Hard Polytheism: Why is it not considered seriously?

[Aupmanyav]

More relevant, because when I left, there seemed to be an unspoken agreement about that, so the Hindu members didn't really come here to talk about their faith.

I did notice a new, syncretic member (forgive me but I can't recall your handle), but the upshot is that I feel like it's no different than if people were explaining Judaism in the Christian DIR.

Coming back after more than 8 years because @Dreamwind (☆Dreamwind☆) gave me a few likes. At least, I would have liked to come here, but people in the forum told me that I am not eligible. I am not posting in the Neo-pagan and Revivalist Forum, but in Pagan forum. And Vedic Hinduism or Indigenous Hinduism with accretions over millenniums is very much pagan.
It is 'Be your own Guru' which can be put as 'Think for yourself'. Judaism too is a pagan religion. Later its off-shoots, Christianity and Islam considered themselves to be wiser than the Jews.

Quick question not to bring yall convo flow. As a Hindu, can you still believe in deities (atheist) and still deny their existences? Or do you deny their existences because you do not believe they exist?

By now, after all these years, I think you know my views. I deny all deities but in the universal substrate, out of which every single thing in the universe is composed of. This we know as Brahman. I believe that it is wrong to make this substrate into a God or deity, it is just 'physical energy'. That is what we started with at the time of 'inflation', the first rapid expansion of the universe. The apparent existences of things are illusions. What exists eternally is this 'physical energy' and nothing else.

Thanks for allowing me to put my views across. I will come, discuss things, if people do not mind my coming in.

 

[☆Dreamwind☆]

This is the first I've heard of it not being taken seriously. At least when I was at mysticwicks no one scoffed at the idea. I can understand narrow-minded people refusing to understand, but it really shouldn't be hard to understand for any open-minded person, once explained.

Even before I knew that my religion had a name, I understood that the Gods were their own people.

I have never felt the need to look down on soft polytheism or duotheism.

As for lumping hard polytheism in with monotheistic zealots, that is unnecessary and untrue, just because some newer pagans have a chip on their shoulder. That makes them every bit as hypocritical and judgemental as the people they proclaim to want to distance themselves from.

Fundies often have a very nasty attitude and can't stand the idea that beliefs outside their own should be allowed to exist, and while I'm sure we have some modern pagan zealots floating around, I haven't seen them just yet.

 

[Tamino]

This is the first I've heard of it not being taken seriously. At least when I was at mysticwicks no one scoffed at the idea. I can understand narrow-minded people refusing to understand, but it really shouldn't be hard to understand for any open-minded person, once explained.

Even before I knew that my religion had a name, I understood that the Gods were their own people.

Good point.

My Kemetic religion has a really odd mix of hard and soft polytheism concepts. Only, I didn't know those terms at the time.
If you read Egyptology, they don't use "hard polytheism" and "soft polytheism"... the talk about syncretisms and local forms of deities.
I'm still not certain today how to classify my believes. Mostly hard Polytheism, with a sublayer of soft?
If you read Egyptian mythology, the ancient texts never state explicitly "all gods are forms of the one essence". They treat the deities as different persons and entities all the time. You get used to thinking of them as separate people. And then you turn a page and - baaaammmm - it's Amun-Min now, they've fused into one.
Or Horus... How can you ever tell them apart? Sure, Horus-the-Child and Horus-Son-of -Isis, and Horus-Protector-of-his-Father, they're all the same person. But what about HorusBehedety? and Heru Wer? are they different people who just share the same name? Only Horus-of the two Horizons, he's Ra, obviously.

 

[Bear Wild]

This is the first I've heard of it not being taken seriously. At least when I was at mysticwicks no one scoffed at the idea. I can understand narrow-minded people refusing to understand, but it really shouldn't be hard to understand for any open-minded person, once explained.

Even before I knew that my religion had a name, I understood that the Gods were their own people.

I have never felt the need to look down on soft polytheism or duotheism.

