Divinity may be the most overrated aspiration to ever plague humankind. That is because, with only mediocre effort, you can achieve this goal by yourself.
However, so obvious is this fact that it goes overlooked, or even discouraged because of religious beliefs. If its not discouraged, its methods are discredited. After all..it just wouldn't do to have billions of skilled, intelligent, and motivated people deciding our future, would it? Its just not profitable....
Devotion. To anything. That is the secret ingredient in the divine formula.
Being focused on using your talents to better the lives of other people, being devoted to that cause, is what will win the day. You have a responsibility to your species, to do everything you can to prevent it from falling into evil ways. The time is for action has arrived.
Will you take the first step on the road that has no end? Do you have the courage, the strength, and the mind to deny these tyrants?
Take back what has been stolen from us.
What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason,
how infinite in faculties, in form and moving,
how express and admirable in action,
how like an angel in apprehension,
how like a god! William Shakespear.
However, so obvious is this fact that it goes overlooked, or even discouraged because of religious beliefs. If its not discouraged, its methods are discredited. After all..it just wouldn't do to have billions of skilled, intelligent, and motivated people deciding our future, would it? Its just not profitable....
Devotion. To anything. That is the secret ingredient in the divine formula.
Being focused on using your talents to better the lives of other people, being devoted to that cause, is what will win the day. You have a responsibility to your species, to do everything you can to prevent it from falling into evil ways. The time is for action has arrived.
Will you take the first step on the road that has no end? Do you have the courage, the strength, and the mind to deny these tyrants?
Take back what has been stolen from us.
What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason,
how infinite in faculties, in form and moving,
how express and admirable in action,
how like an angel in apprehension,
how like a god! William Shakespear.
Hyperion
Titan of Light
Hesiod, Theogony 133 & 207 (trans. Evelyn-White) (Greek epic C8th or C7th B.C.) :
"She [Gaia the Earth] lay with Ouranos (Sky) and bare deep-swirling Okeanos, Koios and Krios and Hyperion and Iapetos, Theia and Rhea, Themis and Mnemosyne and gold-crowned Phoibe and lovely Tethys. After them was born Kronos the wily, youngest and most terrible of her children, and he hated his lusty sire . . . And he [Ouranos] used to hide them all [Hekatonkheires and Kyklopes, brothers of the Titanes] away in a secret place of Earth (Gaia) so soon as each was born, and would not suffer them to come up into the light : and Ouranos (Sky) rejoiced in his evil doing. But vast Gaia (Earth) groaned within, being straitened, and she made the element of grey flint and shaped a great sickle, and told her plan to her dear sons [the six Titanes]. And she spoke, cheering them, while she was vexed in her dear heart : `My children, gotten of a sinful father, if you will obey me, we should punish the vile outrage of your father; for he first thought of doing shameful things.' So she said; but fear seized them all, and none of them uttered a word. But great Kronos the wily took courage and answered his dear mother : `Mother, I will undertake to do this deed.'
So he said: and vast Gaia (Earth) rejoiced greatly in spirit, and set and hid him in an ambush, and put in his hands a jagged sickle, and revealed to him the whole plot.
And Ouranos (Sky) came, bringing on night and longing for love, and he lay about Gaia (Earth) spreading himself full upon her. Then the son from his ambush stretched forth his left hand and in his right took the great long sickle with jagged teeth, and swiftly lopped off his own father's members and cast them away to fall behind him . . . These sons whom be begot himself great Ouranos (Sky) used to call Titenes (Strainers) in reproach, for he said that they strained and did presumptuously a fearful deed, and that vengeance for it would come afterwards." [N.B. Hesiod in the last few lines says that all six brothers were involved in the ambush and castration of Ouranos : five straining to hold him fast, while the sixth, Kronos, cut off his genitals.]
The Titanes Hyperion, Iapetos, Krios and Koios probably represented the four pillars which held the sky or universe aloft. Hyperion as the father of sun, moon and dawn was surely the great Pillar of the East.
Hyperion, as a Titan son of Heaven, was probably also viewed as the primal god who first ordered the cycles of sun, moon and dawn, establishing the regular rhythm of days and months. His brother Krios, on the other hand, presided over the ordering of the heavenly constellations and so in a complimentary manner ordered the year and the cycle of seasons.
