Why are most gods not nice fellows?

Good argument

-thread hop-

I was going to make a new ont he Fair Folk but this intrigues me even more. The Gods of Greek Myth are petty, vain and often times cruel for no justifible cause. Does the same apply to Fair Folk, demons or other mythical creatures as well? There were never human but given how they torment humans, follow moral codes that seem strange to mortals and they seem to be always evil to human eyes. Since this a thread on Gods, I will stick to that.

What about our own modern gods? I am not talking about gods of wood and stone or even the God but what superheroes, supervillains and the 'gods' we worship in media? Who is to say that a few individuals 1000 yrs down the road won't have the exact same discussion we are having? A large majority of the aesops we see in most myths are mostly due to values dissonance if anything. When you at it from a certain angle, the 'gods' of our world, celebrities, superheroes, great leaders, etc. don't really seem all that different from the gods of myth.

The thing is, in most religions, the divine defines what is "nice" or not. Therefore, it is, as they say, their call.

That's not true at all.

Not true in many paganisms. Yeah, the Gods pull many dick moves in the lore. Even to a devotee, these are still dick moves .

Gods ain't perfect either, it's quite simple and straightforward.

I'd be horrified if the Buddhist gods got to make the shots in that regard since one half is comprised of proud warrior race guys and the others are people hopped up on space opium (well not really, but...the deva don't give a shit about anyone else since their life is awesome)...

Because with great power comes great ability to be a dick.

Just like anyone else with absolute power.

Counterexample: Superman.The Swamp Thing.

In fact, most of the DCU.could easily qualify as Gods, Good ones too.

Traditionally, "fun to read about" is not the primary qualification for deification. When you're sacrificing animals to something, it's usually because you're afraid of what will happen if they don't like you.

Or you are happy for what they did for you. If Superman accepted sacrifices and worship, I' sure people'd do it... just the same way they did in Real Life, have you seen those Supermania era documentaries? It was worse than Glee.

I wonder I know we as humans have different morals but the Fair Folk were created to have non human morality and jsut plain ness with humans shits and giggles. I know this may or may not be related to topic but do the gods actually care about humans or are we just meat shields for their amusement?

Layman speaking. One thing I don't understand: Living as we do in the decline of the "Protestant conscience" (and religion in general), it's hard to fathom why the Greeks came up with such Ax-Crazy gods. If you want to indoctrinate, why propagate stories that reinforce the chaotic, black universe? The downside to being deist is the ennui. Why bother with religion if it doesn't provide a support system, just than a string of cautionary tales to scare babies?

edited 4th Jul '11 10:05:57 PM by johnnyfog

The Buddhist answer to you question GAP is that no by and large they do not care about humans or other lower level beings. Deva in particular just sort of ignore us completely and do not so much as bother to pick on us. The few that do are lower leveled Deva with some degree of empathy. They seem to genuinely care about lower level beings, but do not understand the depths of their suffering and cannot do much to aid them. Asura are very violent and very proud beings. Generally they do not seem to feel for us and will murder humans if they feel so inclined which judging by what I have heard of them is likely to be a common thing in regards to the results of human interaction with Asura.

Out of the gods there are very few that meddle in the affairs of lower level beings and even fewer that are considered worthy of worship. The few that are generally members of the Mahayanan and Vajrayanan pantheons of Bodhisatta and Celestial Buddhas or are immigrants from other religions such as Hinduism.

The answer to whether or not gods care about humanity and other beings varies greatly depending on religion though mind you.

edited 4th Jul '11 10:19:26 PM by Aondeug

The support system is the religious group. What's "the decline of the protestant mind"? You mean those protestants finally decided to go down and actually buy those French ticklers?

1 ) its possibly Values Dissonance, ancient greek probably think their deity cool instead of Ax Crazy

2 ) a lot of ancient Greek join Mystery Cults, who have one specific Hero, which possibly less Ax Crazy

3 ) most ancient Greek live in City-States/ polis, which have their favorite God, the Ax-crazy god belongs to other cities.

I am going to see if I got this: So basically the whole thing aobut Gods not caring about humans is one big your mileage may vayr aswell as some values dissonance? Does this apply to the trickster myths as well?

edited 5th Jul '11 7:43:38 AM by GAP

It is partly values dissonance in certain cases. They may be believed to care by that people, but the values that culture espoused are very different from ones own so it may look like they do not to us. In others it varies entirely based on the religions' set of beliefs. As stated before gods by and large do not care about humanity in the slightest. They're like a separate species of being and they have their own shit to do.

Or perhaps the gods do care but still fuck us over because...they're just people with super powers and a bit more RAPEY MURDER going on. It could be an honest mistake or maybe they're just having a hissy fit that day because some hot human babe won't date them. The Greek pantheon is ruled by violent, horny people with super powers that are prone to throwing hissy fits over things that result in TERRIBLE things for others.

Trickster myths are a heavy case of values dissonance more than likely if those are being looked upon with a "WTF". That also may be a result of our general story telling styles changing over time or to a small extent unfamiliarity with them. I don't flinch at the shit in such stories or the logic involved as I was grew up absorbing mythology and in particular Trickster stories. Sharing such stories with others who weren't versed in the subject hardly at all has typically resulted in people going "WHY IS EVERYONE SUCH AN ASSHOLE AND WHY IS THERE SO MUCH DEATH I THOUGHT FAIRY TALES WAS NICE". As it is I don't flinch at it and can pull apart useful morals from things like some of the more disturbing Jatakas.

I learn something new everyday. O_O

edited 5th Jul '11 11:33:07 AM by GAP

x5 I'm not sure if *dishonestly* making your deities all flowers and rainbows necessarily works better for indoctrination, either. One of my major beefs with Christianity is the double talk i.e. "God is benevolent, he loves everyone, and if you don't worship his very existence he will burn you for an eternity after you die." The world is crazy. Bad things happen to good people. Insisting that deities are always the good guys but managed to create such a world tends to set off people's bullshit alarms.

I, for one, would appreciate it if the clergy just told me plainly that the deities are Axe-Crazy and that the church knows how to keep me off the blacklist. At least I would not feel like someone is pissing on my head and telling me it's raining.

edited 5th Jul '11 3:02:56 PM by sketch162000

That assumes that you believe the deities created anything in the first place. There are religions that don't give their deities world creating powers or being creating powers after all.

Or at the very least that your deities are in charge of something.

Indeed. There are religions that don't have gods that are in charge of certain things though. Religion is fun that way...Really how does one define it?

NO IDEA.