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Real Polytheism

Clara Tea

Well-Known Member
Of the comments here the ones that struck me the most informative is likening multiple gods to multiple occupational specialists, and likening polytheism to democracy.

You seek individuals who sponsor your craft or embody a craft you need in your life, but have a general respect for all crafts and craftsmen.

And a pantheon like a democracy, division of power to specialists goes smoother than a single leader dictatorship.

Part of the selection process was getting killed by other believers (believe my way or die). Torture was rife among the worshipers of loving Gods.
 

Clara Tea

Well-Known Member
I actually read something that I would like to have turned into a serious response, too, but I have way too much of a headache. It's basically about why the most powerful gods in pantheons tend to be distant, and it has to do with limiting their power for pretty similar reasons to WW's assessment.

When we wonder why God hasn't taken a greater interest in our lives (allows disease, pain, and death), and doesn't answer prayers, perhaps we can consider ourselves fortunate that God doesn't cause worldwide floods (more than he does)?
 

Clara Tea

Well-Known Member
Unfortunately, I wouldn't say I'm particularly well informed on this topic so won't be of much use :grimacing:

Theology for Greeks like Aristotle was something a bit different from Abrahamic theology and was part of philosophy similar to metaphysics. It was intricate, but in a different way and with a different purpose. It may have got a bit more 'religious' by the time of Neoplatonism, which in turn influenced Abrahamic theology.

As for people dedicating themselves to one god, I can't say much, but priests of Cybele used to cut their balls off which seems quite devoted to me :flushed:

"Attis" may have been a name or title of Cybele's priests or priest-kings in ancient Phrygia.[115] Most myths of the deified Attis present him as founder of Cybele's Galli priesthood but in Servius' account, written during the Roman Imperial era, Attis castrates a king to escape his unwanted sexual attentions, and is castrated in turn by the dying king. Cybele's priests find Attis at the base of a pine tree; he dies and they bury him, emasculate themselves in his memory, and celebrate him in their rites to the goddess. This account might attempt to explain the nature, origin and structure of Pessinus' theocracy.[116] A Hellenistic poet refers to Cybele's priests in the feminine, as Gallai.[117] The Roman poet Catullus refers to Attis in the masculine until his emasculation, and in the feminine thereafter.[118] Various Roman sources refer to the Galli as a middle or third gender (medium genus or tertium sexus).[119] The Galli's voluntary emasculation in service of the goddess was thought to give them powers of prophecy.[120]
Everyone should have a hobby. But, once cut, then what? The practice tends to limit the way we raise kids in our religion.
 

Harel13

Am Yisrael Chai
Staff member
Premium Member
Where in the spectrum of going from general polytheism to 'hard' monotheism does the complexity emerge?
I don't believe monotheism evolved out of polytheism. According to Judaism, it was the other way around. However, this is less about how monotheism came about and more about the core of the "Abrahamic" religions, being that they revolve around texts that I think demand a more complex system of thought, whilst polytheistic religions - at least those that I first mentioned in this thread, namely the Greco-Roman, Egyptian and 'biblical' ones (Mesopotamian, etc) - do not.
In other words, are you saying that monotheism was a prerequisite for complexity
Not monotheism in itself - but a specific type of monotheism, namely, the sort which I believe was the world's first religion and came to father Judaism, Christianity and Islam. So for example, Atenism is out of the picture.
 

Harel13

Am Yisrael Chai
Staff member
Premium Member
I really only familiar with Celtic and Norse polytheism but from what I know they had a very complex religious culture. For instance causeways made in the early iron age were used in votive practices and some studied show the trees used to construct or repair the causeways were only cut during a winter when there was a lunar eclipse. This requires a sophisticated knowledge of celestial patterns and complex meaning.
I think you're conflating complex theologies with IQ levels.
One must be cautious in over reliance on the sources coming from the alternative religion which in your case the Jewish sources, since they have a motivation to degrade the alternative belief.
They do, but like myself, do not conflate the complexity of theology, or lack thereof, with IQ levels. The other way around - when calling for the idolaters to leave their idolatrous ways, the sources generally ask them to use their heads.
 

