Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2014 October 2

Welcome to the Wikipedia Humanities Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

October 2

A Sexual Odyssey: From Forbidden Fruit to Cybersex

• Maxwell, Kenneth (1996). A Sexual Odyssey: From Forbidden Fruit to Cybersex. Springer. pp. 53–54. ISBN 978-0306454059.

Can anyone get access to this book and tell me what's on pages 53-54 about the Hitachi Magic Wand ?

Thank you for your time,

— Cirt (talk) 00:34, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Hello! it states that there was a survey run by the Good Vibes Gazette circa 1995 asking for customers to rate their satisfaction on certain toys and stuff, so to speak. The Magic Wand in question received quite a few rankings as "Most Exceptional", despite the fact that it is described on page 54 by Maxwell as "a nearly conventional vibrator". Hope this helps, cheers ~Helicopter Llama~ 11:29, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Yes, very much, thank you! — Cirt (talk) 13:33, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Resolved

Ebola transmissibility

Which sources say how much time after the onset of symptoms Ebola becomes transmissible? EllenCT (talk) 01:24, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

The World Health Organization says "Humans are not infectious until they develop symptoms." and elsewhere "Men who have recovered from the disease can still transmit the virus through their semen for up to 7 weeks after recovery from illness." See here I hope that helps with your research. --Jayron32 02:26, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

The other good source is the USA's CDC, see here [1]. Their info agrees with that posted above, and they say symptoms can occur 2-21 days after infection, with an average of 8-10. For information on the current outbreak(s), as opposed to the disease in general, check out Doctors without borders, here: [2]. 15:44, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, both. Anything from a WP:MEDRS? EllenCT (talk) 21:26, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

According to the World Health Organization, http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs103/en/, the Ebola virus does not become transmissible until the virus begins to exhibit symptoms in the host. This can take from 2 to 21 days after catching the virus. So, the virus becomes transmissible at the time that symptoms begin to manifest themselves. According to the CDC at http://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/transmission/, and at http://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/transmission/qas.html, the virus is only transmissible through the sharing of bodily fluids, such as blood, semen, spit, open sores in the skin, etc. It has reportedly been found in semen up to 3 months after being cured of the virus. The UN has warned that Ebola could become airborne, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/ebola/11135883/Ebola-could-become-airborne-United-Nations-warns-of-nightmare-scenario-as-virus-spreads-to-the-US.html, but some researchers argue that no other virus transmitted through fluids has been found to mutate to become airborne. Lrterry (talk) 00:08, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

Greek mythology question

is there any connection between Calypso and Callisto in greek mythology because their names sound so similar......... Just wondering............ 216.232.130.24 (talk) 15:59, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

They were both nymphs. See Callisto (mythology) and Calypso (mythology). The words themselves have no connection. Callisto comes from a word meaning "beautiful" while Calypso comes from a word meaning "hidden". --Jayron32 16:10, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

One starred on Ally McBeal, the other is a type of Caribbean music typified by use of steel drums. μηδείς (talk) 00:40, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

That was Calista. Now we're even for the la/le thing. InedibleHulk (talk) 00:48, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Just because in English we make no distinction between 'l' and 'll', or between 'i' and 'y', doesnt mean they didn't in Ancient Greek. The names sounded no more similar than 'neatly' and 'newly'. --ColinFine (talk) 08:41, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Callisto and Calypso were totally separate nymphs in Greek history. Callisto is best known for being raped by Zeus Page 1454 in case link sucks which is further supported by the naming of one of Jupiter's moons "Callisto" [3] because Jupiter is the Roman version of Zeus. Calypso, on the other hand, was a significant figure in The Odyssey Her entire dealings with Zeus were when he forced her to let Odysseus go from her island where she had kept him prisoner. Myfairladyskynet (talk) 20:26, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Callisto and Calypso were both nymphs according to Greek mythology, but that is about where their similarities end. Callisto was the daughter of the King of Acadia, Lycaon. She was a huntress of Artemis and was seduced by Zeus and had a son, Arcas. She was later turned into a bear and Artemis almost killed her. Zeus saved her by turning her into the constellation Ursa Major. Calypso was the daughter of Tethys and the Titan Atlas. She lived on an island and tried to seduce Odysseus on his voyage home. She kept him there for years until the gods intervened and forced her to release him. Kdyoung14 (talk) 21:52, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Mythology and Religion:

What's the difference between the two? In simple terms please? What came first? Failed mythologies what didn't/couldn't turn into religion or failed religion what didn't/couldn't turn into mythology...

