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?
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2008-03-08 05:45 am (UTC)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?