Do the gods "intervene?"

[Tamino]

What do you think determines the outcome of these situations?

I think most of that is just pure dumb luck.

Maybe sometimes some goddess or spirit or ancestor puts a thumb on the scales or guides a certain event, but that's more of an exception.
Mostly, the world is complex, and messy, and unfair, and s#1t happens

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

Personal experience.

Unless one is claiming that he or she has experienced obvious miracles, you may attribute your personal experience to some intervention but that attribution indicates very little beyond a personal viewpoint.

 

[SalixIncendium]

Unless one is claiming that he or she has experienced obvious miracles, you may attribute your personal experience to some intervention but that attribution indicates very little beyond a personal viewpoint.

Why? Is it known by you that God performs "obvious miracles?"

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

Why? Is it known by you that God performs "obvious miracles?"

I know nothing of the kind. Further more, I tend to discount miracle claims. But this is a far cry from knowing that some deity does not intervene.

On almost a daily basis I can identify reasons for gratitude. Whether this is intervention or happenstance is unverifiable. Whether I choose to feel blessed or lucky is, perhaps, a consequential choice.

 

[JustGeorge]

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.

Reminds me of Grandma... she fell down the stairs, and praised God that she didn't break her hip.

She was so happy, though... I didn't worry about whether her praise should have been given, I was just really proud and moved by Grandma's gratitude.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

In another thread somewhere, it was suggested that most gods are interventionist. Given most gods throughout human history have been natural (aka, deification has primarily been an expression of sacred relationships between humans and the greater-than-human world - the various natural forces from storms to winds to the sun and the earth itself), how are we to understand gods being interventionist in this context? What does it mean for the wind to "intervene" in human lives? What does it mean for the sun to "intervene" in human lives? Or for the land to "intervene" in human lives? Is that really how it works?

Comments from fellow polytheists, animists, and pantheists are especially welcome. I don't typically think of the gods as "intervening" in my life as that is kind of a weird way of putting it in my view, but maybe I'm not thinking about this in the right way.

Yes, they hear the prayers and petitions of their worshippers and answer as they see fit in their vast wisdom, including through signs, visions and omens. They are constantly affecting the physical world, even giving it its form. They can manifest themselves in the world as well, in the form of humans or animals, for example. They may also possess people, such as shamans. The world of the Gods and Spirits is all around us, but we normally can't physically see it as it exists behind a veil of sorts (although we can see it or parts of it at times or if we're gifted enough). But it's everywhere not "up there".

All of these beliefs were/are common among animistic and polytheistic peoples. I've experienced such things, myself.

 

[Wandering Monk]

In another thread somewhere, it was suggested that most gods are interventionist. Given most gods throughout human history have been natural (aka, deification has primarily been an expression of sacred relationships between humans and the greater-than-human world - the various natural forces from storms to winds to the sun and the earth itself), how are we to understand gods being interventionist in this context? What does it mean for the wind to "intervene" in human lives? What does it mean for the sun to "intervene" in human lives? Or for the land to "intervene" in human lives? Is that really how it works?

Comments from fellow polytheists, animists, and pantheists are especially welcome. I don't typically think of the gods as "intervening" in my life as that is kind of a weird way of putting it in my view, but maybe I'm not thinking about this in the right way.

This presupposes the existence of gods. What if everything happens mostly by chance?

 

[SalixIncendium]

This presupposes the existence of gods. What if everything happens mostly by chance?

This presupposes chance. What if everything happens mostly by the existence of gods?

 

[The Hammer]

Comments from fellow polytheists, animists, and pantheists are especially welcome. I don't typically think of the gods as "intervening" in my life as that is kind of a weird way of putting it in my view, but maybe I'm not thinking about this in the right way.

I mean, if everything great and small are deified at some level. We could say something along the lines of changes in someone's diet, that negatively impacts their gut microbiome, will soon find those microbes intervening as one run to the bathroom every 12 minutes.

On the macro scale, I think it's harder to tell, but Sol makes the crops grow. And Thor brings the storms necessary for that as well. It's more indirect. Just like you feeding yourself, is more indirect to your gut microbes.