sun and moon

You can see the sun and the moon in two different ways: First of all, there is a scientific meaning for the beings and the nature on earth. But there were peoples in the past, who also saw them as symbols in their religion or in their philosophy.

sun:
scientific facts:

• distance from earth: 149 600 000 km
• diameter: 1 392 000 km (109 Earth diameters)
• circumference: 4 373 000 km (342 Earth diameters)
  
• mass: 332 946 Earths

The sun is the biggest and maybe the most important item in our sun-system, because it spends so much energy, which give the ability for life on earth.
Everything in the sun-system circulates around the sun.

non-scientific beliefs:
The former German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck (1815 - 1898) once said:
"[...] Human beings are loving and adoring these things, of which they are most afraid of."
If you think about the peoples, which loved and adored the sun as their God, you´ll find out, that all of them lived in regions, in which the sun was very representative:
The Atzecs, the Egyptians, the Persians.
They had this belief because of the bad effects of the sun - like droughts.

moon:
scientific facts:

• Earth´s only natural satellite
• distance from earth: 384 401 km
• diameter: 3 476.2 km
• mass: 0.0123 Earths

non-scientific beliefs:
The moon never had the attendance in religion like the sun. But they were some religions, which worshiped it. There were mentions of the moon on the oldest literatures of Egypt, Babylonia, India and China. The reaon abou that is, that people always speculated over the origins of the phases of the moon. And so, they started to believe, that there is a relation between these phases and the growth of plants and animals.

Because of the craters on the moon, people also began to see faces on the moon. A legend was founded, which told, that there is a man in the moon.

Sources:
Sun - Wikipedia.org
Sun - Bismarck-Quote (German)

Moon - Wikipedia.org
Moon - Religions And Cultures Of Moon Worship
Moon - Woman & Man In The Moon

posted by Chris @ 2:33 PM