The results of a recent poll indicated that 86% of Americans believe in God. An even more recent figure in “Newsweek” put the number over 90%. Last year I searched the Internet and found a web site with religious information. The percentage of Americans believing in God at that site was 70 percent. I realize there has been a lot of publicity about God during the past year but an increase of 16%, or even higher, seems a bit much. Or, perhaps, the 70% was low. In any case, there is no doubt that most Americans believe in God. One God. Well! Perhaps not one God. With half the American Christian population focused on The Old Testament of the Bible and half the New Testament, it appears there are two gods. Could there be even more gods to worship? Taking a close look at our culture may bring some surprises. In the early days of Greece and Rome, there were gods for everything. I can list 54 but I’m sure there were many more. Apparently, the gods had no lasting relationship with one another which meant that you could be praised one moment and condemned the next. The gods permitted such diversity. If this is beginning to sound like contemporary America, you probably are on the right track. The behavior of Americans would have you believe that they believe in many gods, not unlike the Greeks back in their good old days. I know this appears blasphemous. One might assume there is hypocrisy involved with such behavior. We can be sure of it by only looking at our national leaders these past five years but, instead, let’s look at the multi-religions and gods which have taken over our lives in increasing numbers. Let’s take a random look at our current society. There seems to be much hate throughout the world these days. Erida was the wearisome goddess of Hate. In today’s world, it has become obvious that there are people, even groups, who love to hate. They worship hate. Many are Muslim extremists located outside the country, but we have our share of hate in the United States. Hate is common with extremists of all types but, in this country, the right wing conservatives seem to lead the field. I am sure that there are a few liberal extremists as well who are hooked with hate. When you worship hate, not too much else matters. Parallel to Erida is Eris, the goddess of Discord and Strife. Currently, there are governments which promote discord and strife. Individual leaders throughout the world are known to worship discord and strife. One might ask why governments and leaders would worship the idea of creating horrible conditions in which others are forced to live. Nothing surprising there. It always comes down to greed and power. “I’m OK, you’re not OK” is an easy policy from which to create discord and strife. Along with those two is Ares, the son of Zeus and Hera, and the god of War. War seems to be the current “in” religion. There are plenty of people and groups and even governments which worship war. Again, we think of those bad guys in other countries but we have plenty in this country as well. Actually, those closest to President Bush love and worship war. I’m not sure Bush worships war but he is more than willing to take war-like advice—and follow through. The emotional worship of war has dismissed rational thought often and has led to war. Common sense is left out in the cold. And, sorry to say, there are millions of people in the United States who are ready to follow our war-worshiping leaders. On a reality level, our economy is geared to producing war products. Millions are making a living creating war products and accessories. Peace is not economically sound in this country any more. If you are into peace, the future doesn’t look too rosy, does it? With war comes the terrible results. Hades is the son of Kronos and Rheia. He is in charge of the underworld. His name is often referred to as Hell. Hell is a common word often used by Christians to scare and intimidate other Christians. Persephone is the wife of Hades and she joins him in the underworld. Our underworld definitely includes both males and females. Incidentally Rheia is known to be devious; to have terrible results, there first must be deviousness—most of the time. Athene is the goddess of Wisdom. She was an important goddess in Greek times. This is one area where the American public chooses not to create a goddess or god. Wisdom is so boring and unentertaining that very few people worship wisdom. If you are old enough, you may remember when wisdom and intelligence were treated well in certain neighborhoods and certain cultures. The truth is that cowboys and Indians won out. Who needs wisdom when you have a repeating rifle and a 45? And if that sounds like today, you’re on track again. On the other hand, Aphrodite (Venus) is the golden goddess of Love. Now there is a goddess our entire culture can worship. And most of it does! The public in America either wants war or love entertainment—and it gets both in record amounts. We have young men worshiping war and death through the games they play and we have slightly older men and women watching and