Talk:The Moon in mythology

I would like to know wich cultures believed that the moon died each night??? I've never heard of this, other than on a few pages on the Internet.


 * My fault: I moved text here from Moon to get this stub going: In ancient times, it was not uncommon for cultures to believe that the Moon died each night, thus descending into the underworld; other cultures believed that the Moon chased the Sun (and vice-versa). If any of this can be corroborated, re-edit it into the article. --Wetman 00:00, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Disputed marginal text re: Great Goddess
I have removed here for discussion both versions of the following text:
 * A. "While the Great Goddess in prehistoric cultures of Anatolia and the Levant and in the Aegean (a figure taken up by Neopaganism) may have had links to the moon, her connections to Hera-Demeter-Athena are not simple equivalencies. Artemis is not simply a later Selene. It is important to note again that most of the oldest civilizations mentioned above had male lunar deities, and it was only later cultures &mdash; the classical ones most people are familiar with &mdash; that featured strong female moon goddesses."


 * B "While many Neopagan authors and feminist scholars claim that there was an original Great Goddess in prehistoric cultures that was linked to the moon and formed the basis of later religions, the Great Goddess figure is highly speculative and not a proven concept. It is important to note that most of the oldest civilizations mentioned above had male lunar deities, and it was only later cultures &mdash; the classical ones most people are familiar with &mdash; that featured strong female moon goddesses." (inserted by User:DreamGuy with the remark "It's not "neutral" to declare that the Great Goddess was an actual belief that influenced later ones, as it's an unproven theoretical concept, one that actually is contradicted by the evidence.")

The problems: the Great Goddess as an "unproven theoretical concept"; attributing the "concept" to "feminist scholars"; unnecessarily vague reference to "prehistoric cultures"; attributed linking "the basis of later religions" ( carefully eliminated in A); the unspecified "contradictory evidence".

The educated reader may detect a tone of caution in A, as I was careful to skirt all unpleasant encounters and include as much of DreamGuy's recent edits as absolutely possible. The reader must decide whether sufficient caution has accompanied the assertions that are made in A. From personal experience, I expect little rational discussion from this well-documented Problem User, whose manipulative usage of the phrase "NPOV" has debased it for the rest of us. --Wetman 23:22, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

(Wetman has dropped this entry from his Watchlist. Without an atmosphere of contention, User:DreamGuy, lacking authentic information or concerns, will quickly lose interest in this subject, experience has shown.) Unsigned comment from User:Wetman


 * Actually, experience has shown that User:Wetman has a long history of launching into personal attacks when changes are made to articles he controbuted to, and that it's actually when he takes it off his watch list and stops making reverts and childish insults that the contention goes away and progress can be made on an article. See Melusine for the example previous to this one where he threw a fit, tossed some insults and stomped off instead of trying to support his side with scholarly references. Yes, the Great Goddess is an unproven theoretical concept (and one, I might add, evidence is against). That's what NPOV is all about, not assuming that this one person is right and not mentioning any criticism and so forth. DreamGuy 16:59, Feb 11, 2005 (UTC)

Great Goddess paragraph inaccurate and possible NPOV-problem
The following paragraph, which I see has seen debates, contains a number of inaccuracies and false accusations. I don't think it complies with the NPOV policy. As a sort of outsider in the debate between the two users let me just quickly point out some of the problems with what is in the article right now.

The paragraph:
 * "While many Neopagan authors and feminist scholars claim that there was an original Great Goddess in prehistoric cultures that was linked to the moon and formed the basis of later religions, the Great Goddess figure is highly speculative and not a proven concept. It is important to note that most of the oldest civilizations mentioned above had male lunar deities, and it was only later cultures — the classical ones most people are familiar with — that featured strong female moon goddesses."

The problems with the paragraph:

1. The concept of the Great Goddess has not been simply "claimed" by some Neo-Pagans and feminist scholars (I would like to see some names to support this, for a start). There is a number of religious historians and scholars that have researched the topic, and their research can not be ignored saying they are not more than claims.
 * a. Just out of the respected academic researchers I know personally there are two who have spent years with the Great Goddess, notably Károly Falvay, who had released two books on the Hungarian mythological appearance of a Great Mother and how it links to other cultures of the world, which was based on decades of research. Whether or not his books are largely supported or not in the scientific community, they exist.
 * b. There is a number of archeological finds that the researchers of the Great Goddess argue with (just a few examples: the 22,000BC French cave-embossment with a Goddess-figure holding a bull's horn/waxing moon with 13 indentations, the even older moon calendar dug up in Hungary around 2003, a number of neolithic Goddess-statuettes from around Europe, etc.).

What I'm saying is not to argue that the Great Goddess existed, but it is to argue that there has been notable academic research that cannot be put aside.

2. Saying that the Great Goddess-concept is "highly speculative" or as an "unproven concept" is a POV, as this is not a universally decided academic stance. The reason for this, as one of the cultural anthropologers I've worked with tells me, is that the number of archeological finds from the neolithic era is so little that almost anything said is speculative. The truth is that based upon the findings up until this point we cannot determine whether there was a Great Goddess or not, and there is not enough evidence to support either claims, so the question should not be treated like that.

Conclusion:

There have been many debates over the figure of the Great Goddess and the aim of a Wikipedia article is not to stand on one of the sides based on three sentences of a paragraph. I believe that deciding the question whether the Great Goddess had existed or not is not to be carried out in this article. Rather, it would have to describe that there is such a notion and leave the debate to the experts -- the debate may be presented but not a conclusion like there is one now -- that is breaking NPOV.

-- AdamDobay 13:32, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

Could someone here help with the page Moon?
I'm trying to improve the topic Moon, and one of the weak points is the discussion under the heading "Human understanding of the Moon". I think there needs to be more detail here, perhaps its own subsection, describing lunar mythology, etc. Is anyone here interested in writing a paragraph or two on this subject? Lunokhod 10:22, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Not Much Here
This page isn't very extensive. There is a list on Wikipedia of lunar deities, which I will add as a link. I'd like to do some research and come back later to improve the page. Cami Solomon (talk) 12:19, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Merge
I propose that this page be merged into Lunar deity. It seems to me to be about the same topic.Neelmack (talk) 20:20, 14 June 2009 (UTC)