/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.6791815]

Are there any arguments for polytheism?

[Anonymous No.6791818]

Not good ones

[Anonymous No.6791828]

>>6791815
>implying hinduism is polytheistic

laughing vedantists.jpeg

[Anonymous No.6791839]

No - just like there aren't any for monotheism, or theism at all.

[Anonymous No.6791846]

Would a God who looked like a human make an animal that looked like an elephant?

[no caps guy !!6P/WhzicJTl No.6791858]

no. people who believe in polytheism literally are fucking retarded

>>6791828
also this

[Anonymous No.6791893]

It mostly just boils down to "my ancestors believed in this so I will believe in this as well".

[Anonymous No.6791900]

>polytheism
>arguments

Polytheism isn't a standardized belief system, only Abrahamic religions influenced by Plato and Aristotle are.

One of the upsides of polytheism is that it expresses the chaotic and illogical aspects of life. You're basically trying to ask for arguments in favor of the Dionysian. The lack of arguments is kind of the point

[Anonymous No.6791902]

>>6791858
>who believe in polytheism literally

What's the difference between believing in it literally vs figuratively/metaphorically?

[no caps guy !!6P/WhzicJTl No.6792039]

>>6791902
the difference between seeing them as symbols reprsenting different aspects of reality, and believing in a literal pantheon of sky yogisーroughly speaking

[Anonymous No.6792055]

>>6792039
I don't understand why people make this distinction

[no caps guy !!6P/WhzicJTl No.6792069]

>>6792055
what the hell does that mean

[Anonymous No.6792071]

>>6791815

Yes

[Thomas No.6792075]

>>6792069
Have you converted to Christianity yet or are you still dabbling in Eastern stuff?

[Anonymous No.6792080]

>>6792069
>>6792075
Pls Jewbro, convert, we all know you want to and we all want you to. You're the only decent tripfag on this board btw

[Anonymous No.6792086]

Psalm 82:5-7

5 “The ‘gods’ know nothing, they understand nothing.
They walk about in darkness;
all the foundations of the earth are shaken.
6 “I said, ‘You are “gods”;
you are all sons of the Most High.’
7 But you will die like mere mortals;
you will fall like every other ruler.”

[Anonymous No.6792091]

>>6792055
You don't understand the difference between ' anthropomorphised representation of the weather' and some fag in the sky literally blowing at you when it's storming?

[Anonymous No.6792092]

>>6792055
Because one of the earliest arguments against theism is "If Yahweh is real, then where is he?"

Judaism and Islam solve this question inherently, but Christianity does not. This leads to three possible answers: Yahweh is constantly moving and thus unseen because he likes to be mysterious, Yahweh is not real, or Yahweh is not a physical entity in the same sense that you or I are.

The latter ultimately won out in Christianity as scientific understanding became more prevalent and challenged church doctrine.

Judaism solved this issue after the Zoroastrians saved their asses by stealing the "Cosmic force" idea and saying that Yahweh is a "cosmic force" rather than an actual entity ("God is a verb, not a noun"). Islam solves it by saying that Yahweh is a giant invisible sky robot that is everywhere at once.

Now, as people are no longer forced to be Christian, they can be whatever the fuck they want. This is why you end up with silly shit like Wicca and Discordianism. Most people do not leave Christianity without first becoming an atheism of some form. As Abrahamic religions are inherently foreign to the majority of people on this planet, they then seek out some form of Paganism. Nova Roma, Asatru, Kemetism, Celtic Reconstruction, Dodekatheism, and so on and so forth are the most common in the West (Wicca is not a real religion). Do not that just because these are the most common doesn't mean there are a lot of Pagans running around, the actual numbers are quite small.

But the practitioners are still fundamentally atheists. At their core, they do not believe in their gods' much like how the majority of Christians do not actually believe in Yahweh. This raises the question of "LIKE EL EM AY OH DO YOU LIKE SERIOUSLY BELIEVE IN THOR XD". But (Reconstructed) Pagans have a fourth option to the "If 'x' is real then where is he?" question. That Thor isn't an actual entity per say, but rather an anthropomorphization of a given set of morals, principles, ideals, natural forces. This fourth option does not work with Abrahamic religions for a variety of reasons that are really not important.

tl;dr It's a cop out so you can be a FIRECE VIKING WARRIOR while still being euphoric and enlightened by your own battleaxe instead of some phony desert sand god.

