I was a faithful Mormon for nearly three decades, and while I definitely busied myself spiritually, and tried to be close to Heavenly Father, I never actually wanted to worship him. Worship in Mormonism is problematic anyway: in my experience Mormonism is much more about trying to experience certain things, trying to feel the Holy Ghost. What that winds up meaning is that the individual personal relationship with God is one in which the believer receives from God without responding worshipfully. Instead, the appropriate response is supposed to be obedience and righteousness, not praise and adoration. I believe that true worship is an almost foreign concept to Mormon belief.
So when I tried to make post-Mormon Christianity work for me, and I didn’t exactly feel as worshipful towards Jesus as I thought I probably should, I blamed Mormonism. My Mormon upbringing had taught me to believe without true worship, I said to myself, and so it had stunted and retarded my spiritual senses.
I no longer really think that is the case. When I think of or experience the Hellenic gods, I want to worship them. I want to fall down on my knees and subject myself to them utterly and totally. They are gods and goddesses who are truly worthy of worship, and they provoke a response in me that is supremely and almost painfully worshipful.
It’s kind of odd, really, because there’s a lot of material out there in Neopagan literature suggesting that an attitude of total worship is not only not required, but perhaps not even appropriate. Much more emphasis is given to the reciprocal nature of our relationship with the gods: we give so that they may give. Utter worship and submission to the gods is treated, at best, as a lingering bad habit from a Christisn upbringing.
But here I am, and that cannot possibly be the case with me. I was raised sort-of-Christian (it depends on whom you ask), but in a tradition that did not emphasize the kind of worship that gets the Pagan stamp of disapproval. Wherever I learned to worship, it certainly was not in my own religious upbringing. And during my post-Mormon Christian explorations, I never really felt the urge to worship. So I didn’t get it there either. I honestly believe that my desire to worship the gods is purely and simply because they have revealed themselves to me as proper objects of my worship. They are my gods, they are real, and they are incredible.
Furthermore, the more I think about it, the more I think that the submission-versus-reciprocity meme is a false dichotomy. If a proper relationship with the gods is one of kharis (hospitality and reciprocity), wherein we give to the gods and the gods give to us, then what greater gift can we give but total worship and utter submission? Perhaps such a gift is not mandatory, but certainly a gift to the gods is not inappropriate because it is too great.
Sailing to Byzantium 
Just your friendly neighborhood atheist here.
I’m not clear on what interest the gods have in being worshiped. What makes it a gift?
(Or perhaps that’s my former Mormonism asserting itself.)
Just your friendly neighborhood pious Pagan here.
Worship is the ideal gift for “the God who has everything”!
The Gods lack nothing. We are the ones who benefit from worshipping the Gods.
Which is why I ask the question. (BTW, that’s a typically Mormon answer, so I guess you have something in common.) By your way of thinking, it really isn’t a gift to the gods.
Really, I’m just trying to understand the mindset.
Worship pleases the Gods. Just because the Gods lack nothing for themselves, this does not mean that they are incapable of experience joy in response to the worship of mortals.
Take a parent for example. Say this parent has plenty of money, a loving partner, lots of friends, etc. But as a parent she or he also has children. As all parents know, you can not live for your children – they must find their own way in life. Sometimes they do, and sometimes they don’t. The parent feels pain when the child feels pain, and joy when the child feels joy. This is not because the parent lacks something – rather it is because of the nature of the relationship between parent and child. This is called “love”. To love is to suffer and to feel joy. The Gods are not incapable of love, therefore they are not incapable of suffering and feeling joy.
The real kicker is that we humans also lack nothing. The Gods have already given us the greatest gift there is: greatness of soul, and there is nothing else we need. In fact there is nothing else that we can ever truly “have”. The best explanation of this is to be found, in my opinion, in the “Discourses” (diatiboi) of the great Pagan philosopher Epictetus.
I guess the parent analogy doesn’t clear it up for me. I enjoy it if they express love for me, but is this really the same as worship? To me, worship means something other than simply loving another being. It means a kind of subjection.
Personally, I would feel uncomfortable if my children worshiped me, so I’m trying to understand why the gods are supposed to enjoy it. The way I understand worship, it points to a kind of ego-centrism if the gods enjoy it outside of the benefit it brings to the worshipper.
