"'Stop the goddamned mules!' Jeremy McCladden screamed...
"What he'd actually said was: damned by the Gods mules." (p. 85)
So that could have been: godsdamned mules.
There is a ritual in Lancaster where we chant, "Grant gods send us a thumping good crop." However, if some among us chant, "Grant God send...," there is no way to hear the difference.
I knew a Unitarian who appreciated Marcus Aurelius' Meditations. He commented, "He says, 'the gods,' you know, but you could easily replace that with 'God.'" I would no longer make that substitution, now regarding the gods as traditional and mythical. I can in good conscience invoke gods or Bodhisattvas, understood as personifications, because no one insists that we recite a creed affirming their literal existence.
The two ways from polytheism to monotheism are: "There is only one god" and "All gods are one." But many gods remain in myth and literature. The time travellers would get used to referring to them. Manse Everard of the Time Patrol finds that they are a miserly lot.
2 comments:
Many Classical philosophers were dissatisfied with the traditional pagan Gods -- they acted too much like a bunch of barbarian chiefs on a mountaintop! They anticipated modern Hinduism, where serious thinkers regard the Gods as aspects of One God, while the bulk of worshipers don't.
Kaor, Paul!
Exactly, what Stirling said above, many educated Romans of Marcus Aurelius' time were dissatisfied with the childish and primitive polytheism exemplified by the Olympians. Some, because of Plato and Aristotle, were philosophic monotheists. Others were attracted by Jewish monotheism and ethics and became God Fearers. All of which would encourage the spread of Christianity.
Ad astra! Sean
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