Polytheism and Bandwagons

Posted Feb 25, 1998, as "Bandwagons"

From MC p 43:
<<<<<
The first big division of humanity is into the majority, who believe in
some kind of God or gods, and the minority who do not. On this point,
Christianity lines up with the majority -- lines up with ancient Greek
and Romans, modern savages, Stoics, Platonists, Hindus, Mohammedans,
etc, against the modern Western Europpean materialist.
>>>>>>

From PoP p 24:
<<<<<
It does not amount to logical compulsion. At every stage of religious
development man may rebel, if not without violence to his own nature,
yet without absurdity. He can close his spiritual eyes against the
Numinous, if he is prepared to part company with half the great poets
and prophets of his race, with his own chldhood, with the richness and
depth of uninhibited experience. He can regard the moral law as an
illusion, and so cut himself off from the common ground of humanity. He
can refuse to identify the Numinous with the righteous….
>>>>>

From Kinglsey, out of context, because I'm in a hurry:
<<<<
And [ the Greeks ] honoured the Gods of the Rivers, and the Nymph-maids,
who they fancied lived in the caves, and the fountains, and the glens of
the forest, and all beautiful wild places.
>>>>

Isn't it pretty well agreed that religion began with a lot of numinous
local deities and pantheons, one for each cave and fountain, and
continued so for quite a while; and only later came the idea of some one
Supreme Omnipotent above them all (or instead of them all)? (Seems to me
I can actually see such layers in the Eneuma Elish for instance.)

Emphasize 'pantheons'. Not that Tribe X worshipped God X and Tribe Y
worshipped God Y, etc. But that Tribe X worshipped Pantheon X:
encountered Diana in the moon, and Kern in the stag, and Lupercus in the
wolf-puppy, etc. A variety, a family of gods, differing from each other,
a team of specialists if you will…. A different quality of Numinous in
the dark cave, the well, the flowers…. A different Some-One to go to for
each different need, like an extended family. It takes a pantheon….
And each pantheon different too, connected with the valley or mountain
where the tribe lived, as local as cheese or wine….

Sam, can you help us with 'numen' vs 'deus'?

I believe someone once said that 'gods' is not the plural of 'God',
because 'God' by definition can have no plural. And I think someone here
recently said something about Buddhism being full of 'gods' and miracles
and heavens and hells and saviours etc etc but still termed
'atheistical' because it doesn't claim there is any One Single Supreme
Omnipotent above them all. (Jainism too, btw.)

Now, the arguments I've skimmed on various threads lately seem to add up
to something like this:

1. People have 'numinous' experiences (even Pistol admitted it, I think)
2. Some who have them label them halllucination or such, others think
they are perceptions of something real
3. One big reason for dismissing them is, "If there were an omnipotent
God, he would do a better job."

If there seems a big gap between 2 and 3 … good. : -)

We've heard a lot about atheism (modern type) being a modern invention.
I'd like to point out, so is monotheism.***

Certainly people like Plato and the Pharoah of the Sun-God etc have
numinous experiences of some sort of big One God Over All, some Form
defined as One and Only or something. But -- for most people, isn't that
part just a theory? In our real experience, we meet our dark spirits in
the woods and dancing ones in the sunbeams … and light candles to
different saints for different prayers… and make real connections … and
get healing and miracles….
But for the rest of us, the idea that there is some One way up above
those …. or even that all those are limbs of some One Elephant (or
different hands and faces of Brahman)… is a theory.*

Now I grant, the local numens are also theories. (And so are the
hallucinations. : -) What happens is, a feeling of some sort, and some
healing etc. We still have the choice to label it hallucination, or
numen/nymph/saint, or One and Only Big Omnipotent God. (And there may be
some other labels we could choose from too. Any Buddhists out there? :
-)

Now let's look at some bandwagons. Tho Lewis didn't divide them this
way, for obvious reasons. : -)

Set of those who take numinous seriously: poets and their readers etc
Subset 1 who believe in some God or gods
Subset 2 who believe there is only one God
Subset 3 who believe that one is Partiarchial, Omnipotent, etc.

Please note these are nested. All 3s are in 2, all 2s in 1. (Tho of
course the set of 3 could be larger than the set of (in 2 but not in 3),
etc.)

Now back to Lewis. "Christianity lines up with the majority -- lines
up with ancient Greek and Romans, modern savages, Stoics, Platonists,
Hindus, Mohammedans, etc, against the modern Western European
materialist."
It wouldn't be hard to go from this to "X lines with ancient Greek and
Romans, modern savages, Stoics, Platonists**, Hindus, etc against the
modern Western Monotheist."***
The majority would get a bit broader if we quibble about people who go
to a monotheist church and follow along, but still do their major
dealings with one saint or another. (And if we simply weighed the people
who have had visions of saints etc vs visions like Plato's …. !)

I'm not going to argue the hallucination theory here. (Tho something
might be made of Dan's 'survival by truth' argument).
But comparing the Poly-numens vs the Monotheist labels, the following
points go to the Polys (in order of brevity : -):

1. Bandwagon majority (throughout history)
2. No 'problem of evil' (because no one is claiming Omnipotence)
3. Similar reports in different cultures
4. Fits the way our poetic, healthy minds work (see LMM : -)
5. Fits the way healing and 'miracles' etc really work (obviously not
omnipotent once and for all)

I think Turner's Occam's Razor about 'free will' -- that it is what we
feel and takes a lot of explaining away -- ought to fit in here
somewhere too. (Some theories are more theoretical than others. : -) The
numens can be explained away either as hallucinations or as servants of
an Omnipotent -- but either of those raises troublesome questions. And
takes an odd leap of faith one way or another. With the numens, you can
go on being agnostic about the big questions, without throwing too many
appearances out with the bathwater. : -)



* Yes, I know lots of people will jump in and say "It's not a theory, I
met Him." Fine, you met Someone. The idea, "The one I met is the Only
One There Is," is a different proposition. It may be a passionate
belief, but that's different.

** Danny, aren't the lower branches pretty important, and the upper
pretty, er … unapproachable? And what vintage of Platonists did Lewis
mean, anyway?

*** Pre-modern monotheists can have a drink with the non-Theistic
Greeks, maybe, while we continue?



On the side of the wood nymphs,
Mary