Today, in a symbolic act, Iranians set fire to the flags of Israel and the United States, as well as an obelisk and a statue of Baal—which they described as a symbol of Satan—in various cities across Iran in response to the release of the Epstein documents.

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[–] 53 points 8 months ago (5 children)

Say what you want, but their effigy-burning commitment is absolutely top notch.

They build a fucking statue that any Baal-worshiper would be thrilled to have in their home and then burn it.

That statue is awesome. Blows Banksy's picture-shredder out of the water.

I'm just wondering if they contracted the statue out to some artist without sharing their plans.

"You did what with it? Dude, that took me fifteen fucking months. MY WIFE LEFT ME!!!"

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  • [–] 19 points 8 months ago* (16 children)

    ... Now I wanna know why there was a statue of Baal on the street in iran. Like, is there a Baal worshipping segment of the population? Was it some ancient statue? An art piece? Ragebait? I have so many questions.

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  • [–] [S] 36 points 8 months ago (15 children)

    They built the statues specifically to burn them down for this symbolic act, they are not stone statues. I answered this to our other friend who asked as well🙏🏻

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  • [–] 10 points 8 months ago (14 children)

    Oh that explains it, thank you! I wonder why Baal was singled out instead of just building a statue of satan himself? There's a cultural aspect here I'm missing.

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  • [+] 6 points 8 months ago (11 children)
  • [–] 5 points 8 months ago* (10 children)

    Yeah, but... why go after baal for being satanic, instead of going after satan directly? I don't quite understand why baal is taking the spotlight when you could have simply made a statue of satan, but I'm sure there's a reason.

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  • [+] 3 points 8 months ago (1 child)
  • [–] 3 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

    If you're going for textual literalism sure fair enough, but what's confusing me is that they then go outside the bounds of that to invoke satan anyways. And aside from that, it's not like (figures that you can reasonably call a satan/devil analog if you dont want to start a fight) aren't in the Torah, Koran and Bible - why not build a statue of Iblis, the progenitor of devils? And why describe Baal as a symbol of satan instead of just going after satan directly, since that means you already believe satan exists?

    I guess I'm just trying to figure out the symbolism here. Burning the flags is pretty clear, but the statue and the obelisk seem more like they're an act aimed at worshiping false idols (what Baal is primarily used for in the various texts) which... is that what they're accusing the US/Israel of? Because that seems like a largely semantic question given they're all worshiping the same god, and just burning a satan-analog would be a much clearer message about opposition to evil than the sorta abstract concept presented by Baal in any of the texts.

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  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago (6 children)

    Baal simply means "Lord," or "master," as I stated earlier.

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  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago* (5 children)

    ... You did? I'm sorry, I didn't see where you mentioned that.

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  • [–] 3 points 8 months ago (4 children)

    Probably because I stated it after your posts, my fault, entirely, I should have linked you. https://kbin.earth/m/worldnews@lemmy.ml/t/2396552/-/comment/11212850

    More on things you may find interesting

    https://kbin.earth/m/worldnews@lemmy.ml/t/2396552/Iranians-set-fire-to-the-flags-of-Israel-and-the/comment/11213043#entry-comment-11213043

    https://kbin.earth/m/worldnews@lemmy.ml/t/2396552/-/comment/11216059

    It's taken me several years to get all this stuff, and we're just not taught it. Christianity has it's own political agenda, largely began to validate Constantine's conquests, evolved over time to support European's and USA's.

    And Judaism began as Abraham leaving either Babylon or Chelsea, choosing to worship one of their many gods, and conquer and colonize, and so on since Summer and before.

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  • [–] 2 points 8 months ago* (3 children)

    Thank you! Those are very interesting!

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  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago (2 children)

    You're welcome! Even though you follow Satanism, I daresay a deep dive into these topics will irrevocably change your understanding and relationship with your own faith! Another interesting point of reference to look into is the difference in understanding between Judaism and the ha-satan and Christianity's Satan!

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  • [–] 2 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    Ah, thank you! But I'm afraid you may have the wrong idea: The Satanic Temple (which I am a part of) is in all but name a secular humanitarian organization - formed in opposition to the various religious authoritarian movements in the US. The trappings of satanism are only there to serve as a way to bait hypocrisy. I'm only interested in this topic from a cultural standpoint, as I'm not personally religious. I do appreciate the thought though!

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  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago

    Well, aside from news, I don't know anything about any practices of satanism, but fwiw, the tenants don't clash with my understanding of Christianity, gnosticism, or Judaism, which is very incomplete, at best!

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  • [–] 2 points 8 months ago (2 children)

    Baal looks a lot like Baphomet in that photo.

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  • [–] 15 points 8 months ago

    If I learned anything from Burning Man it’s that, in order to burn something in effigy, you first need to construct a combustible effigy.