Aštra’el

Aštara, Blade of Aštoreth
Having come into a world where this is common, I've noticed a trend that may be lost on most Abrahamics and it's confusing to me, so I'll just lay it out.

A common theme I've begun seeing in polytheistic communities is a person taking one god and basically dedicating him or herself to that one at the expense of the others. This happened historically as well, of course. But it seems to me to defeat the purpose of polytheism. I mean, if you have, say, 20 gods why just focus only one one and write/pray/give offerings etc. only to one?

I worship a Supreme God above all others, as the highest and greatest being... but I also worship several lesser gods as well.

Among these lesser gods, I worship one deity more than the others. It is this one I have the strongest connection to. The sides of human nature she embodies are the ones most relevant to my dreams, goals and aspirations, as well as the person I’ve become and who I choose to be in this time and place.

And it’s not just that. With the exception of the Supreme God, there is no one I respect more. Several times this goddess helped me find a way out of a very deep and dark abyss, and constantly, throughout the good times and bad, has helped me find wisdom in the conflicts within and around me. She is a constant source of motivation and inspiration, and she is not the only one. So, I try and do for my God(s) as my God(s) have done for me, by strengthening their presence in this world through my actions and honoring them in body, mind and spirit.
 

amorphous_constellation

Well-Known Member
I don't believe monotheism evolved out of polytheism. According to Judaism, it was the other way around. However, this is less about how monotheism came about and more about the core of the "Abrahamic" religions, being that they revolve around texts that I think demand a more complex system of thought, whilst polytheistic religions - at least those that I first mentioned in this thread, namely the Greco-Roman, Egyptian and 'biblical' ones (Mesopotamian, etc) - do not.

Not monotheism in itself - but a specific type of monotheism, namely, the sort which I believe was the world's first religion and came to father Judaism, Christianity and Islam. So for example, Atenism is out of the picture.

I'm reminded of a Julius Caesar line on the Celts, where I believe he states that they eschewed writing down religious things, specifically because it 'weakened the brain,' and that it took 20 years to become a druid. These aren't views I really agree with, but I can imagine that memorizing your entire religious system, like they did, would produce a well-marbled brain.

My contemporary view however, seems to make an emphasis on the ineffable part of all this. Namely, most religions probably agree that the core of religiousness or spirituality is ineffable, and so one wonders if it matters if you manufacture a simple door or a complicated door. Once you look in the room, how will you understand what is there

I also thought about a Tovia Singer video I saw earlier this year entitled 'why did the church use December 25th to celebrate Christmas?' Therein he made an interesting point around the 9 minute mark, that was something about pre and post etymology surrounding the figure of Abraham, regarding your hebrew word for the sun.. I am not applying a 'polytheism begets monotheism' argument to Singer, I don't know what he thinks, but I it seemed useful to remember. Was Abraham turning an etymological key in time, and why
 

Harel13

Am Yisrael Chai
Staff member
Premium Member
My contemporary view however, seems to make an emphasis on the ineffable part of all this. Namely, most religions probably agree that the core of religiousness or spirituality is ineffable, and so one wonders if it matters if you manufacture a simple door or a complicated door. Once you look in the room, how will you understand what is there
What I mean by "complex" can be compared to a ladder: Does your ladder have five rungs or does it have fifty? How high can you go? Sure, we could argue whether or not the person climbing either ladder sees the same target at the end - but even if that's the case, there's still a difference. Five-rung guy can only travel x distance to the objective. Fifty-rung guy can travel quite a bit more. However, it's much more difficult to travel all fifty rungs. Some people prefer sticking to five rungs.
 

