What an unhelpful line of thinking.<\/p>\n
On one hand, what Christians do or don\u2019t believe is not my business. On the other hand, Christianity \u2013 especially Protestant Christianity with its doctrine of Sola Scriptura<\/em> \u2013 is still the 800 pound gorilla in Western culture. This line of thinking often bleeds over into other religions and cultures, including our own Paganism and polytheism.<\/p>\n Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that deals with the question of how we know what we know. What is true and what is false, what is more likely and what is less likely, and how we can be confident that what we believe is, if not certainly true, at least reasonable. Epistemology is one of the starting points for building a robust metaphysics<\/a>, our foundational assumptions about the world and how it works.<\/p>\n So rather than rebutting this particular fundamentalist and getting into theological details that don\u2019t concern us, I\u2019d rather use his words as motivation to engage in Pagan and polytheist epistemology.<\/p>\n How do we know what we know \u2013 what we think we know \u2013 about the many Gods?<\/p>\n Humans discussing the nature of the Gods is like a conclave of cats<\/a> discussing the nature of humans. It wouldn\u2019t be totally worthless. Cats are intelligent, and they\u2019ve lived with humans long enough to know a few things about us. But at the end of the day, the proceedings of their conclave would say more about how cats see themselves than about the ultimate nature of humans.<\/p>\n Likewise, we\u2019re intelligent, and we have formed and maintained relationships with many Gods over many years. We know a thing or two about Them. But when it comes to experience and wisdom, the Gods are at least as far beyond us as we are beyond cats. Our theologies say more about how we see ourselves than any absolute truth about the Gods.<\/p>\n With or without holy books, we can know a little about the Gods, but we should never become so arrogant as to think we know all there is to know about Them. Or even all we need to know about Them. That process of discovery, learning, and relationship-building is a work that will be in progress forever. Or, I suppose, until we reach apotheosis<\/a>, which I\u2019m not expecting to do in this lifetime or in any lifetime I can imagine.<\/p>\n Some people aren\u2019t willing to accept that they\u2019re cats. They demand certainty around matters that are inherently uncertain \u2013 things that aren\u2019t just beyond our knowledge, but beyond our ability to know.<\/p>\n This is particularly important in religions that teach believing the \u201cright\u201d things means eternal bliss and believing the \u201cwrong\u201d things means eternal torment. The impossibility of being absolutely certain about something of such importance was one of the main things that convinced me fundamentalism was false.<\/p>\n Humans have had speech for at least a couple hundred thousand years. We\u2019ve had writing for around 5000 years. From a deep time perspective, writing is still the new technology everybody thinks is cool. We value the written word and trust the written word far more than other sources. Sometimes that\u2019s a good thing \u2013 writing is helpful (says the writer). But as anybody who\u2019s ever read a conspiracy theory book or website knows, it\u2019s not always a good thing. No source \u2013 written or otherwise \u2013 can be accepted without careful examination and criticism.<\/p>\n When your whole religion \u2013 including the fate of your soul \u2013 is tied up in a book, you will tend to accept what you read uncritically and rationalize any discrepancies away. Christian fundamentalists demand certainty, even at the cost of their intellectual integrity.<\/p>\n Pagans and polytheists aren\u2019t exempt from this. Sometimes we overvalue our written sources because we live in a culture saturated with Protestant thinking. But other times we fall prey to the same demand for certainty all on our own.<\/p>\n That said, where we have lore \u2013 both written records and oral traditions \u2013 it\u2019s the first way by which we know the Gods.<\/p>\n The stories our ancestors told about the Gods are treasures. We should read them plainly but not literally<\/a>. They are not historical accounts nor are they corrupted history, even though bits of history can often be found in them. They\u2019re myths \u2013 stories that tell us who we are, where we came from, and how we should live. We can learn much about the Gods from the stories we have about Them.