Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2014 November 24

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November 24

Muslim style baptism/christening

Muslims perform prayer when a child is born or when a person dies. This prayer is nothing relating to the formalities, its similar to baptism/christening where they just raise their hands and pray in front of the kid by raising their hands, wishing full of happiness and so on. Note, Muslims do not anoint it with water or oil (whatever Christians do), formally muslims perform Akika, but this prayer is kind of a normal prayer e.g., say you are going to/starting school/college/university the first time, or a profession, or about to start an Olympic Marathon, you pray to God in your mind by raising your hands for success… This child birth prayer is something like this but with everyone available, after hearing the child birth news, praying together for the childs great future.

(Russell.mo (talk) 13:25, 24 November 2014 (UTC))

What is your question? AndyTheGrump (talk) 20:26, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

What do you call this type of informal prayer that people do to seek a benefit (with the hope that God might listen...)? Note that this small prayer is performed after hearing the news of a child's birth in the hospital with whomever available. -- (Russell.mo (talk) 08:31, 25 November 2014 (UTC))

Blessing, Invocation or Supplication all sort of cover it, depending on the context and maybe the connotation one wishes to convey.--William Thweatt ^TalkContribs 08:57, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

Selfishness? Asking your god to favour you over other people? (In things like the Marathon example in particular.) This is a bit of religion I've never understood. HiLo48 (talk) 09:03, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

Yes, asking God for a victory is not appropriate. Asking God for strength to run the best you can, is appropriate. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:28, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

Lol, this is life! -- (Russell.mo (talk) 13:43, 25 November 2014 (UTC))

Probably: disperse all the dark shades surrounding our will to succeed instead. Right, in some cases the ingenuity of the performer may sometimes appear a bit intrusive, to tenants of lesser expansive fashions. --Askedonty (talk) 09:18, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

Don't forget, God always listens. -- (Russell.mo (talk) 13:43, 25 November 2014 (UTC))

Thanks WilliamThweatt! -- (Russell.mo (talk) 14:38, 25 November 2014 (UTC))

Resolved

Ruler (key) holders of Heaven and Hell:

How many people have been classified as the ruler (key holders) of Heaven and Hell? I’ll be grateful if someone can provide me a list please. Regards. -- (Russell.mo (talk) 13:31, 24 November 2014 (UTC))

Gozer the Gozerian. --Jayron32 13:33, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

Baffled. Do you know any real ones Jayron32? -- (Russell.mo (talk) 18:22, 24 November 2014 (UTC))

Real ones??? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:34, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, like Jesus (Prince of Heaven and Hell), Muhammad (Prince of Heaven and Hell), Pharaoh (Prince of Hell). -- (Russell.mo (talk) 08:28, 25 November 2014 (UTC))

La plus belle des ruses du diable est de vous persuader qu'il n'existe pas. In fictional terms, The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist. InedibleHulk (talk) 23:49, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

Quite the contrary - the Devil is a convenient scapegoat for those who don't want to take responsibility for their own actions:[1] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 08:37, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

Even looking at that way, the scapegoat certainly exists in our psyche, and has for far longer than any one person. What compels people to shirk the responsibility in the first place, and why does it feel so convenient? Is it even our responsibility to shirk, or a consequence of something bigger?

We know we have the power to override the will of myocytes, often driving them to suicide, but also know it's the tiny nucleus in the neuron that grants us that power, for unknown reasons. If we can figure that much out with one mind, within one lifetime, I'd think a looping legion of souls can manage something as relatively simple as making Flip Wilson famous and twice-divorced. InedibleHulk (talk) 23:17, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

Here is some more boring reading on the will. InedibleHulk (talk) 23:25, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

Try Classification of demons, particularly the parts about Michaelis' classification and Classification by office, and Hierarchy of angels. Both articles have several links to related topics that might be closer to what you want. Jayron's post was just a joke; your copious questions on such a wide range of topics are beginning to make people think your requests are not sincere. Matt Deres (talk) 19:45, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

Asmodeus, Satan, Leviathan, Belphegor, Lucifer, Mammon and Beelzebub are the most usually cited princes of Hell. Vigo the Carpathian is not.

