Egyptian
From Philosopedia
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Egypt
Egyptian
EGYPTIAN CIVILIZATION
The peoples of Egypt and the Near East were said to have made their appearance, according to Jasper Griffin of Oxford University, in myths
- in connection respectively with the Greek heroine Io (who went to Egypt in the form of a cow) and with the hero Cadmus, sprung from the same family but living in Phoenicia. Cadmus came back to his birthplace, Greece, bringing with him the alphabet, and became the founder of the city of Thebes, the great-granddaughters of Io, the fifty Danaids (daughters of Danaus, another eponym, this time of the Danaans, an old name for the Hellenes), returned to Greece in flight from their hated suitors, their cousins, the fifty sons of Aegyptus.
When forced to marry them, all but one of the Danaids cut their bridegrooms’ throats on their wedding night. Such a myth has led many human males to universal feelings of alarm, Griffin has written,
- . . . at the thought of marrying, and being helpless in the presence of, a woman—about whom, when you came down to it, you really knew very little.
{Jasper Griffin, "Anxieties of Influence,” The New York Review of Books, 20 June 1996}
EGYPTIAN FREETHINKERS AND HUMANISTS
- • Averroës Today (published in English and Arabic twice per year), PO Box 5101, Heliopolis West, Cairo, 11711 — is of interest to freethinkers. Mourad Wahba, its president, signed Humanist Manifesto 2000.
- • Afro-Asian Philosophy Association (is an Associate Member of the International Humanist and Ethical Union in London) — the group has held conferences in Cairo on “Enlightenment and Human Rights” and “Terrorism and Teaching Philosophy.”
EGYPTIAN RELIGION
Much confusion surrounds the study of ancient Egyptian religion, and current research finds contradictory myths and beliefs riddled with inconsistencies. What is clear, however, is that five centuries before the introduction of monotheism by the Hebrews, five centuries before the first prophet appeared in Judea, Ikhnaten had imposed monotheism. However, according to Joseph McCabe, “the people, instead of perceiving it to be a higher truth, gladly joined with the priests in getting it suppressed and polytheism restored.”
(See J. H. Breasted’s Development of Religion in Ancient Egypt (1912) and Siegfried Morenz’s Egyptian Religion (1973).)
