In the polythiestic pantheons, each god is an individual--with his or her own strengths and weaknesses, flaws and virtues. They were not perfect, but they were still gods. They did not try to be anything other than themselves, for better or for worse. Most pantheons had a chief god, but one thing they seem to agree upon was that the lesser gods had free will. Each stood for something; each one's personality represented an aspect of life, and yet it was not all that they were. Their lives were as complex as ours, and aside from immortality and their magical abilities, they were quite human. There was nothing divine about them at all, really, nothing you couldn't find in humans--except their immortality.
Do our souls live on after death? Are our souls mortal or immortal? When we die, do we return to a great sea of consciousness, losing memory and self, and becoming one with it, melding with the energies of others? Do we remain there, or are we reincarnated? If we're reincarnated, are we wiped clean at a soul level--do our souls cease to exist as they were and become part of a sort of homogenous pool, from which new souls are created? Or do our souls stay in tact throughout all of our lifetimes? Do we go to Heaven or to Hell? As long as you believe we do something more than cease to exist, our souls are immortal.
And while we may not have the literal magic abilities of the gods, we can wield the power of magic and of prayer in our lives. We can change--ourselves, others, the world. We can create anything--new life, art, cities, technology. We can destroy--life and nature, things that are good, things that are evil. We can wield the forces of "good" and "evil," with the very same hands. The gods could do things that we know are impossible, but then things are possible for us now that once were impossible.
What, then, makes us different from the gods of the polytheistic pantheons?
And if man is both human and divine, both good and evil, what makes us different from the God of the Abrahamic peoples, who has his own duality?
Do our souls live on after death? Are our souls mortal or immortal? When we die, do we return to a great sea of consciousness, losing memory and self, and becoming one with it, melding with the energies of others? Do we remain there, or are we reincarnated? If we're reincarnated, are we wiped clean at a soul level--do our souls cease to exist as they were and become part of a sort of homogenous pool, from which new souls are created? Or do our souls stay in tact throughout all of our lifetimes? Do we go to Heaven or to Hell? As long as you believe we do something more than cease to exist, our souls are immortal.
And while we may not have the literal magic abilities of the gods, we can wield the power of magic and of prayer in our lives. We can change--ourselves, others, the world. We can create anything--new life, art, cities, technology. We can destroy--life and nature, things that are good, things that are evil. We can wield the forces of "good" and "evil," with the very same hands. The gods could do things that we know are impossible, but then things are possible for us now that once were impossible.
What, then, makes us different from the gods of the polytheistic pantheons?
And if man is both human and divine, both good and evil, what makes us different from the God of the Abrahamic peoples, who has his own duality?
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