[Anonymous No.6792116]

>>6792092
Being Enlightened by my own battleaxe sounds pretty rad tbh.

Time to become an Asatruar I guess.

[Anonymous No.6792134]

>>6792116
My tone in that post might have been a bit mocking, so I must apologize if so. I might just be a bit pessimistic about modern Western polytheism given 16/2chan's /asatru/ doing what you would expect a chan board to do when it comes to making a religion. That is, completely and utterly nothing.

[Anonymous No.6792161]

>>6792092
God (the One) is a cosmic force.
Hermes (born of himself, through his Father) is the mind of the One, and acts as a psychopomp, a bridge between this world and the next.
Humanity, at its most virtuous and self-aware, is at least as high as the highest daemons (which would be the pagan gods), but showing respect to these beings is still good.

I legitimately believe in God, as described in the Corpus Hermeticum, Discourses of Horus to Isis, and Asclepius.

I also think Christianity is a totally valid religious tradition and is like 95% right from a theological standpoint.

[Anonymous No.6792168]

>>6791815
Aquinas actually works better if arguing for multiple gods. When he talks about the first mover naturally there should be a mover before god which would be another god and so on and so on

[Thomas No.6792174]

>>6792168
Well, no, because you're applying the rules of the created onto the Creator. An endless chain of Gods just doesn't make sense

[Anonymous No.6792237]

>>6792168
No? The mover is unmoved due to being absolute in every way.

[no caps guy !!6P/WhzicJTl No.6792617]

>>6792080
i'm thinking about converting, but it's complicated. i'm looking at the eastern orthodox church atm, no relation to the thread its honestly a coincidence

[no caps guy !!6P/WhzicJTl No.6792635]

>>6792075
pretty sure i'll always "dabble in eastern stuff" even if i do convert. its just too dank

[Anonymous No.6792644]

>>6792617
Why is it complicated? And why is inane Eastern stuff 'dank'?

[no caps guy !!6P/WhzicJTl No.6792665]

>>6792644
it's not inane, their metaphysics is top notch. im still very new to this stuff tho

it's complicated for a variety of mostly internal reasons (intellectual, emotional, spiritual). too much to go into, and honestly something i should resolve myself.

are yoy a practicing christian? if so with which church are you associated?

[Anonymous No.6792726]

>>6792665
Lapsed Anglican. I don't practice anymore and haven't for ages, I just word my posts aggressively to elicit quick responses.

Briefly fell back into Christianity recently and was considering the Eastern Orthodox Church too. They trump their intellectuals/apologists up a lot but honestly a lot of it reads like stuff you'd expect from evangelical nutcases (Seraphim Rose, I'm looking at you). They're fucking clueless when it comes to interfaith dialogue, too (tried to put the Bhagavad Gita on trial in Russia, dead serious). I prefer their view of the afterlife, though.

I'm in the process of looking at 'Eastern stuff' too. Barely scratched the surface but it's interesting.

It's complicated for me, too. There are things I admire about Christianity and things that repulse me in equal measure.

[Anonymous No.6792738]

>>6791815
>Are there any arguments for polytheism?
Not really. All polytheists are actually monotheists at heart; as in, they acknowledge the existence of the omnipotent, omniscient creator God.

Polytheists worship lesser beings to gain favors and 'powers'. Basically, it's just demon worship and/or crude magic, not really a religion per se.

[Anonymous No.6792739]

>>6791815
no, Occam's Razor

[Anonymous No.6792771]

>>6792738
>demon worship and/or crude magic
>not really a religion per se
that's all religion, mate.