<\/p>\n But our ancestors were cats too. Their stories tell us something about the Gods, but mainly they tell us how our ancestors understood Them and related to Them.<\/p>\n Even the historical records we have about how ancient people worshipped the Gods must be interpreted in the context of the place and time where they were written. One of the major errors of fundamentalists \u2013 in any religion \u2013 is mistaking ancient cultural norms for eternal truths. The same Christians who dismiss how the Bible condones slavery as \u201cpart of the culture of that time\u201d still cling to similarly archaic ideas about women and LGBTQ people.<\/p>\n We must not make the same mistakes.<\/p>\n Still, the lore we have about the Gods is invaluable. Read it and study it, in the original language where you can (I can\u2019t) and in as current and as faithful a translation as you can find where you can\u2019t.<\/p>\n Most theistic religions talk about a time when Gods walked with humans. Not all the time, but often enough that encountering a God was a distinct possibility. And now that doesn\u2019t happen anymore\u2026 or so the story goes.<\/p>\n A cynic would say the clergy want to control access to the Gods, and so they say such experiences are no longer possible. Sadly, in many cases that cynic would be right. But a good religion is a living religion, and the Gods who spoke to our ancestors will speak to us, if we will listen.<\/p>\n Sometimes this comes in ecstatic experiences, where a God moves into a person<\/a> and speaks through them. I\u2019ve experienced this a few times \u2013 these are some of the deepest, most meaningful, and most real experiences of my life.<\/p>\n We often call these experiences UPG \u2013 unverified personal gnosis. In doing so, we acknowledge that even the people who were there at the time can\u2019t be sure that was Cernunnos or the Morrigan or whoever it was speaking through the person. And so the messages are only authoritative for those who choose to accept them. But when multiple people in multiple places have similar experiences with similar messages, it lends credibility to the process. And when time proves the truth and wisdom in them, we learn to trust them.<\/p>\n In doing so our religions and the relationships that comprise them are strengthened.<\/p>\n And in the process, we learn a little more about our Gods.<\/p>\n Not everyone has ecstatic experiences. Most people don\u2019t. Yet most if not all of us can have more subtle experiences of our Gods.<\/p>\n We pray and meditate, and we hear a response. Not with our ears, but with our intuition \u2013 especially with our bodies. We make offerings, and we find that a gift is returned for a gift. We live according to the virtues of our Gods, and we find ourselves becoming more and more like Them.<\/p>\n I\u2019m a cat too, and there is much about the Gods I do not know. But I am certain of this \u2013 the Gods have no use for spectacle, or for those who demand it.<\/p>\n But those who seek the Gods and who follow the Gods will learn something important about the Gods in their ordinary experiences.<\/p>\n We don\u2019t have to do this alone. Religion is a group project and it goes better when we do it together. What that looks like in a culture where organized religion is shrinking rapidly in favor of solitary practice remains to be seen. But even if we aren\u2019t gathering together weekly or monthly or seasonally, we can still know things about the Gods from the experiences of others.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve learned a lot about the Morrigan from Morpheus Ravenna<\/a> and from Morgan Daimler<\/a>. I\u2019ve learned a lot about Cerridwen from Kristoffer Hughes<\/a>.<\/p>\n There is no ancient lore about Cernunnos<\/a>, but some of us put our own stories together and created some contemporary lore for Him.<\/p>\n![\"photo](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/243\/2023\/12\/Danu-and-Cernunnos-12.10.23-780x439-1-scaled.jpg\")
<\/a>A conclave of cats<\/h2>\n
![\"photo](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/243\/2018\/09\/Sekhmet-British-Museum.jpg\")
<\/a>A demand for certainty at any cost<\/h2>\n
We know the Gods from the lore<\/h2>\n
We know the Gods from our first-hand experiences of Them<\/h2>\n
![\"painting](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/243\/2022\/09\/Cernunnos-Denton.jpg\")
<\/a>We know the Gods from our ordinary experiences of Them<\/h2>\n
We know the Gods from the experiences of others<\/h2>\n