Reading the kojiki, 8th century japanese semi-historical chronicle

Makes sense, I suppose.

What about nondual Śiva tantra where all the weird shit is just a metaphor?

One time Vainamoinen & pals were traveling through a cavern under a mountain when they came across a room full of snakes drinking beer, after an awkward silent stare down he got pissed off and cursed all snakes to never enjoy alcohol again. Fucking random and nobody mentions it again.

One time the prophet Elisha siced and army of bears on kids for calling him bald

The Egyptians thought the world was fapped into existence

There's a Japanese demonic foot who randomly appears in your house and demands to be cleaned

The Mongo of central africa say God is white and vomited the world into existence

Thor kicked a dwarf into Balders funeral pyre for no reason

Hercules once beat up death as a thank you gift to his host

Loki was a brony

In one Welsh legend two brothers orchestrated entire wars to take turns raping a girl, their punishment was getting turned into various animals and forced to have sex and give birth each year

In Hindu mythology Indra raped a sages wife and was given 1,000 vaginas all over his body (since he loved them so much)

In Aztec lore the world is faced with peril from skeletal hermaphrodites with rattlesnake penises

The mythology of the Kojiki is a political mishmash of various myths.

Jesus turned a fig tree barren for no reason

>There's a Japanese demonic foot who randomly appears in your house and demands to be cleaned

Japan: weird even in antiquity.

>Loki was a brony

Explain this.

Remember when Bhima killed hundreds of war elephants with only a club?

Remember when Arjuna got a tactical nuke as a present and tested it out on a sky city?

Remember when Hanuman lifted a mountain?

Remember when Parvati covered Shiva's eyes for fun and turned the world pitch dark?

We don't give the ancients enough credit. "Egyptians couldn't possibly have built the pyramids themselves, it was aliens!" or "There is no depth to the stories of the Babylonian deities, it's just a pipe dream!". It's this bullshit from you "enlightened" modernists that is ruining history and literature.

As for the Japanese tales, I'm unsure of this. However, we know the Japanese migrated to Japan via mainland China before history. For people to migrate, there must be a cause. For people to stay in a place, there must be a reason. Perhaps the deity represents the ancient Japanese, fleeing whatever was in mainland China. Meanwhile, the peaches represent the benefits the land of Japan has to offer to the migrants.

If your first instinct when reading these ancient stories is to take it all literally, you aren't ready for history.

It was because it didn't bear fruit out of season.

>be lazy gods
>ask giant to build you a castle
>he demands pussy in return
>offer up goddess of love
>wait till he's almost done building and turn Loki into a mare to distract the Giants magic horse
>stallion rapes the shit out of Loki and impregnates him with a beautiful eight legged foal named Sleipnir
>time limit runs out
>no puss for the giant

If your first though when examining myth and religion is to treat it as history, you aren't ready for mysticism. Or anthropology.

Yes and no

Not everything was an allegory, but myths undoubtedly reflect the worldview of the people who tell them

>you aren't ready for mysticism
Those are the words I should have used lol

What said. The short version.

>Emperor Tenchi seizes power by destroying the Soga clan
>His younger brother Tenmu helps, hoping to ascend when Tenchi dies
>Tenchi puts his son (of relatively lower birth) on the throne instead
>Tenmu rebels and wins, becomes Emperor
>Tenmu then commissions the Kojiki, which is full of stories about rightful rulership and filial piety

What about Buddhism or Taoism?

Please read "Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics" before you say anything like this again.

Beowulf isn't history obviously. It is, however, a poetic way of describing the changes in Scandinavia caused by the introduction of Christianity as well as the movement of the Anglo-Saxons.

How about no?

>buddhism
heavens and hells, demons, buddha tempted by women, attacked by demons, dude throws a flying disc at him that turns into flowers in mid air. Meditates for 5 weeks without food or water under a tree. Every subsequent sect and iteration of buddhism has god and demon types with magic powers.

>taoism
Taoism is both philosophy and religion. The religion part has lots of magic involved. The philosophy not so much. Saying you are a Taoist doesn't mean shit cause it could really be either depending on how you practice it.

Are you telling me Scandinavian culture doesn't heavily influence Beowulf?