playing love games. Actually, we have a middle-age culture, mostly women, which is based on worshipping live TV during the day. If they can’t watch it, they tape it and watch it later. If that is not a religious culture, we are not likely ever to see one. Along with Aphrodite was Eros (Cupid), the primal god of love. He wounded the hearts of mortals and immortals alike and is still doing so. His actions continuously touch all of us as we watch movies, television, and contemporary theater productions. At least Aphrodite was looking at the bright side. Taking both god and goddess, we are touched by one of the largest and most important religions of our time. Style! Eurynome was the mother of the Graces---the goddess of looking great and keeping up with the Joneses. The Graces were the daughters of Eurynome and Zeus. They seem to be everywhere and having a tremendous effect on our well being as a religion. The tabloids, magazines and television are the worship machines of Eurynome and her Graces along with facial crèmes, body crèmes, nail polish, eye lash enhancers, ultra mega-shampoos and a thousand perfumes. This religion has created so many worship products for both men and women that one can’t begin to count them. As you know, the Graces love the males, too. Style is a big with our youth as well as most adults. Hebe is the goddess of Youth. She is the daughter of Zeus and Hera. Hera was the most beautiful of all the goddesses. The majority of our youth worship Hebe and Hera. If you don’t believe that, just look at advertisements on television and in the advertising section in newspapers. These sermons are so prolific that they have to be thrown away only to be followed by a new series of sermons the next day. Certain stores and mega-stores are worship cathedrals for Hebe. The hook of Hebe is very strong in the United States. Entertainment is huge in our culture. She represents one of the major religions of our time, if not the major religion. Muses attended all the festivals on Olympos and they inspired the other gods with their wit and charm. Today, we have so many Muses we can’t worship them all. We have to choose one or a few over the many. But, keep in mind that our hypocrisy and high levels of boredom lead us to new Muses constantly. We play favorites for a short time only. There are many lesser gods and goddesses coming with Entertainment, but they are all important in our society. The god Casino is big—getting bigger every day. Entire cities have risen because of Gambling. Las Vegas was a dusty little village until it became a Mecca for Gambling. People come to Mecca not just once in a lifetime to worship, but they come often. More and more people worship Lottery. They give money to Lottery twice a week. Lottery and Gambling have created religions which have gained steam quickly, taking money from other religions. The goddess Entertainment now includes and controls all electronic devices and products which are so important in our lives. Her status is at the top. I-Pods, Dingleberry cell phones which do everything but diaper a newborn, and lap tops which control our lives as well as give us a thousand forms of joy are Entertainment’s highest achievements. We have become a nation which worships Entertainment at all times. Theaters which show films are still fairly important but are losing status quickly. Musical production seems to be holding its own as a religion and Play production is still worshiped by an elite few. Communication is another key goddess of our society but she now is an important part of entertainment as well. She took over for Iris, the wing-footed messenger of the Immortals. We worship her constantly, both as communication and entertainment. Just think about how Christians tend to worship. It’s not unusual for them to worship one hour, one day a week. That is not enough for many Christians, Jews, and Muslims but take a look at Communication. People from all religious backgrounds and cultures are so enamored of the necessity for Communication that they are wired and wireless at all hours, seven days a week. We carry Communication with us wherever we go. We listen to music 24 hours a day; we play games 24 hours a day; we check the weather 24 hours a day and we take a look at the stock market 24 hours a day. Can you believe that because of satellite communication, we even know where we are 24 hours a day. Hey, knowing where you are is important in this day and age. We don’t want to forget one of our greatest and most powerful gods. Kronos, Odysseus (Ulysses), Herakles and Hermes (Mercury) show us the way. We couldn’t have a god-list without Athletics, sports heroes and heroines. Athletics is another top dog in our cosmic system of gods. The editors of “Newsweek” stated that “athletes have become the biggest stars in the firmament.” Apparently earth was too small for their consideration. Hermes provided communication to the other gods as the athletes competed on Olympus. Today, every electronic product in existence provides communication about every sport. Monday is worship day rather