Maybe you can help clear up what you mean by worship.
I don’t know if the gods “enjoy” worship or not, as I don’t know how to ascribe that kind of thing to them – it seems like more of a human response. I know, speaking only for myself, that worship is the only possible response I have to the presence of the divine. When one of the gods is present, there is a sort of evaporation of ego and consciousness and all is replaced by total submissive ecstatic adoration. I cannot describe it well at all, but it is not something that involves choice or decision or anything like an intellectual pose.
I’ve read the same books and heard from the same people who say that worship is not properly pagan and that we are supposed to have some other sort of relationship with the gods. I don’t know how that works for people, though I suppose it must mean something important. I’ve never been Christian so my worshipfulness is not a holdover from anything. It’s just the only response there is for me – fear and joy intermingled, with adoration above all.
First, who says that the gods lack nothing? Isn’t it possible that they have a different type of makeup that does require something? Especially the Hellenic gods–they are not all powerful, all everything beings, right?
Second, I would posit a metaphor of worshipping gods as being similar to the relationship that we have with our pets. The Greek gods, in my understanding, don’t really have the same parent/child analogy that the Christian god does, so using that metaphor to describe the relationship seems a bit off. But, as humans, we keep dogs and cats, who essentially worship us. Dogs love us and kiss our feet and adore us, regardless of what we do. We don’t need a pet’s affection–in fact, many humans choose not to have pets. However, people with pets tend to enjoy the unreserved, unqualified love received. Additionally, people with pets tend to live longer, showing that there are actually benefits beyond just not coming home to an empty house.
Jonathan,
To me, worship means something other than simply loving another being. It means a kind of subjection.
And to me, it means expressing love and reverence, which I certainly have for the Gods I choose to worship… and why shouldn’t They enjoy being told about it? I do agree with Katyjane that the parent/child metaphor doesn’t really ring true (except possibly with Hera). It’s true that there is an imbalance in the relationship – since They are Gods and I’m not, it could hardly be otherwise – but subjection? No.
Obviously the parent analogy was meant to address the question of whether or not the Gods lack anything. Nowhere did I suggest that children should worship there parents. All that was meant was to point out that a parent who lacks nothing, in one sense, still feels sadness and joy as a result of their relationship with their children.
Anyone who has ever truly been in love knows what “worship” means. For everyone else – you have my sympathy.
Apuleius
@katyjane “Dogs love us and kiss our feet and adore us, regardless of what we do.… people with pets tend to enjoy the unreserved, unqualified love received.”
I guess this is a telling point, but that worshipful attitude that dogs have is exactly why I’m not a dog person. (At least I wasn’t the last time I checked; it’s been a long while since I owned one.) They’re too clingy. Give me some space.
@executivepagan “and why shouldn’t They enjoy being told about it?”
To me it makes them seem self-absorbed. That’s not the kind of god I’d want to be hitching my cart to, but if you’re OK with that, then whatever floats your boat.
Jonathan,
What kind of relationship would I have with my wife, child or parents if I never told them I love them? Or my friends, for that matter? Worship is about maintaining my relationship with my Gods.
Erik, do you see a distinction between worship and love?
Jonathan,
Yes, mostly due to the inherent imbalance that I mentioned above between our nature and that of the Gods (I’m also executivepagan, not sure why it sometimes lists me one way or the other); the sense of reverence implied in worship is not really present in human relationships. That’s the main difference that I experience.
OK, just wanted to make sure we’re speaking the same language.
So do you understand that your relationship with the gods benefits them? I guess I’m still stuck on how worship can be a gift to the gods.
People differ in how they express Romantic Love. But for those who are of a genuinely romantic disposition the distinction between love and worship is blurred, at the very least.
Romantic love is a kind of madness, a divinely inspired madness, a gift of Eros and Aphrodite.
Mystical poetry deliberately breaks down any distinction between Erotic love and love for the Divine. Rumi’s poetry is a well known example – these work equally well as hot-and-heavy love poems and as hymns of devotion to the Divine.
Sappho is another example. And the poetry of Solomon……
This makes a lot more sense if you understand that all religion is deeply sexual/erotic in nature. In some religions, like Paganism, the sexual element is celebrated – in others it must be expressed more furtively.
