collapse

* Recent Posts

Re: "Christ Is King" by SunflowerP
[Yesterday at 11:06:51 pm]


Re: "Christ Is King" by SunflowerP
[Yesterday at 10:30:17 pm]


Re: "Christ Is King" by Darkhawk
[Yesterday at 08:31:19 pm]


Re: "Christ Is King" by Darkhawk
[Yesterday at 07:54:40 pm]


Re: "Christ Is King" by Sefiru
[Yesterday at 07:44:49 pm]

Author Topic: How do gods get created?  (Read 6912 times)

SunflowerP

  • Host
  • *
  • Join Date: Jun 2011
  • Location: Calgary AB
  • Posts: 9911
  • Country: ca
  • Total likes: 732
  • Don't teach your grandmother to suck eggs!
    • View Profile
    • If You Ain't Makin' Waves, You Ain't Kickin' Hard Enough
  • Religion: Eclectic religious Witchcraft
  • Preferred Pronouns: sie/hir/hirs/hirself
Re: How do gods get created?
« Reply #30 on: June 25, 2016, 01:51:15 pm »
Quote from: Lumpino;193167
Ancient mysteries have similar opinion.

 
Which ancient mysteries are you referring to here?

Sunflower
I'm the AntiFa genderqueer commie eclectic wiccan Mod your alt-right bros warned you about.
I do so have a life; I just live part of it online!
“Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live.” - Oscar Wilde
"Nobody's good at anything until they practice." - Brina (Yewberry)
My much-neglected blog "If You Ain't Makin' Waves, You Ain't Kickin' Hard Enough"

LilacRaveclaw

  • Apprentice
  • ***
  • Join Date: Jun 2016
  • Posts: 33
  • Total likes: 0
    • View Profile
Re: How do gods get created?
« Reply #31 on: June 25, 2016, 05:52:12 pm »
Quote from: Lumpino;193167
Interesting is opinion old Hindu philosophy Sankhya (samkhya) that there is something like evolution. And people who obtain supernatural powers through meditation could be gods in next life. Ancient mysteries have similar opinion.

 
I think your correct as well. I believe that there is a paradox and it's neither this nor that but both. The gods are fueled to some extent by worship but they also exist on their own. If anyone has ever attended a mass of the Catholic Church they get a good bit of power going to fuel their God. I've been to some drumming circles who worshipped the Goddess. Who is that. Almost each one has a different answer.


May the wind always be at your back.

Khep

  • Apprentice
  • ***
  • Join Date: Dec 2011
  • Posts: 42
  • Country: 00
  • Total likes: 1
    • View Profile
Re: How do gods get created?
« Reply #32 on: June 30, 2016, 07:31:39 pm »
Quote from: YungMeatRabbit;191972
Hey everybody!

Assuming that deities exist, how did they get created?   Did they always exist or was there a point in time where they didn't exist?  Are they created by humans or the other way around?  What's the difference between a God and a spirit?  Finally, do you think that every single god/dess is an individual?  



My 2 cents:

I don't believe the gods "get created."  Not the real, actual gods. But they do evolve, as all life (and all existence) evolves.  Our images and conceptions of them evolve somewhat more quickly, as they are part of human culture.  But those conceptions and images aren't the thing itself -- they are only a way for us to gain some partial understanding of forces that are more powerful and primal than any individual's will; and more complex and mysterious than rationality can encompass.

I don't think the gods' power or reality -- in itself -- is affected at all by my doings.   What *is* affected is how the gods find expression, how they 'manifest' in my life in the "real" world.   The point being that (as I understand it) the gods are always acting upon / influencing us, whether we acknowledge and cooperate with them or not.  Being aware of their power and presence is a step towards affecting that influence towards ways that are more beneficial, and less overpowering.  But it's a change in how we experience and relate to the gods, and in how they affect us.  It's not a change in the nature or reality of the gods themselves.

No, in a rational, metaphysical sense, I don't think they are actual individual personalities.  To me, that's too restrictive.  But the more important question, I think, is how do the gods appear and behave when they are communicating with or making themselves known to us.  I think they often appear in a form that we can 'handle', mentally, and can speak with.  And, again, whether that is a function of human imagination or not isn't as important as the experience itself.
“I am certain of nothing but the holiness of the Heart's affections and the truth of the Imagination.”    ― John Keats

YungMeatRabbit

  • Apprentice
  • ***
  • Join Date: May 2016
  • Posts: 30
  • Total likes: 0
    • View Profile
Re: How do gods get created?
« Reply #33 on: July 08, 2016, 09:37:39 pm »
Quote from: YungMeatRabbit;191972
Hey everybody!

