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Literal Gods?
- Thread starter dgirl1986
- Start date
Joseph Campbell speaks of "all the gods within us". Apparently, he thought of gods as the symbolic expressions of our deepest wants, needs, and drives. Moreover, the gods that we deny, that we repress, symbolically manifest themselves as our demons. Does that make any sense to you?
dgirl1986
Big Queer Chesticles!
...kind of...but how does that play with peoples experiences with certain "gods". Would you view it as a visualisation that is brought forth by the mind in order to deal with these gods within the self?
Possibly, all of the above.
If there is a god/s, I don't see why He/She/Them/It would need a form, but I can see why we would need to give them one.
If there's an omnipotent being, it shouldn't be any problem at all for It to manifest itself in any way imaginable; a voice, a burning bush, Morgan Freedman. . .
Just as; the human mind being what it is, it shouldn't be surprising that we'd dress It up in whatever garb we needed to.
Doesn't mean it's all in our heads, just means (as far as what I believe) that God has a tendency to humor us.
I think that's how Campbell saw it. That the mind was capable of conjuring up visitations, which originated in the body's wants, desires, and needs.
I'm not sure how to answer the question, because I don't set up an dichotomy between reality and imagination: imagination is a facet of reality. As for whether or not a particular god/spirit is literally as described by people, I would say that the human understanding of anything is always a map of the territory, but that the territory is most definitely there.
And I'd add that while the territory is most definitely there, our maps of said territory can range from very accurate to barely useable...with most being toward the latter end.
Child of Stardust
Member
Neither do I; not as strict a dichotomy as other people see anyway. Obviously no one disputes that the imagination exists, that we have certain thoughts as human beings that are created by the electrical signals in our brains, but people often underestimate the significance of this fact. A "hallucination" can affect a person just as strongly as "reality"...at some point we have to ask ourselves just how significant the differences are, and even if the entities we "imagine" in our heads take on consciousnesses of their own. When a writer creates a character and thinks "this is how he/she would react now, I can just feel it", and maybe feels certain emotions in response to a certain thought...one might say the character has literally become real, as his/her experiences are there in the mind of the writer and all who consume their work.
Why should the stuff outside our heads be given such precedence over the stuff in them? Isn't it more important, in some ways, than many other things in the universe, because it is guaranteed to be perceived by at least one person? Solids liquids and gases are all just as real; they are only different states of matter. Same thing with things that exist in the mind and things that exist outside the mind. The only difference is the way they exist. Our thoughts from the (unquestionably real) electrical signals in our brains. As for the imagination being harder to access (except by one person), and thus not being "objectively real" because not all people can experience it in the same way...so? Aren't distant planets about which no conscious being knows anything real? And don't many people have similar spiritual experiences?
It should be a chilling reminder of our responsibilities as humans when we consider that everything we imagine becomes real, even if it is only in a small way.
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l am admittedly a concrete thinker. Conversely I'm a writer of fiction commonly not limited to the mundane (fantastical or supernatural).
Escapism is part of it, for me. As is the freedom from reality. I can tell a tale using a wider pallette of colours, so to speak.
Triggering empathetic responses in readers is vital. A large part of what I am trying to convey is emotion. This is true of all art I guess (even crappy stuff like mine... loI)
But it is not emotion I am transmitting. Just words. I hope they elicit a certain response in a reader, but that emotion is not conveyed directly.
If I throw a ball at someone, that is not the case. It's real, regardless of background, perspective or mood. I can't see imagination and the objectively real as the same.
To me, the Gods I believe in both exist and don't exist. I don't believe they literally look like how humans have imagined them to be (as in, they don't literally look like how paintings or statues depict them); nor do I believe they exist in physical bodies up in the clouds.
What I do believe, however, is that they are archetypes. Smalls parts that represent an overall greater reality. Almost like atoms in a human body. I also like to think of them as extensions of us and represent what we can be capable of.
What I do believe, however, is that they are archetypes. Smalls parts that represent an overall greater reality. Almost like atoms in a human body. I also like to think of them as extensions of us and represent what we can be capable of.
