On Wed, 15 Aug 2007 11:52:14 -0500, "KLC Lewis"
wrote:


"Larry" wrote in message
.. .
Herodotus wrote in
:

reward in the afterlife

I'm sorta partial to the multiple virgins reward, but can't stand the
rest of religion....any religion.




So the question is, whatever did those poor virgins do to deserve such
punishment?

I imagine that it was part of the accepted ritual of coming of age in
Babylonian society. It is mentioned in the literature that ugly ones
could sit there quite a while and that some fathers arranged for an
acceptable man to be ready as soon as their daughter sat down to do
her temple service to the god.

It must have been rather horrible to have some grubby smelly old man
throw a coin in your lap though. Can't have been much different from
the signorial rights of medieval squires and lords - first night with
the bride on her wedding night.

Ahh! those were the good old days when women were chattels and knew
their place and real men (like friend Wilbur) made all the
decisons...... sigh. Now men such as I have been reduced to seeking
their wife's advice on all sorts of things.

BTW the Babylonian temple worship catered for all tastes. They had
young boys as well. It is notable that the original name for the
Judaic-Christian-Moslem single god was El-Shaddah (later shortened to
'El') who was represented by a huge upright stone phallus

Getting off topic here.

Peter