In Poul and Karen Anderson's
The King of Ys, gods withdraw, becoming ghosts or goblins - or dead or non-existent? A soldier in the now Christian Roman Empire, seeing the inscribed names of Roman deities, asks whether They still have power here. Yet in Poul Anderson's "A Feast for the Gods" and in many other fictional works, gods remain active now. A version of Thor invades our cinema screens.
Gods withdrawn or gods still active: either seems appropriate but are they not mutually incompatible? No way. Neil Gaiman's Death of the Endless explains that mythologies take a long tome to die and that they linger on in a dream country affecting everyone. That is a relief. In an intergalactic future, Poul Anderson's Hugh Valland tells a child about Thor....
36 comments:
IIRC, the one Hugh Valland tells is the same one Harald Hardrede starts to tell his child in one of the later books of THE LAST VIKING.
Not sure. I think Valland just says he'll tell her about Thor, not that he starts a particular story. The book's upstairs so I might check.
Kaor, Paul!
A Catholic like me simply does not believe any gods, except the One God, exists. All pagan gods are literal nonentities.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
I do not believe that gods literally exist but I am looking for an imaginative framework to incorporate multiple works of fantasy which feature gods as fading away or as still active etc.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Imaginative frameworks are fine, except I can't take Horus, Baal, Asherah, Jupiter, Odin, Thor, the abominable Aztec gods, etc., seriously. The Christian framework makes far more sense, as we see in Dante's DIVINE COMEDY, Chaucer's CANTERBURY TALES, and even in many of Anderson's works.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
The Christian framework makes more sense to Christians. Polytheism appeals to my imagination but not to my intellect. As you know, I have philosophical problems with monotheism.
The imaginative framework that I am talking about is meant to hold together a large number of works of fiction regarded as imaginative fiction. If we switch to talking about what we think the world is really like, then we have moved into the entirely different realm of science hopefully clarified by philosophy.
Paul.
You could call the YS stories metaphorical depictions of how myths grow and decline in power.
When enough people believe in something, it becomes a 'social fact' as real as a rock.
Kaor, Paul and Mr. Stirling!
Paul: Even if you still disagree with Stirling's answers to your objections about God, they satisfied me. Also, philosophy alone can never lead to final/definitive answers to such issues.
As for polytheism, my view is that of Chesterton, who argued in THE EVER-LASTING MAN that the rise of Christianity makes it impossible to take the idea of multitudes of gods seriously. I think even Islam, in its cruder and coarser way, contributed to that.
Imo Hinduism is the last surviving "serious" pagan religion. I mean a polytheist religion whose adherents really believe in their gods.
Mr. Stirling: That is one way of putting it! THE KING OF YS does show how paganism was starting to fade away in the pars Occidens of the Roman Empire. A great historical novel as well!
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Self and other need to be spatially distinct and to exist through a period of time in which they can recognize each other as such.
While conversing with a philosophical materialist, it is not necessary to argue against hard polytheism. Monotheism is not the only worldview from which polytheism does not stack up.
Paul.
If we remove both distance and duration, then what is left of difference?
Sean: oh, I've met polytheists who genuinely believe in Thor. And Zeus, for that matter.
There are deffo hard polies. I think that, if someone formulates an idea or worldview even just as a hypothesis, speculation or fictional premise, then it will be possible to find someone else who latches onto that idea and embraces it as literal truth - even the Flat Earth. I saw ARTHUR C. Clarkes novel, CHILDHOOD'S END, cited as evidence that there are winged humanoid aliens.
What we do not need to do here (unless we want to, of course!) is get into a philosophical discussion of monotheism because gods have been mentioned as characters in works of fiction.
Kaor, Paul and Mr. Stirling!
Paul: Then we have to agree to disagree re "materialism."
