Today, in a symbolic act, Iranians set fire to the flags of Israel and the United States, as well as an obelisk and a statue of Baal—which they described as a symbol of Satan—in various cities across Iran in response to the release of the Epstein documents.
Say what you want, but their effigy-burning commitment is absolutely top notch.
They build a fucking statue that any Baal-worshiper would be thrilled to have in their home and then burn it.
That statue is awesome. Blows Banksy's picture-shredder out of the water.
I'm just wondering if they contracted the statue out to some artist without sharing their plans.
"You did what with it? Dude, that took me fifteen fucking months. MY WIFE LEFT ME!!!"
Burning a statue of Baal is metal as fuck. Set flame to the dying and rising god Baal, let his ashes bring strong harvests and renewal 🤘
I’m just wondering if they contracted the statue out to some artist without sharing their plans.
I think the first part is a safe assumption, but I can I can’t imagine any reason for secrecy. It may have been state or community or corporate funding.
I really wish he and his wife could have made it through the ordeal. They held a lot of promise.
It's a pretty random bunch of things to burn though. My guess is they had this stuff lying around for a while and they needed to make room for something else
Western Mainstream Media: look at these 5 iranians we found who want the US to bomb Iran and install the Shah
Western Mainstream Media: check out these AI slop videos of Jared kushners plans for gaza
Baal isn’t Satan - that’s just ignorant.
Also, building a statue of Baal and then burning it is just standard Baal-worship.
Exactly. That's how sacrifice worked. You burned shit to give it to the gods. These guys just gave Baal a really nice statue of Satan to put in his living room.
I'd totally have this be a valid form of worship if I were a god. Especially if they cook hot dogs and marshmallows over it
... Now I wanna know why there was a statue of Baal on the street in iran. Like, is there a Baal worshipping segment of the population? Was it some ancient statue? An art piece? Ragebait? I have so many questions.
They built the statues specifically to burn them down for this symbolic act, they are not stone statues. I answered this to our other friend who asked as well🙏🏻
Oh that explains it, thank you! I wonder why Baal was singled out instead of just building a statue of satan himself? There's a cultural aspect here I'm missing.
Baal is actually in the Bible of Christians and Hebrews
Yeah, but... why go after baal for being satanic, instead of going after satan directly? I don't quite understand why baal is taking the spotlight when you could have simply made a statue of satan, but I'm sure there's a reason.
Muslims don't generally don't have a representation of what Satan looks like, Baal is an idol, already has a shape
Not an unreasonable explanation, thank you!
Because Baal is actually in the religious texts
If you're going for textual literalism sure fair enough, but what's confusing me is that they then go outside the bounds of that to invoke satan anyways. And aside from that, it's not like (figures that you can reasonably call a satan/devil analog if you dont want to start a fight) aren't in the Torah, Koran and Bible - why not build a statue of Iblis, the progenitor of devils? And why describe Baal as a symbol of satan instead of just going after satan directly, since that means you already believe satan exists?
I guess I'm just trying to figure out the symbolism here. Burning the flags is pretty clear, but the statue and the obelisk seem more like they're an act aimed at worshiping false idols (what Baal is primarily used for in the various texts) which... is that what they're accusing the US/Israel of? Because that seems like a largely semantic question given they're all worshiping the same god, and just burning a satan-analog would be a much clearer message about opposition to evil than the sorta abstract concept presented by Baal in any of the texts.
If I learned anything from Burning Man it’s that, in order to burn something in effigy, you first need to construct a combustible effigy.
Israel and US flag fit that description
Isn't there evidence that the Canaanite gods El and Ba'al were merged into Yahweh, who remains to this day the Christian god and the Islamic Allah? These people are burning their own god
Edit: My Lemmy client is messing up and won't let me respond to comments. Just wanted to add that yeah, the Muslim Allah is the same Abrahamic God that Christians and Jews worship. In fact, the name "Allah" is directly derived from the god "El":
The majority of scholars consider[Allah] to be derived from a contraction of the Arabic definite article al- and ilāh "deity, god" to al-lāh meaning "the deity, the God." Originally, ʾilāh was used as an epithet for the West Semitic creator god ʾIlu (the Ugaritic version of El), before being adopted as the proper name itself for this god
El, Ba'al, Yahweh, God, and Allah are all wrapped up in each other
I don't really know about christians but for muslims, Allah was never a merge of other gods, so what you are saying is not correct when it comes to muslims.
