The Fae, The Gods, and the In-Betweens

[Sharysa]

I think that this is a very, very interesting point for you to have made.  It definitely is a good argument for the fae to be different from "demoted" gods, I think.

...You know, maybe the gods are the midway point between humans and the Folk. Numerous instances in folklore involve the gods protecting humans from the Fair Folk--the gods are more powerful, but the Folk are less predictable.

[NibbleKat]

...You know, maybe the gods are the midway point between humans and the Folk. Numerous instances in folklore involve the gods protecting humans from the Fair Folk--the gods are more powerful, but the Folk are less predictable.

 
OOoOoh. That's an interesting way to look at it.

What are your thoughts on fae in the Americas (more north, I suppose, since I live here) vs. Europe/Britain? I know that's an extremely broad question to ask...

[Sharysa]

OOoOoh. That's an interesting way to look at it.

What are your thoughts on fae in the Americas (more north, I suppose, since I live here) vs. Europe/Britain? I know that's an extremely broad question to ask...

Since that's where I live as well, the Folk definitely have less separation of human/animal than I expected from European mythology. They tried to get me to jump into the sea by reassuring me that "You can just turn into a fish!" They were definitely sincere, since I actually had to tell them that I can only shape-shift on the spiritual plane. They asked, "What difference does that make?" and then I had to explain that my physical body is entirely different from my spiritual one.

When Aengus showed me what happened from their viewpoint of the event, they all had black hair and dark skin. Either that means they're Native American spirits, or their appearance is a reflection of the "darkness" of the sea. The land-dwelling Folk are frequently stated to be blonde and fair even if they dwell in warm/sunny places (perhaps especially so, with blonde hair in Europe frequently being compared to the sun), so maybe the European sea-Folk have dark hair and skin.

[Darkhawk]

This is the thing I am curious about; I know, as I said above, that there were many "demoted" pagan gods;  but they can't all be that, can they? Even if there were a plethora of deities for what it SEEMS like every hill, stream, and mountain.  

 
Well, what do you mean when you say "god"?

That is actually a giant sticking point, as comes up every time I run into someone who makes a comment like "What's the point in worshipping a god who isn't omnipotent, anyway?"

Once the concept of god as "supreme being" is invented, one runs into a lot of problems with the ideas of gods.  Because out there in actual mythologies, gods win some and lose some, there is no supremacy.  Set kills Wesir; Heru defeats Set; Sekhmet has to be tricked into not completing her slaughter of mankind.  Aphrodite beats Hera and Athena (and Troy falls); Athena bests Poseidon for patronage of Athens; Hermes steals cattle from Apollo and doctors from Aesclepius.  Lugh can't do anything unique, but he can do everything.  Etc.

In a pagan context, the model of "supreme being" is generally some flavor of emanationist - there is the Unknowable Ultimate, and then there are the powers we actually deal with, which are both more limited and more accessible, who are either little bits of Unknowable Ultimate's nature bound up in smaller packets, or beings of an entirely different order placed in a servant/intercessory role.  (And anyone who has done angelology will recognise this model.)

But the post-Christian question is always this: Is anything other than the Supreme Being / Unknowable Ultimate really a god?  (Obviously for people who don't do the SB/UU thing this is a silly question.  But it still comes up.)

And if one thinks that things other than the SB/UU can be gods, where does one draw category lines of distinguishing them?  Does something have to have a certain level of power to make it into the 'god' category?  What, precisely, is that level of power and how do you tell?

Are the Tuatha de Danaan as the elite of the fairy host "demoted gods", or has the concept of SB/UU changed what "god" means so that they have to be regarded as something else?

It's not really possible to have this conversation without thinking about the terms involved and what one actually means.  About things like the nature of divine power, whether non-god things can have power of that nature, whether there is a distinction between having divine power and being a divine power, whether there are other forms of spiritual/magical/non-corporeal power that associate with other categories of beings, and so on.

And once you've tackled the easy question like "what is a god?" you can start working on harder ones like "what is a fairy?"  (I'm not even joking.)

In conclusion: if someone asks if you're a god, you say yes.

[Valentine]

Well, what do you mean when you say "god"?

That is actually a giant sticking point, as comes up every time I run into someone who makes a comment like "What's the point in worshipping a god who isn't omnipotent, anyway?"

Once the concept of god as "supreme being" is invented, one runs into a lot of problems with the ideas of gods.  Because out there in actual mythologies, gods win some and lose some, there is no supremacy.  Set kills Wesir; Heru defeats Set; Sekhmet has to be tricked into not completing her slaughter of mankind.  Aphrodite beats Hera and Athena (and Troy falls); Athena bests Poseidon for patronage of Athens; Hermes steals cattle from Apollo and doctors from Aesclepius.  Lugh can't do anything unique, but he can do everything.  Etc.

