Reddit reviews A World Full of Gods: An Inquiry into Polytheism
We found 10 Reddit comments about A World Full of Gods: An Inquiry into Polytheism. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
Used Book in Good Condition
Your choice ultimately is not so much about the old gods vs christianity as much as it is deciding between monotheism and polytheism. I suggest you spend some time examining how you think the world really functions and what purpose the gods serve. These are the big questions, and you don't have to answer them right now.
If you're up for a book I'd reccomend https://www.amazon.com/World-Full-Gods-Inquiry-Polytheism/dp/0976568101 John Greer's "A world full of gods". It's biased towards the polytheistic side, but it explains the mindset of having many deities and goes through some of the common arguments posited against theism in general.
Also, don't stress yourself out and get in a rush to pick something. The gods (however many you decide on ;) aren't going anywhere.
Okay so:
Read our FAQ first if you haven't. This will help orient you to our site here.
Read through Seeking. While you already have an interest on a cultural background, it is useful to explore more information for someone getting into Pagan religious practice.
I really recommend picking up a copy of John Michael Greer's A World Full of Gods: An Inquiry Into Polytheism, where you can find it used cheaply. If you're coming from a non-polytheistic background it helps orient you towards that.
Now, the next question is: which Celtic religion? This is a lot more nuanced than people think. What I'm going to do is assume that you mean Gaelic/Irish Celtic, because that's what most people who aren't in relevant fields of study think of when they think of Celtic. Assuming you meant Irish, the following are useful sources that are all pretty standard and good:
All of these are pretty standard for initial inquiry.
If I assumed wrong, and you're interested in the other two big Celtic traditions that are out there (Brythonic and Gaulish), I'll dig sources up for those, too.
>I know I want to be a polytheist... [but] I am afraid to make them personal, because it's difficult to put gods inside of my secular and more scientific worldview... It makes my spirituality distant and impersonal
That was almost exactly my position a few months back. If you're new to the sub and didn't see my thread then you should look at the responses I got. Even though none if them really hit the hammer on the nail, at least given what I know now.
Just to clarify my background and compare our situations, I'll summarize. I was a huge atheist and read r/atheism about everyday, alongside watching debates on youtube. It's easy to trash religion to yourself like that (and paint it with a broad brush, instead of saying "monotheism), until you realize how much religion adds to life. Since atheism was too dry, I then adopted naturalistic pantheism and eventually the Neopagan variety of it which introduces historic deities in the way you seem to have alluded to. But like you say, that practice is very different than polytheist practice, and I felt pretty jealous that those people got to do things like leave offerings but I couldn't. On the naturalistic view you can leave "offerings" of water to a tree, which is really just watering the tree and saying a prayer over it, but it makes no sense on that view to leave offerings of wine to a Jungian archetype/distant inanimate object of the universe like the sun. There's no personal relationship there like the religious always claim to be thriving in, and it just seems ti be doing it wrong in my opinion now.
Since I was in the group of not having any religious experiences to begin believing (though now I have a few under my belt), I was lost and desperate. Now some naturalistic Pagans will tell you they remedy the situation by "suspending disbelief" at will, in that they'll become a polytheist for the duration of the ritual and then return to materialism afterward. That seems very hard to do succesfully. So the answer is to "suspend disbelief", permanently and accept the belief at all times, incorporating it into your worldview. The main reason for this is the same reason why you want to become a polytheist, in that it has practical benefits for your religious life. This epistemic technology is called "pragmatism", and is actually an academically respected philosophy with a rich and influential history. William James promised it was the end-all solution to the religion debate.
But having such a drastic change in belief based on pragmatism alone can perhaps be just as hard as that momentarily suspending of disbelief. There are ways to make it easier. One is to strip away as much of the negative baggage you may have with polytheism to get to the bare bones of what view you need. That is that the gods are just disembodied consciousnesses that interact with humans. Understanding more of what that means makes it easier to accept, such as reading up on the arguments against physicalism. This may be enough to push you over.
Another important point is that as [you are] an atheist who still goes through the motions of being a "polytheist". If it turns out the gods do exist but that you treat them like they're "manifestations of the universe" as opposed to actual people, then they won't respond to you, whereas if you treat them like people then they have a greater chance of responding. If it turns out they don't exist then you practiced a fulfilling religion anyways. It's essentially polytheist Pascal's Wager.