Most memorably, but perhaps not very funnily, here is the legendary origin of Cyrus The Great as told in Herodotus' histories.

>Median King, Astyages, dreams of his daughter pissing in such enormous amounts that it swamps Asia.
>His advisors, the Magi, tell him this is a prophecy
>Alarmed, Astyages betroths his daughter to a Persian man of inferior standing. She is impregnated.
>'lol the child will be a Persian scrub, nothing to worry about'
> Astyages dreams of vines growing from his daughter's vagina which engulf Asia.
> Magi say this means his grandson will usurp him and become King
>Alarmed, he arranges to kill the newborn grandchild by sending a lackey to fulfill the task. If he fails he must be executed.
>Lackey delegates the job to a local shepherd, who must kill the child, or be executed.
>Shepherd is unable to kill the newborn. However, he is able to swap the royal child with his wife's recent stillborn so that nobody is any wiser
>Cyrus is raised humbly by the shepherd and his wife but the royal blood begins to show as some years pass
>Child Cyrus plays 'Kings' with the local children; is crowned and begins to perform Kingly duties
>building houses, appointing bodyguards, messengers, and a "King's Eye"
>One of the children, a noble's son, refuses his orders.
>Child Cyrus has him seized by his bodyguard, and whipped
>This gets back to the noble son's father, who makes a fuss
>Eventually, Cyrus' true identity is discovered by Astyages.
>His grandson is allowed to live because the prophecy has seemingly been fulfilled; he has already become a King already and so the threat is no more
>Subsequently the lackey is fooled into eating his own son at a state dinner as punishment for not killing Cyrus when commanded to do so
>Cyrus would go on to conquer the Medes and found the Persian Empire with the lackey as an advisor.

So according to Chinese myth, there used to be 10 suns-which sucked- but a human hero named Houyi the Archer shot them down, save for one who hid and survived.

As a reward for saving the Earth, the Gods gave Houyi pills they used to achieve immortality. Houyi said cool, thanks.

Depending on which version you're reading: one day, a robber tried breaking into their house and Houyi's wife, Chang'e, hid the pills by eating all of them. Or Chang'e became curious and ate pills everyday. Basically Chang'e abused that shit, bottom line. Apparently since Immortality = Becoming lighter & lighter in Chinese myth, she floated away from her husband and the earth in general, to live on the moon.

To this day she lives on the moon with the Lunar Rabbit, who with his pestle, makes pills for immortality for gods and heroes. The gods took pity on Chang'e and promoted her as Moon Goddess, marking her as the first human who became a god (at least, in myth).

I dunno if that was funny for all of you but it reads to me like some lelsome 60's drug-trip dream.

Speaking of the asshole archer Hou Yi, there's also a hilarious story involving an asshole cucked dragon, Hou Yi cheating on Chang'e with another woman and the JADE EMPEROR LAYING ICE BURNS

>Hou Yi gets stripped of his immorlity for murdering the sons of Di Jun even though his sons were dicks and were being suns
>Hou Yi's not too pleased by this and leaves his house (and wife) to go hunting
>Hou Yi finds this celestial bint and the two of them fuck
>the bint's husband, THE EASTERN WATER DRAGON is pissed at this and stalks the couple
>unfortunately for THE EASTERN WATER DRAGON, Hou Yi is still the badass who saved China and shot all those suns down so he notices something in the water and accidently shoots the cuck in the eye
>Cuck goes to heaven and complains about Hou Yi, claiming he was just swiming along and Hou Yi just came out of nowhere and shot him in the eye
>CUE ICE BURN. Jade Emps goes "You retarded fuck, if you were doing your job, you'd not have your eye shot out!"

Remember when Cronus ripped his dad's testicles off and threw them in the water, and Aphrodite was born from the combination of semen and salt water?

Remember that time Hephaestus caught Aphrodite and Ares cucking him and all the gods just laughed?

Remember the time Athena wanted some armor and Hephaestus did, but wanted to fuck Athena but Athena went "fuck no" but still got a son because his semen impregnated the Earth?