[no caps guy !!6P/WhzicJTl No.6792819]

>>6792726
>and things that repulse me in equal measure.
their concept of "sin", to name one thing, i find to be very flawed. i prefer the eastern (this seems to be shared by multiple traditions) preference of looking at what the west would call "sin" as fault or imperfection. in general hinduism seems to be more nuanced and far more 'objective'.

ofcourse, conversion to hinduism isnt even a thing

[Anonymous No.6792831]

>>6792161
How do you reconcile Hermeticism (which is similar to Gnosticism) with Christianity?

[Anonymous No.6792847]

>>6792092
>As Abrahamic religions are inherently foreign to the majority of people on this planet
Yeah no, Abrahamic religions are about 50% of world population and Islam in particular is quickly growing.
Not the point of you argument but something to note

[Anonymous No.6792857]

>>6792771
this
'demon worship and crude magic' are labels indoctrinates of one religion will use to delegitimize indoctrinates of another religion. Like calling Japs subhuman degenerates.

>>6792738
>all polytheists acknowledge jesus

Haha

[Anonymous No.6792860]

The Gods are anthropomorphic reifications. They're a method of understanding and aligning oneself with a higher reality of the unreal.

A God is nothing more than a platonic Form, but given a human face. To ask "what would the God of Justice do?" is exactly the same as asking "what is Justice?" The advantage in giving it a human face lies in allowing us to merge with it through inhabitation.

By placing a human face on an ideal and revering it, we learn to embody the ideal and have a deep respect for the rich spectrum of human experience and the natural world. This is a healthy way of experiencing the world.

If we see all the competing facets of reality as "brother spirits" acting with their own purposes as though they were human, it is a great peace.

[Anonymous No.6792878]

>>6792771
>that's all religion, mate.
No, not really. A religion is an honest attempt to understand 'the meaning of life' and Man's place in the Universe.

Polytheist cults make no such attempt. They're just a collection of magic tricks for getting sex, vanquishing enemies, making money, etc.

[Anonymous No.6792904]

>>6792878
I bet those personalized made up definitions are real comfy huh buddy

[Anonymous No.6792905]

>>6792878
Christians are such plagiarizing disingenuous cocksuckers.

I get a secret pleasure every Easter knowing it is, always has been, and will always be Eostre's Furry Bunny Orgy Spring Fuck Like Rabbits Day.

[Anonymous No.6792912]

>>6792091
No, I don't

[Anonymous No.6792915]

If you can believe in a single god, there is no reason why you can't believe in more than one of them.

A unique god seems much less likely than gods being an entire class of entity. Same goes for universes by the way. This universe might have been created by a single entity, but it seems highly unlikely that there would only be one such entity creating universes.

[The cats No.6792917]

>>6792905
I never see anyone mention Eostre it's always muh solstice. High five anon

[Anonymous No.6792925]

>>6792860
This is actually a good way to look at things. I might have to use this latter.

[Anonymous No.6792951]

>>6792819
>in general hinduism seems to be more nuanced and far more 'objective'.
Can you elaborate?

[Anonymous No.6792962]

>believing in multiple Gods
>not acknowledging our living, breathing God, Tao Lin.

[no caps guy !!6P/WhzicJTl No.6792978]

>>6792951
im going to sleep now, maybe tomorrow. their relationship to the concept of 'sin' which i already mentioned, is one example

[Anonymous No.6792989]

>>6792978
>going to sleep now
Where the hell do you live?

[no caps guy !!6P/WhzicJTl No.6792993]

>>6792989
in jewland

[Anonymous No.6792998]

>>6792857
I never mentioned Jesus anywhere, you assclown. One can be a monotheist without believing int Jesus. (Example: Muslims.)

Also, 'demon' isn't a derogatory word per se; it's only derogatory if you're a Christian.

[Anonymous No.6793010]

>>6792904
>I bet those personalized made up definitions are real comfy huh buddy
They're not personalized, merely logical. If you go by your definition of religion as a belief in the supernatural, then horoscopes and tilting your controller while playing a racing videogame are religions. They're obviously not.

Think about it: try to define 'religion' in a way that would exclude beliefs in horoscopes, Smith's 'Invisible Hand' and black FEMA helicopters.

