From the Oak: Let’s hear it for the God!

Many are those that focus on female divinities, leaving male divinities in the shadows if they get mentioned at all. This is a shame. Here I will share my thoughts, stories and prayers on male divinities. Currently focusing on divinities placed in an atheist "graveyard".

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Gutting on the Existence of Zeus

I’m AWOL this week attending a Pagan festival/retreat here in Colorado.  This was written before I left. 

I readily admit that thinking about philosophy gives me a headache.  Literally.  Attempting to discuss it or read it makes me nauseous on top of the headache.  I suspect this physical reaction is embedded in the fear that I’m dumber than I like to think and attempting to sound intelligent during a discussion of philosophy will only prove that a 3rd grader is smarter than me.  (Oh the dreams along this line are most humbling…)

Last week I received a link to an opinion blog for the New York Times by Gary Gutting, a professor of philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, titled “Did Zeus Exist?”.  My friend and philosophy-teaching-hero, EB, summed up the article thusly: 

“…Gutting approaches the question in very much the manner that polytheists would wish him to…the salient points are, first, that he strikes down the claim that believing in the Gods of the ancient polytheisms is somehow less rational than believing in the monotheists’ God; and second, that because the Gods are posited in experience, there is no argument deflating the experience of Them that doesn’t end up deflating any first-person, subjective experience as well.”

Since I couldn’t say it any better than that, I’ll leave you with a poem of quotes from the blog with just enough minor adjustments for flow.  I must say though, those that do not find their life filled with the divine lead a very sad existence. 

Gutting on the Existence of Zeus

why we are so certain that Zeus never existed.
we are in no position to say that he did. 
But are we really in a position to say that he didn’t?
we have no evidence at all for his existence
no reports of avenging thunderbolts
or of attempted seductions,
no sightings around Mount Olympus. 
But back in the day (say, 500-400 B.C.),
Zeus’s reality remained widely unquestioned. 
Socrates and Plato criticized certain poetic treatments,
which showed Zeus and the gods in an unworthy light. 
But they never questioned the very existence of the gods
There were many questions about the true nature of the divine,
but few about its existence.
Why did belief in the gods persist in spite of critical challenges?
The greatest evidence for the existence of gods is that piety works . . .
with by far the most emphasis given to the perils of ignoring the gods
One knows that the gods exist because one feels their presence
during the drama of the mysteries
or the elation of the choral dance.  
as weather conditions hampering an enemy,
a miraculous escape, or a cure
Most of us do not find our world so filled with the divine,
But how can we be so sure that the Greeks lived in the same sort of world? 
take seriously the possibility that they existed
he people who worshiped Zeus claimed to experience his presence
There’s no reason for us to accept this claim,
but we have no reason for thinking they were wrong.
everyone was rightly convinced
from their own and others’ experiences
that the gods existed. 
We may well think that our world contains little or no evidence of the supernatural. 
But that is no reason to think the same was true of the Greek world.
an atheistic denial of Zeus is ungrounded. 
to deny that he existed in his Grecian heyday
we need to assume yet
We have no reason to make this assumption. 
supposing that Zeus did exist in ancient times,
do we really have evidence that he has ceased to exist? 
He may, for all we know, just be in hiding 
Or it may be that we have lost the ability to perceive the divine.  

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Tagged in: philosophy Poem quotes Zeus
I'm an eclectic polytheist whose main divinities are Heru-ur, Bast, Sobek, Yinepu Isis, Zeus-Serapis, and Yemaya. I'm a mother, wife and Librarian living in the Rocky Mountains stumbling on my path and wondering what the heck I'm doing. Blessed be.

Comments

  • Jamie
    Jamie Wednesday, 07 August 2013

    Yeah, I'm a Platonist and reading a detailed summary of Proclus' take on philosophy (one of Plato's legitimate successors) can give me a headache. I've never taken the time to completely memorize his conception of things.

    We've heard the 'Good News' of the Immortals, to borrow a line from the Christians, and that's enough for most of us. It's all good, as far as I'm concerned.

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