than Sunday when it comes to Monday night football. Football is big with the Old Testament crowd because of its war orientation. War also is well represented with the gods Boxing, Wrestling, and Rugby. Running paved the way for what we now call the Olympics. Today we have not one god of track, we have a bunch. Not only do we have the historic track events, we have the new gods of Triathlon, Bicycle, Motorcycle, Stock Cars, Dirt Cars, and Indy Cars. XX, the god of new competitions, is increasing worshipers at an outstanding rate. Existing mega-churches can’t begin to keep up. Many of these religions and church settings were not even invented until recently. You can see that religion and god-worship are so important in our culture that we keep creating new religions and gods or goddesses. We should not forget horseracing---still very much a god of choice for many, but one of the most important gods in all of sports is Golf. The worshipers periodically look to Thursday through Sunday afternoon as a time to pray. Then you have Basketball and Hockey, both major gods under the umbrella of Entertainment. There are many other gods, worship groups and cults in sports religions but they tend to be more minor. The worship of Soccer is a worldwide phenomenon but not so much in the U.S. Give it time; Soccer is getting more war-like all the time. Butt-Head leads the way. Demeter, the goddess of the Harvest continues to have power in much of America. Farming is really a god rather than a goddess but the worship continues to be strong. Farming is much more important than he is given credit but he can be very harmful at times. He pollutes rivers and something must be done about that. A lesser god related to Farming is Hog. Hog is a god which creates unbelievable stench and stink. Farming, and his secondary gods, must be watched more carefully. Balance is necessary at all times when it comes to farming. Pan, the Goat-God, prances through the fertile countryside in the company of Nymphs playing his seven-reed pipe in wild abandon. We need him to get more serious and help with the stench, stink and pollution. Hestia is the virgin goddess of humble domestic joy and we can understand why she is still a virgin. She was worshipped once long ago but not anymore. Domestic joy is tough to find these days with both parents working. Many families are void of one parent which results in even more difficulty to find domestic joy. No religion here. We don’t worship Kheiron either. He was the most righteous of the Centaurs and the powerful master of arts and sciences. Arts and sciences are low on the pole of interest in this country. Our national leaders make a mockery of arts and sciences and the leaders of our Centaurs certainly are not righteous. Fortunately, we acknowledge that the underlings working for the big Centaurs are righteous. The underlings are always righteous but we need to work on those leaders. Changing leaders is very important because, currently, they are worshiping the wrong gods.
(Note: We did work on those leaders. The recent election may mean that our new leaders will be more involved with our well being rather than greed. Sure hope so!)
So! We are not so different from those marvelous Greeks who led the way. One of the problems we face is that Americans are not interested in history. We seem to learn nothing from our mistakes. We tend to make decisions on emotion rather than logic or common sense, if there is such a thing. Rational thinking is not encountered very often as we plod through one political quagmire after another. Maybe that will change in 2007. The truth is most of us don’t want to understand our culture or the changes going on. Many of us have such enormous work loads that there is no time to read or think about what is happening. Many have no health insurance and have to give up needed prescription drugs just to have enough food. Many don’t want to see that poverty is increasing, particularly among children. Many have no idea that the famous middle-class in our country is getting smaller. And the rich certainly don’t care about either the poor or the middle-class because they have gotten richer under the present administration. Most citizens of the U.S. have it too easy. They are not fighting a war nor do they want to fight a war. Can you imagine gas rationing in this day and age? They want their Hummers, their camera cell-phones, their TV-in-every-room and their Monday-night-football. They don’t care that our leaders took us into a ridiculous and unnecessary war. They could care less that their grandchildren are going to have to pay the piper for the hundreds of billions of their wasted tax dollars. Our “don’t care” citizenship is still spending billions on making it’s face look pretty and taking a tuck here and there. You would think that the stupid war in Iraq and the continuous and unnecessary killing of our soldiers as well as thousands of civilians would wake the public to a new, different and much better attitude. Well! We did vote the greedy ones out, didn’t we? It’s wait and see time.