As for lumping hard polytheism in with monotheistic zealots, that is unnecessary and untrue, just because some newer pagans have a chip on their shoulder. That makes them every bit as hypocritical and judgemental as the people they proclaim to want to distance themselves from.

Fundies often have a very nasty attitude and can't stand the idea that beliefs outside their own should be allowed to exist, and while I'm sure we have some modern pagan zealots floating around, I haven't seen them just yet.

For pagans wanting to connect with the religion of their European ancestors there is not sufficient information to have a "hard" religion to begin with. For my northern European ancestors what was written down has wonderful information but it is also tainted. I personally have had to use sources carefully but not as absolute doctrine, use archeology with careful understanding of what it really can tell us (and there is much it does) combined with comparative mythology, folk tales, residual behaviors and rituals labeled Christian which to me have clear pagan roots, include what I can learn form other indigenous people that still exist, learn from nature itself as a teacher, learn form others going through the process of reviving a meaningful pagan religion, connect myself with the deities and other numinous beings and have a belief that my ancestors religion was never fixed but rather a dynamic relationship to the land and beings around. It is hard to combine all of that and call it a hard religion.

 

[☆Dreamwind☆]

For pagans wanting to connect with the religion of their European ancestors there is not sufficient information to have a "hard" religion to begin with. For my northern European ancestors what was written down has wonderful information but it is also tainted. I personally have had to use sources carefully but not as absolute doctrine, use archeology with careful understanding of what it really can tell us (and there is much it does) combined with comparative mythology, folk tales, residual behaviors and rituals labeled Christian which to me have clear pagan roots, include what I can learn form other indigenous people that still exist, learn from nature itself as a teacher, learn form others going through the process of reviving a meaningful pagan religion, connect myself with the deities and other numinous beings and have a belief that my ancestors religion was never fixed but rather a dynamic relationship to the land and beings around. It is hard to combine all of that and call it a hard religion.

I meant in terms of whether one chooses to understand the Gods as their own individual beings or as same deity/different face for each part of the world. There is nothing wrong with either belief. I can see a soft polythiest's side to it. Even if it's not what I believe.

It is the idea that we're being compared to people so tied up in the religious that they will vehemently reject scientific fact and observation of what happens in the natural world that raised my hackles. It's presumptuous.

It is perfectly doable to accept that the physical and the spiritual worlds exist. Most people regardless of religion are quite capable of praying to their chosen divinity and/or protective spirits, and still saying "So that's how an aurora is formed? What a cool thing to learn!" Yanno what I mean?

 

[Bear Wild]

It is the idea that we're being compared to people so tied up in the religious that they will vehemently reject scientific fact and observation of what happens in the natural world that raised my hackles. It's presumptuous.

I completely agree. The study of nature is a part of my way but then I see the deities and other numinous being as within the natural world and not supernatural so science makes sense it just will never explain everything.

 

[Aupmanyav]

I completely agree. The study of nature is a part of my way but then I see the deities and other numinous being as within the natural world and not supernatural so science makes sense it just will never explain everything.

Are you a prophet? Making predictions? æther? Check with me after a century.
(According to my belief I have no birth, no death. I am eternal - star-dust)

 

[Bear Wild]

Are you a prophet? Making predictions? æther? Check with me after a century.
(According to my belief I have no birth, no death. I am eternal - star-dust)

I am definitely not a prophet, just a romantic that wants to believe that there will always be mystery in the world. I could not imagine living in a world where everything is known. We need both the known and the unknown, the familiar and the strange. We need forests that can provide for us or eat us at the same time.

 

[Aupmanyav]

I am definitely not a prophet, just a romantic that wants to believe that there will always be mystery in the world.

I am not much of that.

 

[☆Dreamwind☆]

I am definitely not a prophet, just a romantic that wants to believe that there will always be mystery in the world. I could not imagine living in a world where everything is known. We need both the known and the unknown, the familiar and the strange. We need forests that can provide for us or eat us at the same time.

I like that.