Changing Nature of the Gods

[Gentoo]

I've noticed in my reading of this forum and a fully Pagan board that I lurk at that the nature and characteristics of the gods seems to have changed. This other forum I lurk uses a term that I really like: UPG - Unverified Personal Gnosis. These UPG's are really the only thing we have when referring to the Gods in a modern setting. Reading through some UPGs and experiencing things on my own, it's come to my attention that the Gods aren't the way they were in past times.

It seems that every dark God/dess, of warfare, death, even harvest God/desses have an aspect of healing, comfort and understanding attached to them. One UPG in particular has Set coming to a Pagan, but understanding and leaving when that person felt too intimidated by him. That doesn't seem like the Set I know in the myths. Even my own Patron, a warrior and traveling God has shown me understanding and comfort when that's not how he's portrayed in the myths. The Morrigan and Sekhmet are other examples I've read of. All of this is not to say that the God/desses aren't multifaceted, they certainly are. The point is these UPGs suggest qualities that aren't usually seen in the myths.

What are all of your thoughts?

My thoughts are that humans have changed drastically in a short amount of time. Most of us aren't involved in daily tribal warfare with the town next door, or even growing so much as flowers. With society changing every day, it leaves us feeling lost, in other words, the Post-modernism problems. Therefore, our need for emotional support is higher than our need for blood-thirsty battle. We change + our needs change = the Gods change to suit those needs.

More thoughts?

 

[Valjean]

Gods' behavior and attitudes usually resemble those of the culture that created them.

 

[MoonWater]

Perhaps a lot of it had to do with the idea that ancient cultures tended to focus on attributes or the gods that would directly coincide with what the gods stood for and thus their myths reflected this narrow focus. In this day and age perhaps we have become more open to the many facets the gods can possess and have started to see them more as beings with their own distinct personalities as well as beings who represent certain ideas.

 

[Rainbow Mage]

Set didn't understand and leave when he intimidated me. I invoked Aset and Heru-sa-Aset against him because he was nearly scaring me to death, and then he distanced himself from me, I guess because he didn't like me doing that.

 

[Gentoo]

Perhaps a lot of it had to do with the idea that ancient cultures tended to focus on attributes or the gods that would directly coincide with what the gods stood for and thus their myths reflected this narrow focus. In this day and age perhaps we have become more open to the many facets the gods can possess and have started to see them more as beings with their own distinct personalities as well as beings who represent certain ideas.

Hmm.. that is something I hadn't thought of. Would you say that all of those qualities were always there and just coming out now, or were there and simply not focused on?

 

[MoonWater]

Hmm.. that is something I hadn't thought of. Would you say that all of those qualities were always there and just coming out now, or were there and simply not focused on?

Although it might depend on the god I'd lean towards the latter.

 

[Revasser]

Perhaps a lot of it had to do with the idea that ancient cultures tended to focus on attributes or the gods that would directly coincide with what the gods stood for and thus their myths reflected this narrow focus. In this day and age perhaps we have become more open to the many facets the gods can possess and have started to see them more as beings with their own distinct personalities as well as beings who represent certain ideas.

They perhaps tended to focus on that so far as we can see via sparse and questionable historical records and often-ambiguous archeological finds.

There is also a degree of over-simplification that one finds in overview-style descriptions of ancient belief-systems. If you've only got 1000-words to describe a pantheon, perhaps there isn't that much more to do than write "Set was an evil storm god. Hathor was a fertility goddess. Bast was the cat-goddess." Adequate to get a very basic gist, maybe, but a reading of more serious scholarly texts, including source myths, does give a more in-depth understanding. Allegedly neo-pagan authors who write short cash-in... *AHEM* primer texts are, unfortunately, very frequently guilty of this kind of thing.

There also seems to have been a tendency for one god out of a set to be honoured over others by different groups, different regions, at different times. I am doubtful that if a god of the sun was especially favoured over other gods by the people of a particularly city that "their" god would be "just" a sun god.

 

[Vigdisdotter]

it's come to my attention that the Gods aren't the way they were in past times.

I don't think the gods have changed at all. Only human perception. We are, after all, human beings trying to understand a non-human race of beings that can't be seen or measured in any empirical fashion.

I'm not sure that modern understanding is better then in days of old, just different.

 

[Justin Thyme]

Do you think that the change you are seeing could be attributed to the fact that our historical description of the gods and goddesses are descriptions that were approved by the political powers of the time? Just as modern religious institutions attempt to package their gods/goddesses to maintain an institutional power structure surely at least as much has been done in ancient times. Modern pagans don't have the institutional structures imposed upon their religions as their ancient counterparts had so their understanding of the gods/goddesses comes from a personal experience with them and not a canned description that an institution might try to impose on the gods.

 

[Erebus]

Do you think that the change you are seeing could be attributed to the fact that our historical description of the gods and goddesses are descriptions that were approved by the political powers of the time? Just as modern religious institutions attempt to package their gods/goddesses to maintain an institutional power structure surely at least as much has been done in ancient times. Modern pagans don't have the institutional structures imposed upon their religions as their ancient counterparts had so their understanding of the gods/goddesses comes from a personal experience with them and not a canned description that an institution might try to impose on the gods.

An excellent question!

I think you may be on to something with this, it is true that many of the old Pagan traditions were dictated by the priests or sometimes even the government, while modern Pagans tend to follow a more individual path. I couldn't say whether this is a primary reason for "modernised gods" but it certainly makes a lot of sense.

I'll have to think on this one some more, frubals

 

[wj1095]

They perhaps tended to focus on that so far as we can see via sparse and questionable historical records and often-ambiguous archeological finds. :no: