Talk:The Sun in culture

About the Brigham Young quotation
That Brigham Young considered the Sun to be inhabited doesn't strike me as being relevant to the cultural significance of the Sun to the Mormon church. How widely recognised and accepted is this idea to most Mormons, if at all? My intuition is to delete the section, but if someone has a good defense for keeping it, I'd be glad to hear it. --G Rose (talk) 08:47, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Brigham Young was the leader of the Mormons from 1844-1877 and was widely considered God's official spokesman on the earth at the time by the Mormons. Brigham Young once said that anything he ever said in public sermon was the word of the Lord. All of the future top church leaders through World War 1 had been picked by him for their positions in the line of succession and every current top church leader can trace their authority back to Brigham Young. Today the Mormons honor Brigham Young by naming all their universities after him. And since no church president has denounced this doctrine about the sun/moon then it stands as being sanctioned by the religion.(talk)


 * I deleted the following text:
 * Brigham Young, the second president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, stated:


 * It has been observed here this morning that we are called fanatics. Bless me! That is nothing. Who has not been called a fanatic who has discovered anything new in philosophy or science? We have all read of Galileo the astronomer who, contrary to the system of astronomy that had been received for ages before his day, taught that the sun, and not the earth, was the centre of our planetary system? For this the learned astronomer was called "fanatic," and subjected to persecution and imprisonment of the most rigorous character. So it has been with others who have discovered and explained new truths in science and philosophy which have been in opposition to long-established theories; and the opposition they have encountered has endured until the truth of their discoveries has been demonstrated by time. The term "fanatic" is not applied to professors of religion only...I will tell you who the real fanatics are: they are they who adopt false principles and ideas as facts, and try to establish a superstructure upon a false foundation. They are the fanatics; and however ardent and zealous they may be, they may reason or argue on false premises till doomsday, and the result will be false. If our religion is of this character we want to know it; we would like to find a philosopher who can prove it to us. We are called ignorant; so we are: but what of it? Are not all ignorant? I rather think so. Who can tell us of the inhabitants of this little planet that shines of an evening, called the moon? When we view its face we may see what is termed "the man in the moon," and what some philosophers declare are the shadows of mountains. But these sayings are very vague, and amount to nothing; and when you inquire about the inhabitants of that sphere you find that the most learned are as ignorant in regard to them as the most ignorant of their fellows. So it is with regard to the inhabitants of the sun. Do you think it is inhabited? I rather think it is. Do you think there is any life there? No question of it; it was not made in vain. It was made to give light to those who dwell upon it, and to other planets; and so will this earth when it is celestialized. Every planet in its first rude, organic state receives not the glory of God upon it, but is opaque; but when celestialized, every planet that God brings into existence is a body of light, but not till then. Christ is the light of this planet. God gives light to our eyes. (Journal of Discourses, vol.13, p.271).


 * The opinion of whether or not the sun may be inhabited has never has been officially commented on, nor is it a doctrine of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.


 * It has nothing to do with LDS theology. The Church at no time in its history taught there were people on the sun or moon. However, it has taught that there exist in the universe other beings as ourselves i.e. that God did not stop creating with this earth. It is just a bad edit that appeals to a single editor's personal beliefs and soapbox, but it is not appropriate for this article. Maybe creating an article wierd quotes by Brigham Young. --Storm Rider (talk) 17:26, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

In Science Fiction and Popular Culture
There is emerging this new scientific discovery called the "Ahad radius", defined in Wikipedia terms as:

Ahad radius defines the theoretical edge of the Sun’s sphere of light dominion above the collective light contribution of the surrounding cosmic night sky. The existence of this boundary, at c. 11,500 AUs going radially outward from the Solar System in all directions, was first postulated and quantified by Abdul Ahad in July 2004. A preliminary outline of the concept was later published in October 2005 and featured in his fictional novel series First Ark to Alpha Centauri.