Assuming that deities exist, how did they get created?   Did they always exist or was there a point in time where they didn't exist?  Are they created by humans or the other way around?  What's the difference between a God and a spirit?  Finally, do you think that every single god/dess is an individual?  

Here's my take on it:

1.) Deities are thoughtforms/consciousnesses created by humanity by worship.  However, it also seems possible that the gods were originally just land spirits that became more powerful the more humans worshipped them.

2.) The deities were created by humanity, so they didn't exist before humans existed.

3.) Humans created them.

4.) I believe that there's a sort of energy/consciousness that exists and that animistic spirits arise when this energy is combined with natural features like trees, plants and other things like that.  I'm still figuring this one out.  While deities arise due to human belief, these spirits arise naturally.  However, they're made of the same stuff.

5.) All deities are mostly individuals.  However, since I view the deities as energy, I think that a lot of deities have energy of other deities in them.  For example, Odin, Woden and Wodan are all different beings, but they all started out as the same energy that different cultures interpreted in different ways, which created different beings.

But those are just my beliefs.  What do you think about deities?

 
I feel I should clarify numbers 1 and 2.  The forces that the deities represented existed before humanity and possibly were conscious in an animistic sense.  For example, lust and the desire to procreate have existed to some degree since the first organisms.  What humans did was essentially tap into these forces and give them new identities, thus in a sense creating the deities.  To continue with my lust example, lust existed long before humans, but Hathor was created by humans to explain/personify the force of lust.  Essentially, the deities are like masks for the forces.

Ghostoffans

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Join Date: Jul 2016
  • Posts: 4
  • Total likes: 0
    • View Profile
Re: How do gods get created?
« Reply #34 on: July 29, 2016, 04:25:41 am »
Quote from: YungMeatRabbit;191972
Hey everybody!

Assuming that deities exist, how did they get created?   Did they always exist or was there a point in time where they didn't exist?  Are they created by humans or the other way around?  What's the difference between a God and a spirit?  Finally, do you think that every single god/dess is an individual?  

Here's my take on it:

1.) Deities are thoughtforms/consciousnesses created by humanity by worship.  However, it also seems possible that the gods were originally just land spirits that became more powerful the more humans worshipped them.

2.) The deities were created by humanity, so they didn't exist before humans existed.

3.) Humans created them.

4.) I believe that there's a sort of energy/consciousness that exists and that animistic spirits arise when this energy is combined with natural features like trees, plants and other things like that.  I'm still figuring this one out.  While deities arise due to human belief, these spirits arise naturally.  However, they're made of the same stuff.

5.) All deities are mostly individuals.  However, since I view the deities as energy, I think that a lot of deities have energy of other deities in them.  For example, Odin, Woden and Wodan are all different beings, but they all started out as the same energy that different cultures interpreted in different ways, which created different beings.

But those are just my beliefs.  What do you think about deities?

 
I believe that the Deities have been created by the Big bang, as when the Universe expanded and came to be, it created the gods/goddesses. Since the Universe is filled with dust, we can't see them, but they can see us.

Sophia C

  • Adept Member
  • ********
  • Join Date: Aug 2012
  • Location: London, UK
  • *
  • Posts: 2045
  • Country: gb
  • Total likes: 86
    • View Profile
    • http://leithincluan.wordpress.com/
  • Religion: Druid, Celtic & contemplative Christian, Gaelic-ish polytheist, on a mystic path
  • Preferred Pronouns: They/them
Re: How do gods get created?
« Reply #35 on: July 29, 2016, 07:52:52 am »
Quote from: YungMeatRabbit;191972
Assuming that deities exist, how did they get created?   Did they always exist or was there a point in time where they didn't exist?  Are they created by humans or the other way around?  What's the difference between a God and a spirit?  Finally, do you think that every single god/dess is an individual?


