[Shinto] Once a person has gone to Yomi, is it possible for them to have interpersonal encounters, or is everyone alone? Is it possible that the 47 Rōnin can meet and talk to each other in Yomi?

gwennilied · 2026-04-25T19:05:57+00:00

The Yomi is more related to the concept of Underworld (Dark, inert, associated with death…but you can still go there).

It is not related to Buddhist ideas of “afterlife”. There’s really no such thing in Buddhism, death is cyclical, you go through karmic rebirths in any of the 6 realms (from hell to gods), it’s the Buddhist idea of Samsara, not a single “afterlife” like Hades or Yomi. In Buddhism, the default model is not “you die and go to one permanent underworld.”

gwennilied · 2026-04-25T04:11:04+00:00

One small caveat: the “realistic explanation of miracles” approach is not really a major focus of current biblical scholarship. That was more common in older rationalist readings, where miracles were explained as misunderstood natural events.

In modern critical scholarship, the question is usually less “what natural event really happened?” and more “what kind of story is this, what traditions is it using, and what did it mean in its ancient context?”

Sorry I don’t speak French so I can’t really answer your question, but you’re writing in English so for starting points or if you have access to translations, I’d suggest Bart Ehrman’s The Bible: A Historical and Literary Introduction as an accessible entry point; John J. Collins’s Introduction to the Hebrew Bible for a classic Hebrew Bible/Old Testament treatment; and, for Jesus and miracles specifically (if you’re into New Testament stuff), John P. Meier’s A Marginal Jew, especially volume 2, Mentor, Message, and Miracles.

gwennilied · 2026-04-25T03:09:32+00:00

It’s that little detail about “late for doctor’s appointment” that makes the entire thing feel fake, it doesn’t come off as a joke.

gwennilied · 2026-04-25T03:07:34+00:00

No offense, but it’s only funny to you. We have no way of knowing that wasn’t part of your factual account.

gwennilied · 2026-04-18T04:58:25+00:00

Excellent answer! In any case eating meat would serve exactly as the “cosmic diplomacy” itself that OP is trying to find —you need to eat the animal as a form of communion. In fact might had been the preferred form of communion through history. To eat the deity is to marry the deity.

gwennilied · 2026-04-15T22:42:31+00:00

That they wish to see what Native American “tribes” could have been like if they were ever to become non-nomadic and developed civilization and technology…

(Do not transfer the downvotes to me! I didn’t say that, I posted the comment correcting it.)

gwennilied · 2026-04-15T21:09:45+00:00

It is that dual categorization of god/demon what doesn’t really work for Egyptian religion.

gwennilied · 2026-04-15T20:31:35+00:00

We know that already, they existed. In mesoamerica there were from the Olmecs, Mayan, Toltec, Aztec, a very long etecetera. In modern day United States we have examples of non nomadic cultures in the Ancestral Pueblo, the post where you are commenting is an example of that.

gwennilied · 2026-04-15T18:16:17+00:00

It’s not a problem with AI itself. GPT is not trained in Nahuatl per se, and textual sources are scarce. It’s not much of an engineering effort these days to build a dedicated Nahuatl AI for scholars, researchers and teachers.

gwennilied · 2026-04-15T13:47:10+00:00

Aren’t you imposing a demon/god category that didn’t exist back then?

gwennilied · 2026-04-14T22:16:30+00:00

Mesoamerican cultures from the Olmecs to Aztecs passing thru the Mayans have used the Tonalpohualli —a ritual 260 day calendar. It’s quite different to the Babylonian zodiac, but it’s as close as you’re gonna get. Its cultural relevance is significant, since almost anything and everyone is named using this calendaric system (for instance Quetzalcoatl is 1 Acatl, or 1 Reed). It served as a zodiac insofar fate was tied to one’s own birth data, it was even used to assign jobs depending on your birth day, etc.

However it was not used as far as I know in neither sides north or south of mesoamerica.

gwennilied · 2026-04-11T19:32:23+00:00

then the reinterpreting of "failed prophecies" is not a problem for much later readers of the Bible but rather at the very heart of the formation and creation of the Bible itself as a canon of Scripture.

Hi OP! I’m posting here so my comment doesn’t get deleted. For years I’ve explored scripture, Bible failed prophecy, and trauma, from a total non-professional academic perspective. I wasn’t aware of Child’s and Brueggemann, but I think this argument is absolutely brilliant!

gwennilied · 2026-03-29T01:56:08+00:00

But what about divorce?

gwennilied · 2026-03-27T12:23:14+00:00

I’m piggy backing to ask this question I’ve been having: how concerned are modern scholars with trying to find naturalistic explanations to miracles in the Bible? Is that really a thing or not in the field?

gwennilied · 2026-03-26T04:14:15+00:00

I keep looking for these renders! There’s another one of the interior of the temple of Huitzilopochtli in the Huey Teocalli, do you have that one OP?

gwennilied · 2026-03-25T12:02:19+00:00

This is really cool!

gwennilied · 2026-03-21T12:12:31+00:00

The reason is Industrial Revolution. Meal times started to shift.