Therefore I propsed a new sub section be added, headed "In Science Fiction and Popular Culture" with the following text:

In fictional novels and the internet sub-culture, the Sun's light dominion presiding over the surrounding universe's background light is widely believed to come to an end at a fixed radius distance. That would mark an important psychological boundary for interstellar travellers escaping their home Solar System for the very first time in the far distant future. The concept of Sun gods and solar deities would also become technically invalidated beyond such boundaries, where Sun worship would become meaningless.

Somebody reverted this, but I remain open to discussions on this matter.Uranometria 09:13, 18 August 2007 (UTC)


 * You would need to prove that it is notable and relevant. At the very least, the second and third sentences are speculation (and as such not encyclopedic). --Ckatz chat spy  09:32, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
 * The second sentence is reasoanable: "In the far distant future, when we are ready to embark on interstellar voyages out towards the stars, the edge of this sphere will mark an important psychological boundary for travellers from Earth. Imagine that a species which was born and evolved throughout its entire history under the powerful influence and majestic light provision from its parent star.... is suddenly about to make that supreme source of all light and heat the secondary source of *total* illumination...". The third sentence seems reasonable too "And how many devoutly followed religions and ideologies both in the past history of our planet and in many corners of well known modern religions today are still adamant on some form of direct or indirect "Sun worship" based on a fundamental belief that the Sun is the most supreme source of light in the entire universe and the giver and sustainer of all life? And what would those religions be worth when one of their worshippers crosses this Ahad radius where the Sun gradually becomes the secondary source of illumination going beyond a trillion (10^12) miles or 11,500 AUs out from Earth in all directions?". At such a distance, a Sun wosrshipper's core pillar of faith would become invalidated because the Sun will no longer be the most supreme source of light to his/her local existence. Uranometria 12:05, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Above quotes are by Abdul Ahad taken from the astronomy discussion Uranometria 23:47, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Christmas and Christ and the Sun?
Here's whats what. There is a movie Zeitgeist based off some non-scholarly texts claiming that Christ is a sun-god because His "birthday" is December 25. The day was adopted FROM the pagans for lack of any real knowledge of the day and to entice pagans to join the church by preserving their annual festivities. It has nothing to do with Christ being a sun-god. Based on this logic one might also falsely say he was a sheep-god (Lamb of God), a bread-god, a wine-god, a fisherman-god, and any number of silly things. If you have the audacity to re-write the text books, at least have the foresight to cite something worth the silicon its stored in. I apologize if this sounds a bit rantish, but we in the Wikipedian community need to be on patrol for this sort of thing. Half of the information from that movie came from material left unchecked on Wikipedia long enough that some people started believing it was true. Let us all be more wary stewards of Knowledge. Thank you. -Knowl -&lt;(I am questing for Knowledge!) (talk) 05:06, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Title
Isn't the inclusion of 'human' in the article title unnecessary? (At least until we're aware of any 'non-human' culture.

Really ?
''In his book, Secrets of the Sun Sects, Christopher Jordan tells us that ancient Sun cultures did not actually worship the Sun: they simply used it. The worshiping apparently came much later: after successive administrations neglected education, and societies slid down the slope of ignorance to become entrapped in the hokum of religions. Before that, in the clear blue days of scientific enlightenment, most cultures were using the Sun to cook their food, boil their water, and heat their homes. The more sophisticated communities developed solar tools for melting steel, cutting stone, and creating weapons. According to Christopher Jordan, previously a research scientist, but now living in Cambodia, even the most underdeveloped of the Ancients – folks who wandered the Earth more than two thousand years ago – could harness the power of the Sun with simple, spherical, mirrors, and store the resultant energy in big black rocks for later use. ''

I ain't no scientist, but this passage seems kinda phoney to me... storing the energy in big black rocks ? Seriously ? Should I edit it ? Cyd, August 6th 2011 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.158.227.252 (talk) 14:43, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

Egypt
"The worship of the Sun in the Eastern world has its historical origin in Ancient Egypt."? Is there a source on this? I doubt that the Persian and further East peoples have their mythology from Egypt.