Are Pagan deities malevolent or incompetent?
>>18676574According to Epicurus they just don't interfere and mythology is a bunch of fanfics about the deities.
>>18676574They're beyond good and evil.
>>18676574a mix of both.
>>18676574>Are Pagan deities malevolent or incompetent?Third post beat me to it: >>18676589The *overwhelming majority of pagan deities are all explicitly spiritually elevated and incredibly powerful ancestors, demigods, demons, dragons, as well as a few plants and animals. With that comes all the old baggage and hang-ups: they want sacrifices, they're deeply involved in micro/macro politics, peoples opinions of them, they have sex with people, they kill people, they've inherited a number of the fundamental flaws mortals possess and they can be incredibly petty and stupid as a result, despite their power. *The exception being an oft eluded to singular divine creator deity (or essence) who's beyond good and evil, seemingly a well-spring of eternal life and knowledge, but whom otherwise wants absolutely nothing to do with the creation they've made.
>>18676574Epicurus was a Satanist who was part of the secret society known today as Freemasonry.
>>18676574>Are Pagan deities malevolent or incompetent?The pagan deities are numerous. In the worldview of these people, there are many different gods with various aims, etc.In addition, the standard creation story of the Greeks is about the appearance of Gaia from primordial chaos. So, intelligence and divine things somehow emerged by chance. What we would call "creation" is merely the re-arrangement of already existing things. The pattern is the same in Plato's Timaeus and the Greek creation myth. Of course, there were other schools of thought, some asserted the eternity of the world or told other stories.In this framework, it somehow makes sense to conclude that the deity can't help but use the matter and events as they occur. There is simply no job offer for an almighty single being who could be held responsible for the structure of the world.Yes, Plato and Aristotle believed in one singular deity, and classical polytheism has had an open backdoor for a unified divine being or principle, of which the many gods are just "representations" of.>>18676596That was the theory the antiques develop of them.
>>18676574They are powerful entities but with limited power, knowledge and benevolence.
>>18676699Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle all believed in the gods, not in a singular god. They prayed to the gods, made offers to the gods, etc. The idea that they believed in a singular god is just christian retconning. Whether Plato even believed in what he wrote in the Timaeus we can't even know for sure, the later middle- and neoplatonists sure seem to think so, but they lived over 400 years after Plato's death.
>>18676723>Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle all believed in the gods, not in a singular god.This is up to discussions.Aristotles prime mover just needs one God, not a gent of them.Plato uses self-created (or re-created) myths and we cannot infere something about his believes from them. The Platonic dialogues are roles prose, and the myths within them serve as illustrations.>They prayed to the gods, made offers to the gods, etc.We know something about Socrates and from Plato's academia. We just don't have scource about Aristotle and the other.>Whether Plato even believed in what he wrote in the Timaeus we can't even know for sure, the later middle- and neoplatonists sure seem to think so, but they lived over 400 years after Plato's death.Plato explicitly endorses (to the extent that he could in the form of dialogues) the concept of the noble lie, which his student Aristotle vehemently rejected in his ethics.It is quite possible that the stories in the "Timaeus" were a “noble lie” that Plato thinks society would be better off believing.The only other sources for Plato’s views are the later development of the Academy, which, as we know, converged toward skepticism, and his letters.The later mythology surrounding the Demiurge and similar concepts is fan fiction, but that doesn’t necessarily make it any less valuable.
>>18676767Socrates and Plato clearly believed in the gods, and Aristotle almost certainly did as well. Even in the Timaeus Plato indicates that the gods are real.I think that to understand Plato's philosophy you have to start from the assumption that, in his work (as in Socrates' philosophy) everything revolves around ethics. Which is what the forms are: a way to ground truth, goodness and rightfulness in hard reality.
>>18676723>>18676767Socrates seemed to believe the Theogony of Hesiod was in need of improvement. Trying to fix something can either mean you don't believe in it, or that you believe in it very much, because otherwise you would have no motivation to salvage it.
