About the Gods/Godesses

So Paganism seems to have many aspects to it that resonate with me, the reverence for nature and the spirits in the plants and trees and Earth. However I'm a bit hung-up on the whole Gods and Godesses thing, and have a few questions.

Is there a type of Paganism that isn't polytheistic? I believe in one divine source of energy (chi, prana, whatever name suits you) that lives in all things and comes from somewhere. Is that what it refers to? Or is there an actual belief and worship in physical deities?

Is it like Hinduism where the deities aren't actually deities but manifestations used to better understand the aspects of the whole?

Thanks so much

 

You could really look at it either way, depending on the path you choose to take. I would look into multiple pagan religions and find the one that best suits you. There are a lot of them out there.

 

The whole "gods being part of a whole" is a relatively modern thing. It seems to me that even when Hindus say that, it's an effort to make Hinuism seem to be more "western".

I know someone who took classes for two years in traditional Hindu temple dancing, and the teacher, who was Indian, would speak during the classes about gods and goddesses. Then during the public performances, would start talking about the gods being part of one god. She only did this in public not private. I think that says something.

Even when Plato says "god" he didn't mean it in a literal sense that there is one god. He was using in the same sense that we would use the word "divinity" which is simultaneously singular and plural.

In today's world, since the majority of the world is either Christian, Jewish, or Muslim, then the world tends to look at divinity through monotheist glasses. Thus many people today have a hard time reconciling the idea of a multitude.

My teacher made the following comparison: I can speak of "man" meaning all humans. While I am a man, I am not all of man. You can say that when mankind has a certain commonality, then they can act as one. for example during a football game, when a crowd cheers, it makes one large sound, but at the same time is actually many. If you pull back the camera a bit further, the crowd begins to lose its individuality.

Divinity is infinite and genderless. As soon as you limit it to a number it begins to be limited. Sure as humans we naturally put limits and categorized things since infinity is impossible to understand. I can understand saying "god" poetically or as an expedient, but do not think it is literal.

 

What you described sounds a lot like pantheism; which is apparently a pretty common philosophy amongst Pagans overall.

 

Yes and no. There are 5 major theisms, which then create a 6th. Pantheism is the belief that divinity is in all things. While this is true, I find I am more of a kathenotheist which is the belief in many deities, but then worshiping one particular deity for a certain time for a certain purpose.

 

So based on what I stated about my beliefs, would any of you have a type or range of types of Paganism to research more about that might be what I'm lookin for?

 

Certain aspects of Wicca might be good for you...they are duotheists...But believe in that one divine source thing that you were talking about...but they view it as a whole with dual polarity....ie Lord and Lady....

But...thats only if you want to be lazy and wrong.

 

I just re-read my first post and realized how vague I was about my beliefs
Just to give some more insight here is a list of my philosophies (if it helps at all, I don't to play the whole pick-my-religion game, just want a push in the general direction so I can get a better idea of where I'm going)

*I believe the Earth itself is alive as an entity (although not conscious or thinking, just...being. If that even makes two hoots of sense.)
*I believe that we are all made of the same stuff and are therefore connected in the sense that even though we are seperate, we are just smaller pieces of the same thing, and the same type of life-force flows through every living thing.
*I believe that animals and even plants each have their own pieces of this greater spirit.
*I would like to learn how to honor everything around me more in nature, not just by taking care of it but maybe in a type of ritual
*I believe that everything moves in big cycles.
*And although I'm not sure if I believe every pebble has its own essence (maybe someone can enlighten me on this?) I definitly think there is something very alive about a hill or mountain.
*Also, I don't know too much about wicca, but it seems as if they believe in two seperate deities of opposite genders which balance each other out, I however believe in one (I guess you could say divine source, but not deity, which is genderless)

Hope that helps (sorry if I'm exhausting your patience with this thread )

 

You are well on your way to animism...but you are hung up on a few things.

All things exist on the Web of Fate..as spun by the Binder (as has been called)....a rock is in its place in fate...it may once have been part of a mountain...and may one day be many grains of sand....but that rock has its own essence, seperate from when it was part of a collective essence of the mountain...just as the grains of sand shall be to the rock.

All things, all souls, all spirits, all gods, are affected by the Wyrd...and it is Wyrd that enacts the fate of all things.

As to wiccans, the (mostly) believe in One Divine Source, but that manifests itself in Male and Female...flawed a system as they may have, it seems to work out in their minds.

I believe in the Divine Source, of who i call "the one who made order'"...By ordering the chaos around, it was made possible for all life to exist from that point...From this cycle, many deities, spirits, lives and places have become...Many from the anima of nature, many from the natural cycles, many from our own ancestry....Just because there is one divine source does not mean that the divine only has one face.

 

i cannot think of any polytheistic religion that denies the fact that all gods/goddesses stem from a single source - call it godhead, collective consciousness, energy, etc.....all deities are manifestations from this single source, given personality and will, which gives the worshipper more of a feeling of "connection" than they would if they praised an unfathomable source of divine origin

as far as monotheistic pagan religions in history, it brings to mind the pharoah ankhenaton - he recognized a single source of deity as represented by the sun - threw the whole priesthood into a tizzy, lol

 

Actually even though Akhenaten exalted Aten, it doesn't mean he was a monotheist. Did he say there was only one god and no others existed?

