The Cauldron: A Pagan Forum

Do we only hang with our deities because we think THEY think like us?  Or are we true servants and should do as our God/desses bid?

 
Good question! For me, I would not do something that disagreed SO strongly with my personal values as Abraham did - my faith is not blind. This doesn't mean I believed in my gods any less - in fact if they turned up and asked something of me I'd pretty much say my belief was confirmed! Personal responsibility is one of the cornerstones of my faith and asking me to do something that far outside of what I feel is right would have me telling Odhinn where to get off.

I just ran into a reference of Abraham being told by God to sacrifice his son, Isaac

That example becomes even more problematic when it came to Jephthah's daughter. (Judges 11:31-39) Or less, if you buy that the Big G, the omni-present Big G, had no part in this at all. And didn't, all the way to the end that doesn't say she didn't die horribly, but divine inspiration of the text might suggest that it was all euphemistic and that she just became a nun.

Would any of you step outside your normal values if you truly believed your deity was telling you to? Or would you jump ship, like I said I would in my little farce?

 
I have gone against my own established values, and used faith to get me there. It was such a difficult time in my life that I leaned on the spiritual because my rational was still more of a mess than the spiritual regularly is, and if (what I named) my "intuition" suggested that I kill someone? I can't say that I wouldn't have done it. So, if I've ever given off that I've got it All Figured Out, I really haven't.

It wasn't "me" or so I keep feeling-- but I firmly believe that I should make it "me", because there is no one else to blame or credit. My spirituality is still my spirituality.

(No casualties, by the by, but still quite the horror to be in that state, where something so dear to one's identity-- one's principles-- actually dissipates. I swear, I worked to keep a hold on those principles, as hard as I f***ing could. And what I did was Wrong-- and I don't expect sympathy, because I still actually won't give it to anyone else who chose to do something Wrong just because they felt cornered.)

Do we only hang with our deities because we think THEY think like us?  Or are we true servants and should do as our God/desses bid?

I'd say Yes to the former. There seems to be this feedback loop of metaphysical nature and nurture.

My patron before was Manannan mac Lir, and my favorite stories about Him portrayed a god who is resonant with Truth-- and a lot of things in my life before reading about Him, had formed the value of honesty in me. It helped having Him around, like an A.A. sponsor, probably. But, the turmoil that I mentioned? That came to a head when I told a lie.

I didn't get a lot of theophany to walk me through the process, but, I've figured so far that: The Man sensed that my resonance was becoming turmoiled, and that I wouldn't come out the other side of this event still being His acolyte. Or I might have told Him so, on some level; I don't recall being bade to stick to His principles. The Man appears to have just... foisted me off to Loki (as punishment. Haha, no, the Lie-smith World-breaker is actually a pretty cool guy-- but it does feel as if I were "referred elsewhere" and I do very much miss the clarity of compulsive honesty, as well as the somewhat more nurturing Celtic energy.)

Now, Loki didn't ask me to lie. I lied, and then Loki seemed to go, "Sure, I'll pick her up." I do recall that I did defy one of Loki's subsequent requests, however. We resonated in every way, actually, so I might have said yes-- but my faculty for actually making decisions? Said no, emphatically. And I'm wary of His divine retribution, and wistful about what might have been if I'd said Yes, but right now I just can't see should past the is. (Which might-- ta-daa!-- be why the Norns invited me in.)

Similarly, somewhere in all this, I also do believe that the Judeo-Christian Holy Spirit came to me to advise more patience and candor with somebody that I had been very hurt by and grown to hate. Intellectually, that would be a very enlightened attitude to take on. For me, practically, it is impossible. So, open up the earth to swallow me, send in the bears, strike me with lightning, burn me like garbage for innumerable aeons-- I shall not be other than myself.

Same with Manannan-- I made a vow, describing all sort of horrible consequences for breaking it, that He could make happen. For some reason, I don't feel that He will. If He did, I think it... wouldn't change anything that had to be changed, really.

Would any of you step outside your normal values if you truly believed your deity was telling you to?  Or would you jump ship, like I said I would in my little farce?

It would depend on what the deity wanted me to do, why the deity wanted it done, and -- in some cases, at least, what I would get out of it. I've told deities "no" before in cases where the answers were not good enough for me.

Do we only hang with our deities because we think THEY think like us?  Or are we true servants and should do as our God/desses bid?

 
Jump ship. I wouldn't do anything that goes against my personal morals. OTOH, I don't think (for me at least, my own beliefs here) my God(s) would ever ask me to do anything "harmful/rude/not right" etc..

Would any of you step outside your normal values if you truly believed your deity was telling you to?  Or would you jump ship, like I said I would in my little farce?

 
You know, I can totally see my primary god asking me to do something outside my ethics.  It would be something He would find convenient, I suspect, and thus He would get the thing He fancied or He would get the pleasure of having me tell Him to fuck right off.

 
After I got done being baffled senseless -

I am a big believer that I do not have the right to give/sacrifice/whatnot anything that is not /mine to give away/.  So I cannot sacrifice a child, because he is not /mine/ - he is /HIS/ and I just am fortunate enough to be his mommy and share his world for a time.

I already have commitments - anything asking me to betray/negate the commitments I've already freely chosen, again, not bloody likely.  I might THINK about it - but if tomorrow I was told I needed to go be a celibate nun or something, I'd probably be rude as hell.  I have a family, going off to be a hermit might sound good some nights (and it does!) but I have commitments.  I'm not going to walk off on someone else's say-so, god or not.

I HAVE given over most of my *working life* - I work on FlameKeeping almost exclusively as work-work.  (sometimes fiction, when I can, but even then the lines can be .. weird).  I sacrifice /my time/ - and a LOT of it - and a certain amount of cash in service.  I take it on faith that it's right.  But I wouldn't give so much that I gambled my family's future on it.  My own life, I can.  Someone else's?  No one else can take that choice from them.

"go sacrifice your kid" would result in me checking myself into the nearest ER.  'cause WHATEVER that voice might be, I don't want it!

I just ran into a reference of Abraham being told by God to sacrifice his son, Isaac, and it got me to thinking.

If it'd been me, my response would've been, Really?  Then I would have removed all symbols of that deity from my house and hired an exorcist to remove all traces of any energy left behind.  And when the angel appeared and said, Just kidding! I'd've said, Haha, very funny, and slammed the door in their face.

Now that's extreme but it got me to wondering how far we, as pagans, will go to follow the "laws" of our beliefs in order to please/placate our deities.

Would any of you step outside your normal values if you truly believed your deity was telling you to?  Or would you jump ship, like I said I would in my little farce?

Do we only hang with our deities because we think THEY think like us?  Or are we true servants and should do as our God/desses bid?

 
I think it would be totally dependent on what was being asked of me...but I've never thought of myself as a servant to the goddess I devote myself to, so I'm pretty sure anything that required me to murder my family would end with a big fat "NO." However, if it was something out of my comfort zone that didn't involve harming others (in a homicidal kind of way) , then I'd probably bite the bullet and go for it.