musings inspired by pbs

just watched a special (nova) about the riddles of the sphinx. very riddley i might add. it basically boils down to the sphinx and the temple in front of it were all a tribute or a monument to the worship of the sun (and pharaoh getting his golden afterlife). riddle me this. did you know that the ancient egyptians picture of 'afterlife' was derived from the sunrise? because the sun sets and comes again they considered it a symbol of afterlife or more literally, that there would be an 'after life'. the temple in front of the sphinx even had monuments that exactly followed the movements of the sun from rise to set. it all makes sense with main god being 'ra' the sun god. so vast amounts of treasures, and thousands of people (probably slaves or workers) and years and years (decades peeps decades - the nose alone would have taken 100 workers 3 years and it fell off to boot) were dedicated to the worship of a 'sun god' a 'sunrise after life' by the digging of, building tools for, and building of a monument.

consider me this. how amazingly psychologically damaging was the darkness over egypt during the plagues (ex. 10:23). darkness alone would be amazingly damaging (look at the depression rates in alaska) but to have the rug literally pulled from the feel of your religion; to have our true God, the God of Israel, literally show pharaoh and the egyptian people the impotence of their 'ra', the god they had spent centuries worshiping and building monuments to, the basis of their afterlife belief, is absolutely astounding. talk about a sign that says "your god is nothing, fabrication, zilch. let my people go". it really struck me anyway. you and many many other people probably have already thought of this but i thought it was really cool and i understood the complexity of it and the importance of it much better.