Rival

Si m'ait Dieus
Staff member
Premium Member
I'm reminded of a Julius Caesar line on the Celts, where I believe he states that they eschewed writing down religious things, specifically because it 'weakened the brain,' and that it took 20 years to become a druid. These aren't views I really agree with, but I can imagine that memorizing your entire religious system, like they did, would produce a well-marbled brain.
I'd heard that they thought writing stuff down was to profane it, to bring it into the temporal world, essentially; but the idea of writing weakening the brain seems interesting and if it's a direct quote then it's a shame it wasn't followed up.
 

amorphous_constellation

Well-Known Member
I'd heard that they thought writing stuff down was to profane it, to bring it into the temporal world, essentially; but the idea of writing weakening the brain seems interesting and if it's a direct quote then it's a shame it wasn't followed up.

It's chapter 14 of the gallic wars, really only a short paragraph. To unpack what they meant by 'profane it,' I think they probably meant that it would become totally ineffective; that it had a magic that would die out like a candle, the moment you imprisoned it in a written word. The seat of its supposed power apparently was the brain, and apparently a highly worked and exercised brain at that. So maybe if they had people like that, maybe they really did have the telemorph type power to throw up storms on the sea , or throw up fog by sheer will. Who knows really
 

Vouthon

Dominus Deus tuus ignis consumens est
Staff member
Premium Member
@Rival Since I never really answered your OP when I contributed to this thread earlier (really just questioning points made by one poster), this is my belated response.

I concur with elements of what @Harel13 has been saying, inasmuch as pre-Abrahamic religion often lacked a developed theological system in the way that Jewish, Christian and Muslim scholars thoroughly enquired into aspects of their faith, intellectually and systematically, and also apologetically.

Because of the Christian cultural assumptions that many sociologists and evolutionary psychologists bring to their field of study, often unconsciously, the focus of Western academia is too often premised around strongly theologically-based doctrinal religions.

The evolutionary psychologist Robin Dunbar rightly noted that, in the grand-sweep of human history, this is too narrow a paradigm for properly studying the religious phenomenon, because it “completely ignores the fact that for most of human history religions have had a very different shamanic-like form that lacks moral codes”.

These religions were much more about doing than believing, namely 'doing because its what our ancestors did'. The religions that arose from the so-called 'axial age', essentially offered a new definition, relative to many pagan traditions, of what it meant to be "religious". Roman religion, for example, had been largely amoral - it was about offering sacrifices to the gods, whereas morality was something within the field of philosophy and there was a pretty clear distinction between the two.

You can see this in the use of the very word 'religion'. There was a linguistic tussle in late antiquity over the precise definition of the Latin word religio (from which we derive 'religion').

According to the pagan rhetorician Cicero (106 BC – 7 December 43 BC), 'religio' was derivative of 'relegere' ("to re-read") which entailed 'rote learning', meaning that to be 'religious' was to studiously and uncritically retain the ancestral Roman polytheistuc cultic traditions and customs of one's forefathers. Therefore in his dialogue, De natura deorum, one of the main interlocutors Aurelius Cotta, affirms: "For my part a single argument would have sufficed , namely that it has been handed down to us by our ancestors...I think that I should defend those opinions which we have received from our ancestors about the immortal gods, and the cults and rites and religious duties. I myself will indeed defend them always and always have defended them" (Cic. Nat. D. 3.9).

The early fourth century church father Lactantius argued, on the other hand, that religion was not derived from relegere "to re-read" but on the contrary from the root ligo "to bind", that is to to intellectually and emotionally bind oneself to what one believed to be the 'truth', whether or not it happened to be ancestral or time-immemorial. Thus he wrote: "Wherefore, since wisdom — that is, the inquiry after truth — is natural to all, they deprive themselves of wisdom, who without any judgment approve of the discoveries of their ancestors, and like sheep are led by others" (Divine Institutes, Book II).

