Let us say, purely for the sake of discussion, that the netjeru exist in an objective sense, and are purely local, having no influence over the Universe at large. If any are "creators", they are creators of this world only; we don't even assume that, though.
We certainly can't assume more. On a Cosmic timescale, the entire history of Egypt is but the blink of an eye. Were merely the entire prehistory of our planet compressed into a year, the history of Egypt would be nothing more than a 35 second trailer on the back of it. One begins to see man's vanity, in imagining that our world might be where the creator of the Cosmos might end up being confined, either by fate or by choice, and where his name, present from the beginning (as it must be, if it is to be intrinsic to him), would someday be found. What makes our 35 seconds of fame any more significant than any of the 35 second stretches that went before it?
For the sake of our analysis, anything that would make a being, or an aspect of a being significant for the entirety, or a large part of the Universe, regardless of his current region of influence, must be regarded as something that elevates him to a cosmic stature, raising the problems considered before. What are the odds that of all of the planets who could find himself on, this would be the one? Yes, somebody will win the lottery, as the statistician's cliche goes; but one seldom goes wrong by assuming that one won't be that person.
Very well, then. The Universe, if we are to hold to Kheru's hypothesis, can't be the creation of any of the individual netjeru that we know of. It can only be the creation of Netjer itself, or of some aspect of Netjer we haven't heard of, or not Netjer's creation at all. (Let us keep in mind that in order to accomodate Kheru's claim that Sekhmet has an absolute name, we will have to assume, contrary to House doctrine, that the "Names", or aspects of Netjer (ie. God) are objectively, not subjectively real. We must further assume that the "Names" are of limited scope, in both time and space, undermining the more familiar arguments for monolatry in Kemetic belief).
The netjeru seem to be shrinking before our very eyes.
In fact, if we wish to make feasible the assumption that these Kemetic names of the netjeru enjoy some sort of absolute validity, as opposed to being mere cultural conventions, we will have to assume that none of the known "names of Netjer" enjoy the sort of antiquity that even a "local creator god" (*) would have to have. Before, the problem was that the Universe was far vaster than the ancients ever imagined. Now, the problem is that the world is far older than they believed. Egypt may be the first culture from which we have extent records, which is why History begins there, but it most certainly is not the first culture that ever existed on this world. It isn't even the first in its region - copper age settlements in what is now Israel predate the pharoahs by millenia. The original village at the site of Jericho possibly predates 10,000 BC, which would mean that it was well over 5,000 years old in the time of Menes and his immediate predecessors.
So, why would an aspect of deity who predated the founding of Egypt by aeons, have an intrinsic name derived from a language which would not be spoken for billions of years at the time the aspect came into existence, or at some moment the aspect did exist, should he have always existed? What would make this little slice of the indeterminate future of that moment, that special? This is to say nothing of the nasty causuality issues this would raise, in a Universe whose fundamental laws are non-deterministic. The Egyptian language existing as part of destiny, before the first microbes arose? How probable does that seem?
"Perhaps", somebody might say, "you have confused cause with effect. The language did not give rise to the names, the "Names" inspired the creation of the language, and built their own names into it". Then, once again, we are left with the question, why in Egypt, and not elsewhere? They certainly don't seem lacking in ambition, Set least of all. What would keep them from expanding their sphere of influence on this, one of the few, if not the only, world on which they would have influence? Doing so, if the netjeru were, as some Kemetics seem to feel, the only gods there are, would have certainly saved their cults from oblivion. If, as John suggests, a netjer and its name are inseperable, then oblivion certainly is what overtook those cults, due to the expansion first of Christianity, then Islam, costing the netjeru honors (such as sacrifices in their name) which they apparently desired. One would hope the gods, or aspects of God, would be wiser then men, and the danger of such an overthrow would occur to many humans. Why would they have been caught unprepared?
These names, as we've already noted, are simple ones, for the most part, easily spoken. Why do they not appear in other languages? Why would the netjeru inspire the creation of just one language, and not others? Not being a linguist, I ask the reader to take this comment with all appropriate skepticism, but I wonder if the presence of these names in any lost root languages of those we do know about, outside of the Hamitic family, do either, for a few thousand years prior to the first dynasty? Don't forms tend to grow simpler, as a language evolves? One can't get much simpler than Geb. Heru, Sekhmet, Ptah ... these are simple deity names. One would expect them to remain.