God (under various names) rules Heaven alone, but is assisted by a Heavenly host, which is a bit of a hash, but not Heavenly Hash.

For what it's worth, I don't see a link between variety and insincerity (except in Furfur). InedibleHulk (talk) 21:35, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

I can only think of two Jesus and Muhammad InedibleHulk who had the power but did not use it and left it to God Almighty mostly. Egyptian Pharaohs were definitely the princes of Hell. -- (Russell.mo (talk) 08:28, 25 November 2014 (UTC))

Which power was that? All pharaohs, or the ones in the Bible? InedibleHulk (talk) 23:20, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

Jehovah's Witnesses have published an article at http://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/402014363?q=%22satan+in+charge+of+hell%22&p=par, in which they say that Jehovah does not deliver wrongdoers into the control of Satan (who tempts humans to sin) to be punished for their sins.

—Wavelength (talk) 00:21, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

Charles Baudelaire published a lecture that said Jehovah isn't required to deliver us, just Ennui. As long as our enchanted mind is incessantly lulled, the noble metal in our will is constantly vaporized and sucked up the hookah. Whether it's Satan or Hermes Trismegistus lounging on the pillow above (or whether there's a difference) is a bit foggy.

The Church of Lucifer seems to view the Devil as something that's pervasive in all natural elements, like Captain Planet, but without the "Heart" part. Also lives in numbers. Probably why the common prayer is to deliver us from evil. We're clearly already bored. InedibleHulk (talk) 01:06, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

Speaking of boring things that come in fours, apparently becoming evil, knowing evil, being evil and willing evil is sufficient reason for an evil world. The same should apply to good. InedibleHulk (talk) 01:38, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

The Rolling Stones seem to think the Devil's always just been here. And who better than them to know? InedibleHulk (talk) 01:17, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

Abaddon/Apollyon is named in the Book of Revelation as the angel in charge of hell... Which usually gets him reclassified as a demon for some reason by a lot of authors, despite there being verses that more or less ID him as fighting Satan (which in turn leads Jehovah's Witnesses to ID Apollyon as another name for Jesus). Gustav Davidson's "Dictionary of Angels" is a good source on the variety of ways he's depicted, and also details how later spellbooks and esoteric works arranged hell into various contradictory hierarchies (with or without Apollyon). If you're feeling brave (or skeptical), the Lesser Key of Solomon (and related works such as the Liber Officium Spirituum), Magical Treatise of Solomon, and the Grimoirium Verum (and related works such as the Grand Grimoire, both articles which I need to overhaul at some point) present many such hellish hierarchies. Many Faustbuchs present an entirely different hierarchy, but a lot of these remain untranslated from German (at least in any form that I'd care cite here).

Merkabah and Hekhaloth lore usually put different angels in charge of different levels of heaven, sometimes identified as having been put there for the express purpose of keeping impious or impractical prayers from reaching God. This influenced later Kabbalistic cosmologies, though some Jewish authors downplayed the dominance of angels, while Christian Cabalists made them just short of gods, and Hermetic Qabalists sometimes crossed that line. Stephen Skinner's "Complete Magician's Tables" lists a number of such arrangements (and a few of the hellish ones), though it lacks many Arabic and Northeast African variations (for which one has to actually dig through works such as Shams al-Ma'arif, the Picatrix, Budge's translations of "The Book of the Mysteries of Heaven and Earth," and a number of sources reproduced in Marvin Meyer and Richard Smith's "Ancient Christian Magic"). Some of E. S. Drower's works explain the Mandaean hierarchies. Ian.thomson (talk) 00:46, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

Thanks peeps I'll read through the articles -- (Russell.mo (talk) 08:28, 25 November 2014 (UTC))

Hmmm, Leviathan seems like an unlikely demon. Do people eat demons? The whole Seven Princes of Hell idea seems a little mathematically challenged - if one third of the angels followed Lucifer, leaving seven before the throne of God, that seems to imply five fallen total, suitable to write conveniently at the points of a pentagram I suppose. The idea that the Seven Virtues should be opposed by an equal number of sins seems similarly dubious - is there really much difference between greed and envy, envy and lust, lust and gluttony? Why shouldn't the sins have their own agenda and organization, oblivious to the angels? Are there really no more concise lists than seven? Wnt (talk) 14:16, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

