Doug M Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> All my citations come from the Egyptians
> themselves.



Provide them or retract them. Seems simple enough.



>
> Now you talk about dreams and amulets and all
> sorts of stuff that I never even mentioned.

I'm discussing Egyptian magic. If you aren't aware of what it entails, then maybe you shouldn't voice your uninformed opinions on the topic quite so loudly?


> You
> are throwing out strawmen to hide the fact you
> have been proven wrong. Why not stick to what was
> cited and stop going all over the planet to find
> strawmen.


I am, and have been, talking about the intellectualism of magic in ancient Egypt. If anyone is changing the topic, it is you. Allow me to prove the point:



>
> This nonsense of everything in Egypt being
> "magical" is an absolute nonsense form of
> generalization. Period.


I never said everything in Egypt was magical. If I did, you can prove it to me.

(Hint: What I did say was that I disagreed with your assertion that everyONE in Egypt was NOT magical, and I then went on to cite clear evidence about why you were wrong in that assertion.)


> You can cite who you
> want because whoever says that stuff will make me
> laugh even more at how silly some "so called"
> experts are.


Pinch, Brier, David... just loons like me, I suppose. Oh... let's bring Bernard and Ritva long for the ride as well...




>
> The Egyptians believed that the life force lived
> and flowed through everything,

Thank you, Obi Wan.



> but that did not
> mean you didn't have to get your butt up and go to
> work everyday in order to make things happen.
> Belief in a life force and other "magical"
> elements does not change the fact that you need to
> eat to live and in order to eat you need to either
> go to work or hunt for yourself.


And there you have the aforementioned "change of subject". You have gone from my discussion of ancient Egyptian rational magic to discussing what I (Anthony, a 21st century American) can do or not do, and can believe or not believe. I am not the topic here. No 21st Century person is the topic here.

We are supposed to be discussing what ancient Egyptians believed, and what they did with those beliefs.

As another example of the "magic" of the common folk, please note that tombs had statues and doors to house the spirit of the deceased. In fact, some tombs from the Old Kingdom have been found with notes on ostracons, asking the deceased to intercede on behalf of the living to help solve various problems with day to day life. Common folk in normal graves being able to intercede with the gods is a pretty significant bit of power, I'd say. The fact that the king was the highest of all magicians, and as such could not be accused of chicanery (again, Brier as a citation) only means he was the highest.... of many.

This conversation is over until you bring a citation. We've provided enough for you to do some serious reading and serious learning. If you wish to edumacate us, you might wish to do more than talk about modern concepts and provide no references whatsoever to back up any of your assertions.

Anthony

You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him think.