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Gods and Goddesses of America 8.06
The results of a recent poll indicated that 86% of Americans believe in God. An even more recent figure in “Newsweek” put the number over 90%. Last year I searched the Internet and found a web site with religious information. The percentage of Americans believing in God at that site was 70 percent. I realize there has been a lot of publicity about God during the past year but an increase of 16%, or even higher, seems a bit much. Or, perhaps, the 70% was low. In any case, there is no doubt that most Americans believe in God. One God.
Well! Perhaps not one God. With half the American Christian population focused on The Old Testament of the Bible and half the New Testament, it appears there are two gods. Could there be even more gods to worship? Taking a close look at our culture may bring some surprises.
In the early days of Greece and Rome, there were gods for everything. I can list 54 but I’m sure there were many more. Apparently, the gods had no lasting relationship with one another which meant that you could be praised one moment and condemned the next. The gods permitted such diversity. If this is beginning to sound like contemporary America, you probably are on the right track.
The behavior of Americans would have you believe that they believe in many gods, not unlike the Greeks back in their good old days. I know this appears blasphemous. One might assume there is hypocrisy involved with such behavior. We can be sure of it by only looking at our national leaders these past five years but, instead, let’s look at the multi-religions and gods which have taken over our lives in increasing numbers. Let’s take a random look at our current society.
There seems to be much hate throughout the world these days. Erida was the wearisome goddess of Hate. In today’s world, it has become obvious that there are people, even groups, who love to hate. They worship hate. Many are Muslim extremists located outside the country, but we have our share of hate in the United States. Hate is common with extremists of all types but, in this country, the right wing conservatives seem to lead the field. I am sure that there are a few liberal extremists as well who are hooked with hate. When you worship hate, not too much else matters.
Parallel to Erida is Eris, the goddess of Discord and Strife. Currently, there are governments which promote discord and strife. Individual leaders throughout the world are known to worship discord and strife. One might ask why governments and leaders would worship the idea of creating horrible conditions in which others are forced to live. Nothing surprising there. It always comes down to greed and power. “I’m OK, you’re not OK” is an easy policy from which to create discord and strife.
Along with those two is Ares, the son of Zeus and Hera, and the god of War. War seems to be the current “in” religion. There are plenty of people and groups and even governments which worship war. Again, we think of those bad guys in other countries but we have plenty in this country as well. Actually, those closest to President Bush love and worship war. I’m not sure Bush worships war but he is more than willing to take war-like advice—and follow through. The emotional worship of war has dismissed rational thought often and has led to war. Common sense is left out in the cold. And, sorry to say, there are millions of people in the United States who are ready to follow our war-worshiping leaders. On a reality level, our economy is geared to producing war products. Millions are making a living creating war products and accessories. Peace is not economically sound in this country any more. If you are into peace, the future doesn’t look too rosy, does it?
With war comes the terrible results. Hades is the son of Kronos and Rheia. He is in charge of the underworld. His name is often referred to as Hell. Hell is a common word often used by Christians to scare and intimidate other Christians. Persephone is the wife of Hades and she joins him in the underworld. Our underworld definitely includes both males and females. Incidentally Rheia is known to be devious; to have terrible results, there first must be deviousness—most of the time.
Athene is the goddess of Wisdom. She was an important goddess in Greek times. This is one area where the American public chooses not to create a goddess or god. Wisdom is so boring and unentertaining that very few people worship wisdom. If you are old enough, you may remember when wisdom and intelligence were treated well in certain neighborhoods and certain cultures. The truth is that cowboys and Indians won out. Who needs wisdom when you have a repeating rifle and a 45? And if that sounds like today, you’re on track again.
On the other hand, Aphrodite (Venus) is the golden goddess of Love. Now there is a goddess our entire culture can worship. And most of it does! The public in America either wants war or love entertainment—and it gets both in record amounts. We have young men worshiping war and death through the games they play and we have slightly older men and women watching and playing love games. Actually, we have a middle-age culture, mostly women, which is based on worshipping live TV during the day. If they can’t watch it, they tape it and watch it later. If that is not a religious culture, we are not likely ever to see one.