It's a form of shit talking the cainenites and the Moabites - hostori local enemies of the Israelites. It's like telling the school bully that his family is an inbred cesspit. Part of the reason I can't take this shit srsly>>

I know, but most of the legends, especially the ones concerning the creation of the universe, the birth of Amaterasu and such, were much older. They just collected many legends from both the imperial clan and diverse other families and arranged and altered them to form a narrative which ultimately goes to justify the emperor's rule and the other families' (specially the one at Izumo) submission to him. Nonetheless, the three peaches passage doesn't affect the legitimacy of the emperor, nor does it tie the tale to others in the book, so I'm inclined to think is much older and unaltered. Hence my point, rice seems not to be the only plant the japanese extensively cultivated. Pic related.
Not really. Those legends are to be taking literally, that's why they're bundled in with accurate history. In fact, they were until not that long ago, the japanese being hardcore nationalist fanatics. Also, the kojiki is written not in normative chinese like the chronicles that followed it a few years ago, but in japanese with a mix of chinese characters used ideographically and phonetically (being this use, then called manyogana, the origin of the kana silabaries). The intention (so states the author in the preface) is to transmit the tales literally, without risking any loss of meaning by translating it into chinese. For the guys who wrote it, the first part (legends, peaches and shit) was as true as the last one, which refers to the reigns of emperors deceased only one or two centuries before.

Forgot pic

It's mostly metaphor to hook the superstitious plebs. On the academic side, the monastics don't /quite/ take the majority of it literally. Even the stories surrounding later historical mahasiddhas such as Naropa or Saraha are given in that form because it's effective, for one, and buddhism is primarily an esoteric practice, esoteric practices being rife with analogy.

To counter a couple individually:
>demons
There's little functional difference between a demon and a viral thoughtform spooking you into certain behaviors. It's a linguistic issue. It's nothing but a model for a behavior, one that isn't' even treated in that manner under the psychological treatises parallel to it.

>meditates for 5 weeks
I've seen some freaky shit. There's that kid that did it. The dalai lama went and stared at him for a few hour then explained it.

>god and demon types with magic powers
The term you're looking for is Tantric meditational deities. It's a form of modeling in the sense of neuro-linguistic programming.

Buddhism has many glaring problems, like being founded on the notion of rebirth, the question of whether dukkha is really a bad thing based in that notion, the divide between exoteric practice of the populace and esoterica of the monastics, or the complete bastardization of practice by monastic structure as highlighted by numerous (former) monastics for the past 1500 years.

The magic is a non-issue here. It's the metaphysics.

Well, it may be that way now, but certainly that was not the case when it was introduced to Japan. Aside from a few exceptions, like Prince Shotoku, who took buddhist principles more seriously, the reason why buddhism was so quickly accepted and supported by the state, even when it radically conflicts with the native religion, is because it was regarded as miraculous magic that could bring health, wealth and power. The emperors of the nara period built extensive temple networks and mandated that certain sutras (the ones that explicitly stated that they would benefit the sovereign of a state who read them) be read periodically. Likewise, when an emperor or empress fell ill, the temples were mandated to recite healing buddha sutras and the like.

>Zeus can't keep it in his tunic

And so shit happened.

>One time the prophet Elisha siced and army of bears on kids for calling him bald
Whaaaat?
Source

Elisha didn't send the bears, God did, but yeh, it happened.

What you're doing is not right, you need to be appreciating these for the literary and thematic merit they have as a whole poetic work instead of focusing on them as something to clue you in to history of that time, because you might be getting totally wrong information.

That's hineiningterpretierung all over. We have material historical sources, and we have Beowulf. Until you find a source that links the two, you cannot connect the two as conveniently as that.

Beowulf is a kind of tale of a type that was generally popular with Indo Europeans. That's about as deep as we can go.

one time back when Jesus was a kid, some kid either punched him, threw a stone at him or bumped into him. Jesus killed him on the spot.

You invented that, didn't you?