In a pagan context, the model of "supreme being" is generally some flavor of emanationist - there is the Unknowable Ultimate, and then there are the powers we actually deal with, which are both more limited and more accessible, who are either little bits of Unknowable Ultimate's nature bound up in smaller packets, or beings of an entirely different order placed in a servant/intercessory role.  (And anyone who has done angelology will recognise this model.)

But the post-Christian question is always this: Is anything other than the Supreme Being / Unknowable Ultimate really a god?  (Obviously for people who don't do the SB/UU thing this is a silly question.  But it still comes up.)

And if one thinks that things other than the SB/UU can be gods, where does one draw category lines of distinguishing them?  Does something have to have a certain level of power to make it into the 'god' category?  What, precisely, is that level of power and how do you tell?

Are the Tuatha de Danaan as the elite of the fairy host "demoted gods", or has the concept of SB/UU changed what "god" means so that they have to be regarded as something else?

It's not really possible to have this conversation without thinking about the terms involved and what one actually means.  About things like the nature of divine power, whether non-god things can have power of that nature, whether there is a distinction between having divine power and being a divine power, whether there are other forms of spiritual/magical/non-corporeal power that associate with other categories of beings, and so on.

And once you've tackled the easy question like "what is a god?" you can start working on harder ones like "what is a fairy?"  (I'm not even joking.)

In conclusion: if someone asks if you're a god, you say yes.

 
I want to say something more cogent than "I love you," but I love you.  And, you know, cosigned.

[SunflowerP]

Well, what do you mean when you say "god"?

I bump up against that one ALL. THE. TIME.  All the time here on TC.  What makes the Theoi gods is not the same as what makes the Ntjr gods is not the same as what makes the Aesir and Vanir gods is not the same as what makes the Tuatha Dé Danann gods (etc, etc).  And those are "easy" ones.  Lwa and Orishas function in ways very similar to how deities function in other cosmologies, but practitioners of Vodun and Santeria are pretty clear that they're not gods.  In the cosmologies/myths of some NA/FN peoples, Coyote made the world; in others, he's a culture hero - but he's often more deity-like as a culture hero than as a creator.  And that's just a very fast drive-by of instances with which I'm familiar.

WTH is a god?  Beats me.

In conclusion: if someone asks if you're a god, you say yes.

 
Usually, yep.

Sunflower

[Darkhawk]

Lwa and Orishas function in ways very similar to how deities function in other cosmologies, but practitioners of Vodun and Santeria are pretty clear that they're not gods.

 
In one of the umpty-leven revisions of that post there was an explicit shout-out to Bondye, in fact.

[Valentine]

I bump up against that one ALL. THE. TIME.  All the time here on TC.  What makes the Theoi gods is not the same as what makes the Ntjr gods is not the same as what makes the Aesir and Vanir gods is not the same as what makes the Tuatha Dé Danann gods (etc, etc).  And those are "easy" ones.  Lwa and Orishas function in ways very similar to how deities function in other cosmologies, but practitioners of Vodun and Santeria are pretty clear that they're not gods.  In the cosmologies/myths of some NA/FN peoples, Coyote made the world; in others, he's a culture hero - but he's often more deity-like as a culture hero than as a creator.  And that's just a very fast drive-by of instances with which I'm familiar.

WTH is a god?  Beats me.


 
Usually, yep.

Sunflower

 
I am still amused at that thread a little while back where someone tried to bop my nose with a rolled-up newspaper by telling me Lilith isn't a Goddess, She's a glorified demon or whatever, and I kind of went...define your terms?

I'm also thinking a lot about--okay I know I do this a lot but seminary--all the Christians I run with who're nominally monotheists.  Except even if you call the Trinity one entity, a lot of them treat and conceive of Mary, or the Devil, or any number of saints and angels in ways indistinguishable from how many of us talk about various Gods.  It's a nomenclatural difference at best: we're monotheists, so we only have one God, and it's that one, and all of these other things that any other religion might call Gods are something else because definitionally we're monotheists and only get one.  I know so many Christians who, if they were in some far-flung part of the world being written about by the kind of outsider anthropologists who define people's beliefs for them, would call them henotheists without hesitation.  And that's leaving alone the occasional fundamentalist version of the Devil, who nearly matches God for power and rules this world and isn't a deity, somehow.

Once you define "god" as "all-powerful," or "creator," or whatever, most of ours don't count.  So what do you call Them?  People make stacks and stacks of categories.

[catja6]

Once you define "god" as "all-powerful," or "creator," or whatever, most of ours don't count.  So what do you call Them?  People make stacks and stacks of categories.

 
I'm loving this whole discussion about the definition of gods. This is why I come to TC. *starry eyes*

[Annie Roonie]

Once the concept of god as "supreme being" is invented, one runs into a lot of problems with the ideas of gods.  Because out there in actual mythologies, gods win some and lose some, there is no supremacy.

I have to admit there is a bunch of head thwacking I go through daily when I realize I've mis-attributed my learned and habitual concept of god, supreme being, to other deities. I thought I'd questioned the concept of omnipotence and omniscience so much as a child that I would not have the influence of those concepts remaining as strongly as I do.  But it's there and so ingrained that I have to make the conscious effort to step back and re-think. I ask myself often how long will it take for me to recall the proper attributes of deities I learn about.