Along with Aphrodite was Eros (Cupid), the primal god of love. He wounded the hearts of mortals and immortals alike and is still doing so. His actions continuously touch all of us as we watch movies, television, and contemporary theater productions. At least Aphrodite was looking at the bright side. Taking both god and goddess, we are touched by one of the largest and most important religions of our time.
Style! Eurynome was the mother of the Graces---the goddess of looking great and keeping up with the Joneses. The Graces were the daughters of Eurynome and Zeus. They seem to be everywhere and having a tremendous effect on our well being as a religion. The tabloids, magazines and television are the worship machines of Eurynome and her Graces along with facial crèmes, body crèmes, nail polish, eye lash enhancers, ultra mega-shampoos and a thousand perfumes. This religion has created so many worship products for both men and women that one can’t begin to count them. As you know, the Graces love the males, too.
Style is a big with our youth as well as most adults. Hebe is the goddess of Youth. She is the daughter of Zeus and Hera. Hera was the most beautiful of all the goddesses. The majority of our youth worship Hebe and Hera. If you don’t believe that, just look at advertisements on television and in the advertising section in newspapers. These sermons are so prolific that they have to be thrown away only to be followed by a new series of sermons the next day. Certain stores and mega-stores are worship cathedrals for Hebe. The hook of Hebe is very strong in the United States.
Entertainment is huge in our culture. She represents one of the major religions of our time, if not the major religion. Muses attended all the festivals on Olympos and they inspired the other gods with their wit and charm. Today, we have so many Muses we can’t worship them all. We have to choose one or a few over the many. But, keep in mind that our hypocrisy and high levels of boredom lead us to new Muses constantly. We play favorites for a short time only.
There are many lesser gods and goddesses coming with Entertainment, but they are all important in our society. The god Casino is big—getting bigger every day. Entire cities have risen because of Gambling. Las Vegas was a dusty little village until it became a Mecca for Gambling. People come to Mecca not just once in a lifetime to worship, but they come often. More and more people worship Lottery. They give money to Lottery twice a week. Lottery and Gambling have created religions which have gained steam quickly, taking money from other religions.
The goddess Entertainment now includes and controls all electronic devices and products which are so important in our lives. Her status is at the top. I-Pods, Dingleberry cell phones which do everything but diaper a newborn, and lap tops which control our lives as well as give us a thousand forms of joy are Entertainment’s highest achievements. We have become a nation which worships Entertainment at all times. Theaters which show films are still fairly important but are losing status quickly. Musical production seems to be holding its own as a religion and Play production is still worshiped by an elite few.
Communication is another key goddess of our society but she now is an important part of entertainment as well. She took over for Iris, the wing-footed messenger of the Immortals. We worship her constantly, both as communication and entertainment. Just think about how Christians tend to worship. It’s not unusual for them to worship one hour, one day a week. That is not enough for many Christians, Jews, and Muslims but take a look at Communication. People from all religious backgrounds and cultures are so enamored of the necessity for Communication that they are wired and wireless at all hours, seven days a week. We carry Communication with us wherever we go. We listen to music 24 hours a day; we play games 24 hours a day; we check the weather 24 hours a day and we take a look at the stock market 24 hours a day. Can you believe that because of satellite communication, we even know where we are 24 hours a day. Hey, knowing where you are is important in this day and age.
We don’t want to forget one of our greatest and most powerful gods. Kronos, Odysseus (Ulysses), Herakles and Hermes (Mercury) show us the way. We couldn’t have a god-list without Athletics, sports heroes and heroines. Athletics is another top dog in our cosmic system of gods. The editors of “Newsweek” stated that “athletes have become the biggest stars in the firmament.” Apparently earth was too small for their consideration.
Hermes provided communication to the other gods as the athletes competed on Olympus. Today, every electronic product in existence provides communication about every sport. Monday is worship day rather than Sunday when it comes to Monday night football. Football is big with the Old Testament crowd because of its war orientation. War also is well represented with the gods Boxing, Wrestling, and Rugby.