Mr. Stirling: After reading the ILIAD and the ODYSSEY, I find it hard to see how anyone can take "those children," as a skeptical Roman put it in THE GOLDEN SLAVE, seriously. And the stories about the Norse gods in the Elder Edda are not much better. Anderson himself, for all the pride he rightly took in his Scandinavian heritage, had no illusions about its paganism, saying it was characterized by "heathen rites obscene or bloody" in HROLF KRAKI'S SAGA. Rites which included human sacrifices.
There were reasons, after all, why the Scandinavians became Christians.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
But you would need to ask some hard polies what they do think and why they think it. Your first problem is finding some. The second question is whether they are willing to talk about it and whether some of them (they will differ) are able to say anything coherent. I would be interested, in the first place, to hear what is said.
To many sceptics, of course, monotheist accounts of reality are not to be taken seriously.
Paul.
An intelligent informed polytheist told me that the Aesir exist but not exactly as described in the Eddas. If I speak to him again, my first job will be to ask more and listen, not to prejudge.
Kaor, Paul!
Drat! I failed to upload a comment.
I tried to google for how many neo-pagans are in the US. One old source has a low of 50,000. Another extreme says several millions, with intermediate figures being 240,000. One source gives a conservative high of about 1,000,000. All this leads me to think people are constantly adopting/abandoning neo-paganism.
Another problem is there being so many different groups, sects, covens, churches of neo-pagans, many of them tiny and frequently splitting up. So it can be confusing figuring out what they believe in.
But if you don't believe in any kind of supernatural haven't you already prejudged?
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
No. My views have changed and can change again - but it will take a lot of evidence, reasoning and argument to do it.
I would be interested to know why someone believed in the Aesir or whatever just as I once asked an adult convert to Catholicism "Why?" and heard her out rather than immediately arguing against what she said. Her reasons were not enough for me.
Paul.
"But if you don't believe in any kind of supernatural haven't you already prejudged?"
No. I consider myself an atheist *pending* better evidence & arguments for god(s) than I have so far encountered. This does not mean I think it impossible that such evidence might exist & I have just not encountered it. Similarly I am a-sasquatchist ;) pending better evidence than some blurry photos.
Jim, right on.
This is a logical point. Those who assert a proposition have an obligation to back it up with some evidence or argument. Those who do not accept a proposition or even (always provisionally) deny it are under no similar obligation to disprove it.
I confidently deny that there is a China tea service in orbit 50 miles beyond Pluto. And I leave it there. In the unlikely event that anyone affirms the existence of such a tea service, then he will be under a very strong obligation to present a lot of evidence for it.
Paul.
Kaor, to both Paul and Jim!
And other philosophers, like the late Mortimer J. Adler, don't agree with either atheism or materialism. If I understand Adler (two of whose books I've read) correctly, good arguments for the existence of God are possible. But not, IMO, for His non-existence. Also, Adler was not a materialist, calling himself a moderate dualist.
As a Catholic I also believe in the possibility of God intervening directly in this world via miracles. No atheist or materialist has ever succeeded in explaining away what happens at Lourdes, for example.
Jim: Pending solid, hard evidence, I too dismiss Big Foot and the Loch Ness monster! (Smiles)
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Of course there are philosophers who disagree with atheism and materialism.
We do not have to prove the non-existence of anything. Someone who makes a positive assertion has to prove it.
We can acknowledge that many phenomena are as yet unexplained. No one should set out to explain away anything. Try to understand and explain, yes. Acknowledge a phenomenon as not yet explained, yes. Interpret any empirical phenomenon as proving a body of doctrines that we have all sorts of other reasons for disagreeing with? No. All those other reasons have to be addressed first.
Paul.
Philosophy is not a single set of ideas or beliefs. It is thought about ideas and beliefs by people who subscribe to different ideas and beliefs. Pointing out that philosophers disagree doesn't establish anything. It is necessary to engage with the disagreements and, most of the time, wind up still disagreeing but hopefully with greater clarity and understanding which is the point of philosophy.