It disturbs me because I project feelings to the deities, and like a child who is constantly referred to by the wrong name, it could feel diminishing at best. I don't feel this way personally. I could be called anything and don't mind, but I see how it hurts some to not be considered as fully individual. So when I research, I often keep an eye out for if and how a specific deity forgives.

As for the OP, I am confused currently with my experiences concerning different beings. I tend to experience first and research after. Not on purpose, it just happens that way. And at the moment, with different beings it reminds me of those anatomy books with overlay charts in them. Figuring out which overlay contains which beings and how they interact with the whole is difficult and I am not sure at this point if I even want to or am able to figure them all out or if I just want to admire and experience the intricacies for a while.

[Sophia C]

I am still amused at that thread a little while back where someone tried to bop my nose with a rolled-up newspaper by telling me Lilith isn't a Goddess, She's a glorified demon or whatever, and I kind of went...define your terms?

I'm also thinking a lot about--okay I know I do this a lot but seminary--all the Christians I run with who're nominally monotheists.  Except even if you call the Trinity one entity, a lot of them treat and conceive of Mary, or the Devil, or any number of saints and angels in ways indistinguishable from how many of us talk about various Gods.  It's a nomenclatural difference at best: we're monotheists, so we only have one God, and it's that one, and all of these other things that any other religion might call Gods are something else because definitionally we're monotheists and only get one.  I know so many Christians who, if they were in some far-flung part of the world being written about by the kind of outsider anthropologists who define people's beliefs for them, would call them henotheists without hesitation.  And that's leaving alone the occasional fundamentalist version of the Devil, who nearly matches God for power and rules this world and isn't a deity, somehow.

Once you define "god" as "all-powerful," or "creator," or whatever, most of ours don't count.  So what do you call Them?  People make stacks and stacks of categories.

The day I woke up and realised I was worshiping Mary as a goddess was the day I realised I was a polytheist (and took my first step towards Paganism).

For me, at the moment anyway, as god is what his or her followers perceive or treat as a god. I know that's as woolly as you can get with theology, but as was pointed out above, it's nearly impossible to compare pantheons and say 'and that's what makes a god.' I suspect those of us who honour the Tuatha De Danann are very aware of this, with the way they're defined as non-deities in the Christianized myths.

[SkySamuelle]

I bump up against that one ALL. THE. TIME.  All the time here on TC.  What makes the Theoi gods is not the same as what makes the Ntjr gods is not the same as what makes the Aesir and Vanir gods is not the same as what makes the Tuatha Dé Danann gods (etc, etc).  And those are "easy" ones.  Lwa and Orishas function in ways very similar to how deities function in other cosmologies, but practitioners of Vodun and Santeria are pretty clear that they're not gods.  In the cosmologies/myths of some NA/FN peoples, Coyote made the world; in others, he's a culture hero - but he's often more deity-like as a culture hero than as a creator.  And that's just a very fast drive-by of instances with which I'm familiar.

WTH is a god?  Beats me.

Add in to the confusion the deified humans and it's just enough to boggle the mind.

Tough, for my sanity's sake and only that,  I made up a few tentative guidelines I fully expect to see proved wrong or semiwrong in coming years, as usually happens with this kind of thing. Said guidelines mostly came about keeping count of experience more than theory.

I qualify as deity:

a) a spirit that has a cosmic job/area of competence - which means said being most likely is part of the forces that decide on the big picture versus said being in service to one of those forces (like angels and Lwas would be, let's say)
b) a spirit that doesn't get offended when called deity in his/her presence (apparently this happens with Lwas)
c) a spirit that has enough of autonomy to manifest in material plane even without being 'fed' (as it might be the case with beloved dead and Lwas - at least with Lwas, I notice they hunger for material gifts, whereas deities can enjoy it, but certainly don't act like they need it, or need as much.)

For the rest, I am out of my depth.

[NibbleKat]

I bump up against that one ALL. THE. TIME.  All the time here on TC.  What makes the Theoi gods is not the same as what makes the Ntjr gods is not the same as what makes the Aesir and Vanir gods is not the same as what makes the Tuatha Dé Danann gods (etc, etc).  And those are "easy" ones.  Lwa and Orishas function in ways very similar to how deities function in other cosmologies, but practitioners of Vodun and Santeria are pretty clear that they're not gods.  In the cosmologies/myths of some NA/FN peoples, Coyote made the world; in others, he's a culture hero - but he's often more deity-like as a culture hero than as a creator.  And that's just a very fast drive-by of instances with which I'm familiar.

WTH is a god?  Beats me.


 
Usually, yep.

Sunflower

 Yes, I never intended to come across as saying that all of the gods are all powerful... but just because you have powers, to my mind doesn't make you a god.  So there's the sticky bit.