Tom Holland recently tweeted to the effect that he much preferred the Greek gods to the Abrahamic ones because they did not lay down laws.

So what are the main species of gods?

Fun loving, mayhem, chaos making thunderbolt firing gods

Stoppit gods......

Another good thing about the Greek gods is they don't created the metaphysical problems the all-loving, all-powerful, all-good Abrahamic god does.

You find your wife has been sleeping with another man and you complain to your friend, "What type of god would allow this?"
To which he replies, "Zeus. Zeus would totally allow this."

And a few moths later your village is razed after Arcadian troops march their way through and you claw the burned soil and yell, "Who would allow such a thing?"
And your friend, wise as usual, reminds you, "Why the god of war, of course."
"Ah! Touche."

EDIT: Spelling and grammar tidying.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Themis

It's the same with all ethnic religions: they were formed out of their very own soil, and the gods laws were woven into the nature of man - our group. To the Greeks, they thought Themis permitted them civilization, and higher orders of social organisation.

Also, the Greek gods did lay down laws, it's just that many of their laws were fickle and even unknowable to mortals - one had to consult an oracle or find an appropriate omen to be sure (nothing like a little income for the religious classes). However, their own social customs, such as acceptance of homosexuality and pedophilia, but abhorence of incest were, they believed, mandated by the will of the gods. Twas the natural order of things.

So what are the main species of gods?

Fun loving, mayhem, chaos making thunderbolt firing gods

Stoppit gods......

Hehe, if you remember the cartoon, that works even better! The Big Bad 'I Said No!'.




There's also the

Don't Give a Fuck I'm Busy Floating on a Lilly Pad gods
Seriously Long and Finicky Shopping List of Propitiatory Obligations gods
Make War for My Glory gods
Way Beyond Your Mortal Comprehension gods
Actually I'm Just A Rock But These Dopey Apes Think I Possess Some Spiritual Awareness gods
Mmmm Grassshopper! gods
You Wank I Watch gods
I'm Totally Gonna Turn Into a Swan and Hump Your Wife Just Because I Can gods
What Could Possibly Go Wrong gods

Have you ever known someone who is loyal to their faith, and then a scandal explodes inside their church, forcing them to soften their support? Or that person who is skeptical of autism until they have an autistic child? Or the anti-gay congressman whose granddaughter marries her girlfriend?

Everyone needs to reach a point in life where they realize that their church, their religion, their ideology, is merely an artifice designed to insulate them from things that are different from themselves.

Once this realization finds its roost, the structure crumbles, and they are left intellectually exposed to the world and forced to think for themselves. Looking back, they realize that their former self-assured idealism was simply a mirrored sky, reflecting back their own image and reminding them, "What you are, and what you think, is what is right, forever."

We project our image heavenward, and it smiles down in approval, so that we never have to accept a challenge to our rightness. The species of gods number in exact correspondence to the number of human self-images there are to protect.

There's only one type .... Mythical

(Apologies to the Pastafarians)

Quasi-mythical, post-mythical?

Don't forget that the Anti-gods are just as much gods as the other ones.

Anything can become a god to someone. Most people go through their days, and don't even realize that they have a huge pantheon of what I call "little-g gods" roosting in their semiconscious minds. Every unquestioned authority is a little-g god. Every utterance of "that's common knowledge," is a chanted prayer to a little-g god.

So my Dyson Vacuum cleaner god does require supplication, when we repair or adjust or grease or clean something we are carrying out little rituals?

As always, it isn't the rituals which make something a god. It's the mental state of the worshipers and followers which make them so.

If anyone can convince me that gods are anything more than political instruments for social control, then I am prepared to listen.

Darwinsbulldog wrote:If anyone can convince me that gods are anything more than political instruments for social control, then I am prepared to listen.

That'll be Dysthoritia, the Goddess of no control.

Spearthrower wrote:

Darwinsbulldog wrote:If anyone can convince me that gods are anything more than political instruments for social control, then I am prepared to listen.

That'll be Dysthoritia, the Goddess of no control.

An anarchist god? cool!

As always, it isn't the rituals which make something a god. It's the mental state of the worshipers and followers which make them so.

I thought the academic definitions, for example sociology of religion, include both rituals and mental states! And what is a mental state when it is at home? Sounds like soulism - gods - .....

So "gods" are verbiage we invent to describe certain feelings and actions? Gods are a bi-product of consciousness?

Which raises fascinating questions about gods and dreams. What sleep stages produce gods?

Clive Durdle wrote:

As always, it isn't the rituals which make something a god. It's the mental state of the worshipers and followers which make them so.

I thought the academic definitions, for example sociology of religion, include both rituals and mental states! And what is a mental state when it is at home? Sounds like soulism - gods - .....

So "gods" are verbiage we invent to describe certain feelings and actions? Gods are a bi-product of consciousness?

Bi-products of consciousness? I wouldn't go with anything so esoteric as that. The kind of LITTLE G gods I'm talking about, are the result of lazy sloppy thinking by people eager to get on with trying to manipulate the world around them, without putting the needed work in to doing it well.

The "mental state" I was referring to, is that in which people decide to turn some foggy notion that some aspect of existence is willfully interacting with them (as opposed to being the collective complicated mess of mechanical actions and reactions that most of existence actually consists of) into a rule or "god" of some sort.

In other words, for a lot of people, "gods" are the stopping point they reached in trying to work out what's happening around them. Rather like trying to get your flat really clean, and reaching the closet and being overwhelmed, so you put a sign up on it that says "god lives in here, don't open," in case some new girl comes over and decides it's you who are the slob.

In other words, for a lot of people, "gods" are the stopping point they reached in trying to work out what's happening around them. Rather like trying to get your flat really clean, and reaching the closet and being overwhelmed, so you put a sign up on it that says "god lives in here, don't open," in case some new girl comes over and decides it's you who are the slob.

I think that is Brilliant!

I went past Spurgeon's Tabernacle at Elephant and Castle yesterday, and quite regularly go past St Paul's Cathedral.

So these buildings, and those of other religions, are results of stopped, incomplete thinking?

Clive Durdle wrote:Which raises fascinating questions about gods and dreams. What sleep stages produce gods?

The wide awake one.

Clive Durdle wrote:

In other words, for a lot of people, "gods" are the stopping point they reached in trying to work out what's happening around them. Rather like trying to get your flat really clean, and reaching the closet and being overwhelmed, so you put a sign up on it that says "god lives in here, don't open," in case some new girl comes over and decides it's you who are the slob.

I think that is Brilliant!

I went past Spurgeon's Tabernacle at Elephant and Castle yesterday, and quite regularly go past St Paul's Cathedral.

So these buildings, and those of other religions, are results of stopped, incomplete thinking?

Well, since you were wise enough to ask your question after calling my comments brilliant, then yes, absolutely.

It's part of what I find so amusing about being a human amongst humans: so often, they build up conceptual structures and tool sets, in order to make their lives a little more simple to get through, and then they forget, sometimes only seconds later, that it was they themselves who built the tools and conceptual structures.

I could not work out why in Greece so many buildings were incomplete, with half finished top stories, until I understood it is to do with taxes - they are not due until the building is complete!

Maybe not finishing is everywhere?

I hadn't heard about the incomplete buildings. It doesn't surprise me though. One thing that never changes, is that if you leave ANY loophole in any laws, people who can read, WILL use it.

Most of the time, only the people who are upset about it, seem to recognize the hole. Then they pass a "repair" law, and because they are so wrought about the hole they are aiming at, they carelessly open three more holes with the "fix."