I still don't see any chance or compassion in the story. The gods get drunk and have a bet; they decide to cripple some humans as part of their game.
Funny thing about monotheism -- it often assumes that God is perfect and isn't capable of making a mistake. Everything God does in that context is deliberate, and usually either a punishment or a reward for an individual or humanity at large.
Pantheistic parables that talk about the gods getting drunk, playing tricks on each other, and making mistakes are supposed to carry the implication that you never know what those crazy gods are going to do, and sometimes humanity just has to roll with the punches.
In either case, there is no chance on the gods' side of things -- they're portrayed as conscious beings making decisions (and perhaps lacking in compassion or forethought sometimes). But from the human side, the monotheistic version implies that humans can control the situation by being good (i.e. working to please the gods, get rewards, and avoid punishment).
To me, that's where the element of 'chance' comes in on the 'gods getting drunk' story. We can't control whether gods get drunk, but we still have to live in the world that they made. That seems like a pretty straightforward metaphor for living in a world where we ask questions like 'why was I made this way?' In the absence of gods, the answer is still the same as far as our own responsibility is concerned -- it just happened, and we can't help it.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2008-02-06 09:53 pm (UTC)Funny thing about monotheism -- it often assumes that God is perfect and isn't capable of making a mistake. Everything God does in that context is deliberate, and usually either a punishment or a reward for an individual or humanity at large.
Pantheistic parables that talk about the gods getting drunk, playing tricks on each other, and making mistakes are supposed to carry the implication that you never know what those crazy gods are going to do, and sometimes humanity just has to roll with the punches.
In either case, there is no chance on the gods' side of things -- they're portrayed as conscious beings making decisions (and perhaps lacking in compassion or forethought sometimes). But from the human side, the monotheistic version implies that humans can control the situation by being good (i.e. working to please the gods, get rewards, and avoid punishment).
To me, that's where the element of 'chance' comes in on the 'gods getting drunk' story. We can't control whether gods get drunk, but we still have to live in the world that they made. That seems like a pretty straightforward metaphor for living in a world where we ask questions like 'why was I made this way?' In the absence of gods, the answer is still the same as far as our own responsibility is concerned -- it just happened, and we can't help it.