Goddesses, Gods, and Spirit, Part Five: Our Relationship

Goddesses, gods, and we humans share much that is significant: We are alive. We share spirit. We are conceived by parents and born. We grow up to become adults. We mate and have children.

We live in the same universe. We experience pleasure and pain. We experience the full range of emotions. We have our own strengths, unique abilities, and weaknesses. We make choices and take actions that sometimes help and sometimes harm. 

We communicate with each other. Some call our communication with deities prayer. Some call the communication of deities with us revelation. Others call it divination.

Some goddesses and gods have no interest in us. Some do. We have no interest in some goddesses and gods. In others we do. Some of us have only one goddess or god. Some of us have two or more.

The point: There are goddesses and gods. There are us human beings. And there is the relationship between us.

Some believe their god is the only god. They also believe there is only one right way to be in a relationship with their one true god. That's fine. They are free to believe as they so choose.

Some believe that everyone who believes in one god believes in the same god. They just call him by different names. Others believe their god is the one true god that all should worship and the one god others believe in is not the one true god.

Others believe there are many goddesses and gods and each is related to in their own way. That's fine too. They too are free to believe as they so choose.

The relationship between deities and us varies from deity to deity and human to human. The relationships are dynamic and complex. That's what makes them so interesting.

Goddesses, Gods, and Spirit, Part Four: Eternal Life? Cont'd

Instead of being eternal, I believe that goddess and gods are potentially immortal. Here's why:

First, within our visual range most, if not all, of the living things we see are conceived by parents in some sense of the word, they are born in some sense, grow to maturity, decline, die, decompose, and are reborn in some sense of the word. Consider the life cycles of oak trees and  cats for illustrations. It seems reasonable to me that the life cycles of living beings outside our visual range would follow the same pattern. Living organism too seen only with microscopes follow this pattern. It seems that goddesses and gods would follow the same pattern.

When we consider the narratives about goddesses and gods handed down to us from our Greek, Roman, and Norse ancestors, we see the same pattern with one exception. Goddesses and gods are conceived by their parents, born, and grow to maturity. The difference is that they consume food and drink that keeps them young and makes them potentially immortal. The Greek deities consumed nectar and ambrosia. The Norse deities consumed golden apples. 

The Greek, Roman, and Norse goddesses and gods can also die. For example, most of the Norse gods die in Ragnarok.

The deities of our Greek, Roman, and Norse ancestors live and act in the same world as do we and the rest of nature rather than an eternal, unchanging realm apart from this world. They even involve themselves in human events, such as war and and sex. Their existence is consistent with the rest of living beings that we know. Rather than devaluing life they value and live it as do we.

I can believe in such beings that value and affirm life.

Goddesses, Gods, and Spirit, Part Three: Eternal Life?

As mentioned in the introduction to this series, spirit, understood in terms of the Ancient Greek concept of thumos, is that which makes alive. Everything that is alive has spirit and is spirited, including goddesses, gods, and other beings invisible to us humans.

The question I address in this post is whether or not I believe goddesses and gods are eternal. In addressing this question I reflect on the meaning of "eternal", the effects of believing that goddesses and gods are eternal, the meaning of immortal, and the effects of believing that goddesses and gods are immortal rather than eternal.

First, I do not believe that goddesses and gods are eternal. Here's why:

In Western civilization "eternal" tends to mean "always has been and always will be." An eternal god is without beginning and end. He is unchanging. He has no parents that conceived him, no birth, growth, decline, death, and rebirth. Such a god by necessity exists "outside of time", apart from the universe, and in a supernatural/metaphysical realm.

The effect of such a belief is the valuing of a realm, life, and existence that is outside the world we live in. It exalts what is eternal, unchanging, separated from "this world." It values life before and after the life we live in "this world." Those who believe in eternity often speak of going to a better place than this world after they die. Such a belief devalues, and often denies, all that is temporal and mortal, all that changes, and all that is of "this world"; that is, all of nature.

I simply cannot believe is something so life-denying.