I believe every deity is an individual, except when they're not... As to how they were formed and how old they are, I have difficulty finding specific guidance on that from my traditions. There's a general feeling from many of the modern druids I've spoken to that our gods arise from the earth, but not many of us are too bothered about exactly how or when (and many other druids will feel differently). Gaelic polytheism doesn't give very much guidance either - there are several views. For myself, then, I tend to go back to other modern cultural guidance on the subject. In 'Angel', the spin-off series from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the goddess Jasmine says "I was forged in the fires of creation." That's the closest I've got to a philosophy or theology on the subject. More important to me is the fact (as I perceive it) that the gods exist, and the question of what I should do about that.

(I like 'Angel' on Virtue, too. "If nothing we do matters, then all that matters if what we do."
"We're all stories, in the end. Make it a good one, eh?"
- Doctor Who

sionnachdearg

  • Journeyman
  • *****
  • Join Date: Nov 2014
  • Posts: 127
  • Total likes: 0
    • View Profile
Re: How do gods get created?
« Reply #36 on: August 12, 2016, 04:40:22 pm »
Quote from: Naomi J;194469
More important to me is the fact (as I perceive it) that the gods exist, and the question of what I should do about that.

(I like 'Angel' on Virtue, too. "If nothing we do matters, then all that matters if what we do."

 
What do we know of the Gaelic Gods and Goddesses? Whatever was known was translated from a poetic oral culture to a prose written by people of another religion. How do we know anything about the gods or goddesses to the point we worship them other that an abstract symbolism of what they may have represented? From what has been handed down they were defeated by men and driven into a divided world - the world of man and the other world. So other than a leap of faith can we know that we can even connect with them assuming they were not more symbolic than flesh and blood?

Lumpino

  • Sr. Apprentice
  • ****
  • Join Date: Dec 2014
  • Posts: 60
  • Total likes: 5
    • View Profile
Re: How do gods get created?
« Reply #37 on: August 13, 2016, 12:51:11 am »
Quote from: SunflowerP;193169
Which ancient mysteries are you referring to here?

Sunflower

 

I would say mysteries like Dionysian or similar.

sionnachdearg

  • Journeyman
  • *****
  • Join Date: Nov 2014
  • Posts: 127
  • Total likes: 0
    • View Profile
Re: How do gods get created?
« Reply #38 on: August 13, 2016, 12:46:16 pm »
Quote from: Ghostoffans;194463
I believe that the Deities have been created by the Big bang, as when the Universe expanded and came to be, it created the gods/goddesses. Since the Universe is filled with dust, we can't see them, but they can see us.

 
How would you ever know that. Now it is an interesting idea that the spirit would or other world is in the Dark matter / Dark energy but what would be the force that would take the energy and matter expanding from universe and change it into a humanoid like god/goddess with the characteristics we attribute to them?

SunflowerP

  • Host
  • *
  • Join Date: Jun 2011
  • Location: Calgary AB
  • Posts: 9911
  • Country: ca
  • Total likes: 732
  • Don't teach your grandmother to suck eggs!
    • View Profile
    • If You Ain't Makin' Waves, You Ain't Kickin' Hard Enough
  • Religion: Eclectic religious Witchcraft
  • Preferred Pronouns: sie/hir/hirs/hirself
Re: How do gods get created?
« Reply #39 on: August 13, 2016, 11:26:00 pm »
I had to to go back and look, so I figured that recapping the sub-convo might be helpful.

Quote from: Lumpino;193167
Interesting is opinion old Hindu philosophy Sankhya (samkhya) that there is something like evolution. And people who obtain supernatural powers through meditation could be gods in next life. Ancient mysteries have similar opinion.

 
Quote from: SunflowerP;193169
Which ancient mysteries are you referring to here?

 
Quote from: Lumpino;194936
I would say mysteries like Dionysian or similar.

 
So if I'm following this correctly, you're saying that (some of) the Mystery cults of ancient Greece were geared towards their initiates attaining godhood in a future incarnation. Is that accurate, and if so, do you have sources for this? Or if it's no accurate, can you clarify, please?

Sunflower
I'm the AntiFa genderqueer commie eclectic wiccan Mod your alt-right bros warned you about.
I do so have a life; I just live part of it online!
“Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live.” - Oscar Wilde
"Nobody's good at anything until they practice." - Brina (Yewberry)
My much-neglected blog "If You Ain't Makin' Waves, You Ain't Kickin' Hard Enough"

sionnachdearg

  • Journeyman
  • *****
  • Join Date: Nov 2014
  • Posts: 127
  • Total likes: 0
    • View Profile
Re: How do gods get created?
« Reply #40 on: August 17, 2016, 11:20:06 pm »
Quote from: Cyrianne;193057
I
I'll give you an example.