[Anonymous No.6793017]

>>6792993
Geneva?
>>6792998
You're correct with your report on monotheism, but Muslims do in fact believe in Jesus as a prophet.

[Anonymous No.6793033]

>>6792998
I was mocking you because your idiocy doesn't merit proper refutation

haw haw haw

>>6793010
>not personalized
show me the source you pulled from

[Anonymous No.6794119]

>>6792168
That's exactly what Aquinas is arguing against, faggot.

[WOLFSHIEM !!tuOwy1ct2dy No.6794181]

>>6791815
If you define god is a specific way, then yes. But in any meaningful way, no.

[WOLFSHIEM !!tuOwy1ct2dy No.6794279]

>>6792905
>Easter
>plagarizing
The Christian Easter, which was basically their passover, was originally called Pascha and all languages that celebrate it besides English and German derive their word from it from Pascha. The easter celebrations which include bunnies and eggs are just leftovers from Christians celebrating their holiday the same time pagans celebrated theirs. It merged into what we have today. No non-christian cares about the resurrection and no non-christian cares about the harvest, they just hand out bunnies and colored eggs.

[Thomas No.6794295]

>>6794181
Very put.

[WOLFSHIEM !!tuOwy1ct2dy No.6794307]

>>6792905
>>6794279
And it wasn't a day about sexuality either, it was a celebration about the season. This is like that fucking stupid Ishtar/Easter thing.

[Anonymous No.6794362]

If you think most ancient polytheists believed in their personification gods in the same literal sense that modern monotheists do you may be a total fucking idiot.

[Anonymous No.6794385]

>>6791815
yes, satan's got a few

[Anonymous No.6794395]

>>6794307
>All these other religions had God's with stories line Jesus', so Christianity is false!
>Don't you think that's going a bit far off of faulty premises and inaccurate information? I mean, Christianity doesn't even claim that this kind of similarity is at all signif-
>HAHA FUCKING BLIND CHRISTFAG PLAGIARISTS XD ALEX

[WOLFSHIEM !!tuOwy1ct2dy No.6794411]

>>6794362
For the sake of the thread, please elaborate on this.

[Anonymous No.6794425]

>>6791815
Pansychism + Ecology & Astronomy = Polytheism.

Idealism + Jungian ideas about collective unconscious = Polytheism.

[Anonymous No.6794428]

>>6794395
A Christian-brains meltdown in action.
Sorry brah. Rabbits and eggs are ancient fertility symbols, Eostre is a Spring fertility goddess, and Easter is fornication day.

[Thomas No.6794433]

>>6794428
And Christianity did well to sublate it and make it a holy day instead.

[Anonymous No.6794444]

>>6792086
basically the bible mentions the existence of other 'gods', for lack of a better term, but says that they are really just higher beings. It mentions in exodus that the gods of egypt will be judged along with it's people. I take it how buddhism see's gods. These beings are powerfull, but they're not supreme in the sense that they deserve worship, nor are they immortal, They just have incredibley long lives.

[Anonymous No.6794473]

>>6792092
>But the practitioners are still fundamentally atheists. At their core, they do not believe in their gods' much like how the majority of Christians do not actually believe in Yahweh. This raises the question of "LIKE EL EM AY OH DO YOU LIKE SERIOUSLY BELIEVE IN THOR XD". But (Reconstructed) Pagans have a fourth option to the "If 'x' is real then where is he?" question. That Thor isn't an actual entity per say, but rather an anthropomorphization of a given set of morals, principles, ideals, natural forces. This fourth option does not work with Abrahamic religions for a variety of reasons that are really not important.
>tl;dr It's a cop out so you can be a FIRECE VIKING WARRIOR while still being euphoric and enlightened by your own battleaxe instead of some phony desert sand god.

This is a good point, and I seriously doubt that your average Anglo-Saxon, Nord, or Greek distinguished between literal and anthropomorphic aspects of their gods.

>>6794428
Eostre is connected with dawn, not fertility. Frige was the Anglo-Saxon goddess connected with fertility.

[Anonymous No.6794498]

>>6794473
ishtar is a version of astarte who eas the base for aphrodite, who had fertility aspects, but you're right in that eostre did not.