(Russell.mo (talk) 22:12, 2 October 2014 (UTC))

Yes. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:14, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Maybe it would be best to say that A religion is a mythology with an army and a navy. But seriously, Mythology is specifically the set of narrative stories used by a culture, whereas religion is the set of beliefs and ethics. Mythology is a component of religion, but it is not the totality of religion. Greek mythology is the set of stories about the Gods and Goddesses and how they related to each other. However, mythology does not set forth any particular ethic or moral code, and does not indicate practices of worship and rituals. It is just a set of stories. Ancient Greek religion would include the mythology as the narrative background, but would also include the various rituals, styles of worship, and moral and ethical codes that the Greeks practiced in relation to their belief in their gods. --Jayron32 22:49, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

The OP asked for the answer "In simple terms please". An essential part of the answer has to be that there is no clear dividing line, so keeping it simple is as simple as one might hope. HiLo48 (talk) 23:09, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

There is a clear dividing line. Mythology is a set of narrative stories. It is one aspect of a religion. A religion encompasses a mythology, but also includes other aspects, such as rituals, moral codes, etc. That's the difference. The relationship between mythology and religion is the same as the difference between flour and cake. Mythology is an ingredient of religion, but they are not synonyms. --Jayron32 23:16, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

I don't think that's universally true. An area of interest of mine is Australian Aboriginal mythology, something that is quite often described as their religion. HiLo48 (talk) 23:55, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Do the Australian Aboriginal groups have no ceremonies or rituals connected to their mythology? Do they not have a moral code informed by their mythology? Have these societies ever done anything with their stories or do the stories just exist in a vacuum and not inform their worldview in any significant way? Because the other stuff around the stories is what makes the religion: the worldview based on the mythology, the ceremonies, rituals, totems, moral codes, etc, insofar as they are connected to the stories of the mythology would be those aspects of their religion which is not mythology strictly speaking. --Jayron32 00:49, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

The Inuit and other far northern Native Americans similarly had a pre-Christian religion that was pretty much just mythology and some (from the perspective of those mythologies) practical considerations resulting therefrom. Still, those religions are not the totality of religions, but specific ones. If we drew a Venn diagram of religion and mythology, the Australian Aboriginal and Inuit beliefs would be (non-overlapping, obviously) circles completely within the overlap between religion and mythology, but there would be belief systems that would be partially within religion and partially within mythology, or only partially overlapping with religion and no where near the mythology circle (e.g. Confucianism), or completely within the mythology circle and not touching religion (the tooth fairy, the boy who cried wolf). Ian.thomson (talk) 00:06, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Yep. Cerberus is a mythical creature. If people had invoked him in rituals, he'd become a religious figure, like Anubis. Somewhere in the middle lies Clifford the Big Red Dog. InedibleHulk (talk) 23:12, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Confucianism (debatably a religion) doesn't have much of a mythology. The Founding Fathers and Abraham Lincoln have mythic status among many Americans, but it is a secular mythology. On the other side of the planet, there's Kim Il-sung and the propaganda in North Korea, which fill pretty much the same role in that society that mythology has filled in the society that believes in it. The similarities between conspiracy theorism and Gnostic mythology have lead some to describe Gnosticism as a conspiracy theory focused on Genesis, or conspiracy theorists as the Gnostics of our era. Both hold that the world is controlled by evil powers (the Archons or the New World Order), who can only be resisted by possessing a special knowledge (either "seeing the truth" of the conspiracy theories or having gnosis), but the majority of humanity is "incapable" of this special knowledge. Antipathy towards Judaism (if not outright anti-Semitism) can be found in both conspiracy theorism and Gnosticism, both systems blaming Judaism for being a tool of the secret powers. Gnosticism rejected natural law as the false laws of the demiurge, while many conspiracy theorists claim that mainstream science is a lie by shills working for the NWO (or "big pharma" or whatever).

