American Pantheon of Gods?

[Fier]

But apparently that's something that ancient cultures did. Hail Caesar, and so on.

 
Oh yes. Roman religion and politics were very much interwoven.

[Darkhawk]

I was going to mention Columbia as well. She is the closest thing to a goddess of the USA I can think of, being basically a personification of the spirit of the country.

 
If I were looking for a spirit of the US I'd go for Lady Liberty over Columbia, personally.  Stephy wrote a lot about the whole manifest destiny thing a while back.

[Auress]

If I were looking for a spirit of the US I'd go for Lady Liberty over Columbia, personally.  Stephy wrote a lot about the whole manifest destiny thing a while back.

This brings up something else.

Okay, so, if Columbia is the Goddess of the US, who is the Goddess of Greece? Who is the Goddess of Italy? I don't know if I can get behind a Goddess of a "country" because it seems that no other country itself has a designated deity attached to it. Deities usually personify aspects instead of direct objects.

Columbia as the Goddess of Freedom? Or, as Darkhawk says, Lady Liberty as the Goddess of Freedom for the Americans?


Forgive me, I'm thinking outloud and trying to find Gods that America would have for other aspects. :

[Maps]

There's native american pantheons.... Mayas, Incas  and Aztecs had a mythology that was just as elabored as the Greeks' one, even if it is considerably less popular nowadays.

A few links, if you are interested:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aztec_mythology

http://www.windows2universe.org/mythology/aztec_culture.html

http://www.mythencyclopedia.com/Ar-Be/Aztec-Mythology.html

http://www.crystalinks.com/mayangods.html

http://socyberty.com/history/mysteries-of-the-inca-a-mighty-pantheon/

I don't know the history of the Aztec and Inca and the religions of other more "popular" and heavily colonized peoples as much, but the Maya religion is still being practiced by hundreds of thousands of people today, though it doesn't look quite like it once did before the Spanish arrived. You just wouldn't know because neopagans are largely oblivious to it.

[Juni]

If I were looking for a spirit of the US I'd go for Lady Liberty over Columbia, personally.  Stephy wrote a lot about the whole manifest destiny thing a while back.

 
I would go with Lady Liberty as well.

I seem to have misplaced my link to her blog, which is exceedingly annoying. It was a very good set of blog posts.

[cigfran]

This brings up something else.

Okay, so, if Columbia is the Goddess of the US, who is the Goddess of Greece?

Well, Athena, of course. :

I don't know if I can get behind a Goddess of a "country" because it seems that no other country itself has a designated deity attached to it. Deities usually personify aspects instead of direct objects.

Kidding aside, you're right. And as a largely polytheistic community, it does seem odd that we should try to identify a single patron god or goddess for the nation.

[Auress]

Well, Athena, of course. :



Kidding aside, you're right. And as a largely polytheistic community, it does seem odd that we should try to identify a single patron god or goddess for the nation.

So that begs the question, who would be the equivalent of say......the God or Goddess of War...for America? Or, who would be the God of the Underworld, or the Goddess of the Hearth? Or would we even be able to come up with figures for any of those??

[Fier]

If I were looking for a spirit of the US I'd go for Lady Liberty over Columbia, personally.  Stephy wrote a lot about the whole manifest destiny thing a while back.

 
Either one could work. "Columbia" was a moniker for the United States, and personifications of the name were given a female appearance. Lady Liberty is a newer representation of "what the US stands for", whereas Columbia is a direct representation of "the US".

[Fier]

This brings up something else.

Okay, so, if Columbia is the Goddess of the US, who is the Goddess of Greece? Who is the Goddess of Italy?

 
Well, the Goddess of Rome was Roma.

[Juni]

Either one could work. "Columbia" was a moniker for the United States, and personifications of the name were given a female appearance. Lady Liberty is a newer representation of "what the US stands for", whereas Columbia is a direct representation of "the US".

 
As Stephy blogged, though, Columbia has some serious appropriation and white entitlement issues. Lady Liberty, not so much.

[Fier]

So that begs the question, who would be the equivalent of say......the God or Goddess of War...for America? Or, who would be the God of the Underworld, or the Goddess of the Hearth? Or would we even be able to come up with figures for any of those??

 
I don't know if we'd have a Goddess of the Hearth as the hearth isn't important in most modern American lives. However I could certainly see deities of War, Peace, Coffee, the Internet, and Transportation. Oh, and Money.

[Fier]

As Stephy blogged, though, Columbia has some serious appropriation and white entitlement issues. Lady Liberty, not so much.

 
I haven't seen this blog, so I can't comment.

[Juniperberry]

I haven't seen this blog, so I can't comment.

 
I haven't read any of the ones mentioned here but another blogger must have been inspired by these because he wrote of something similar. God of War is clearly Uncle Sam according to him, and I'd agree.

I also think we turn celebrities imto archtypical objects of worship.

[cigfran]

Lady Liberty is a newer representation of "what the US stands for", whereas Columbia is a direct representation of "the US".

And she's a French import.




:whis:

[cigfran]

Goddess of the Hearth?

Martha Stewart, perhaps...




Or more seriously, perhaps Dolly Madison. She's somewhat revered in that regard, I think.