>be late Neolithic city-state
>have population of 10,000-20,000
>have no sexual taboos on boy-rape
>modern day research shows that 70% of pedophiles were abused as boys, suggesting that being abused as a boy greatly increases the chances that one will abuse boys upon reaching adulthood
>widespread, taboo-free boy-rape in Sodom creates a culture where most men are boy-rapists (as they were abused as boys)
>MGTOW and NAMbLA butt-buddies is the norm amongst males
>nobodies pays attention to females
>birth rates drop
>population already small
>Bronze Age rolls around
>bronze technology brings the advent of warfare, the advent of the "Age of Heroes"
>Don't form a military culture because men are ALL effeminate pedo-faggots
>blond emissary arrives in city
>everyone tries to rape the blond emissary
>diplomatic crisis ensues, warrior culture Bronze Age army descends on Sodom
>too few men to resist
>city is burned down

Wasn't it god who burned it down?

Nope, happened.

He even made the Jews that called him out on it blind, and vexed his dad for wringing his ear as punishment. A local teacher was impressed by this commended him for it.

He got a reputation for it too. He had to bring some children back to life when they died in an unrelated accident just to prove he didn't do it.

Source: something something gospels of Thomas

wtf, gonna have to read the bible sometime, sounds strange as fuck.

You won't find it in a vanilla bible.

The mainstream bibles cut out a lot of gospel that doesn't seem to flow with the rest of it. Don't want people questioning why Jesus was a delinquent.

Wait, this stinks of tinfoil hat. Is there real proof that the "unedited Bible" you're talking about is really the original?

Mistranslation of 2 Kings 2:23-25

They weren't kids. They were local punks, mid-late teens at the oldest

You can read Hebrew?

He didn't make it up, though it isn't considered true by Christians

look up noncanonical gospels, Jesus kills a shitton of people who annoy him

I suppose he is suggesting a less literal interpretation of events

The problem with your theory is that Greeks were the greatest warriors around and they were basically Sodom 2.0

קנאה שנגע וכי

Kids or not, it's just some sort of juvenile and nonsensical revenge fantasy. Pic related but with humor.

The craziest, most incomprehensible story in the Bible is Samson's, though.
I mean, I got that they really really really hated Philistines but it just feels like a pointless waste of paper.
Also that one where dude wrestled God.

>One time Vainamoinen & pals were traveling through a cavern under a mountain when they came across a room full of snakes drinking beer, after an awkward silent stare down he got pissed off and cursed all snakes to never enjoy alcohol again

Sounds normal for Funland.

The entire OT is Jewish revenge fantasies

>In Aztec lore the world is faced with peril from skeletal hermaphrodites with rattlesnake penises

...and now "spooky scary skeletons" is stuck in my head again...

Oh well... Hitomi Tanaka comes to mind for the imaged folklore.

In Rwanda people used to believe in Imana, a god that is now considered the same as the Christian god (both monotheistic faiths). Which makes for some strange combination of belief.

The Rwandans strive for immortality. There are three ways this immortality can be achieved:

>First it is by having as many offsprings as possible. Marriage is thus an obligation and polygamy is allowed in this culture.

>The second way is by rendering services to the community or by helping others.
>The ones who have been helped make the benefactor immortal by swearing by his or her name in an oath.

>The third way is by sacrificing one's life to save the Rwandan nation from calamity, like Jesus Christ (something which may perhaps explain their extremely ambitious warlords).

So here's a strange folk tale:

>There was a husband and a wife who had a a son and a daughter
>Their mother died and left them alone with their father
>One day the father asked his children to gather some firewood
>After they left to search the daughter went to play with some friends
>The friends gave her some extra firewood which she brought home
>When her father asked her where his son had gone, she said, “He went to play with the girls.”
>When the son came his father asked him where he had been and why he only brought one piece of wood.
>His son told him he had looked all over and it was all he could find.
>His father didn't believe him and told him to bend forward so he could look at his head.
>The father took an axe and split up his head, chopped him to pieces and buried his body near a papaya tree.
>The daughter went to the tree to pick up some fruit, but heard a voice saying she cheated and lied.
>She walked up to the tree again and heard it say, “Don’t pick from me, because of you, I brought my father the axe and he took my life.”
>Father went with her to hear this himself.
>He heard the same thing the daughter heard.
>Father told daughter to get a shovel, dug it up washed the rib bone that was left, father apologized and the son revived.

>Thor kicked a dwarf into Balders funeral pyre for no reason
Rage obviously.

>Loki was a brony
See Norse gods were real jews

What did he mean by this?

>Hantu Tetek
>Hitomi Tanaka

IT FITS TOO WELL