--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Patrick Ryan" <proto-language@...>
wrote:
>
> David, one must first have an original thought before someone
> like yourself can characterize it as "irrational".
Are telling us now that your claims on this topic aren't
original?
If anybody else shares the ideas you've expressed about
'Varuna' and comparative mythology, I'd be very much be
surprised. Can you provide some names?
> The development of Varuna after the period of the Rig Veda
> points the way to a better understanding of what he might
> have been before the Rig Veda.
Development involves change, and so, if we are trying
to determine the _original_ meaning of a god's name,
then no, we do not place greater value on late sources
than on the earliest ones available which are closer
to the time and circumstances in which he received that
name.
That is, again, simple logic.
> > Where do you find evidence of Varuna earlier than the Vedas,
> > that you can claim he existed so long before?
> Ancient peoples worshiped the same divine entities for thousands
> of years.
Not a fact, but merely an assertion of your faith, and
obviously illogical, because every god started somewhere
and at some point in time, and there's no agency working
in our universe to prevent one from being documented as
soon as he is invented.
> The cult developed, rituals changed, and sometimes a later epithet
> took the place of an earlier one, but the divinities remained, at
> the core, the same.
Ah yes, just as I suspected. It's still more personal
speculation of yours being presented as if it were fact.
You have no real idea at all, and not a shred of actual
evidence for how long Varuna has existed, but regardless
have no shame at all about throwing such claims about in
an argument as if facts.
You're dishonest.
David