This post can be seen a continuation of our historical and archaeological posts which focused on ethics and spiritual traditions. It is clear that we do not espouse either any form of 'theism' nor on the other hand any form of physicalism. We made ethics and the philosophical-scientific spirit the corner-stone of what we could call a 'higher culture'. We argued that some of the best aspects of 'modernity' where in fact very ancient. Here we give a further account of what we are to think of 'gods'. To view 'gods' as a symptoms of a degeneration and decay of human culture, or as embodying a crude preliminary pre-scientific explanation of nature, it too simplistic and shallow. It is true that in certain cultures 'gods' often express the lowest and most grotesque aspects of that culture itself, its word-view and its values. But it is not so much the question of 'bad gods' but of the badness of the very concept of god. Tear the mask from a god and you find (no matter how monstrous the mask) a human being and human weakness, fear, prejudice and greed. There is no reason why historical male gods are any less crude and absurd than female gods - not any reason to think that the cultures and peoples that made them exhibit any essential moral and spiritual difference. Be this as it may, let us now turn to a vastly different theory of an underlying original unity of theology, mythology, poetry, literature and art. The true god, and true gods, are found in the spiritual consciousness and experience we have with other human beings and living forms in this world. That is to say, in the divinity and numinosity perceived in persons, in the experience and relationships of each human being. This experience is then transfigured and universalized by art and becomes poetry and literature. The spiritual path can be the subject of inspired narrations and inspired narrations can help along the spiritual path. To put it simply: there are no true gods except truly wonderful characters in literature. There is no genuine sophia or divine feminine except in the ideal yet humanized female characters of inspired literature and art. Art is the aether, the pleroma, the true 'mother of the gods' which exists only in consciousness. Poets can preserve irrefutable traces of higher more ancient states of culture (just as they do linguistically) in which women were treated as equals. The authentic Sophia, the divine feminine, is simply a term for a process in which the artist (which can of course also be a woman) being acquainted with a noble, refined, cultivated, accomplished, heroic or otherwise admirable woman, gives her an idealized, timeless, universal life. We find this in Homer and Sophocles - and doublessly so many real-life Hypatias, Antigones and Diotimas have tragically been forgotten. The same goes for ancient Persia (Aredvi Sura Anahita is obviously a reflection of the cultured high-ranking woman in ancient Persian society - and the same was probably true originally for Ishtar and Isis - a figure clearly appropriated by the authors of the 'wisdom literature' of the Old Testament, not ruling out a massive later Hellenistic influence as well, specially the Stoic world soul), ancient Ireland and Wales (Étaín is at once the most real and the most rich and interesting of mythological characters, the Mabinogion treats the gods as historical figures), ancient Japan (the fact that there is both a Amaterasu Omikami - recalling the Vedic Ushas - and Sei Shōnagon is no coincidence) even the stories of woman followers of the Buddha in the Pali suttas (cf. the Therigata) - and so much more could be said were our knowledge of the ancient world not so scant and fragmentary. In summary the true gods and goddesses are not pre-scientific anthropomorphized 'cosmic principles' but idealized representations of real men and women who attained higher states of virtue, creativity and knowledge of reality - like the bodhisattva characters in the Avatamsaka Sutra. The inspired ideal work of art can of course be corrupted (if not in its artistic merit, were we have a kind of soap-opera Olympus) and put in the service of priestcraft and the religious concept of god, the gods of fertility, war, conquest and punishment we are all too familiar with. Thus gods are not themselves explanations but a celebrations of real persons who sought for (and often found) knowledge. In particular the true goddesses were the celebrations of the remarkable minds and hearts of real women, not pre-scientific anthropomorphic superstitions (which in the worse cases reflect a reduction of women to sexual and reproductive roles: this tragically continues in the bias of modern scholarship which should abandon the fixation on the 'earth mother' and pay more attention to the sun goddess, the sky goddess, the goddess of wisdom and power, which are older and more authentic, because the reflect higher forms of actual human experience, such as Dante's). There are some interesting points that could be made about the Eddas, the Icelandic Sagas, about Snorri Sturluson, Asbjørnsen and the brothers Grimm which we cannot go into here. Also about the role of the 'good story' (appropriated from previous literature) in the propagation of Christianity.
Some important points. We should drop the term 'monotheism'. A 'religion' with eight million gods (yaoyorozu no kami) which unconditionally upholds human rights and animal rights - compassion and reverence for all life - is infinitely superior to any murderous, cruel, superstitious, racist, sexist, oppressive 'monotheism' (which historically is just a crude anthropomorphic projection of the tribal war-lord and priest, often with a male appropriation of the 'creative' traits of previous goddesses). We note that the idea that there are beings inhabiting plants (in particular trees and flowers) can be seen as a confused or poetical perception of elevated moral principles.
We have seen thus that 'theology' in its oldest incorrupt form is simply the inspired artistic representation of the qualities and achievements of great men and women, of people of special significance to the experience of the artist. These heroes and heroines are not themselves principles of knowledge but people who sought and gained the principles of knowledge. The loss of this distinction is the beginning of corruption. But there is another important complementary perspective.
The harm and absurdity of ordinary religion consists in particular in 'worshiping', 'fearing' or 'sacrificing' to what could legitimately could only be philosophical principles and laws of reality, and specially anthropomorphizing and gendering them. Think of the absurdity of what would be the ordinary religious worship of the transcendental faculties, the pure a priori concepts and principles in Kant's Critique of Pure Reason (closely resembling the ancient Samkhya system), of the pure mathematical structures upon which modern theoretical physics is based (a Pythagorean development), the henadic system of Proclus' Elements of Theology, or logic itself in its fullest Platonic dialectic conception. Originally the 'gods' considered from this angle can be traced back in high antiquity to pure mathematical and philosophical concepts and principles (the works of Fabre d'Olivet are an historical curiosity with some relevance to this) - and these can indeed by considered as organic and living in the life of consciousness (this is mathematical proof, the scientific method, the philosophical dialectic). These can be the object of, dare we say, quasi-religious silent awe, reverence and love. A proof of original sophisticated is furnished by the mathematical structure of ancient languages such as Paninian Sanskrit or what can be gleaned of proto-Semitic through Akkadian, Aramaic and classical Arabic. While in themselves symbolism, analogy and metaphor are powerful, enriching and valid (hence capable of a legitimate mathematical transposition) - anthropomorphic symbolism is dangerously confusing and misleading, for all the reasons expounded above.
We of course need to discuss the alleged vital social-cohesive function of religion, the relation between religion and nature, and the role of the solar mythos, the cycle of the seasons, the great year. The solar year, the passage of the seasons, can be seen as the universal type of the story, the narrative, the epic poem - indeed the archetype of human experience, human life itself. The unity of artistic creation, community celebration and ritual and the process of nature: social-cohesive natural-yearly mythic festivals represent 'living inside the story'.
There is one important caveat. We should be open to the possibility of other intelligent, sentient beings in other domains of our universe or on other planes of reality. There is no reason to suppose that there could not be positive enriching communication and relationship with such beings. But a 'religious' attitude to such contacts would be the worst thing imaginable. For they are either life-forms with some analogy to ourselves or else they are mistaken perceptions of universal scientific, mathematical or philosophical principles.
From what we have seen above, we leave it to the reader to understand why Christian gnosticism, 'neopaganism' and modern psychoanalysis and transpersonal psychology do not offer a valid spiritual-philosophical path or proper remedy for the harms and errors of traditional religions.
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