The Tuatha Dé Danann. Irish pagan gods. Well these "gods" were defeated & replaced as rulers/high kings by the Milesians. Thing is either the Tuatha were not gods or the Milesians were likewise gods. Yet we continually insist in calling Milesians just mere mortal men.

So unless man really can kill a god all the Tuatha were, were what equates to today's royalty being worshipped as gods.

Want a bit more proof?

.

 
Interpretation of the gods and goddesses of Ireland is very different than those of other cultures. Our knowledge comes from the Irish tales including the book of Invasions there were several races inhabited Ireland in succession from the people of Cessair, the people of Partholón, the people of Nemed, the Fir Bolg, the Tuatha Dé Danann, and the Milesian.

It is the Tuatha de danann where we get the the names of the gods and goddesses we are more familiar with but the the mythology attributes the title of god to those of the Tuatha De Danann that learned druidry, the arts, and magic are those who are considered gods and goddesses and those of the same people who do not learn the magic and arts to be non-gods. This equates being a god or goddess to one learned in  arts of magic. They were defeated, but the sons of mil had to call on the goddess Eriu and the Land itself to overcome the druidic wind which prevented them from entering. The sons of mil finally crushed the tuatha and expelled them or as suggested by latter tales that the land is divided to living on the land by the sons of mil and living below the ground or in the wild areas of Ireland for the Tuatha De Danann . It is interesting that the neolithic structures appear to be attributed to the Tuatha De Danann especially to Dagda which were made by the people before the Celtic entered Ireland.  

The ascending new Irish placed emphasis the importance of music and harmony which went to the south and poetry and song went to the north. Thus the arts and poetry was admired by the Irish. The tales that follow infer the Celts worshiped the sun, natural objects such as trees or waters but what gods or goddesses they adored is more speculative. They believed in the other world located in mounds, springs, under lakes and wild areas where the. The beings that live in the other world is the fairy folk, the dei terreni, the tutha De Danann or to the aes sidhe. The tales also suggest that druids were intermediaries between mortals and the supernatural beings of the other world because of their power of wisdom, seers, and could perform magic, an attribute associated with being a god or goddess.

Thus the concept of a god or goddess appears different when compared to the concept we get from the Greeks or Romans for instance. The inference here is the gods and goddesses are created as the learn the arts and magic of druidry and were able to enter into the other world - the sidhe.

Tags:
 

Related Topics

  Subject / Started by Replies Last post
42 Replies
7465 Views
Last post October 11, 2013, 01:39:27 am
by outlaw393
11 Replies
1943 Views
Last post August 27, 2013, 11:56:12 pm
by Materialist
0 Replies
1208 Views
Last post January 30, 2014, 11:30:39 am
by RandallS
0 Replies
1839 Views
Last post June 29, 2015, 02:36:18 pm
by RandallS
52 Replies
9641 Views
Last post August 26, 2018, 10:45:05 pm
by Hariti

* Who's Online

  • Dot Guests: 224
  • Dot Hidden: 0
  • Dot Users: 0

There aren't any users online.

* Please Donate!

The Cauldron's server is expensive and requires monthly payments. Please become a Bronze, Silver or Gold Donor if you can. Donations are needed every month. Without member support, we can't afford the server.

* Shop & Support TC

The links below are affiliate links. When you click on one of these links you will go to the listed shopping site with The Cauldron's affiliate code. Any purchases you make during your visit will earn TC a tiny percentage of your purchase price at no extra cost to you.

* In Memoriam

Chavi (2006)
Elspeth (2010)
Marilyn (2013)

* Cauldron Staff

Host:
Sunflower

Message Board Staff
Board Coordinator:
Darkhawk

Assistant Board Coordinator:
Aster Breo

Senior Staff:
Aisling, Allaya, Jenett, Sefiru

Staff:
Ashmire, EclecticWheel, HarpingHawke, Kylara, PerditaPickle, rocquelaire

Discord Chat Staff
Chat Coordinator:
Morag

'Up All Night' Coordinator:
Altair

Cauldron Council:
Bob, Catja, Chatelaine, Emma-Eldritch, Fausta, Jubes, Kelly, LyricFox, Phouka, Sperran, Star, Steve, Tana

Site Administrator:
Randall

SimplePortal 2.3.6 © 2008-2014, SimplePortal