Hephaestus make love to Athena: at the moment of climax she pushes him aside, and his semen falls to the earth where it impregnates Gaia." Hephaestus was associated by Greek colonists in southern Italy with the volcano gods Adranus (of Mount Etna) and Vulcanus of the Lipari islands. The first-century sage Apollonius of Tyana is said to have observed, "there are many other mountains all over the earth that are on fire, and yet we should never be done with it if we assigned to them giants and gods like Hephaestus". In the Trojan war, Hephaestus sided with the Greeks, but
The Necessity of Secularism: Why God Can't Tell Us What to Do The Necessity of Secularism: Why God Can't Tell Us What to Do The Necessity of Secularism (subtitled Why God Can't Tell Us What to Do) is a book by Center for Inquiry CEO Ron Lindsay arguing that secularism in government is the best solution to the problems posed by a society with differing and incompatible perspectives on religion, and that for democratic discourse to be successful, religious doctrines need to be kept out of public policy discussions. Lindsay's two primary themes in "The Necessity of Secularism" are the importance of secular government in a religiously pluralistic society and the independence