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  • [–] 25 points 8 months ago

    Western Mainstream Media: look at these 5 iranians we found who want the US to bomb Iran and install the Shah

    • Iranians burning US and Israeli flags

    Western Mainstream Media: check out these AI slop videos of Jared kushners plans for gaza

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  • [–] 13 points 8 months ago
    [–] 18 points 8 months ago (7 children)

    Baal isn’t Satan - that’s just ignorant.

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  • [–] 13 points 8 months ago (4 children)

    Also, building a statue of Baal and then burning it is just standard Baal-worship.

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  • [–] 6 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    I feel like I don't understand what the message being sent here is. Are they mad that the Epstein files got released? Mad about what's in them? Something else?

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 8 months ago

    They are mad about all the violence towards children, the cannibalism the pedophilia the violence proven in the Epstien files. Hence they are burning this effigy to show that they are against all of this and they oppose it.

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  • [–] 5 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

    Blood Angels are stored in the Baals.

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  • [–] 4 points 8 months ago (1 child)
  • [–] 6 points 8 months ago* (1 child)

    Iranians set fire to the flags of Israel and the United States, as well as an obelisk and a statue of Baal which they described as a symbol of Satan in response to release of the Epstein documents.

    These bingo wins are getting way too specific ...

    How is this a real event that got to world news?
    (I'm not disputing anything, just the combination of events that lead to this.)

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  • [–] 11 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (30 children)

    Isn't there evidence that the Canaanite gods El and Ba'al were merged into Yahweh, who remains to this day the Christian god and the Islamic Allah? These people are burning their own god

    Edit: My Lemmy client is messing up and won't let me respond to comments. Just wanted to add that yeah, the Muslim Allah is the same Abrahamic God that Christians and Jews worship. In fact, the name "Allah" is directly derived from the god "El":

    The majority of scholars consider[Allah] to be derived from a contraction of the Arabic definite article al- and ilāh "deity, god" to al-lāh meaning "the deity, the God." Originally, ʾilāh was used as an epithet for the West Semitic creator god ʾIlu (the Ugaritic version of El), before being adopted as the proper name itself for this god

    El, Ba'al, Yahweh, God, and Allah are all wrapped up in each other

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  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago (24 children)

    I don't really know about christians but for muslims, Allah was never a merge of other gods, so what you are saying is not correct when it comes to muslims.

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  • [–] 18 points 8 months ago (10 children)

    Not canonically, but they mean historically and like sociologically.

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  • [–] -1 points 8 months ago* (9 children)

    The etymology of some words have previous origins, but that's it. The concept of God in Islam (and all of Abrahamic monotheism) is very different from other religions (including the pagan religions of the time and Zoroastrianism), it's way less bestial and/or anthropomorphic and local.

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  • [–] 9 points 8 months ago (6 children)

    i went on a really fascinating rabbit hole when i read baal's role in the epstein files and learn that all abrahamic monotheism started out as polythesitic paganism based on the ancient mesopotomic pantheon of gods.

    over time, they morphed into monotheism with a particular god as the supreme ruler and all of the other others were demoted to demigod/hero/prophet/noteable-figure status. baal was such a god and became synonymous with satan in what would eventually become the cristo-judiastic religions we know today.

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  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (3 children)

    That's pretty interesting, if questionable. The major prophets of Abrahamic monotheism are pretty clearly men, with flaws and no major powers (Moses parted the sea and Jesus healed the sick but the former had to exile himself and lead his people through the desert and much suffering and the latter got captured and murdered by the Romans... Zeus wouldn't have gone through that, you know). Solomon was proud and very hedonistic in his youth, Moses killed a man, Job got angry at God... But yeah, before God guided people full-on, paganism was the law of the land. Or they had something more interesting and closer to the magnanimity, complete supremacy and non-anthropomorphic nature of God, like the cultures that worshipped the Sun. 🤷

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  • [–] 2 points 8 months ago (2 children)

    The major prophets of Abrahamic monotheism are pretty clearly men, with flaws and no major powers

    that's another fascinating aspect about how these religions morphed in christianity, judiasm & islam that i learned.

    the gods slowly lose their god powers over the millennia and those powers are either re-attributed to the one god; that would later be the same god that the christians, jews & muslims worship today; or just disappear altogether. the end result is that you have one god with all of the powers and just regular people.

    it's a bit like how tolkien described middle earth or how greek/roman pantheon describe the ages going from heroes to men, with the old ages defined by powerful creatures like the titans and balrogs at the begging of history and then a slow degradation of power to the point of ordinary men and hobbits in the current age.

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  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago (1 child)

    Mmm. I appreciate the information and your politeness. The Christians are Trinitarians so idk if they count but fair enough. ✌️

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  • [–] 2 points 8 months ago

    the christian trinity is also fascinating; it's one of the most modern examples of this sort of god-powers-changing-hands phenomenon when i used tolkien and the greek/roman pantheon as examples.

    I appreciate the information and your politeness.

    you should consider changing primary instances if you're hit with rudeness so much that you felt the need to say this.

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  • [–] 3 points 8 months ago

    The etymology of some words have previous origins, but that's it.