One is left to suspect, if we are to naively equate the names with those who are named, that the netjeru might have met with resistance. An army only fails to conquer when it meets another army it can't defeat. Or, perhaps, out of respect for peace, the netjeru might have recognized that these were the rightful lands of others. Either way, the implication is the same - Egypt would not be the only land with its netjeru. True 'gods' would be found everywhere.
We turn to the linguistic dogmatist, who maintains that these names are absolute. "You object to the use of the name "Sachmis". Why?" "Because that is not what the Egyptians originally called her", would be the customary reply. "Really?", we counter, "then how is it that you are untroubled by the fact that she wan't originally called 'Sekhmet', either? 'Sekhmet' was originally a title given to Hethert (Hathor). Properly speaking, wouldn't one have to say that Sekhmet's original name was Hethert, then? 'Khenty-Amenti' was originally an epithet given to Yinepu; it ended up being applied to Wesir. This much comes from the homepage of the House of Netjer, the very organization which John craved membership in, at the time of the original writing of this article. As we have seen, the names were changing, even in Egypt itself, over the centuries. Under such fluid circumstances, what does the word "original" mean? For that matter, seeing that the deity names were evolving during Pharaohnic times, as were the conceptions of the 'Names' (just look at what happened to Wesir), what would give a member of Kheru's camp such confidence that they didn't do so during predynastic times as well? If so, then none of the Egyptian names of the netjeru would be "original", either.
Our absolutist friend would have a few options open to him. He might point out that the issue here was not originality, but authenticity. He might maintain, for example, that Sekhmet existed as a seperate entity at the time her myth began, but some mistook her for Hethert, a mistake which had to be corrected. To which we would respond, "how does one know when all such 'mistakes' have been cleared away, and what made the Egyptians uniquely qualified to clear them away? If they were so, then, why are they no longer? I've met the management of the House, and aside from a few people of West African descent (via the Carribean, I believe), it was a fairly Northern European looking crowd, almost entirely Germanic at that. Hardly close kin to the Egyptians. If Heru is not too xenophobic to speak to a Slavic high priestess, then why would he or his develop such an inexplicable shyness around Greeks or Romans?
After all, there were certainly more than a few hundred worshippers of the netjeru in the 'European' provinces of the Roman Empire, and worship there continued for centuries. The House of Netjer only dates back to the late 1980s, the Midwestern American high clergy having come from Christian homes. Who, then, has more experience of the netjeru, the derided Graeco-Roman worshippers of old, or the modern Americans? Who would be closer to them?
The claim made for the 'nisut' by the House of Netjer, and implicitly accepted by kheru (who did, after all, join a probationers' class, and seek membership) is that she is an incarnation of Heru - that the 'kingly ka', or spirit of Heru resides within her, guides her, occasionally speaking through her. Surely, one of the netjeru would be able to clear up such misunderstandings, such as mistaking one of his fellow netjeru (Sekhmet) for another (Hethert). In fact, as the pharoahs (nisuts) before apparently enjoyed the same status, according to House doctrine, there would have been 195 people who came before Rev. Siuda, who could have provided similar clarity, some of who would have reigned during the period between the first appearance of 'Sekhmet' as an epithet of Hethert, and the eventual recognition of Sekhmet as a distinct 'Name'. If there are such absolute names of the 'Names of Netjer', and their usage is as important as Kheru seems to think that it is, how is it that none of the nisuts who could have spoken up about this, during the period in question, saw any need to do so? Their decision to do otherwise, would have left Sekhmet being referred to as 'Hethert' for centuries. 'Hethert' sounds even less like 'Sekhmet' than 'Sachmis' does.
Thus, if we are to accomodate both John's hypothesis, regarding the existence of absolute names for the netjeru (which are the names we see in use in a Kemetic Orthodox context), and the proposition that Sekhmet existed as a full aspect of Netjer in her own right at the time her name first appeared, then we must discard the belief that Heru incarnates in the nisuts. One may well wonder if anything will remain of Kemetic Orthodoxy, at this rate.
Almost a side issue, at this point, but ...
To bring us back to our question about the Greeks and Romans: if a relationship with the netjeru as profound as that claimed for Rev. Siuda (which offers so much more than the understanding needed to resolve such confusions of the netjeru) is one that the netjeru feel comfortable establishing with those so far from home, then how can one maintain that peoples who had so much more experience of them than modern-day Americans, would be any less able to find clarity in such matters? Let us remember that it was the people of Egypt who established the cult of Sekhmet (as distinct from Hethert), and not the Pharoah/Nisut, apparently, implying that we should take that not all understanding in such matters need come from the nisut.
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(*) as in, the creator of this world that we happen to find ourselves on, which is but a small part of all existence.