"Christianity, along with all other theistic belief systems, is the fraud of the age...

[Snarkoleptic]

it serves to detach the species from the natural world and likewise, each other."

I saw a version of this in the Sky Theater at the Adler Planetarium in Chicago several years ago and found it to be an interesting analysis of solar deities.
Your thoughts?

[Warpy]

1. They loved the number 12

because it can be divided by 2,3,4, and 6. It made things like masonry easier to do. It's a very convenient number.

The Irish were suckers for the number 3, but we're weird like that.

The ancient world was somewhat obsessive when it came to numbers. Some were considered fortunate numbers, some unfortunate. Numerologists were held in as high regard as astrologers were and anyone who could combine the two effectively could end up a patron of the local ruler.

Anyhow, this is why so many numbers in old stories end up being 12. It was a fortunate and useful number.

And by the way, there are 13 lunar months in the year, not 12. Again, they wanted to make the year easily divisible to mark seasons and festivals. Different cultures started the year on different days, usually a solstice or equinox, determined at one of their observatories. Non European cultures tended to respect the lunar year more.

And it's been known that the Jesus myth was cobbled together out of every other hero myth in the around the eastern Mediterranean. It's a pity Christians have taken to grooving on the myth rather than focusing on the man.

[onager]

2. "Patron of the local ruler..."

True, the ancient woo-sters could attain great political power. But according to something I read somewhere, that could be a double-edged sword.

I remember reading that one ancient Babylonian king liked to walk along the high walls of the palace in the cool of the evening, with the Court Astrologer.

And if the king didn't like the day's predictions, he called his guards and had the Court Astrologer thrown over the walls to his death.

Sounds like a very logical system to me, and I wish it could be applied to our modern psychics, fortune tellers and talkers to the dead.

At least that ancient Babylonian astro-woo ended up benefitting humanity. When Alexander The Great conquered Babylon, he inherited 1,000 years of Babylonian astrological records. He sent those records home, where Greek scientists scrapped the woo and incorporated the observations into their new science, astronomy.

[Warpy]

3. Yes, and if their predictions for a battle proved incorrect

to the detriment of the warlord's army, they either managed to get word and skedaddle or get disemboweled on the army's return. Astrologers had a great gig while everything was rosy, but as soon as reality turned grim, they were in trouble.

However, having a great gig, no matter how temporary, was a good thing back when there were no antibiotics and living through the night wasn't ever guaranteed. "Bonny at breakfast, dead by noon" wasn't an exaggeration.