    What are you basing this on? It's pretty settled among historians that the Abrahamic God is Yahweh, who was previously a minor deity in the Canaanite pantheon.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahweh

    The concept of God in...all of Abrahamic monotheism...is very different from other religions (including the pagan religions of the time), it's way less bestial and/or anthropomorphic and local.

    Whoa. Super judgemental here, and also wrong.

    Semitic polytheism transitioned into Abrahamic monotheism by way of Yahwism, a variety of Canaanite paganism centred on Yahweh, the national god of the Iron Age kingdoms of Israel and Judah. In this process, Yahweh was syncretized with El, the supreme god of the Canaanite pantheon, whose name "El" אל, or elah אלה is a word for "god" in Hebrew, cognate to Arabic ʼilāh إله, and its definitive pronoun form الله Allāh, "(The) God".

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  • [–] 10 points 8 months ago (2 children)

    Religion are just belief stolen from other religion that stole it from other religion since the start of religion anyway

    So in that way yes it’s true for muslim too

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  • [–] 2 points 8 months ago (9 children)

    Not true for christians either. There is the holy trinity, The Father, The Son and The Holy Spirit but they are seen as different expressions of the one god, not three gods merged into one.

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  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago (8 children)

    The Trinity was originally considered polytheism by the Church.

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  • [–] 2 points 8 months ago (7 children)

    I'm not that deeply versed into it, the "sun" analogy gets used a lot nowadays, but sabellius himself was excommunicated for supposedly opposing trinity or something idk I don't really understand it tbh

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  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago (6 children)

    Yes. As Christians we're largely taught not to question or doubt. I'm hard-headed, and wanting to better understand my faith had changed it in irrevocable ways, over the years. Regardless of the faiths I've explored, I keep ending up at the same place, different vantage point, like climbing an eternal spiral staircase, and the ancient mystical symbol found on cave walls makes more sense, and clues us that these people were much more intelligent than we credit them. In short, lack of language/vocabulary != lack of intelligence, ability to think deeply. We just rely more heavily on different brain hemispheres. If we ever evolve to the place where the larger world populace uses both equally and simultaneously, I'll daresay we will become "as gods," able to eat from every tree in the metaphorical garden!

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  • [–] 2 points 8 months ago (5 children)

    Oh I've been dialectical about my faith in many ways. I grew up in a majority muslim country so having to "defend" or rather explain my faith has been at the core of it from the very start. Synthesising two theses gives me great joy and so I definitely understand your point about having to irrevocably change it. Creationism, The bible as the word of god being the two largest, LGBTQ+ acceptance of course and some other ones likely. I'm currently on the Jesus was not a vegan bend. This one is pretty tough I've gotta say 😅

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  • [–] 2 points 8 months ago (4 children)

    Literally chuckling, first sip of coffee barely swallowed in time to avoid spilling!

    I'm currently on the Jesus was not a vegan bend. This one is pretty tough I've gotta say

    Hard to say, but he celebrated Passover after the trumphal entry on the ass, and was welcomed and financed by enough people "of means," that lamb was probably served. Additionally there are the five loaves and two fishes miracle, so I'm not sure. I lean toward agreement with you, although it's possible he restrained from fish and lamb, himself, as we're simply not told.

    I will encourage you he literally told the disciples not to take everything so literally, after the Sermon on the Mount, when asked why he taught in parables. My latest hypothesis is that in certain instances, "dead/death" referenced spiritually dead (eating from the tree of life, dead bury the dead), and the reason his teachings not being for those who didn't understand the parables is because those people had hardened their hearts (empty cups), and hadn't done the spiritual work (being spiritually alive) to understand. Wait until you start digging into Judaism and Jewish mystacism! 🤯 The soul is truly taught differently!

    Anyway, best along your journey, may it ever bring you closer to union within yourself and the Divine.

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  • [–] 2 points 8 months ago (3 children)

    My latest hypothesis is that in certain instances, “dead/death” referenced spiritually dead (eating from the tree of life, dead bury the dead), and the reason his teachings not being for those who didn’t understand the parables is because those people had hardened their hearts (empty cups), and hadn’t done the spiritual work (being spiritually alive) to understand.

    Oh yeah, that was one of the things that got resolved to "hell" is not a place, but more of a state of being, or rather not being anymore. How atheists view death.

    Well the "Jesus is not a vegan" is of course a bit of a caricature. More broadly, genesis talks about giving "mankind dominion over animals" for example. God drowns all the animals except two for mankinds sins? Seven if they're "holy"? Being kinda speciesist there bestie... Not to mention the hell did those animals that got drowned do?? But the thing I'm most hung up on atm is after Jesus death him appearing at the shore and telling his disciples to cast their nets on the right side, them murdering a christillion of fish and coming to shore to Jesus already having the fire to roast them lit. Got me going "Not my savior 😤" in only a half-joking way to be real.

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  • [+] -1 points 8 months ago (1 child)
  • [–] -5 points 8 months ago

    I mean they were going to set fire to the statue no matter what, because religion is stupid.

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