Reply To Dagny

[Ellinas]

A little while back, on the "How do you handle Easter" thread, I was asked by Dagny whether I believed that my pantheon was "literally there". I replied in effect that I would answer on this board. To me this site is about what I don't believe rather than about what I do, and I don't want to seem to be peddling my beliefs. Nevertheless, I've been asked a question and therefore I will seek to give a reply, this particular board being the most appropriate for such a post as far as I can see.

 

This comes with a health warning. The answer is a "qualified yes" that will take a little explanation. If you are a person suffering from the after effects of your religious past and will be adversely affected by reading of someone else's belief system concernng deity, read no further. I'm not here to cause you problems (though I do wonder at your rationale in looking at this particular message board).

 

Nor am I going to enter into a debate as to whether I am right or wrong. Comments are welcome, but this is ultimately just the way the world makes sense to me. I do not expect anyone to agree with me, I am not interested in persuading anyone, and I'm too long in the tooth to be concerned whether anyone thinks I'm a fruit cake.

 

So, lets start at beginning.

 

To my mind, life proceeds from life, not from death. A stone is just a stone; chemicals in a primordial soup are just chemicals in a primordial soup. I cannot conceive of a mechanistic, chance arrival of life out nowhere. Therefore, I accept that life is, in some way, fundamental to the universe, and that principle of life I identify as "god". Likewise, consciousness and personality, to my mind, can only arise from consciousness and personality. Like begets like. As all these attributes (life, personality, consciousness) seem to me to be basic to "being", so I believe they are neither created nor destroyed, merely transformed in some way. Hence, I accept that physical death is not "the end". I neither affirm nor deny the idea of reincarnation – it's just an interesting idea to play with when I've nothing better to do.

 

I doubt whether "god" in that ultimate form is knowable save as a vague concept. Nevertheless, I would distinguish "god" from "the gods".

 

"The gods", to me, are just our other forms of life, personality and consciousness – the disembodied, those that have "gone before" can be included in that idea, though I'm not dogmatic about the origin of any of them. Mythology and pantheons, to my mind, are simply old stories and genealogies by which our forebears made sense of this and of the world around them, with a helping also of interpretation of seasons, cycles etc. As such, no one approach, pantheon or mythology is "right" or "wrong". The different paths are just alternative frameworks with which to try to make sense of our existence – or to ignore according to personal preference. It matters not whether Hekate is connected to The Morrigan or Kali, whether Athena to Minerva and Sulis, whether Hermes to Mercury or Loki etc. I call myself "Hellenic pagan" because I'm comfortable with that mythological framework and if others identify the same deities by other names, or even different deities by the same names, it is of no consequence. Neither does it bother me that some other Hellenic pagans may be apoplectic at my using such a term for myself. I've little time for reconstructionism, but good luck to those who do, as long as they don't try and tell me that theirs is the only true "Hellenic" path.
 

To summarise, I regard a pantheon as a human construct for understanding a wider spiritual concept; that concept, personally, I accept as having a reality, but the pantheon and its' associated mythology is just an interpretation.

 

I also believe that it is irrelevant (certainly to me, and in all likelihood to deity) whether any given individual believes in a spiritual objective reality or not.

No doubt many will disagree with my approach. No problem from my standpoint. We all must find our way through this life and reality in a manner that makes sense to us.