He and his brothers also seem to have been viewed as the ancient gods responsible for the creation of man, and who each bestowed a quality. Hyperion as his name suggests ("he who watches from above") was clearly associated with watching and observation, just as his wife, Theia, was the goddess of sight (thea), and so theirs was surely the gift of eyes and sight. The Greeks also believed that the eyes emitted a ray of light which allowed one to see. Hence the sun and moon, whose rays lit up the earth, were also connected with the gift of sight.
"She [Gaia the Earth] lay with Ouranos (Sky) and bare deep-swirling Okeanos, Koios and Krios and Hyperion and Iapetos, Theia and Rhea, Themis and Mnemosyne and gold-crowned Phoibe and lovely Tethys. After them was born Kronos the wily, youngest and most terrible of her children, and he hated his lusty sire . . . And he [Ouranos] used to hide them all [Hekatonkheires and Kyklopes, brothers of the Titanes] away in a secret place of Earth (Gaia) so soon as each was born, and would not suffer them to come up into the light : and Ouranos (Sky) rejoiced in his evil doing. But vast Gaia (Earth) groaned within, being straitened, and she made the element of grey flint and shaped a great sickle, and told her plan to her dear sons [the six Titanes]. And she spoke, cheering them, while she was vexed in her dear heart : `My children, gotten of a sinful father, if you will obey me, we should punish the vile outrage of your father; for he first thought of doing shameful things.' So she said; but fear seized them all, and none of them uttered a word. But great Kronos the wily took courage and answered his dear mother : `Mother, I will undertake to do this deed.'
So he said: and vast Gaia (Earth) rejoiced greatly in spirit, and set and hid him in an ambush, and put in his hands a jagged sickle, and revealed to him the whole plot.
And Ouranos (Sky) came, bringing on night and longing for love, and he lay about Gaia (Earth) spreading himself full upon her. Then the son from his ambush stretched forth his left hand and in his right took the great long sickle with jagged teeth, and swiftly lopped off his own father's members and cast them away to fall behind him . . . These sons whom be begot himself great Ouranos (Sky) used to call Titenes (Strainers) in reproach, for he said that they strained and did presumptuously a fearful deed, and that vengeance for it would come afterwards." [N.B. Hesiod in the last few lines says that all six brothers were involved in the ambush and castration of Ouranos : five straining to hold him fast, while the sixth, Kronos, cut off his genitals.]
The Titanes Hyperion, Iapetos, Krios and Koios probably represented the four pillars which held the sky or universe aloft. Hyperion as the father of sun, moon and dawn was surely the great Pillar of the East.
Hyperion, as a Titan son of Heaven, was probably also viewed as the primal god who first ordered the cycles of sun, moon and dawn, establishing the regular rhythm of days and months. His brother Krios, on the other hand, presided over the ordering of the heavenly constellations and so in a complimentary manner ordered the year and the cycle of seasons.
He and his brothers also seem to have been viewed as the ancient gods responsible for the creation of man, and who each bestowed a quality. Hyperion as his name suggests ("he who watches from above") was clearly associated with watching and observation, just as his wife, Theia, was the goddess of sight (thea), and so theirs was surely the gift of eyes and sight. The Greeks also believed that the eyes emitted a ray of light which allowed one to see. Hence the sun and moon, whose rays lit up the earth, were also connected with the gift of sight.
Prometheus
Titan of Wisdom
PROMETHEUS was the Titan god of forethought and crafty counsel who was entrusted with the task of moulding mankind out of clay. His attempts to better the lives of his creation brought him into direct conflict with Zeus. Firstly he tricked the gods out of the best portion of the sacrificial feast, acquiring the meat for the feasting of man. Then, when Zeus withheld fire, he stole it from heaven and delivered it to mortal kind hidden inside a fennel-stalk. As punishment for these rebellious acts, Zeus ordered the creation of Pandora (the first woman) as a means to deliver misfortune into the house of man, or as a way to cheat mankind of the company of the good spirits. Prometheus meanwhile, was arrested and bound to a stake on Mount Kaukasos where an eagle was set to feed upon his ever-regenerating liver (or, some say, heart). Generations later the great hero Herakles came along and released the old Titan from his torture.