This reminds me of something E A Budge wrote in the early 20th century. WHile he was a scholar, much of what he wrote is now questioned. However the value of his work was a the sheer amount that he translated.

Anyway he said the Ancient Egyptians were monotheists. The reason he said this was because of some inscriptions he found. They said something like (and I am saying this in my own words since I don't have the book in front of me):

O Ptah you are the only one - you are the one true God.

Now you may say to yourself "Well they ARE saying there is only one god and he is Ptah". However my teacher said this to me. If you are writing a love letter to your girl/boyfriend you would say "you are the only one". You don't mean they are the only person in existence.

When you are exalting a god, for instance in their own temple, you placing them above all others. This does not mean that is all there is.

Akhenaten exalted Aten. Aten was a foreign diety. His mother brought Aten from Libya I believe, so Aten was the god of his childhood. Akhentaten I suspect was a bit naive and created his new capital as a utopia which didn't quite work out too well and was pretty much universally hated for it. Imagine if the president of the US decided to close all the churches in the US and replaced them with Hindu temples. Sure some people would welcome the change, but I would image most people would be - ummm.. not terribly happy about it.

 

So is the binder a physical thing? or is it simply the sum of the events from the past and in the future?

And I've read the animist forums briefly, it seems as if they believe in both good and evil spirits that can inhabit things, where-as I don't see how a tree-spirit for example can even be perceived as evil.

 

Good and evil is a perception anyway. They are pretty much a human peculiarity. Hurricane Katrina could poetically be called evil since it caused so much destruction and death, but did the hurricane really have it in for those people?

Same thing with gods and spirits. The universe is a huge place, and we are a tiny tiny cog in a vast machine. So are the gods picking on us? If they tell you not to eat pork and you eat a piece of bacon, are the gods going to single you out as an example to all of life in the universe? Besides are there even pigs on other planets.

People really need to put this stuff in perspective.

 

Good and Evil are just words...and I personally don't use them...But they are accurate to a certain point.

Evil always represents that which seeks to destroy life...where as the ones who defend life are Good...Now Evil and Good have a new meaning.

The Formori are the primordial spirits of chaos....who are always warring with the Danaans...who are the children of Life...."Good" (life/order) always prevails because it cannot outright destroy "Evil" (death/chaos) because of the cycle of energy...Chaos is the fuel of Life...with out Chaos, Life can not continue....thus is the split, the dualism, the cycle. So yes...spirits are "good" or "evil" or sometimes in the middle...but all are affected by the outcome.

Chaos was the original state, Order is the product of that, without Chaos, there could be no Order.

On a more mundane "comic book" level, what would spiderman be without the criminals? The X-men without Magneto? etc...

 

WTF? Whats other planets got to do with it..."nature" is in reference to the Earth...Just as the Earth has a spirit, so does the other planets...its all relative...broken down into microcosms...Universe..Planet...Geography...Tribe...Family...Household...all have the same structure...Tribal gods are global...but not intergalactic...Planet Deities are intergalactic (somewhat) but not "UNIVERSAL"...but its the Universe deity that is the One Who Made Order....all else is "planet-centric"

 

The gods are not Earth based. True all we know is Earth, but I figured that most of us acknowledged there was more to the universe, i.e. nature, than the Earth.

I do not consider my religion Earth-based since quite simply the gods are not Earth-based.

 

when you say "the gods" which do you refer to? Do you dispute that there is no room for the structure of deities that I presented? That there is the Non earthy and earthy gods? or is it just your way...that gods can ONLY be Non-Earthy?

Think about what the "gods" are...most are nature (local) spirits...many are ancestoral spirits...some are larger nature happenings..some are stars...some are suns...some are the moon...some are the galaxy...etc...and some exist on planes not anywhere near our own...We know the earthy gods...we know a few galactic ones...for as many that belong to our earth, there are millions more times that many for the rest of the universe..all the way down to household.

 

yes, i do believe that he did say that there was only one god, and it was his god, the Sun (or symbolised by)

told the people not to worship at the other temples, his way was the only way, etc - this was recorded as one of the greatest religious schisms in history.

an excellent novel that is centered around the subject is "the egyptian" by Mika Waltari - it made for a great flick later with Vic Mature

 

I love the book but hate the movie. The movie was so poorly done. My teacher followed the making of it very closely. He told me that they originally intended to make it closer to the book and even hired Egyptologists to design the sets and props, but then after they were just beginning they were all pulled off so it resulted in a standard swords and sandals.

Audrey Hepburn was even originally going to play Nefertiti. That would have been cool.

Akhenaten's supposed monotheism wasn't has cut and dry as people today think it was.

 

I never said the gods were Earthly or non-Earthly. Divinity is universal, so it's all of the above.

Sometimes we get too hung up and this is "nature spirit A" and that is "god B". Things aren't that neat.

Let's imagine that Earth is destroyed. Are the gods and spirits that communed with for thousands of years gone? Were here before WE were here? Were they around before the Earth existed?

I think that spirits and divinty were here before the Earth was here and will be here after we are forgotten. They do not need us. One of the principles of Hermetic magic is that all things have a spiritual ally, and since we happen to be here on Earth, then we are going to identify things in a way we are going to be familiar with. By the same token astrology as we understand it only work because of the relation we have because of where we are. If we were in another part of the univers, then astrology would have to change.

It's like the old saying: If horses believed in gods, then gods would be horses.