Child of Stardust
Member
I agree in part; they are definitely not the same (hence the solid/liquid/gas analogy). But in my view they are both, nevertheless, real. Actually in my worldview "unreal things" are an absurdity since we cannot really conceive of a void. Even imagining a field of black is seeing something. Our imaginations are part of the universe, so strictly speaking I do think imaginary things are real...just present on a different plane, if you will.
There is no such thing as a collective mind (even "objectively real" things must be perceived by individuals), so I don't think it matters if something can only be perceived by one person (ie. is subjective). Even when twenty-seven people look at the same objectively present rock, you're getting twenty-seven different perceptions of it. Even if they were all identical, they would still exist as discrete experiences in different minds. The rock itself has a limited corporeal presence (it is different from other rocks; no two are the same by definition, even if they are alike)...just as different minds are discrete entities. But a thing does not cease to be real just because there is only one of it.
And the affect of the imagination can be just as strong as an "objectively present" thing. The same electrical signals fire both when you see a hallucination and when you feel someone touch you. How is a "rat" in a schizophrenic child's head any less real than a rock that falls on them and gives them a concussion? Both affect them in just as real a way. (But not everything our imaginations conjure up is so negative...)
You might think that my definition of "unreal" makes the term meaningless, and frankly I'd agree with you! When literally defined as something that "does not exist" it is an impossibility. Ask someone to truly imagine nonexistence and see how far they get. I thin better words would refer to useful and non-useful ideas, subjective and non-subjective ones. But then I am not without my biases!
Maybe I'm not making much sense but it's something I've been thinking about for a long while. Anyway, thanks for the reply!
Not so much "the same" as one is "part" of the other.
Certainly the Gods can't throw balls at people they don't like from their various invisible sky palaces. However, the Gods can place into a person's mind the idea of a ball hitting them. One thing I've realized lately is that the idea of pain is often worse than the experience of pain. I was bitten by a dog several months ago, and it didn't hurt anywhere near as much as I'd always feared dog bites would hurt.
The word "weird" is linked to the Old English word "wyrd". While the two are linguistically only connected in terms of how their pronounced and their meanings have changed ("wyrd" in Old English basically means fate), I do think it's interesting that that weird now means what it means, and yet used to have religious significance. The Gods are weird. Wyrd (fate) is weird. Lovecraft's stories were often published in Weird Tales magazine, worlds containing structures which had angles that were acute but appeared to be obtuse.
"The Gods are answering you, boy."
"I don't hear them."
"Listen."
"... That's just the wind."
"Who do you think sends the wind?"
Certainly we now understand where wind comes from (and admittedly the quote is a paraphrase of a scene from a low-magic fantasy novel, not saying which), yet the wind still contains an enigmatic element to it, capable of frightening us, pleasing us, causing us grief, or killing us. There are Gods in the moving air coming in to replace rising warmer air as far as I'm concerned.
I consider the Gods to be literal Beings. They can be archetypes as well, but not just that, imo.
Poeticus
| abhyAvartin |
I agree. I believe They have always existed, and They shall always continue to exist.
मैत्रावरुणिः;3543018 said:
I don't think They have always existed. In European native religions, it's normally viewed that the Gods were born within the universe at some point in time. Then you have stories of Gods dying or being killed at various times. Whether the deaths of certain Gods at certain times in the stories is literal or not, I don't know. But I don't believe that the Gods were always existent.
Poeticus
| abhyAvartin |
That is interesting. I follow the Rig Veda, one of the most important Hindu scriptures, and it is stated therein that no God is younger or older than the Other, They are all of mature existence. Thus, the Gods I believe in have always existed. But, I agree that They can be literal "Beings".
मैत्रावरुणिः;3543024 said:
It's interesting how Hinduism is an Indo-European religion, derived from the same root as the other Indo-European religions, but they have such different views of the Gods. But this fits quite nicely with my pantheism. I believe there is a Cosmic Spirit or Source that pervades the Cosmos, but I don't view it as necessarily a personal deity. But I view the Gods as personal and imminent in the world, having contact and influence over the lives of humans. But I don't think They're cosmic, just local to our planet or regional. That can explain why the different peoples of the world have different religions.
But I certainly do believe They exist, along with a number of other metaphysical entities.
Poeticus
| abhyAvartin |
But I certainly do believe They exist, along with a number of other metaphysical entities.
Hail!!
मैत्रावरुणिः;3543031 said:
Cheers to you, brother!