Not canonically, but they mean historically and like sociologically.
The etymology of some words have previous origins, but that's it. The concept of God in Islam (and all of Abrahamic monotheism) is very different from other religions (including the pagan religions of the time and Zoroastrianism), it's way less bestial and/or anthropomorphic and local.
i went on a really fascinating rabbit hole when i read baal's role in the epstein files and learn that all abrahamic monotheism started out as polythesitic paganism based on the ancient mesopotomic pantheon of gods.
over time, they morphed into monotheism with a particular god as the supreme ruler and all of the other others were demoted to demigod/hero/prophet/noteable-figure status. baal was such a god and became synonymous with satan in what would eventually become the cristo-judiastic religions we know today.
i went on a really fascinating rabbit hole
Just posting to say that I initially read that as "i went on a really fascinating rabbi hole"
That's pretty interesting, if questionable. The major prophets of Abrahamic monotheism are pretty clearly men, with flaws and no major powers (Moses parted the sea and Jesus healed the sick but the former had to exile himself and lead his people through the desert and much suffering and the latter got captured and murdered by the Romans... Zeus wouldn't have gone through that, you know). Solomon was proud and very hedonistic in his youth, Moses killed a man, Job got angry at God... But yeah, before God guided people full-on, paganism was the law of the land. Or they had something more interesting and closer to the magnanimity, complete supremacy and non-anthropomorphic nature of God, like the cultures that worshipped the Sun. 🤷
The etymology of some words have previous origins, but that's it.
What are you basing this on? It's pretty settled among historians that the Abrahamic God is Yahweh, who was previously a minor deity in the Canaanite pantheon.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahweh
The concept of God in...all of Abrahamic monotheism...is very different from other religions (including the pagan religions of the time), it's way less bestial and/or anthropomorphic and local.
Whoa. Super judgemental here, and also wrong.
Semitic polytheism transitioned into Abrahamic monotheism by way of Yahwism, a variety of Canaanite paganism centred on Yahweh, the national god of the Iron Age kingdoms of Israel and Judah. In this process, Yahweh was syncretized with El, the supreme god of the Canaanite pantheon, whose name "El" אל, or elah אלה is a word for "god" in Hebrew, cognate to Arabic ʼilāh إله, and its definitive pronoun form الله Allāh, "(The) God".
Religion are just belief stolen from other religion that stole it from other religion since the start of religion anyway
So in that way yes it’s true for muslim too
Yeah but the guys who stole my religion were being guided by the real God!
Yeah, but don't you dare ask them why they have to walk counter-clockwise around a shrine with a meteor in it
Not true for christians either. There is the holy trinity, The Father, The Son and The Holy Spirit but they are seen as different expressions of the one god, not three gods merged into one.
It's likely better to think of baal and yahweh as effectively the same deity for rival regional clans. Many psalms etc in the Bible are directly plagiarized from baal.
based tbh
I feel like I don't understand what the message being sent here is. Are they mad that the Epstein files got released? Mad about what's in them? Something else?
Iranians set fire to the flags of Israel and the United States, as well as an obelisk and a statue of Baal which they described as a symbol of Satan in response to release of the Epstein documents.
These bingo wins are getting way too specific ...
How is this a real event that got to world news?
(I'm not disputing anything, just the combination of events that lead to this.)
Missiles and anti-Israeli chants: Iran marks the 47th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution
One of the most striking scenes involved protesters setting fire to a sculpture representing Baal, an ancient Canaanite deity often invoked as a symbol of evil. The figure was depicted with a Star of David and an image of U.S. President Donald Trump, as crowds chanted “Death to Israel.”
a statue of Baal—which they described as a symbol of Satan
Cringe as fuck. "Satan" exist in a real manifestation in the form Capitalist Governments. You don't need throw religion into it.
Blood Angels are stored in the Baals.
I love that at some point the SG-1 writers must have asked themselves "what if a Goa'uld had rizz?" And thus Ba'al was born.
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