Running paved the way for what we now call the Olympics. Today we have not one god of track, we have a bunch. Not only do we have the historic track events, we have the new gods of Triathlon, Bicycle, Motorcycle, Stock Cars, Dirt Cars, and Indy Cars. XX, the god of new competitions, is increasing worshipers at an outstanding rate. Existing mega-churches can’t begin to keep up. Many of these religions and church settings were not even invented until recently. You can see that religion and god-worship are so important in our culture that we keep creating new religions and gods or goddesses.
We should not forget horseracing---still very much a god of choice for many, but
one of the most important gods in all of sports is Golf. The worshipers periodically look to Thursday through Sunday afternoon as a time to pray. Then you have Basketball and Hockey, both major gods under the umbrella of Entertainment. There are many other gods, worship groups and cults in sports religions but they tend to be more minor. The worship of Soccer is a worldwide phenomenon but not so much in the U.S. Give it time; Soccer is getting more war-like all the time. Butt-Head leads the way.
Demeter, the goddess of the Harvest continues to have power in much of America. Farming is really a god rather than a goddess but the worship continues to be strong. Farming is much more important than he is given credit but he can be very harmful at times. He pollutes rivers and something must be done about that. A lesser god related to Farming is Hog. Hog is a god which creates unbelievable stench and stink.
Farming, and his secondary gods, must be watched more carefully. Balance is necessary at all times when it comes to farming. Pan, the Goat-God, prances through the fertile countryside in the company of Nymphs playing his seven-reed pipe in wild abandon. We need him to get more serious and help with the stench, stink and pollution.
Hestia is the virgin goddess of humble domestic joy and we can understand why she is still a virgin. She was worshipped once long ago but not anymore. Domestic joy is tough to find these days with both parents working. Many families are void of one parent which results in even more difficulty to find domestic joy. No religion here.
We don’t worship Kheiron either. He was the most righteous of the Centaurs and the powerful master of arts and sciences. Arts and sciences are low on the pole of interest in this country. Our national leaders make a mockery of arts and sciences and the leaders of our Centaurs certainly are not righteous. Fortunately, we acknowledge that the underlings working for the big Centaurs are righteous. The underlings are always righteous but we need to work on those leaders. Changing leaders is very important because, currently, they are worshiping the wrong gods.
(Note: We did work on those leaders. The recent election may mean that our new leaders will be more involved with our well being rather than greed. Sure hope so!)
So! We are not so different from those marvelous Greeks who led the way. One of the problems we face is that Americans are not interested in history. We seem to learn nothing from our mistakes. We tend to make decisions on emotion rather than logic or common sense, if there is such a thing. Rational thinking is not encountered very often as we plod through one political quagmire after another. Maybe that will change in 2007.
The truth is most of us don’t want to understand our culture or the changes going on. Many of us have such enormous work loads that there is no time to read or think about what is happening. Many have no health insurance and have to give up needed prescription drugs just to have enough food. Many don’t want to see that poverty is increasing, particularly among children. Many have no idea that the famous middle-class in our country is getting smaller. And the rich certainly don’t care about either the poor or the middle-class because they have gotten richer under the present administration.
Most citizens of the U.S. have it too easy. They are not fighting a war nor do they want to fight a war. Can you imagine gas rationing in this day and age? They want their Hummers, their camera cell-phones, their TV-in-every-room and their Monday-night-football. They don’t care that our leaders took us into a ridiculous and unnecessary war. They could care less that their grandchildren are going to have to pay the piper for the hundreds of billions of their wasted tax dollars. Our “don’t care” citizenship is still spending billions on making it’s face look pretty and taking a tuck here and there. You would think that the stupid war in Iraq and the continuous and unnecessary killing of our soldiers as well as thousands of civilians would wake the public to a new, different and much better attitude. Well! We did vote the greedy ones out, didn’t we?
It’s wait and see time.
John 8.2006
updated (slightly): 11.28.2006
really cool man!
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