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THE MOON
While the sun and its various deities are usually attributed
with positive forces, such as goodness, love, warmth and joy,
the moon is sometimes believed to exude evil unto the world.
One commonly-held superstition was that the moon could make a
person insane: hence the word "lunatic" from "luna," the Latin
word for the moon. Nights of a full moon were supposed to be
extremely unlucky, as hellish beasts and demons such as
were-wolves drew their sinister powers from its dark energy.
There are cultures today who demonstrate great
reverence for the moon. The Inuit peoples create spiritual
masks from wood depicting the woman in the moon, similarly, the
moon and star make up the symbol of Islam, the world's fastest
growing religion. |
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Moon worship proceeded sun worship in every ancient society:
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BABYLONIAN GOD SIN: Mount Sinai owes its name to
Sin.
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EGYPTIAN GODDESS ISIS: The
goddess Isis, a moon goddess, gave birth to Horus, the god
of the sun. Together, Isis and Horus created and sustained
all life and were the saviors of their people. |
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HINDU SOMA: The god of the
moon. In the Vedas, Soma is portrayed as
sacred and as a god (deva). The god, the drink and the
plant probably referred to the same entity, or at least
the differentiation was ambiguous. In this aspect, Soma
is similar to the Greek ambrosia (cognate to amrita); it
is what the gods drink, and what made them deities.
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ISLAM GOD ALLAH: The religion of Islam has as its
focus of worship a deity by the name of "Allah." The
Muslims claim that Allah in pre-Islamic times was the
biblical God of the Patriarchs, prophets, and apostles.
The issue is thus one of continuity. Was "Allah" the
biblical God or a pagan god in Arabia during pre-Islamic
times? The Muslim's claim of continuity is essential to
their attempt to convert Jews and Christians for if
"Allah" is part of the flow of divine revelation in
Scripture, then it is the next step in biblical religion.
Thus we should all become Muslims. But, on the other hand,
if Allah was a pre-Islamic pagan deity, then its core
claim is refuted. Religious claims often fall before the
results of hard sciences such as archeology. We can
endlessly speculate about the past or go and dig it up and
see what the evidence reveals. This is the only way to
find out the truth concerning the origins of Allah. As we
shall see, the hard evidence demonstrates that the god
Allah was a pagan deity. In fact, he was the Moon-god who
was married to the sun goddess and the stars were his
daughters.
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Praise to the
moon, bright queen of the skies,
Jewel of the
black night, the light of our eyes,
Brighter than
starlight, whiter than snow,
Look down on us
in the darkness below.
John Renbourne, Traveler's Prayer
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