And so, in this vein, Lactantius commented on the difference - as he saw it - between the type of 'religion' exhibited by Christianity and the quite conflicting variety evident in Greco-Roman paganism of the time:


CHURCH FATHERS: Divine Institutes, Book IV (Lactantius) (newadvent.org)


"The worship of the gods, as I have taught in the former book, does not imply wisdom; not only because it gives up man, who is a divine animal, to earthly and frail things, but because nothing is fixed in it which may avail for the cultivation of the character and the framing of the life; nor does it contain any investigation of the truth, but only the rite of worship, which does not consist in the service of the mind, but in the employment of the body.

And therefore that is not to be deemed true religion, because it instructs and improves men by no precepts of righteousness and virtue....

Since, therefore, as I have said, philosophy and the religious system of the gods are separated, and far removed from each other; seeing that some are professors of wisdom, through whom it is manifest that there is no approach to the gods, and that others are priests of religion, through whom wisdom is not learned; it is manifest that the one is not true wisdom, and that the other is not true religion. Therefore philosophy was not able to conceive the truth, nor was the religious system of the gods able to give an account of itself, since it is without it.

But where wisdom is joined by an inseparable connection with religion, both must necessarily be true; because in our worship we ought to be wise, that is, to know the proper object and mode of worship, and in our wisdom to worship, that is, to complete our knowledge by deed and action.

Where, then, is wisdom joined with religion? There, indeed, where the one God is worshipped, where life and every action is referred to one source, and to one supreme authority: in short, the teachers of wisdom are the same, who are also the priests of God.

Nor, however, let it affect any one, because it often has happened, and may happen, that some philosopher may undertake a priesthood of the gods; and when this happens, philosophy is not, however, joined with religion; but philosophy will both be unemployed amidst sacred rites, and religion will be unemployed when philosophy shall be treated of. [Otherwise] observance is by the hand and the fingers, not by the heart and tongue, as is the case with ours, which is true. Therefore religion is contained in wisdom, and wisdom in religion."
 

amorphous_constellation

Well-Known Member
The evolutionary psychologist Robin Dunbar rightly noted that, in the grand-sweep of human history, this is too narrow a paradigm for properly studying the religious phenomenon, because it “completely ignores the fact that for most of human history religions have had a very different shamanic-like form that lacks moral codes”.

And what things do you define as being 'moral codes?' A basic will toward hierarchy and harmony at least , is probably anywhere you look. There probably isn't a single Christian teaching that wasn't in the human bloodstream long, long before , is what I would try and claim at least.

Roman religion, for example, had been largely amoral - it was about offering sacrifices to the gods, whereas morality was something within the field of philosophy and there was a pretty clear distinction between the two.

That isn't what I got out of reading Meditations at all, it seems like he mixed everything together in a swirl
 

Bear Wild

Well-Known Member
I think you're conflating complex theologies with IQ levels.
The example was not about IQ level at all indicating you have no clue to its theological meaning. I will give you another example that may be more straight forward for you and easier to understand. The Irish mythological story of Finn and the salmon of knowledge. This myth is as complex a theological presentation than anything I have ever read in Christian theology. If you have an example of a more complex Jewish theological concept then I would be happy to learn.
 

Bear Wild

Well-Known Member
I think you're conflating complex theologies with IQ levels.

They do, but like myself, do not conflate the complexity of theology, or lack thereof, with IQ levels. The other way around - when calling for the idolaters to leave their idolatrous ways, the sources generally ask them to use their heads.

I have no clue to what you are claiming here. It sounds like statements based on ignorance of another religion than anything meaningful.
 