Religion and mythology can and often do overlap, but they are capable of existing without each other. A mythology is a collection of stories that claim to explain qualitatively why the world is what it is (while science explains quantitatively how it works and is open to correction). Religion is concerned with what we are supposed to do in the world. Ian.thomson (talk) 23:51, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

• A mythology is a religion no one believes in any more. μηδείς (talk) 00:38, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

That's a highly colloquial definition, not how academia uses the word. Ian.thomson (talk) 03:40, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

That's because academia is uniformly atheist and skeptical, so by definition there are no non-mythological religions, regardless of whom these offends outside the ivory tower. Look at the controversy of naming astronomical features after non-Abrahamic gods, as if Hindu gods were mythological, while Christian saints aren't. If you prefer, tell me which of the above statements I should be supporting rather than my own, and I'll toe the line. μηδείς (talk) 04:02, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Academia is uniformly atheist? You're joking, right? Franz Boas was Jewish, Carl Jung was Calvinist, Mircea Eliade was Eastern Orthodox, Joseph Campbell and E. E. Evans-Pritchard were both Catholic, Andrei Oișteanu is Jewish, J. Gordon Melton is Methodist, and they all discuss concepts which are currently believed in as mythologies and are figures that one has to at least be aware of to write on mythology. Going more into theology, J.R.R. Tolkien (Catholic) and Lewis (Anglican) both thought that mythology was something to be believed in as well (Lewis referring to Christianity as "the myth that is true"). Ian.thomson (talk) 05:00, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

All those people were either born in the 1800's or are not household names. And yes, I do mean uniformly atheist and skeptic, in the way that I mean a hot dog made yesterday is uniformly meat. Some impurities do creep in. My criterion here is not current academic fashion, it's long-term popular usage, like Graves' Greek Myths versus the dozens of books entitled Children's Stories from the Bible. We don't speak of Greek stories and Bible myths for children. I'd also like to see where Tolkien ever called anything in the Bible a myth. I have been trying to find where the original "A mythology is a religion no one believes in any more" quote came from, so any help on that front would be useful--it sounds like Twain or Heinlein. μηδείς (talk) 18:20, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

The question can't be answered simply, at least not anywhere near accurately and certainly not without qualification.

Original thinkers on these questions have defined the two controversial terms in ways that may include: opposition, development, overlap, independence, or part to whole relation, for starters. A sampling of still influential sources is available in the classic anthology, The Rise of Modern Mythology: 1680-1860 (Google Books; most online). One of the editors has a readable summary in The Dictionary of the History of Ideas entry, Myth in the Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries. This is followed by Mircea Eliade's entry, Myth in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. Highly recommended; both open access and short. Robert A. Segal is a reliable and readable current authority on the manifold relationships between mythologies and religions. His essay, "Myth" in The Blackwell Companion to the Study of Religion, which he edited, is better - and shorter (pp. 337-355) - than his Myth: A Very Short Introduction (archive.org), but both cover the last couple centuries of conflicting theories well. These few short selections from renowned authorities on mythology and religion effectively deflate attempts to simplify their inherently complex relationship.

Compare. What is the difference between (pick one; or more, for extra credit): Science and Philosophy? Art and Science? Art and Technology? Science and Religion? Would any simple answer survive even a moment's historical reflection, cross-cultural comparison, and critical scrutiny?

Far better to focus on the particulars of a specific historic question and leave arid and inaccurate generalizations to the anthologies of deservedly dead (or dying) simplistic ideas. -- Paulscrawl (talk) 04:52, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

I requested things in simple terms. Indeed the debate made things clearer. I've read through some of the articles mentioned in this discussion.

