Sumer
Sumerian gods
Worshiping the ancient gods of Sumer has been promoted by the New York Times[1] where they praise the "the welfare city-state" claiming that in that civil society "Work was a duty, but social security was an entitlement. It was personified by the Goddess Nanshe, the first real welfare queen immortalized in hymn as a benefactor who "brings the refugee to her lap, finds shelter for the weak.""
Sumer did establish a welfare city-state where the right to social welfare was an an entitlement in a civil system symbolized by the Goddess Nanshe (see also Nanse, Nazi) who was immortalized in an ancient hymn as a benefactor.
Praise of the god Nanshe[2]
Who knows the orphan, who knows the widow,
Knows the oppression of man over man, is the orphan's mother,
Nanshe, who cares for the widow,
Who seeks out ... justice ... for the poorest
The queen brings the refugee to her lap,
Finds shelter for the weak[3]
Secularism seized the mind of the people when we changed the definition of religion and the masses sat down to eat at a table of legal charity.
The Sumerian cuneiform system of writing as early as 3000 B.C. allowed for the direct outgrowth of the invention and development of a civil society. The earliest documents found in a Sumerian city of Erech recorded administrative accounting of a civil bureaucracy along with more and more civil laws required to regulate that growing bureaucracy and those citizens dependent upon it.
There was a rise in education evidenced by school books unearthed in Shuruppak dated around 2500 B.C.. Early on there was evidence of a wide variety of topics taught including architecture, medicine, metallurgy, mathematics, botanical, zoological, geographical, and mineralogical, as well as literature. This literary output in Mesopotamian civilization was not the first attempt of a human to express life, its values, and its meaning using fiction and art but it was simply one of the earliest written records we have found. They were often just recording the culture and civilization of their predecessors which they praised and the clay tablets were more survivable.
Reading Sumerian literature found in these cuneiform tablets, we find that the people were seeking someone to save them from their "animal nature". Since that animal nature often manifested with a lack of one or more socially desirable of virtues, their stories often included characters or heroes who had an abundance of those virtues. These Sumerians gods identified in these clay tablets were humans who ate, drank, sleep, marry, and have children but they often excelled in one of these virtues which the Sumerians prized and praised.
The Sumerians, Akkadians and Babylonians in Mesopotamia had "gods many" described in their epics as humans, as wise kings who live lives, are mourned and like Ishtar lament those who perished in the flood of Utnapishtim.[4]
Nanshe[2] was considered a "tutelary deity" of social justice and social welfare.
As a protector and benefactor of various disadvantaged groups, such as orphans, widows or people belonging to indebted households. and through the civil bureaucracy in the Mesopotamian city, an administrative text lists grain rations for a widow alongside that grain meant for Nanshe's clergy who administered to these needy.[5]
- ↑ On Welfare in Sumer; No Society Rejoices At Helping Its Poor By Sam Roberts July 5, 1992.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Nanshe was a Mesopotamian goddess in various contexts associated with the sea, marshlands, the animals inhabiting these biomes, namely bird and fish, as well as divination, dream interpretation, justice, social welfare, and certain administrative tasks.
- ↑ This is a text translated from Sumerian documents describing the god- dess Nanshe: Kramer 1981, 104.
- ↑ Ut-napishtim or Uta-na’ishtim, Atra-Hasis, Ziusudra, Xisuthros is a character in ancient Mesopotamian mythology. He is tasked by the god Enki to create a giant ship to be called Preserver of Life in preparation of a giant flood that would wipe out all life. The character appears in the Epic of Gilgamesh. "It is I who give birth, these people are mine! And now, like fish, they fill the ocean!”
- ↑ The Nanshe Hymn by W Heimpel · 1981 · Cited — The oracle priest brings the first fruit offerings, the chef gets the oven going. Meat, liquor and water are brought. Nanshe makes administrative appointments. As a result, daily offerings can be drawn from the center granary."