Who says a gift has to benefit the recipient to be a good gift? That’s a pretty utilitarian way of looking at gift-giving that in my opinion does not match what happens in real life. Everyone loves to get a gift they want or need, but I don’t think very many people would say it’s a requirement. Common wisdom says it’s the thought that counts: a gift is a relationship-building gesture, not necessarily an attempt to meet someone’s needs.
People give each other worthless trinkets (sometimes very expensive ones!) all the time, and they are appreciated because they are a thoughtful gesture.
As to the egocentrism issue, I think that the disconnect is that gods are appropriate objects of worship, while humans are not. So if a human accepts worship, it seems wrong. It seems like the human is allowing himself to be elevated inappropriately above where he really stands. On the other hand, there is nothing immodest about graciously accepting praise that you really are due. Being praised for an accomplishment or an excellent attribute doesn’t actually benefit you, but as long as it is not excessive or inappropriate, it’s still a nice thing to get. Better, perhaps than some gifts.
The point with worship is that it is the ultimate thought-that-counts. And when the objects of worship are in fact gods, theresnothong excessive or inappropriate about it: gods are appropriate objects of worship the same way that adults of [the gender you prefer] are appropriate objects of sexual attraction.
And for the record, I most definitely worship katyjane, but that’s because she is a goddess.
I don’t post here often, so I’ll probably say something painfully out-of-place/wrong/whatever, but I’m wondering how you get to worship of the Hellenic Gods/Goddesses but not any others (that is, if you only have a certain group of Gods to worship?)
I know that you’ve written in the past about things relating to it (I guess this would be a “part” of your conversion narrative, right?), but going with the love/worship analogy (where worship is elevated because the beings it is directed to are elevated…I hope that’s a good understanding of it, because that seems to make sense conceptually to me)…anyway, going with the love/worship analogy, it seems to me that there has to be a rather odd justification for worship.
So, obviously, people don’t fall in love with and don’t love everyone. They don’t choose this. It hits them, and then they deal (whether through embracing it or…not.)
Are you saying that your relation with the Gods (as opposed to, say, Jesus, Allah, insert other Gods and Goddesses here) is kinda “accidental” in the same way that falling in love normally is?
Yes.
Andrew,
worship is elevated because the beings it is directed to are elevated
I like that way of putting it very much!
people don’t fall in love with and don’t love everyone. They don’t choose this. It hits them, and then they deal
Exactly. In describing my “conversion” on my own blog a few years ago, I said this:
…when I discovered that the worship of the Olympians was not dead, the pieces fell into place; I had an immediate feeling of “coming home”, and I knew that I had found my way forward in paganism. The Quakers speak of following “leadings”; I think that is what I was (and am) doing in Hellenismos. From the immediate comfort of the old familiar myths, to the pleasure of finding a way to reconnect spiritually with my native culture, to the deep sense of *rightness* that comes with answering the call of your God(s), I knew I had found something real and true. I did not connect with the Gods of my blood ancestry, but the Theoi are the ancestral Gods of all Western civilization; the cultures where Their worship first flourished are at the very origin of our history, and They are a vital part of the evolving fabric of our culture still today – They have never truly left us.
Jonathan,
I don’t *know* that our relationship does benefit Them, empirically… but I don’t know that it doesn’t, and I have subjective evidence that indicates it pleases Them; and really,that’s good enough for me.
I’m not as hung up on the idea of gift-for-gift reciprocity that some Recons seem to hang up on, the “do ut des” mentality. I see ritual worship, particularly when I’m not asking for a blessing or giving thanks for one, as a time-honored means of communicating with Them, of nurturing the relationship – similar to calling a friend just to chat.
Andrew: here’s a more in-depth explanation of how I came to worship these gods specifically:
https://byzantium.wordpress.com/2009/04/01/development-of-polytheistic-belief-a-brief-history/
I’ve been toying with a post about the accidental-ness of this whole thing. The Hellenic Gods are not really the ones I would have chosen if you told me to be a polytheist and to pick a set of gods I liked. It sort of unfolded in a way that seemed out of my control, which is one of the main reasons that I’m willing to put all my chips in. Its not a slam-dunk for objective truth, but it’s more than enough for me.
Also, keep in mind that I’m a pretty full-on polytheist, which means that I in no way reject the existence of gods other than the ones I worship. They’re just not my gods.