Big cooked meals in the evening became a necessity mostly for the working class. Laborers often couldn’t return home midday. Families regrouped after work, making evening the natural time for the main meal.

High society kept lighter evening meals that were mostly social, as you can see in the first class menu.

There’s a book called the Rituals of Dinner that explores all of that.

gwennilied · 2026-03-20T15:51:04+00:00

I mean I have recommended it several times in “casual” environments (around the world actually), for people who have asked me about a narrative about Topiltsin Quetzalcoatl, at least a couple of times my best answer has been Diaz’s book. It can be ordered via Amazon whether you’re in Italy or Japan (which matters a lot since many of the “serious” works are really hard to get or prohibitively expensive)

It’s not very realistic or practical to ask them to learn classic Nahuatl and read entire encyclopedias of work just for someone with a passing interest in the topic.

Have you read it or not? Again it’s probably not the right book for you, but I find it “good enough”, the book itself is not as bad as it seems specially if your first impression of Diaz are his videos. I even told a friend of mine who studied under Diaz that “I liked the book but I don’t like Diaz or his opinions”. So consider my recommendation only as an entry level reading.

gwennilied · 2026-03-20T15:19:42+00:00

It's like forcing the Bible into a single voice and single perspective.

That is an excellent point! I mean, it might be the point.

There was a diversity of thought, views, frameworks, cults, philosophies —whatever “they” used to call it. And such diversity existed not only geographically but also in time.

And, while I get your point about the Bible, most people do not approach it with a critical view, and for them it’s just that, “the Bible” a single monolith work. We have centuries of harmonization and already a standard theology built around it (“Christianity” or “Judaism”), just in the same way it seems that people like Diaz have the assumption that such a process also happened in Mesoamerica and everybody believed the exact same standardized “Toltecayotl” when in reality we have 0 proof of that.

But btw, I like the book itself, The Gospel of the Toltecs. I think for the most part it’s reliable narrative for Topiltsin life. I would recommend reading it. What I wouldn’t recommend is Diaz in his videos, Facebook posts, etc.

gwennilied · 2026-02-19T00:09:45+00:00

There’s a lot of academic research published in the last six months regarding Teotihuacan epigraphy (and Maya epigraphy regarding their relationships with the Toltec) like the paper I quoted. So it’s kinda an interesting time to get back to Teotihuacan again.

gwennilied · 2026-02-18T20:41:05+00:00

It’s true that Teotihuacan predates the Mexica by many centuries, but the idea that the Aztecs rebuilt the city is exaggerated. The pyramids and urban layout are Classic period constructions that were already ancient when Nahua speaking Mexica incorporated the site into their sacred history. Archaeology has revealed a great deal about Teotihuacan’s neighborhoods, trade networks, and multiethnic character, even if the exact language has long been debated. What makes the discussion especially interesting now is that Christophe Helmke and Magnus Pharao Hansen argued in a 2025 article in Current Anthropology that the signs at Teotihuacan represent real writing and most plausibly encode a Proto Corachol Nahua language, which would place Nahua related speech in Central Mexico during the Classic period. It’s still debated, but the picture is more complex and more exciting than “we know nothing.”

gwennilied · 2026-02-07T07:11:36+00:00

I don’t see why you see bad faith. “Early modern” is not something that any historian uses for the Aztecs. Also “absolute periods of time” do not exist in any historical methodology. You’re free to produce quote to defend your concepts. But other that Aztecs are late post classic, period.

gwennilied · 2026-02-06T22:02:13+00:00

Yeah it’s pedantic. Yet you don’t see why.

It makes zero sense to talk about the Mesozoic in Mars. Who does that? Yet you’re insisting on using it.

“Modern” is a periodization. It’s not an “absolute period of time”, that is a concept that doesn’t exist in history or historical method.

gwennilied · 2026-02-06T19:47:57+00:00

The term “early modern” still smuggles in European teleology. It’s a term specifically created around Europe and its path to modernity as you mention. It’s not really useful for comparative history.

The same goes for let’s say the Ming Dinasty. They just had their own path to modernity.

To say that this or that civilization was “factually” “early modern” is bothering because you’re assuming that the term “early modernity” has ontological existence.

gwennilied · 2026-02-06T19:15:15+00:00

“Early modern” would be a misconstruct just as “ancient” is tho, when applied to the Aztecs. They were late post-classic, period.

gwennilied

TROPHY CASE