>>18676699No, Socrates was not monotheist as he believed he was following the will of Apollo based on the Oracle of Delphi proclaiming him to be the wisest man in Athens and his last words were to sacrifice a rooster to Asclepius. The idea that he rejected the Greek gods is a myth, what he did reject was the anthropomorphic view of the gods and the myths surrounding them, not the gods’ existence or worship which he viewed as legitimate.When Socrates claimed that true gods shouldn’t be humanlike or temperamental like the myths portray them as, he wasn’t using it as proof the gods weren’t real but rather as proof that Homer was slandering the gods. There’s a massive difference between “I don’t believe Zeus had affairs” and “I don’t believe in Zeus at all.”Same with other Greco-Roman philosophers. They did not reject the Greek gods but rather they rejected the myths surrounding them which are entirely different stances. Plato was a zealot polytheist who affirmed Zeus as the god of gods and outlined in his Republic that impiety towards the gods should be punishable, meaning that any Christian who calls Zeus a false god or demon would face imprisonment or execution in Plato’s ideal society. Yes, he did reject traditional Greek myths and believe that poets should be banned from society, but that wasn’t because he was some kind of “closet monotheist,” rather it’s because he thought the myths were slandering the gods. If anything, that arguably makes him more polytheist than other polytheists.(Cont)
>>18676699>>18676795Even then, the total rejection of mythology wasn’t a unanimous position amongst pagan philosophers. Aristotle, despite rejecting the historicity of myths, still had a more positive view of them than Plato did and again, Aristotle still believed in the Greek gods. The idea of a prime mover does not nullify polytheism since a god doesn’t necessarily have to be the absolute source of everything. Many philosophers like Plutarch and Proclus also treated myths as divinely-inspired allegories rather than literal history.
>>18676786>Socrates and Plato clearly believed in the gods, and Aristotle almost certainly did as well.As I said, I'm not 100% certain with Plato and Aristotle has cleary parts in his writings that sounds nearly monotheistic.You need to understand that monotheism doesn't mean you destroy idols or something. Some people believe in one devine principle but see the classical gods like Hermes or Zeus as a representation of the one thing. Different aspects, so to speak.>I think that to understand Plato's philosophy you have to start from the assumption that, in his work (as in Socrates' philosophy) everything revolves around ethics.From what we receive!>>18676787Fair point.>>18676798>Aristotle, despite rejecting the historicity of myths, still had a more positive view of them than Plato did and again, Aristotle still believed in the Greek gods.Plato invented myths like Atlantis, Myth of Er etc.Aristotle wrote in this work about logic that poetic etc. works with things that does not exist. Yet, he seems to employ a positiv view because they transport a message.>The idea of a prime mover does not nullify polytheism since a god doesn’t necessarily have to be the absolute source of everything.If there is one all-powerful being that create the world and the other are just subordinates, then you come very close to montheism.See the Israelic version or even modern Islam/Christdom! They belive in Angels, Demons etc.>Many philosophers like Plutarch and Proclus also treated myths as divinely-inspired allegories rather than literal history.lol
>>18676811>See the Israelic version or even modern Islam/Christdom! They belive in Angels, Demons etc.This is the mistake you're making. You're forcing jewish/christian/muslim faith on pagan philosophers. Whatever Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle actually did believe, it had nothing in common with judaism, christianity, and islam. That's just christian retconning.
>>18676795>Apollo based on the Oracle of Delphi proclaiming him to be the wisest man in Athens and his last words were to sacrifice a rooster to AsclepiusBut did he view Apollo and Asclepius as gods in that sense, or as a kind of representative of the one divine principle?Moreover, doesn't this raise the question: Didn't Plato say, “The gods are messengers”?However, as I wrote, the Epicurean problem of evil is not much of a problem if there are many gods.>There’s a massive difference between “I don’t believe Zeus had affairs” and “I don’t believe in Zeus at all.”But the Zeus with affairs is the type of deity that explains why the world looks the way it does, full of evil, suffering, harm, etc. If the deities care about things like beautiful women, power, honor, etc., and if they are subject to passion, fate, and even chance, then you can imagine them creating a sub-perfect world, as we would do.
>>18676821I use them as a example.You seems to believe that:Monotheism == The Believe that there exist just one Supernatural Being and this One Supernatural Being is God.In most cases, there are different kinds of supernatural entities. In Christian countries elfes, angels etc. In Islamic contexts, djinns, angels etc.That you just worship the One is one thing, but nearly always, you don't deny the other supernatural things the existence.
>>18676828Neoplatonists were most definately monotheistic, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle most definately weren't however.
>>18676574The solution to all human problems is death, anything else is a band aid that will fall off soon enough, revealing that the wound is still open and not closening
>>18676865Death doesn't solve anything if you reincarnate afterwards.
>>18676891Your past life's problems would be all solved by virtue of being a different person under different circumstances. New life, new problems.
