New to the site!

Hey guys!

How's everybody doing? Just found out about this site, and I'm excited to dig around. A friend of mine started a mythology site and is posting discussion information on there....care to look at it and see if there's anything you agree/disagree with? Any feedback would be great!

http://mindsbehindthemyths.org/

Any questions or something post to this thread....I'll be around. Excited to meet all of you.

Thanks -Z

(Crickets...)

..

Nice to meet you!

I already visited this site, and it's cool!
Nice to see you here

Would you say snowy crickets, or common field crickets?

Being in Louisiana, there are rarely snowy crickets. LA snowy crickets are a mythological creature.

Now field crickets, well they're the size of your hand.

And thanks for checking out the site. I think it's pretty damn cool, and am learning more about mythology but I'm definitely not at the level where I can interpret everything discussed....yet.

So I was reading a cracked article (online resource) recently comparing the caduceus used to symbolize medicine and what it actually means. Can anybody clarify that? Why would a symbol for deceit be used and carried on to represent medicine?

Also, has anybody else had the time to check out mindsbehindthemyths.org? Really hoping to see some comments or get some feedback on it!

Thanks guys!

¶I didn't know that it was a symbol of deceit, other than that it was the staff of the trickster god Hermes. One story has it that Hermes saw two serpents fighting. He stopped the fight by placing his staff between them. They coiled up the staff, and it became the caduceus. If anything, it should be a symbol of the peacemaker.
¶It's use as a symbol for the medical profession may have something to do with Moses' brazen serpent on a pole, which cured snakebite victims. However, it had only a single serpent, not two. The brazen serpent story is in the Bible, Numbers chapter 21.
¶Maybe the thing about the caduceus being a symbol of deceit has something to do with the serpent story in Genesis chapter 3.

Zack, about that web site you keep referring to, does it have a topical index somewhere? Who wants to scroll through the entire site (four pages?) in order to find a topic of interest? The site is organized like a blog, with dated entries. Am I missing something? Is it not supposed to be an informational site?

People sometimes forget that Hermes/Mercury is, among other things, the god of thieves.
It was thought that even thieves need a god!
Also, Hermes is thought to be very cunning and sneaky, which is why Odysseus liked him.
It is also because of the sometimes deceitful acts of Odysseus that Dante places him
in that part of hell for "bad counselors."

Very true. I actually only knew Hermes as just being the messenger god. Now I know better. I have new respect for him, now.

There is more to it.
Hermes is the only god to have offered a sacrifice to himself!

While still an infant, he once went out his cradle and set out for an adventure to Pieria in Northern Greece and steal the cattle from his half-brother Apollo
Hermes discovered the herd very soon, so he started pulling the hoofs out of the cows’ feet one by one and re-attaching them in the reverse order; the same he did to his own sandals. Then he took the herd, which now seemed to be walking backwards, hid them inside a cave and quickly returned to his cave in Mount Cyllene in Arcadia.

Apollo soon found out his herd was missing and he went out searching all around. The traces he saw on his way were nothing but confusing and led the god to despair. Of course, Apollo was the god of prophecy, so he soon found out the thief and went furiously to Mount Cyllene to find Hermes in his cave. Little Hermes was peacefully sleeping inside his cradle, but Apollo didn’t bother- he grabbed the infant and took him up to Mount Olympus to be judged by their master Zeus, the king of the gods.

Before the eyes of Zeus, Hermes first denied everything, but in the end he had to confess. Zeus had found the story quite amusing so he didn't punish Hermes; he only asked from him to return the herd. Hermes replied that he could not return two cows he had killed in order to use their intestine in making a lyre and that the rest of the meat he divided equally to be offered as sacrifice to the gods.
When Zeus asked to see the offerings he found one too many. He asked Hermes to justify the extra offering and the infant replied that it was to be sacrificed to himself !!

Ballsy. What was Zeus' reaction to this, or do you know?

Well, they say he laughed. You see, Hermes was only four days old !!

That surprises me of Zeus. I would not have guessed that reaction of him at all. Glad to know he has a sense of humour.

Hermes stole his way into the pantheon, he's my favorite.