaccurate politically motivated
rantings, sophistry, and dissemblings of Victorian so-called
scholars who wanted to justify homosexuality.
Justifying homosexuality is not high on the list of things the
Victorians are famed for.
It's what they engaged in and tried to keep hidden.
Post by p***@conservation.orgPost by The True DoctorPost by The True Doctor<<[Symposium 179d] In this manner even the gods give special
honor to zeal and courage in concerns of love (Eros). But
Orpheus, son of Oeagrus, they sent back with failure from
Hades, showing him only a wraith of the woman for whom he came;
her real self they would not bestow, for he was accounted to
have gone upon a coward's quest, too like the minstrel that he
was, and to have lacked the spirit to die as Alcestis did for
the sake of love (elder Eros/love without desire), when he
contrived the means of entering Hades alive. Wherefore they
laid upon him the penalty he deserved, and caused him to meet
his death
Orpheus has nothing to do with the Iliad and only shows up as a cameo in the Odyssey.
Orpheus is relevant to Plato's argument differentiating the two
forms of Love, the pure kind which involves no sexual desire, and
impure love, the sexual kind. Orpheus was motivated by the love of
a woman which was impure love. Achilles was motivated by his
friendship for his own cousin Patroklus, which was pure love
without any thought of desire.
That isn't even what the above passage says, let alone what Plato
Yes it is.
Post by p***@conservation.orgsays more broadly. Once again he's saying that sexual desire alone
isn't love because it's self-serving - Orpheus wanted a glimpse of
Plato is saying from the outset that there are TWO KINDS OF LOVE/EROS;
that which is sexual in nature born from sexual intercourse with
Aphrodite, and that which is pure in nature because it was born without
sexual intercourse.
Post by p***@conservation.orgEuridyce for his benefit despite knowing the consequences for her.
That doesn't at all imply that sexual desire shouldn't be involved -
are you imagining that Plato is arguing that a male can't have any
sexual desire towards a female he loves?
That is exactly Plato's argument precisely. Have you even read his
Symposium? Plato is stating that it is impossible for a man to love a
woman or a woman to love a man without sexual desire being involved;
whereas he states that the only kind of love which has no sexual desire
involved is the love between a man and a man (both of whom being
heterosexual).
Post by p***@conservation.orgYet again you post things that support what I've already said over
your unique interpretation.
You are talking out of your arse as usual.
Post by p***@conservation.orgPost by The True DoctorJust how ignorant are you?
Apparently much less than you, as I have the ability to comprehend what I read.
You are deluding yourself as you can neither comprehend and clearly have
not either read or understand the source material.
Post by p***@conservation.orgPost by The True Doctorexemplar of everything Trojans should aspire to be - that's
Hector. It's not clear that Helen has much time for him either -
she tells him to bugger off and fight at one point.
No, I don't think it's very suitable having Paris portrayed as a
hero. I think it comes from a shallow, soap-operatic modern
notion that stories have to be focused on the guy with a
girlfriend/wife (or
It comes from the warped ideology of political correctness, which
preaches supporting the villain because he is being misinterpreted.
This is the same sickening ideology which led Chibnall to have the
Doctor make friends with a pervert and excuse its crimes which it
inflicted on other to get its kicks.
You're going to find this hard to believe, Aggy, but not every stupid
modern trend has its basis in political correctness. Most of it
doesn't. Paris has never been considered a 'misunderstood villain'.
Modern film convention simply dictates that everything have a
'romantic' component, and generally both a male and a female lead.
There was a romantic competent between Helen and Menelaus which they
could have used.
Post by p***@conservation.orgPost by The True Doctorgirl with a boyfriend/husband) so that 'romance' can be
unnecessarily inserted into it.
There was a perfectly good romance between Menelaus and Helen which
they could have used. Read Helen by Euripides.
The setting is the Trojan War. Helen and Menelaus aren't in the same room until the end.
You don't have to have both people in the same room to have a romance.
Virtually every good romance has the man and the woman split apart and
trying to find each other for most of the story, and that's what happens
in the story of the Trojan War which starts with the Cypria and ends
with Menelaus finding Helen in Egypt.
Post by p***@conservation.orgPost by The True DoctorPost by The True Doctorpunch-up. One thing the Iliad is at pains to make clear is
that there was nothing unified about the Greeks and at best
a rudimentary sense of shared identity.
More Bullshit! The Greeks were unified fighting the Trojans by
a pact sworn at the wedding of Helen and Menelaus.
Yes, nothing to do with the honour of their nation, a concept
they didn't have. It was a code of personal agreements between
aristocrats (heroes).
The honour of their nation, represented by Helen and the sack of
Sparta, had been violated by the dishonorable Trojans. The treaties
between the kings of all of the city states in Greece were based
upon honour as the best way of keeping the peace. Failing to honour
them would have resulted in all out war between every Greek city
state thinking it could do anything it wanted to anyone other
without consequence.
Read the Iliad once again. Plenty of Greeks, at the point after
they'd been driven back to their ships, made it clear to Agamemnon
that they honoured their agreements to do him a favour - it was a
code of personal honour, nothing to do with any sense of shared
identity. There was no 'nation'. If they had to sack each other's
cities every so often they'd be happy enough to do it.
You have totally lost the plot! All the city states signed a pact in the
same manner as the pact signed by the members of NATO. If you attack one
of us then you attack everyone!