I get the idea peeps, i.e., A religion cannot be created without a background (mythology), meaning all successful religion possess a true mythology. Failed mythologies couldn’t turn into religion because the messenger of the mythology failed and so on. Religions what don’t have mythology, probably the messenger didn’t wanted to tell their story. Am I right? -- (Russell.mo (talk) 05:35, 3 October 2014 (UTC))

Every mythology is a false religion, that is to say, it is not from God. If there is a true religion (that is to say, if there is a religion from God), then it is not a mythology. Jehovah's Witnesses have published related information at http://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/1101989261.

—Wavelength (talk) 05:49, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

That is either a tautology or vacuous, depending on whether you start with the assumption that God is not mythical or not. --ColinFine (talk) 12:41, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

A mythology is not just some set of beliefs or stories which did not catch on or succeed as a religion. In many varied settings, when Christianity gained the military power of the state, they actively suppressed other religions, forbade their worship and if necessary killed their priests, and destroyed their temples or converted them into churches, leaving only "mythology." Tolerance of other religions has not always been observed. In 381 CE Theodosius persecuted "pagan" religions. In the 17th century through the 20th century the Spanish authorities in the Americas and the US government suppressed Native Americans following their traditional religions. Edison (talk) 14:24, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Canadian Christians were no angels in that regard, either. InedibleHulk (talk) 21:18, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

I think I get it. The fine line between religion(s) and mythology(s) does not blur, it is effected by time, appropriate ways of establishment, protestations from different groups of believers and disbelievers, [nowadays] especially belief and disbelief in the oneness of God. The ones who believe in the combination, I guess it is because, e.g., if you don't learn the alphabets then you won't understand a word... (Russell.mo (talk) 17:57, 4 October 2014 (UTC))

The "oneness of God" is a concept of the Abrahamic religions. Hinduism, which is polytheistic, has a fair-to-middling number of adherents. Like a billion or so. All of them have their "mythology", as used in the academic sense of "stories" as opposed to colloquial meaning as "fairy tales". But whether its Greek or Roman mythology, Abrahamic "mythology" or Hindu "mythology", the stories at their core are about moral lessons. That's the value of mythology, whether the stories are literally "real" or not. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:04, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

Agree. -- (Russell.mo (talk) 19:48, 4 October 2014 (UTC))

I'm gonna read through some of the articles advised in this discussion. Thanks a lot everyone! -- (Russell.mo (talk) 19:57, 4 October 2014 (UTC))

Queen Elizabeth II and her different realms

How often does the queen visit each of the country where she is queen? Ove Raul (talk) 22:15, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

List of Commonwealth visits made by Queen Elizabeth II has the sum total of all of her trips to her Realms (as well as Commonwealth Republics where she is not Sovereign), excluding her time within the United Kingdom. Her travels among the three Home Nations on the Island of Great Britain are probably too frequent and varied to bear mentioning. I don't believe she gets to Northern Ireland all that much, more for security and political reasons than anything else. --Jayron32 22:52, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

• Nor Australia, New Zealand or the Pacific islands just as a matter of practicality and distance. The last few "royal visits" have been by other members of the royal family. St★lwart¹¹¹ 00:32, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

  I don't know that she's visited the Antipodes all that less often than her other, non-British, realms. It looks like she visited Australia 18 times during her reign, for example. She visited Jamaica like 6 times, the Bahamas like 5 times, etc. Indeed, the only country she's visited more often than Australia is Canada, and with 11 visits to New Zealand, that looks like third place. --Jayron32 00:40, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

• Exactly right - I just mean that as she has slowed down, visits to Australia/New Zealand have become less common (or so it would seem) but she has been replaced in that duty by her children and grandchildren (who, incidentally, have put back the cause of republicanism with their visits and popularity). The numbers, looking at them again, surprise me. I'm not aware of any "requirement" for her to visit a particular country with particular regularity (like some long-ago statute or royal imprimatur). Right? St★lwart¹¹¹ 04:51, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Bear in mind that she's 88 years old. For many ladies of that age that are still alive (average life expectancy for a British woman is now 82.8 years [4]), a visit to a coffee morning at the local church hall can be a major undertaking. She's in Balmoral at the moment but is still keeping busy. See The Court Circular. Alansplodge (talk) 10:31, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

