The Vocabulary of Divinity.

[emberleo]

Last night BellaCrow asked me what the difference is between "Powers" and "gods". I feel pushed to write out my answer and post it here, with the usual caveats that this is my understanding and perspective - it's an educated one, but nevertheless a biased one, etc. etc. blah blah.

Comments

[alfrecht]

Very nicely done! The chess/checkers analogy is quite fantastic--perhaps you should write this up as a formal article for The Pomegranate or something? (Yes, you should!)

I often point out in my religious studies classes that the same religious studies scholars (e.g. Huston Smith) who believe in an evolutionary view of religion--with monotheism being at the top rung, as it were--also don't believe in evolution itself, and also don't take that model the step further that atheists do in positing atheism as the apex of the pyramid (or what have you).

Edward Butler, a great modern pagan theologian/philosopher, who has published in various journals as well as being a member of Neos Alexandria, pointed out a while back that treating various African and Afro-Diasporic "High Gods" (like Oludumare) as a kind of monotheism is very misleading, because they're a class of deus otiosus deities who, oftentimes even if they're supreme and the creator, receive no propitiation and are utterly removed from and beyond the created world. (This

[emberleo]

Very nicely done! The chess/checkers analogy is quite fantastic--perhaps you should write this up as a formal article for The Pomegranate or something? (Yes, you should!)

*blinks* *blushes* Um... what does that entail?

Otherwise, yes, thank you! If I were to turn this into something more serious I'd want to back it up with references and all.

--Ember--

[alfrecht]

Yes, exactly: by writing it up formally, I'd think you'd need to lengthen it a bit, put in lots of footnotes, etc. The Pomegranate is, as you may know, the only journal of pagan studies currently in existence...

But, because the comparison is made so often between Afro-Diasporic religions and paganism (due to the large degree of crossover membership between them, particularly on the West Coast), it would be useful to have some formal articles out there by knowledgeable practitioners (like yourself!) that clarify the very real and important differences between them.

[emberleo]

It wouldn't bother them that I'm only just going to graduate with a BA in Religious Studies next year?

--Ember--

[alfrecht]

Considering that their editor-in-chief doesn't even have a degree in anthropology, sociology, religion, or anything of the sort, I wouldn't think so--the standards of the material are more important than the degrees, or so I've been lead to believe.

[ertla]

If I remember right, articles are subject to double blind peer review, i.e. the reviewers don't know whether you are a post doc, professor, undergraduate, or ignorant amateur, except based on what you write. And I agree that this is worthy of a broader audience.

[emberleo]

That's really cool.

--Ember--