The last move is to bring in a rational argument for polytheism. The community favorite there is John Michael Greer's A World Full of Gods, and this is what pushed me over, though the above wager and pragmatism would've done it anyways.
> FYI magick is part of my spiritual practice, but as stated above, it's complicated.
Psychological, isn't it. That's not meant to be condescending, as that's what I practice under too. :P
Once I had similar questions and I found JMG's book "A world full of gods" - if you can, give it a read. It convinced me in my doubts.
https://www.amazon.com/World-Full-Gods-Inquiry-Polytheism/dp/0976568101
I really recommend this book for you. It deals very accessibly with the various philosophical ramifications of mono vs polytheism and I personally found it to be rich in thought and analysis. warning: its perspective is run through with interpretations that support the author's ADF background.
As for a personal response, u/hrafnblod said my piece better than I could have done. I'm a polytheist (there is no "hard" or "soft" for me personally, there is only that which is and that which is not) because my experiences have led me to that belief, and the plurality of gods has manifested itself to me in ways that hold me back both from atheism and from classical monotheism.
To try and answer the "where to go from here" part, it should be a two step operation: continuing with the offerings and getting into a good rhythm with that, and reading. To provide some guidance on the latter, I'll give you the following triad. Three things an aspiring Brigid devotee should start with: Tairis' CR site to study the context in which Brigid should be worshipped, The Rites of Brigid: Goddess & Saint to understand the cult of Brigid historically, and A World Full of Gods to help you understand polytheism as a recent ex-atheist.
Tough one. First, understand that most Hellenists have a strict no proselytize policy so you wont see us trying to convince people at random that our world-view is valid. However, since you are clearly looking on you own, I'd be happy to recommend the following to help get you started.
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https://hellenicfaith.com/
https://www.patheos.com/pagan
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And here are a few books that helped me out in my journey:
"World Full of Gods"
https://www.amazon.com/World-Full-Gods-Inquiry-Polytheism/dp/0976568101
"Kharis: Hellenic Polytheism Explored"
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/143823192X/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
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And very much this one as well:
"The Darkening Age"
https://www.amazon.com/Darkening-Age-Christian-Destruction-Classical/dp/0544800885/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=dark+ages+christianity&qid=1563748459&s=books&sr=1-3
I highly recommend the book A World Full of Gods. It gives a good explanation about pagan theology.
For an introduction, I recommend A World Full of Gods and Paganism: An introduction to Earth Centered Religions. Hope this helps :)
>What makes you think your religion is the correct one?
That's a tricky question. I do not believe my religion is the correct one, because I do not believe in a "one correct religion". I think it's a contradiction in terms. I believe in my religion because I feel at home in it, because the myths speak to me and resonate with me.
____
However, I do believe that some religions are more complete and more correct than others (with no one religion reaching 100%) Having said that, I can answer now.
I am a polytheist. I believe in many gods and goddesses. (This does not exclude some transcendent unity that is the source of everything, but does not mean only that unity should be worshiped) As I said, this was the religious form that prevailed before the rise of monotheism.
When something is true, we can see it manifest in multiple, converging ways. (Like evolution. The fossil record, genetics, anatomy, geography,etc. all come together and point to evolution. A different sort of example is how all fast-moving swimming animals are torpedo-shaped, whether dolphin, tuna, or ichthyosaur fish-lizard.) Something similar is at work with polytheism. If you look at religions in most places and times, you will see polytheism or animism (which are not mutually exclusive). What you will absolutely not see is monotheism. You will not find monotheism unless monotheists introduced it first. This does not line up with monotheism. Surely a god who cared that everyone worshiped him would make sure everyone knew about him. We'd see either one religion everywhere, or seemingly-independently evolved monotheistic religions everywhere. But we see neither of these things. We say many different religions.
The many problems of monotheism (problem of evil, problem of inconsistent revelation, etc.) that theologians spend much ink fighting are not problems in polytheism at all--- in fact, they are expected.
It also lines up better with human psychology. Even the Hebrew Bible shows people continually turning away from the one god to worship other gods.
In other words: Polytheism lines up a lot better with how people work and how the world actually is, with its evil, its many religions,etc.
(Book Recommendation: "A World Full of Gods: An Inquiry Into Polytheism" by John Michael Greer )