The idea that her visits to the Lands Down Under have slowed down also doesn't bear out. She visited Australia once in the 1950s and once in the 1960s. So that's twice in the first 15 or so years of her reign. She's been 5 times since 2000. A young, spritely Queen only managed two trips, and yet the doddering old queen who somehow shouldn't be traveling as much has been there more than twice as often over the same timespan? That's an interesting definition of slowing down. --Jayron32 12:29, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Although to be fair, she did have to travel by ship the first time, a journey that took "almost six weeks".[5] She was the first reigning British monarch ever to visit Australia, so there is certainly no constitutional requirement for her to do so. By my understanding, all of her reserve powers have now been delegated to the Governor-General of Australia so visits are not much about governance and more about keeping everybody happy. Alansplodge (talk) 12:40, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Well, she didn't have to travel by ship. BOAC was flying to Australia with regular, commercial flights in Lockheed Constellations as early as 1949, and had commercial flights there even earlier (I can't get an exact date from the article, but the article notes a BOAC plane crash in Port Darwin in 1942.) If Joe Bloggs could take a plane from London to Sydney during the 1950s, there's no reason the Queen couldn't have done the same. I can't imagine the Monarchy lacked the means to purchase and/or charter a flight for her and her entourage in the 1950s. "Have to" is not the same as "chose to". --Jayron32 12:56, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Good point. Perhaps air travel was still considered to be too risky for a reigning sovereign. This table shows (by my count) 47 fatal crashes by commercial airliners during 1954, three of which were Lockheed Constellations, and one was a BOAC Constellation that crashed in Singapore on the way to Australia and killed 33 out of 44 on board. Again by my count, BOAC seems to have polished off 132 of its passengers and crew in four separate crashes during that year - none of the aircraft had more than 40 on board. Alansplodge (talk) 19:41, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Apparently the England cricket team were also unwilling to face the risks of travelling by air to Australia in 1954; they spent six weeks cooped up on the SS Orsova rather than venture into the air - see MCC tour of Australia in 1954–55. Alansplodge (talk) 19:53, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Alansplodge, I'm not sure what you mean by all of her reserve powers have now been delegated to the Governor-General. Under the Constitution of Australia, the Governor-General has always had the power and the monarch has had very little direct power, if any. The G-G assents to legislation in his role as the queen's representative, but it's not as if she can just decide to assume that role whenever she wants to. The G-G can decide to reserve certain passed bills for the queen's personal assent, and has done so on a handful of occasions (literally, about 6 in 114 years, usually on matters such as the Australian Royal Style and Titles), but that's entirely the G-G's call. In all other cases, the G-G is given the power personally, and cannot delegate it to anyone, including the queen. That includes being Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces. And it includes sacking an elected government that had the confidence of the lower house of parliament, as happened in 1975. All commentators agree that, had the resolution of the crisis been left to the queen, she would have chosen a different solution. But that's always been within the realm of hypothesis, because it would never have come to her in the first place. When approached to intervene and overturn Kerr's decision, she distanced herself from any comment, leaving the matter entirely in the hands of the Australian authorities. It would have been grossly improper had she made any other response. She couldn't even have terminated Kerr's appointment of her own volition, if she had been massively displeased with his actions, because she is advised (= ordered) by the government of the day, and the Fraser government was more than happy with Kerr because, without him, they would still have been the Opposition (at least until the election). And a year or so later she appointed Kerr a Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order, a matter entirely within her personal gift, which she could easily have decided to withhold, but to have done so when all previous G-G's had been appointed would have been seen as a comment on his performance, and that would not have been appropriate. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:11, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

I stand corrected. Alansplodge (talk) 10:24, 6 October 2014 (UTC)