VoidCat
Use any and all pronouns including neo and it/it's
Hey I was listening! What happened next?
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Do the gods "intervene?"
- Thread starter Quintessence
- Start date
No. You can either tell us non-mindreaders what you were thinking with this apparently rhetorical question or you can (preferably) take these sorts of unproductive responses elsewhere.Try again.
I think that's some of my challenge too. What does it mean for something that is ever present to intervene? Isn't it always, in a sense, intervening by being in the same time and space as us all the time? Perhaps the way humans think about these things tracks back to how one views causality more generally? Just floating around some thoughts...
Something worth unpacking here...
Can there be intervention in the absence of volition? And how do we determine whether or not volition is even present? Does volition rest on the axiomatic assumption of free will? If the universe is deterministic, what does volition look like, if anything?
Volition is a funny thing - we might be assume it is there in spite of our inability to see it or measure it in any way. Its existence is something of a matter of faith, almost inherently, isn't it? Whether in humans or in others?
Good questions. I suspect the idea of intervention; interaction does seem to me to be better. Spirit has the volition to choose when and how to interact...maybe we can affect them, maybe they can affect us...I'm not convinced on determinism, so I don't think I can say anything intelligible about that...
I presume that volition exists whether we observe it or not. We can observe all sorts of qualia about objects, but those qualia, as we perceive and conceive of them, are not the object we observe...so with some 'things' we can observe volition (like living creatures, for example) but others may not be observable except at ONE moment in ONE situation to ONE observer...
Secret Chief
Veteran Member
Easy for me, I don't understand the gods in this context.
беспокойный путешественни
All gods are great.
In my experience, some gods tend to interfere playfully in people's everyday lives. Abrahamic god(s) are not among them.
I can't help but wonder what "intervene" really means. When there's a terrible highway traffic accident, for example, where some people (including kids) are burned alive in their cars and others survive, do we suppose that "the gods" pick a few to save and not to bother with? Do they use how attractive or not the kids or, or perhaps their grades at school?
I only mention that because, of course, I have heard -- as has everybody here -- the claims that "it's a miracle of God that my daughter was saved!"
Then, of course, you have to wonder what role "the gods" play in who wins the lottery. I mean, some people never even get a free ticket, and others win multiple times. I mean really, how fair is that?
And then there's the question of diseases -- do "the gods" intervene to both cause them AND cure them, or only one or the other? And, in either case, how do they decide who should get the disease, or who should be cured?
Really, it would be very helpful to have definitive answers to these important questions!
I only mention that because, of course, I have heard -- as has everybody here -- the claims that "it's a miracle of God that my daughter was saved!"
Then, of course, you have to wonder what role "the gods" play in who wins the lottery. I mean, some people never even get a free ticket, and others win multiple times. I mean really, how fair is that?
And then there's the question of diseases -- do "the gods" intervene to both cause them AND cure them, or only one or the other? And, in either case, how do they decide who should get the disease, or who should be cured?
Really, it would be very helpful to have definitive answers to these important questions!
To my mind there aren't definitive answers to any questions one may ask on any subject given human limitations. That said, polytheist theology doesn't expect gods to be "fair" or "just" or "fluffy bunnies and sparkles and love only" so these sorts of questions may not get asked (I don't really ask them). Storm just does Storm things, for example - all things gods included do what is their nature to do. And humans will assign meaning regardless of what the forever unknowable "definitive answer" to any of it might be.
You might find it odd, but I find polytheism much more difficult to accept than monotheism. I've seen how hard it is to get anything done by a committee, especially when there are real egotists in the mix -- but to create a universe by a bunch of entities who know they're not only superior but "gods" looks to be completely impossible. Götterdämmerung, if you will.
беспокойный путешественни
All gods are great.
Would explain platypuses though.
Well, I for one don't find it all odd that you find polytheism much more difficult. Like you, I was raised in a monotheism-dominated modern culture in which everything spiritual or about the divine is to be understood in relation to the dominant religion. It's taken like 50 years to go from dualistic monotheism to monotheism to Deism to atheism to a point where, if I did Gods at all, I would understand my experiences and beliefs to fall under polytheism. I am now an agnostic, because I don't believe humans are capable of knowing or making any intelligible statements regarding deities.
It's taken decades of hard work for me to UNLEARN all the religious crap that Christianity (primarily) has implanted throughout society, to the extent that people believe that the pantheons of real polytheistic religions worship gods that are little more than cartoon characters as brought to life in the movies. Everything that the ancients understood, or that modern indigenous peoples believe and do, has to be shoehorned into the categories created by 'enlightened' formerly monotheistic intellectuals.
What I understand now is that if I want to understand what someone who is a polytheist believes and does to live their beliefs, I should probably ask them politely and listen to their answers, and not try to make what they say fit into the conceptual boxes that Western intellectuals have created using Judaism and Christianity as the mold and true model of what they are doing.
Hmmm. This probably came off a little sharper than I mean it to...I apologize. Today has been a bad day, painwise, and I'm feeling irritable and testy, while being pretty fuzzy...
But thinking of a pantheon like it's an academic committee at some university is, well...kinda silly. I don't think any pantheon in any religious tradition is as chaotic and impotent as your image implies...I might be wrong, but none spring to my mind, although I don't really know that many in any detail.
Yeah, I'll second @beenherebeforeagain in observing that regarding the gods as some sort of committee is a strange way to think about it on all sorts of levels. It's way too much of an anthropomorphism for me and I see very little indication that the gods operate by some sort of human-like hierarchical elitist organizational structure of any kind. What is it the gods are supposed to be "getting done" anyway? I don't quite understand what you mean. The gods do what they must in accord with their natures. Storm does Storm things, River does River things, Stone does Stone things, Wind does Wind things. What is there to be "getting done" beyond simply being what one is?
Heyo
Veteran Member
You are a gentile, and, of course, very modern ape. You know how physical phenomena work. But imagine you didn't have that knowledge. You'd probably assign agenticity to the phenomena. When you are a sailor, you want the wind gods to look favourably on you and send a breeze, not too weak, and too strong, from a convenient direction. That's how the wind gods intervene in your life.
"Agenticity" is a term coined by Michael Shermer, he explains it in this speech (starting at 13:45):
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Simple answer...
It depends on the individual god and the individual person.
No god has ever intervened in my life. Others say that their god has. Who am I to tell them that my personal experiences are more correct than theirs?
It depends on the individual god and the individual person.
No god has ever intervened in my life. Others say that their god has. Who am I to tell them that my personal experiences are more correct than theirs?
Personal experience.
Sounds like Ceiling Cat.
I've considered such questions quite extensively.
A neighbor told me recently that she fell four stories and shattered her leg, but she's thankful that God saved her from being killed from the fall. I couldn't help think that if God was with her, wouldn't God have prevented the fall to begin with? I've heard many such scenarios in my life with regard to tragedies and gratitude to God that the tragedy wasn't somehow worse.
I think causality/karma play a role in such events.
What do you think determines the outcome of these situations?