Thousands of Gods have practically died in our imaginations. The pantheons of the Egyptians, the Greeks and Romans, the Norse, the ancient Japanese, the ancient Chinese...their Gods have died as the followers gave way to the imperialistic and even more intangible faiths. Now, the Gods of this world are beings of another plane, they no longer walk amongst men, they no longer affect the hearts and minds of men like the Gods of Old.

People of ancient times carried out actions to appease their Gods...now people carry out actions and give credit or blame their Gods. As our knowledge of this world has increased, people have cast away the Gods of the past in favor of intangible and ultimately useless Gods. Gods of the current times are there simply to give comfort to the scared and enslaved.

What people need to realize is that Gods are not existent beings, they are muses to the human mind; their legends are to inspire us towards greatness, towards a stronger humanity.

The Dead Gods were symbolic of the things we humans strive for, they were a representation of the full array of humanity. The Living Gods are half of humanity, at best...they either represent only the Good, or pretty much nothing at all. The Dead Gods were not something to worship, but something to strive towards.

Those who sought wisdom could find a muse for their life in Odin, a God who gave a part of his physical being to obtain wisdom...it represented the human action of sacrificing physical strength in search of knowledge. Those who seek love could find a muse in Venus, a Goddess who valued her lovers above all else...she representing the reckless abandon that love instills. The Dead Gods should live in our imaginations once again, as to inspire us with their legends, and to restore a balance to the life of humanity. Only the Dead Gods can represent the full spectrum of human nature...the Living Gods reflect a being only half human, an incomplete being.

Those who seek balance, look towards the past for inspiration. You need not believe the Dead Gods physically exist, but let them dwell in your minds, and let them inspire you to be complete. Feel no shame in who you are; the civilizations of old believed in these Dead Gods because they were icons of what humanity truly is. Christianity says God is Love, Judaism says God is Law, Islam says God is Fury...they show only a segment of humanity in their beliefs, which ultimately restricts who we are. Let your humanity show in full; learn from the Dead Gods, or humanity will eventually die as well.

I totally agree with you. The idea of "god" was created to ease the human mind. Ancient man needed comfort (so does modern man, as religion still exists), the belief that there was a heavenly, all-knowing being looking out for them. People needed to believe that there would be a better life after this one, that was a comforting thought (who wouldn't be comforted by that?). Man created god, not the other way around.

Wow, that's the first thing I've written while completely stoned that still seems decent now that I'm straightened up.

Social Junker, you missed the point.

Optimus Prime, I agree with you about 90%. The 10% that I have dissonance over is the idea that they were created from without. You said yourself that these Dead Gods (though I don't truly believe they are 'dead' in the common use, I will use this term to avoid confusion) held common, parallel, and almost synonymous representations across cultures such as Egypt, China, Greece, Rome, Britain, Celtic lands, Palestine, Scandinavia, Japan, Babylon, Aztec nations, and Native American tribes. Don't you think that these few examples of the multitude of cultures across the globe, having in their fundamental principles identical themes and motifs, indicates that it is NOT the invention of a select few, but an automatic conclusion to the surrounding world?

Read Ego and Archetype by Edward Edinger, then read Revolt Against the Modern World by Julius Evola, then read Psychology and Alchemy by Jung, and then come and then talk to me about what man 'creates.'

Otherwise, you're right on the money. A one-sided God that creates the whole of the world but hates half of it is far from a complete God.

SST

The reason I believe the Gods all had identical themes and purpose is that they were created to represent every facet of humanity. The Gods were there to justify the follower's human nature.

My dead gods will not receive appeasement from me, nor do they seek it.

I won't bow down to them, and that's the key to my new-found empowerment.

If the human mind inherently seeks comfort and invents gods to provide it, why do athiests exist? And if that is the case, are athiests the victims of some kind of mental illness, since they do not seek to do that which is, apparently, inherent in humans?

The reason I believe the Gods all had identical themes and purpose is that they were created to represent every facet of humanity. The Gods were there to justify the follower's human nature.

Bullshit. Wouldn't the gods represent purely natural elements, then? I can't imagine not knowing anything about the universe and, upon looking at the sun, thinking "chariot" or "person being chased by a wolf" instead of "circle of light."

Besides, how can humans of all different backgrounds, of all different kinds of environments, produce mythology of similar metaphorical significance - relatively simultaneously, no less?

And for that matter, how can all these humans simultaneously produce similar mythology that not only has symbolism with human conflicts, but unconsciously psychological allegories and scientific synonymity?

Moreover, how do they not only simultaneously produce similar mythology of metaphoral, psychological, social, and scientific significance, but also using the same SYMBOLS to represent the same PRINCIPLES?

Easy: the source of inspiration was NOT human, but beyond the five meager senses we have.

There's that possibility, but I believe the simultaneous creation of the ancient religions to be a part of the development of the human mind. Symbols mean relatively the same thing across different cultures due to how the mind works. Red is the color of blood, passion, and fury amongst almost all cultures because of how the color interacts with our minds; it instills a thirst for blood, a passion, and a fury in almost all humans. It's a horrendous, beautiful, and infuriating color at the same time for likelu 98% of humans (It is theorized that severe differences in thought process exist in about 1/50 of humans; the mentally retarded and those at the peak of intelligence have similar thought processes that differ from the more common one, and happen to be 2% of the population). If the vast majority of humans have the same process of thinking, the same mental reactions to the same stimuli, then similarities in symbols are gauranteed to happen.

The Gods are all similar and represent similar facets of humanity because 98% of humans think the same way. 98% of humans can easily participate in deductive logic, whilst roughly 2% have an affinity for both deductive and inductive logic. If 98% are all deductive thinkers, then their conclusions are likely to be similar (hence shit like America, where the two political parties are practically the same with only the miniscule fringes having severely different opinions). Sorry for rambling on, I forgot what I was talking about. I have half a bottle of vodka and sevelal beers in me.