Most angelogical and demonological texts do not assume that there are only seven angels, but that the seven angels before the throne are each in charge of one of the seven heavens, and the angels therein. The one-third who fell/fall with Lucifer either fall in the future or were quickly replaced (one legend I think I remember being mentioned in Davidson's Dictionary says Michael was Lucifer's replacement). Those who followed Lucifer (or Satan, since sometimes they're different and one rules the other) get put into different arrangements, perhaps with six or seven other demons forming an anti-"seven before the throne." A more common arrangement (central to The Book of Abramelin, Magical Treatise of Solomon, Liber Officium Spirituum, Livre des Esperitz, and even discussed or hinted at in the Grimoirium Verum, Lesser Key of Solomon, and Agrippa's magnum opus) connects the chief demons to the four cardinal directions (because they have fallen from heaven and so are fixed to more terrestrial points), or are bound under an angel of a planet or zodiac (an idea that has roots in Zoroastrianism). (It also appears in Trithemius's Steganographia/Book 2 of the Lesser Key of Solomon, though the spirits therein are supposed to be unfallen but bad-tempered angels; and that's assuming old Johannes wasn't just doing encryption exercises. It also shows up in John Dee's Enochian magic, though those spirits were supposed to be angels who were hiding until they were given a demonstrated charlatan to advocate wife-swapping through.)

The Sworn Book of Honorius does lack "angels of the air" for the highest two heavens. "Angels of the Air" calls to mind Satan being called "the prince of powers of the air," though the names of the kings of the angels of the air are clear corruptions of the Jinn kings in some Arabic sources. The remaining five heavens are not tied to the points on the pentagram, however. Ian.thomson (talk) 17:21, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

@Ian.thomson: a most remarkable answer! I feel like a few hours of your attention could double the usefulness of every one of these articles you mention. And yet... so much of this stuff you reference seems like some Dungeons and Dragons bestiary rather than something meaningful. (Not that reading it I didn't just have a creepy hardest crash this computer ever saw, screen filled with random noise, to sorta make me wonder) I mean, when I consider a "real" demon like 'Beelzebub', it seems like countless interferences can be tracked from ancient times to modern day, from the Melqart who first invented the contract to the lord of the city of Tyre whose image was stamped on the coins in the hands of Judas or brought in to the Temple moneychangers, and whose sports games the Maccabees so resented. Even to this day the Olympian Zeus turns up suing Wizards of the Coast for ownership of the pentagram on Magic The Gathering! Wherever Nazis say they are just following orders, wherever some new vassal swears bayat to the Caliph of ISIS, it seems like the distinctive stink of the same fallen angel turns up. And one can see how in a time before Man, when the perfection of Lucifer was good enough, the unthinking following of oaths and orders could be an angelic virtue rather than a demonic vice; but to follow this perfection denies compassion. Have there been approaches that try in this way to seek a more philosophical and historical approach to understanding the demons? Wnt (talk) 19:52, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

