(no subject)

[dreamer_easy]

"... traditional polytheism almost requires tension and disorder within the pantheon and the cosmos. Polytheism thus accepts two possible locations of evil, so that the existence of evil is not deeply problematic because nothing is truly perfect... By contrast, when a single god dominates the cosmos in a henotheistic system [as in Aten worship]... the question of theodicy arises in a more acute form."

Baines, John. "Society, Morality and Religious Practice". in Shafer, Byron E. (ed). Religion in Ancient Egypt: Gods, Myths, and Personal Practice. Cornell University Press, Ithaca NY, 1991.

Comments

[stevencaldwell.livejournal.com]

traditional polytheism almost requires tension and disorder within the pantheon and the cosmos.

Perhaps these shifts between order and chaos are necessary as they reflect the world around the believers. This, in turn, makes the gods easier to relate to and connects us to them as we act, to a degree, like them.

In a similar way, the anthropomorphism of gods and goddesses is how we can come to walk in step with them. We can understand arms and legs and heads and know what they want of us.

Perhaps that's some of the appeal of Jesus?

[antikythera.livejournal.com]

I've been thinking of something along those lines. The gods in the Greco-Roman pantheon are constantly goofing off, getting drunk, playing games, and we can blame a lot of the world's bad stuff on their antics. Trying to change things would be like ants trying to tell humans where to step. The gods are literally care-less when it comes to humanity.

In contrast, the Abrahamic God is a sort of 'father knows best' figure. He's perfect, and everything that happens -- bad or good -- is His choice, and never something that He didn't really mean to happen.* I often hear it said when someone dies young that 'God wanted them back', as if it was all part of a plan, even if the death was caused by something that we identify as 'evil', like murder. (There was a line in a Brother Cadfael book I read recently, along the lines of 'God chose to take her, so it wouldn't be right to wish she was still here', as if it would be disrespectful to question God's will.)

In either case, the message is 'some things just can't be changed'. But in the latter it's 'because God said so, and God knows what's best', and in the former it's 'because some infinitely powerful beings are playing silly buggers'. I wonder what makes one idea more comforting than the other at any given time and place, so that a religion is founded on it.

* Heh... there's a contradiction right in the first book of the Bible. Was He surprised that Adam and Eve ate the fruit from the tree, or did He put the tree there because He planned it that way all along?