The Gods Are Not Moral Ideals
                           John Opsopaus

How can one worship Gods who do outrageous things, such as coming to
Leda in the form of a swan?

My first comment is:  Just because some poet or some playwright says Zeus
showed up as an amorous swan doesn't mean that He actually did so.  On the
other hand, just because such an epiphany strikes us as incongruous or absurd
doesn't mean that Zeus didn't, or wouldn't, do it.  After all, Gods aren't
bound by our standards of decorum.  I haven't thought about this particular
story, so I have no opinion one way or the other, but I do on another story,
the myth of Athena's birth from His brow after He "swallowed" Her mother
Metis.  In that case I think I understand why Zeus would do such a thing (see
my Hymn to Athena for a hint), and so the story is plausible to me.

My second comment:  I think it is a characteristic of Polytheism (as opposed
to the major Monotheisms) that the Gods are *not* taken to be Moral Ideals.
Nobody would suppose they would make themselves a better person by emulating
Zeus, or even Athena or Apollo (let alone Hermes or Pan).  (Indeed, aspiring
to be like the Gods is the most obvious form of Hubris, and would invite Their
wrath.)  But this does not mean the Gods are immoral.  The Gods have Their own
morality, and it makes no more sense to apply out behavioral norms to them,
then it would to apply our moral norms to wolves.  Gods, People and Beasts are
three different classes of beings, each with their appropriate morality
(though there may be some overlap).  To take an example I used in a previous
post, Gods may engage in incest, perhaps to achieve some aim, such as
begetting a new God with a specific character, and there is no reason to
suppose that such incest would have any of the disastrous consequences that it
does for people.  Gods are different, both genetically and psychologically,
from people.

Why worship the Gods, if They aren't "Good"?  Well, perhaps it's a different
notion of worship from that in Christianity.  We worship the Gods -- we
respect Them, acknowledge Them -- because They are the Ineluctable Powers of
the Universe, neither good nor evil (because our moral categories are not
appropriate for Them).  (Observe that the GR Pantheon has no Evil God
corresponding to the Devil, that is, there is no God whose purpose is to
mislead people or defeat the Good God.)

Which brings me to my last point, concerning the quarrels and deceptions of
the Gods.  Naturally we put these things into our own terms, but I think that
the myths reflect actual conflicts between these Ineluctable Forces.  I
personally find the universe much more comprehensible when global and personal
history is viewed as partially the consequence of interacting Gods --
sometimes working together, sometimes opposing one another, more often just
going Their own ways, with the inevitable collisions.  To put it another way,
in my view, if *this* world is the orderly unfolding of the Master Plan of One
God, then He (or She) must be schizophrenic.  (Yes yes, I know, I'm just too
feeble-brained to understand the Master Plan.  Well, fine, then I must also be
too feeble-brained to be a Monotheist.)

(Incidently, the Gods taking sides in wars avoids a common embarrassment when
Monotheistic nations fight each other:  We believe that the One God is on
their side because we're Right and Good, and though our enemy believes the
very same thing, they're mistaken, because they're Evil and God is Good.  But
sometimes they win and we lose.)

The Judgement of Paris provides a good example of Polytheism at work.  Paris
is confronted by three Goddesses, Aphrodite, Athena and Hera.  He must choose
the most attractive.  Poor Paris tries to avoid making the decision, but They
will not let him off.  In the traditional story he is offered kingship,
heroism and love, but we may interpret the bribes as wealth, wisdom and love
(still in our day, frequently, mutually exclusive choices).  He picks
Aphrodite's bribe of Love, and the Trojan War disaster is the consequence.
But this is not a moral fable about the Sin of Lust or some such, for we can
see that whichever Goddess he had chosen, the other two would have been
offended.  It is a No Win situation.  And it a characteristic of Polytheism to
confront such situations head on.  There is no supposition that there is a
Right Way, if only we could find it.  It acknowledges that sometimes there is
no way out.  Too bad.

But I'm afraid life is like that.  We must often make irrevocable decisions,
honoring one God but dishonoring another, and we must pay the price to the
offended Gods, in spite of the fact that we couldn't avoid offending them.
Luckily we often have options (analogous to dividing the Apple) that were not
available to Paris, which may mitigate the consequences.  But I think
Polytheism forces us to acknowledge that sometimes there just isn't a One
Right Way.

Is it fair or right for Gods to put mere mortals in such predicaments?

Well, I never said the Gods are good or fair....