Some of those articles (Liber Officium Spirituum, Magical Treatise of Solomon, Livre des Esperitz, and the current state of Lesser Key of Solomon) are mostly my work, and my main interest in demonology actually is to give RPG sessions I run a unique flavor. They are rather meaningless, though. Arbatel de magia veterum (again my work for the current state) is the only grimoire that comes to my mind that one could actually read as a work of theology. I've not added too much on the cosmologies or practices within grimoires because the former are usually poorly detailed and the latter are either vague and incomplete (LKoS) or too overly specific (Honorius requires cycling between dozens of different daily prayers for months just to get to a point where one can start the rituals), thanks to the authors' assumption that any other reader was a like-minded Christian similarly versed in contemporary mythology and initiated into magical practice. This leaves textual history (which does touch on practice some) and "character biographies" (how I approach the spirit descriptions). Still, most grimoires assumed that hell was arranged like a kingdom (a reflection of the Kingdom of Heaven, and kingdoms on earth). In medieval and renaissance works, the magician either calls on angels (maybe greyhat angels, but not fallen) or astrological spirits, and only calls on demons after going through a bunch of prayer and consecration before bossing the demons around on the purported authority of God, the saints, and often specific angels who serve as wardens to specific demons. It's only in the early modern era that legends of Faust and Protestant slander about Catholic diabolism (c.f. Scot's Discoverie of Witchcrafte) that grimoires appear with the intention of meeting a devil on their own terms. To my knowledge, the idea that the absolute obedience is the problem itself doesn't really show up until after the World Wars, and as more of a societal trend than anything specific in magic (Chaos Magic and Luciferianism being a products of their time). Although not an occultist of any sort, Soren Kierkegaard did decry obedience to institutions (including churches), but out of the belief that personal obedience to God trumps such mortal creations. Faust (especially Marlowe and Goethe) and Milton's Paradise Lost are almost entirely to blame for demons being regarded as anything other than embodiments of things going wrong. I do vaguely recall that Catholic doctrine on angels (possibly in the catechism, can't check on my phone) is more or less that fallen angels are pursuing their mistakes perfectly (that is, they are taking what would be minor errors and not even sins for us to their logical conclusion), Dante's Divine Comedy did handle sins as virtues lacking love (e.g. zeal for God without love becomes wrath). I get a nagging feeling I'm forgetting something else, but it's near impossible for me to look for what on this phone. Ian.thomson (talk) 21:48, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

@Ian.thomson: Well, Christian pacifism is longstanding, with refusal of oaths having a direct scriptural basis. In any case the contracts are Baal's special thing, once sworn out in fancy temples, whereas Moloch's tastes seem to run more toward the sacrifice of the innocent. But it is harder to understand the devils with which one is most infested, since their agendas seem like second nature. I would like to know more about the batch of French gas grenades from the Huế chemical attacks - it seems the same batch of this one particular munition, not a common one or the country that made it the most, was instrumental in bringing about both the first World War and the Vietnam War. I even recall seeing a vague claim that some of them might have been brought out for suppressing the early Arab Spring protests, though I was unable to track it down. I would be inclined to attribute a role for Lucifer himself in the creation of those things.

Nonetheless, I think it is true that people in the modern world have a different perspective - in particular, the reality of evolution by natural selection, and the potential for life on other worlds, pushes us toward a more generalizable notion of spiritual things. If there is (as some cultures have supposed) a demon of smallpox, then could it be killed with the last sample? Is there now a demon of HIV? If people had evolved to take more pleasure in hyperventilating than they do, would there be an eighth deadly sin of overbreathing, with a demon to match? If humans were an asexual species, would there be a demon for lust? By contrast, when we consider things like the amoral fulfillment of contracts or the sacrifice of the innocent, these are things we can picture that the sons of another star might do five thousand light-years from the Earth, whether they look like us or like giant amoebas; just as they too can know faith, hope, and love no matter what their form. Wnt (talk) 14:39, 27 November 2014 (UTC)

Clarification

1. Matthias was stoned in Jerusalem. – true/false?
2. Matthew the Apostle was martyred in Egypt by Alexandrian Sanhedrin. – true/false?
3. Mary (Mother of Jesus) – Venerated by Papists. – true/false?
4. As Ezrulie Freda she is the protector of gay men. As Ezrulie Danton she is the protector of lesbian women and, though she is bisexual and has two husbands, she still prefers women. – true/false?

(Russell.mo (talk) 13:34, 24 November 2014 (UTC))

1. Mathias - Can not say true or false. The bible does not say how Matthias died. Other sources are mixed.
2. Matthew - Again, we don't know for sure. There is no mention of how he died in the Bible, and other sources are mixed.
3. Mary - Certainly venerated by Catholics, but also venerated by other denominations.
4. No idea. Blueboar (talk) 14:07, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

Would you suggest me omitting their death sentences from my work Blueboar, by considering Bible as the true source? -- (Russell.mo (talk) 18:16, 24 November 2014 (UTC))

It's Erzulie. Contact Basemetal here 14:12, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

Thanks buddy -- (Russell.mo (talk) 18:16, 24 November 2014 (UTC))