[Anonymous No.6796211]

Yes

[Anonymous No.6796261]

>>6792168
>first mover
>first

[Anonymous No.6797449]

Very few of the ancients, whether they be Mesopotamian, Egyptian or Hindu, were polytheist - in fact, they were consciously monotheist.

I will lay this down in Neoplatonic terms. The One, which is beyond Being, is symbolized by the ineffable waters in almost all mythologies. This is God in His transcendent aspect.

Out of this water, the light of Nous sprang forth. This is God in His immanent aspect.

The One is beyond Being, it is the attributeless Brahman, the Dao that cannot be named.

The gods, residing in the realm of Nous, are the ontological masks of The One, which we may call the Platonic Forms. These intelligences were depicted by the ancients symbolically.

The gods manifest their power in the realm of Psyche, which is the blueprint for our physical realm. The body corresponds to the physical realm, the soul to Psyche and the Spirit to Nous. This is why it is said that man is made in the image of God.

Enlightenment means ascending to the realm of Nous, the soul uniting with the Spirit. This is called Self-realization, or Gnosis. When the Spirit unites with The One, it is called God-realization, or Henosis.

Self-realization precedes God-realization, and this is exactly why the gods were worshipped and identified with - so that the image may return to it's archetype.

God has intermediraies in all "monotheistic" religions, whether they be angels, prophets or nature herself.

[Anonymous No.6797453]

wanting to be a special snowflake

[Anonymous No.6797486]

>>>/x/
>>>/x/
>>>/x/
>>>/x/

[« 零 » !Ry9.FWKNDY No.6797569]

>>6791815

THAT IS A MORONIC QUESTION; THERE CAN BE "ARGUMENTS" FOR, OR AGAINST, ANYTHING, AND EVERYTHING; TRUTH IS NOT CONTINGENT ON INTELLECTUAL FACTORS, NOR DOES IT ORIGINATE FROM THE INTELLECTUAL.

[Anonymous No.6797576]

>>6797569
OK, THANKS MAN
YOU GOING TO THE BIG GAME TOMORROW?

[Anonymous No.6797633]

>>6797569
what is truth contingent on and whence does it originate?

[no caps guy !!6P/WhzicJTl No.6798587]

>>6797449
this post
>>6797569
>not basking in the light of the pure intellect
>>6797576
lmao

[Anonymous No.6799765]

>>6792831
Hermeticism is much more world-positive than Christian Gnosticism. In fact, it's moreso than Christianity. The Asclepius states that Man was made as spirit and animal so that he could experience the joy of communion with God and the joy of experiencing life on Earth, growing food and eating it, etc.

Hermeticism is like gnosticism in that it seeks gnosis, but different in that gnosis isn't an escape from a hellish prison created by a devil.

[Anonymous No.6799890]

Animisms: Every physical and mental thing has a vital force
Paganisms: There are vital forces that can intercede on our behalf
Mysticisms: The vital forces are the real substance of the universe, not the physical forces
Monotheisms: The many perceived vital forces are actually one total force/at the control of one original vital force
Pantheisms: The physical forces and the vital forces are one total, completely interconnected phenomenon

[Anonymous No.6799988]

>>6794473
It's worth noting that my comment only pertains to modern Paganism, I'm sure in the ancient era people thought of Mara and Zeus and Thor in both the "ever present sky man" form and the "literal physical entity". Hell, maybe the anthropomorphized way as well. But we don't have any confirmation on any of that as all of the pagan apologetics were lost/destroyed.

>>6797449
No, they were polytheists. Mass Yahweh worship did not begin until Christianity came about.

[Anonymous No.6799995]

>>6797569
take your meds rei

[Anonymous No.6800154]

>>6799890
Well, that's weird. By that logic I'm all of those aside from a pantheist, and maybe that in a limited sense.

[Anonymous No.6800376]

>>6791815
does it matter?

[Anonymous No.6800402]

>>6800154
Pantheistic views swallow up, as it were, and tend to reconcile the previous views, which developments of each other (with the exception of mystic cults and monotheism developing contemporaneously).