How can all pantheons coexist?

[bfg1016]

Hello all,

I am quite perplexed with what I have been researching and feel like I need to ask this question:

How can the different pantheons of earth all coexist? I've had someone explain to me a few different ways: a beach ball with the different colors to the same ball, a mantle piece with the masks of the gods and goddesses on it.

I'm not sure, it's all hard to grasp. For the existentialist that I am, I have a million questions, but I'll just start work this one.

[Myrth]

So, from a panentheist perspective, goddesses and gods can be viewed as the human way of trying to understand the Divine energy around us. They literally put human faces on the Divine. Thus, each pantheon is a different region or religion's attempt to understand the Divine. The Divine exists. The pantheons are our attempts to know the Divine. Others will fervently dispute this based on their own beliefs or personal gnosis. This is simply my view of it.

[SpiritTalker]

Every culture experiences the god-mystery in ways that are relevant to their civilization.

Every area of Nature has it's spirit-of-place. Some are effects of the interactions of the landscape & seasons with humanity while some are individual spiritual beings and these just might become god-forms. The burning question to my mind is, does each god think they're the only One?

[SnowCat]

A cut diamond has many different facets, but they are all part of the same diamond.

Snow

[Princessia]

I am still a newbie, but here's my take on it--

Imagine you are a peasant born in a country during 500 A.D. This is after the fall of the Roman Empire. You know nearby countries exist, and you know they are ruled by a different king. You aren't going to travel more than 5-15 miles from home because it is dangerous. As such, you never meet or learn about other kings and kingdoms. Everything you buy is local and within your own kingdom. The culture across your continent is very similar, but you've never visited and you're under the protection of the nearby king and his knights.

I see the gods and goddesses as kings of the spiritual realm. I believe they're behind a thin veil which separates us from them. I believe that they guarded sections of each kingdom of the earth for a long time. For example, Egyptian gods and goddesses would take care of egyptians. Roman ones would take care of roman people. Celtic ones would take care of celtic people. And so on.

Information moves very quickly now. Inventions like the telephone, trains, cars, and the internet have changed the modern world. I don't know how the gods from different pantheons divide things in our new world. However, in their infinite wisdom I am sure they have adapted along with us. Perhaps they didn't see the need to devote their divine energy in ancient times to people who wouldn't believe in them because they didn't have access to knowledge about other gods and goddesses. Maybe they divide themselves differently in our current age.

[bfg1016]

Exactly! Although I do also want to learn the spiritual impact the ancestors of my area left behind, theres a bigger, global movement happening as well that I feel has its own culture and possibly it's own "pantheon's" or whatever, that play a role in it. All I see around me are people that are trying to recreate what was, not recognise that as what was, and try to find what is and what related now. But of course, with the erraticness of authenticity that this amazing thing called the internet has brought to the information we accept. Skepticism is now a regular aspect of my research.

[Oakheart]

Many folks believe that the deities are anthropomorphized versions of the seven ancient planets: Luna, Mercury, Venus, Sol, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. Love is an archetypal energy, so you have goddesses such as Aphrodite and Venus. There are plenty of solar deities such as Apollo and Ra. Hermes and Thoth are associated with the planet Mercury. Some deities such as Horus have dual associations; Horus is associated with both Sol and Mars. According to this idea, deities belonging to different pantheons are not separate entities, but rather cultural interpretations of the planetary energies.