Since when is "voodoo" spelled "vodou" in English? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:12, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

Not sure, whatever I read is basically 'new to me'. You can check Haitian Vodou though. -- (Russell.mo (talk) 18:16, 24 November 2014 (UTC))

It's probably just another case of a few wikipedians pushing a name that defies the common usage rule. That's like their insistence on calling Ivory Coast by its French name. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:22, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

The latter is because the state has expressed such a preference. —Tamfang (talk) 05:33, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

That's a bogus argument. We go by sources, not by what some entity would like us to do. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 07:53, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

What's the appropriate source for the formal name of a state? —Tamfang (talk) 00:50, 26 November 2014 (UTC)

Common usage. Oddly enough, just tonight I was watching Henry Louis Gates' season finale of his Finding Your Roots series. He was talking to various guests about their African DNA. Some of them, he mentioned Ivory Coast. English. No French substitute. Oh, but what does he know? Well, it's a good bet that he knows more than the average wikipedian does, about this topic. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:30, 26 November 2014 (UTC)

I think it is not really important what name we give to a country, based on the English translation of said name. 'Britain' is not called 'Tin Land', for example, and 'VietNam' is not called 'South of the Clouds'. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 08:10, 27 November 2014 (UTC)

@Russell.mo - No need to omit their deaths completely... but since the sources disagree on when, how and where they died, we need to account for this disagreement in our writing. Don't write a definitive statement on how they each died (ie don't simply say: "Saint Hezekia was stoned to death in Corinth" as if it were accepted fact)... instead write a series of statements outlining the different opinions and views. Let the reader know who says what so they know that there are different traditions about when, how and where these saints died (ie... write something along the lines of: "According to Catholic traditions, Saint Hezekiah was stoned to death in Corinth, while Coptic traditions say that he was beheaded in Alexandria. Greek historian Polykracker, on the other hand, asserts that he returned to Jerusalem and died of old age.") ... hope that helps. Blueboar (talk) 13:44, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

Polykracker, eh? Was he related to Uncle Kracker, or else to some of these Krackers? Contact Basemetal here 14:02, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

Your comment just messed a whole year of my work Blueboar. I made this mistake you pointed out 'not to do' throughout my work. This is bad, I am pissed! Thanks btw. I'm grateful. -- (Russell.mo (talk) 14:52, 25 November 2014 (UTC))

Resolved

Russell.mo, just curious but were you aware that Papist is usually derogatory? CambridgeBayWeather, Uqaqtuq (talk), Sunasuttuq 05:22, 26 November 2014 (UTC)

No CambridgeBayWeather, learnt after reading your comment. The information I posted is from 'Rationalwiki', I think 'Apostle' article. -- (Russell.mo (talk) 14:16, 26 November 2014 (UTC))

It seems to be used in several articles over there. It's hard to tell in what sense they are using it. CambridgeBayWeather, Uqaqtuq (talk), Sunasuttuq 19:16, 26 November 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, well now I know. Rationalwiki is based on 'personal views' too. Btw, I think I misguided you, I think the word was derived from the 'Goddess' article. -- (Russell.mo (talk) 15:19, 27 November 2014 (UTC))

No problem. I just searched for it. CambridgeBayWeather (mobile) (talk) 03:36, 28 November 2014 (UTC)

-- (Russell.mo (talk) 04:54, 28 November 2014 (UTC))

Karabaki family name

Does anyone know which language is the word Karabaki and what does it mean?

No other clue? That's gonna be hard to answer. From a 10 secs inspection of the first page in Google it appears this is a name found in Turkish, Georgian and an African language. There's about as much chance they've all got the same meaning as you winning the Israeli lottery. Contact Basemetal here 16:06, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

Google Translate claims that it's Maori for "hidden"; however, www.maoridictionary.co.nz says 0 results matching "Karabaki ". Make of that what you will. Alansplodge (talk) 16:12, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

Per section title it's gotta be a family name. Contact Basemetal here 17:50, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

• Given its usage in the Caucasus and Anatolia, it likely has to do with a toponymic surname from Nagorno-Karabakh. μηδείς (talk) 22:12, 24 November 2014 (UTC)