Thomas Yaeger's Blog, page 13

Polytheism, Monotheism, and The Cult of the Aten

There is a scholarly view of Polytheism and monotheistic belief in antiquity, which is often quite subtly nuanced. And there is the public view, put about by popularisers, and in religious education classes. The latter view is a simple one, which provides support for the idea that modern religious belief is improved in some way. It suggests that monotheism represents an intellectual advance on polytheistic belief, and provided a basis for cultural unification which was not present before the...

Topics 5: Before 'The Sacred History of Being'

Much of the text which follows is from a document ('Topics 5') produced on December 30th, 2002. It is a list of topics connected with ancient religion which are what we might understand as a technical substratum to religious thought. By this I mean something which underpins a number of ideas which might be found elsewhere, and in some other form, in the textual remains, but which is based on physical analogies with the properties and attributes which were understood to have some connection wi...

The Origins of Transcendentalism in Ancient Religion (forthcoming, 2019)

Preface
On Ancient Religion
Parallels and Discontinuity between Contemporary and Ancient Religions
The definition of Transcendentalism in Religion
The Origin of the Transcendentalist Perspective The Nature of Reality Contradiction and Paradox Transcendence and Immanence Detecting the Presence of Transcendentalist Thought The Future of our Understanding of the Past Notes


This is a short book about a very large subject – the transcendentalism which is present in ancient...

Chapter Descriptions for 'The Frankish Tower' (forthcoming, 2018)

The chapters are summarised below.
Bertrand Russell and Philosophy in the West
Russell discussed the philosophical outlook of George Berkeley, the late 17th/early 18th century Divine, in his History of Western Philosophy, as it emerges from a conversation between two characters in a dialogue, Hylas and Philonous. This comes to a rather eastern flavoured conclusion, that the reality of the world involves cosmic mind, and that its physical nature is of very little importance. Bertrand Russe...

The Frankish Tower (2018)

A collection of essays on philosophy, ancient cultic thought, and the problems of addressing and interpreting ancient evidence. Forthcoming, 2018.


The text is now complete for this, though there is some editorial and formatting work still to be done. The chapter list will be something like:

Preface.

I.
Bertrand Russell on Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages.
The Irrationality of Atheism.
Richard Dawkins and Deism.
Writing to Alvin Plantinga. Distinguishing Belief and Faith.
What is Sacred, and wh...

Patterns of thought in Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age Britain

 Abstract: Pythagorean elements detected in megalith circles in ancient Britain have no easy explanation, and precede 1stmillennium Pythagoreanism by an extraordinary period of time. This paper explores the idea that there is a connection between some core Pythagorean mathematical and geometrical concerns, and ideas of divinity and Eternity.  On the basis of a close examination of Pythagorean ideas in the 1st millennium, for which we have extensive documentation, It is suggested tha...

Smashwords Price Promotion! Up to 75% off List Prices!

Price reductions only via purchase directly from Smashwords during 'Read an eBook Week', March 4-10, 2018. Click image below to visit my Smashwords home page, and scroll down. 

The Making and Renewal of the Gods in Ancient Assyria

A key chapter from The Sacred History of Being, published in November 2015. This chapter will be quite perplexing for readers who imagine that the important aspects of ancient religious practice, its preoccupations and purposes, are essentially the same as those which we are accustomed to in the later Abrahamic religions. Modern religion in fact bears very little relation to ancient religion, except in terms of some generalised concepts and vestigial remains. 
As far as the ancient Mesopo...

Working wonders: Hephaestus and the Armour of Achilles

This is a retitled chapter from The Sacred History of Being (originally titled: 'Being in Homer'). It analyses Book XVIII of The Iliad. It is something of an eye-opener about the intellectual life of what became known as the Greek Heroic Age. Much of the intellectual and tropic detail in this book of The Iliad strongly resembles ideas and themes which can be found in Mesopotamian and Phoenician sources.

It is not much studied in modern times for an understanding of Greek life and thought, sin...

How the Sacred and Profane Worlds were Joined

This is an abridged and retitled version of a chapter in The Sacred History of Being, which explores  interconnections between earthly and Divine realities in antiquity. A key thing to observe is that the idea of such interconnections is established on logical grounds. The reality of the Divine world is inferred, on the basis of the visible imperfections of profane reality, but the two worlds must be connected in some way if reality itself is not to be necessarily irrational in nature (t...