Sean,
Maybe you try to conclude every philosophical exchange with a definitive statement that your point of view is correct? We could all insist on doing that! The basic disagreements remain.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
One of the most catastrophic ideas our time is that nothing is objectively true or factual, and that all opinions are equally valid, which is self contradictory. I have actually seen people claiming there can be no false opinions. I'll list a few examples:
I can be a black racist preaching that white people and Asians are naturally inferior to blacks.
Or I could say it's my opinion that 2 + 2 = 5.
Or I could say it's my opinion that Adolf Hitler was a wise, noble, saintly, and benevolent ruler.
Or Joe Smith could claim that he's not a male but a woman, never mind that his DNA pattern, XY, is male, not the XX of real women. Never mind that he has a beard, and masculine genitals and bone structure, etc.
Insanities like these and too many others to list angers me and many, many others because we know they are objectively false. With respect I cannot bring myself to agreeing that the disagreements people may have with each other are merely unimportant opinions. Not when it comes to matters of objective and scientific fact.
We live in intellectually decadent, irrational, and corrupt times.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Our disagreements are not unimportant opinions but they remain disagreements that will not be resolved easily here.
Objective facts are empirically verifiable. Philosophical theories are not.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
But bad philosophical theories/opinions, if believed in, will have bad consequences--like the belief that nothing is false or objectively true independently of our desires. That is a prime catastrophe of our times.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: the 'reasons' Scandinavians became Christians included a Norwegian king's maxim: "Kiss the Cross, or kiss the axe", and equivalents elsewhere.
And you need to think outside your silo. You may not take polytheism seriously, but some people do. They believe exactly what they say they believe and there are a fair (and increasing) number of them.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Of course! That is why I used "reasons," which would include that bit about "kiss the ax," for why the Scandinavians became Christians. I recall as well Anderson writing in one of his letters to me that pragmatism also motivated many Scandinavians to convert: doing so was the entry ticket needed for joining a new, expanding, and increasingly advanced civilization.
Iow, like all human beings, the Scandinavians had the usual mix of bad, good, indifferent reasons for doing what they did. But, all that said, there were at least as many who converted sincerely, or later came to honestly believe in Christ.
Are there sincere neo-pagans? I am sure there are. So, while I hold them to be just plain wrong, I agree it their choice, if nothing can persuade them otherwise.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
We are all just plain wrong according to someone else!
Beliefs are not chosen. They result from irrational factors like indoctrination or rational factors like experience and argument.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I agree. And some things are just plain wrong, like the transgender folly!
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
But it is no good saying that other religious beliefs are just plain wrong. A lot of people think that Catholicism is just plain wrong in all sorts of ways but we usually try to discuss it by engaging with what believers say.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
No, because some things, like it or not, are wrong. A very simple example was how, in OT times the worshipers of Moloch, pagans and apostate Jews, believed it right to sacrifice infants to that "god."
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Of course some things are wrong but what does that have to with someone whom I have met saying that the Aesir are real? Neither you nor I believes that the Aesir are real but, instead of telling him that he is wrong - and that he has CHOSEN to believe something that is wrong -, the first step is to ask him more about it which I will do when I have an opportunity. I will learn probably not anything about the real world but certainly something about how and why someone who is knowledgeable in more than one field perceives the world very differently from you or me.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Apologies, I was thinking of just the discussion between the two of us. Yes, the first thing a Catholic should do is ask that believer in the Aesir why he thinks like that. To explain what he believes.
The afterword to THE GOLDEN SLAVE gives us Anderson's speculations on the origins of the Aesir.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: some propositions are falsifiable. Some are not.
No proposition is 'true'; some are non-falsifiable, which means currently they're a semantic null set.
Others are -not yet- falsified, and so can be accepted... provisionally.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
As far as that goes, I agree.
However, I do believe in some propositions derived from what I believe from faith to be divine revelation. Such as the doctrines summarized in the Nicene Creed.
Ad astra! Sean
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