Harel13

Am Yisrael Chai
Staff member
Premium Member
The example was not about IQ level at all indicating you have no clue to its theological meaning.
Well, I have absolutely no idea how you concluded this. I may not be a big expert on the subject like you, but I am familiar with the fact that various Celtic religious sites were built in locations with astronomical significance. And not just Celtic sites, but also sites in the Middle East, including here in Israel (specifically, the "Israeli Stonehenge" or "Gilgal Ha'Rephaim" as it is known by some).
The Irish mythological story of Finn and the salmon of knowledge
I'm familiar with this story as well. :eek:
This myth is as complex a theological presentation than anything I have ever read in Christian theology.
And do these complicated ideas stem from medieval to modern writings on the matter or were they written down by the ancients themselves?
It sounds like statements based on ignorance of another religion than anything meaningful.
It's not. It seems to me that you think that I think that the ancient polytheists lacked intelligence or depth. I do not think that, and moreover, you pointed a finger at my religious texts, claiming that they also have this view, which is what I came to correct. Try on for size the metaphor I offered above:
What I mean by "complex" can be compared to a ladder: Does your ladder have five rungs or does it have fifty? How high can you go? Sure, we could argue whether or not the person climbing either ladder sees the same target at the end - but even if that's the case, there's still a difference. Five-rung guy can only travel x distance to the objective. Fifty-rung guy can travel quite a bit more. However, it's much more difficult to travel all fifty rungs. Some people prefer sticking to five rungs.
Ancient polytheistic religions had morals. Their adherents had brains, and they used them, too. However, their religions were not all too deep in my view.
 

Rival

Si m'ait Dieus
Staff member
Premium Member
In one book I have about Ancient Egyptian religion, the author makes the (I think) useful distinction between what he calls explicit and implicit theology. He distinguishes basically between the cult (implicit) and things essentially beyond the cult that didn't necessarily have to make sense from the cultic point of view (explicit). He essentially writes that there were two kinds of religion in Kemet and one was the ritual, cultic kind, and the other was the kind more concerned with theodicy and theology. I would quote and what not but I'm very ill and haven't really the energy. If anyone wants me to take photos of relevant portions of the text I will attempt to do so (I say attempt, because it spans pages).
 

amorphous_constellation

Well-Known Member
What I mean by "complex" can be compared to a ladder: Does your ladder have five rungs or does it have fifty? How high can you go? Sure, we could argue whether or not the person climbing either ladder sees the same target at the end - but even if that's the case, there's still a difference. Five-rung guy can only travel x distance to the objective. Fifty-rung guy can travel quite a bit more. However, it's much more difficult to travel all fifty rungs. Some people prefer sticking to five rungs.

It's a good metaphor, but then there is the possibility that complexity might act as a barrier toward the ineffable, or partially understandable, centrality. As I'm sure you've noticed, and I've increasingly noticed throughout my life in reaching 35, some humans erect false complexity to their own peril. And maybe that works with your point. Some people might have 10 things going to explain something, and are missing that one simple thing. And so they might be better off with some Occam's razor-work to what they build, since it lacks foundation

You can build whatever you want, you still have to obey the law of the ground, and the ground is 'simple.' It is just ground. But any man can approach the ground thinking themselves a master, and it will flip them on their back. Seems like it's the same with the general spiritual force, with the logos, or the tao, or the hebrew ruach or whatever. It seems like there are simple things you have to get right , and respect, otherwise you can't build or follow any other higher laws
 

Bear Wild

Well-Known Member
Well, I have absolutely no idea how you concluded this. I may not be a big expert on the subject like you, but I am familiar with the fact that various Celtic religious sites were built in locations with astronomical significance. And not just Celtic sites, but also sites in the Middle East, including here in Israel (specifically, the "Israeli Stonehenge" or "Gilgal Ha'Rephaim" as it is known by some).
So you missed my point. You do not understand the meaning of the what was done. I got it.


I'm familiar with this story as well. :eek:

If you are familiar with it then you do you understand its meaning theologically?

And do these complicated ideas stem from medieval to modern writings on the matter or were they written down by the ancients themselves?

The myth was written down in medieval times but the complicated meaning did not need to be written down anywhere. It is clear to anyone following this path today. It is not in isolation but interconnects with the mythology of the people created it. It connects with the archeology and the symbols we have. Something does not have to be written down to be true.
 

Bear Wild

Well-Known Member
Ancient polytheistic religions had morals. Their adherents had brains, and they used them, too. However, their religions were not all too deep in my view.

You are welcome to have your opinion. It is just not correct. It is based on ignorance of the people and maybe a need to feel you have a superior religion.
 
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