The Mother Goddess - Visions And Views.

[neytirifanboy]

I thought I would open a discussion thread about the Mother Goddess.

I think it's fair to say that Ewya is (at the very least) partly inspired by the pagan Mothed Goddess religions of the ancient past. So many of us may have views on this.

I am just wondering what people think of these old beliefs, whether positive or negative. Just to start off I will give a brief summary of how I see things.

I believe in the Mother Goddess concept in the sense that i see God as nature and God as principally female in nature. I don't believe in scripture, as effectively the laws of the Goddess are written in nature itself. Human words are fleeting and false. They can never be truly divine.

I am effectively a pantheist. The Goddess herself is one entity (i.e. the whole of nature). But she has many elements representing various elements such as creation and death. When I pray, I see myself praying to a representative of the Goddess rather (sort of like a guardian angel) rather than the Goddess herself who is way above human concerns. Other than that I perform no specific rituals.

In saying that, I do enjoy going into Catholic Church and lighting candels to the Virgin Mary and the female saints. That gives me satisfaction.

But I do not belong to any religious grouping as I don't believe or require that anyone should tell me what I should believe.

Anyway, does any one else have views on this subject? Or do you even have your own specific beliefs, prayers and rituals? i would be interested to hear.

And for those with other beliefs, please feel free to air your views. Tell us why you reject the concept or how the concept is incorporated into your own religion.

[Human No More]

I don't believe in any kind of god. I think an Eywa-like organism is possible, but doesn't exist on Earth. Here, there just aren't the connections between lifeforms.

[Tsyal Makto]

I meditate on this issue a lot. I have come to the conclusion that if there is one true religion, it would be animism, because it predates agriculture, and was humanity's first true religion (which exists on today, to a degree, in Buddhism and Hinduism). The Abrahamic religions only emerged after the agricultural evolution, after humanity lost it's balance and harmony with the natural world. What turns me off to the Abrahamic religions are their blatant anthropocentrism - that humanity is the only "saved" species, and that we can do anything we want to the Earth, because we are the only ones that matter in the end.

I'm a deist. I personally believe that there is a master creator of some sort, but plays little role in our daily lives. Instead, it relies on it's creation to maintain their own natural balance, which animism stressed. We express our instinct/duty to maintain a balance with our environment through beliefs such as the Mother Goddess, Eywa, etc. In the end, they all lead back to the master creator.

I believe in an afterlife, too. Though I don't think you need to know 10 rules, a list of prayers, or anything else specific to earn it. All you need to do is lead a life that leads balance in the world, and die with a sense of inner peace and happiness. I also believe in reincarnation, as if any souls die with a sense of inner pain or saddness, it would throw off the natural balance of the universe. Reincarnation is how the universe balances out, by giving everyone a chance to live again, until they reach that sense of inner peace and happiness. Once we earn the afterlife, I believe we will all go to our own personal paradises, where we can stay forever, our true homes. Pandora is mine.

[neytirifanboy]

Originally Posted by Tsyal Makto

I meditate on this issue a lot. I have come to the conclusion that if there is one true religion, it would be animism, because it predates agriculture, and was humanity's first true religion (which exists on today, to a degree, in Buddhism and Hinduism). The Abrahamic religions only emerged after the agricultural evolution, after humanity lost it's balance and harmony with the natural world. What turns me off to the Abrahamic religions are their blatant anthropocentrism - that humanity is the only "saved" species, and that we can do anything we want to the Earth, because we are the only ones that matter in the end.

I'm a deist. I personally believe that there is a master creator of some sort, but plays little role in our daily lives. Instead, it relies on it's creation to maintain their own natural balance, which animism stressed. We express our instinct/duty to maintain a balance with our environment through beliefs such as the Mother Goddess, Eywa, etc. In the end, they all lead back to the master creator.

I believe in an afterlife, too. Though I don't think you need to know 10 rules, a list of prayers, or anything else specific to earn it. All you need to do is lead a life that leads balance in the world, and die with a sense of inner peace and happiness.

Yes, my views are consistent with your up to this point. Although i am more agnostic about the existence of the afterlife. There may or may not be one. But in general, I assume there isn't.

Originally Posted by Tsyal Makto

I also believe in reincarnation, as if any souls die with a sense of inner pain or saddness, it would throw off the natural balance of the universe. Reincarnation is how the universe balances out, by giving everyone a chance to live again, until they reach that sense of inner peace and happiness. Once we earn the afterlife, I believe we will all go to our own personal paradises, where we can stay forever, our true homes. Pandora is mine.

I am more agnostic about this part.

[Tsyal Makto]

I used to be agnostic about the afterlife, too, but I started to believe after reading certain accounts of NDEs. Probably the most profound was a blind woman who accurately described herself and those around her when she "saw" herself at a hospital after a car accident.

[neytirifanboy]

Originally Posted by Tsyal Makto

I used to be agnostic about the afterlife, too, but I started to believe after reading certain accounts of NDEs. Probably the most profound was a blind woman who accurately described herself and those around her when she "saw" herself at a hospital after a car accident.

The trouble with these accounts is that they don't realy prove anything. They neither prove or disprove the existence of the afterlife, at least from my perception of things. Also, what she saw could be explained in so many varied ways, from the ultra-logic to the ultra-mystic.

I actually quite like the idea of reincarnation and like the sound of your vision of the afterlife. But I feel that my own perception is too human to really appreciate these things for what they really are if they do exist. And I do not wnat to be controlled by dogmatic concepts of good and evil from any religion that may not have any basis in natural (i.e. from nature) law.

I think the main issue with these things is that they are irrelevant to my current life. Even if they exists, then there is no way to know that any actions I take will have one consequence or another. And I also believe that we have much less control of our actions than we think.

I am a great believer that we are just animals with self-consciousness. And the consequence of that self-consciousness is that we can be both more compassionate and more cruel; more greedy and more generous.

But I also believe that we are the consciousness of the Goddess. We are one of natures methods for discovering and "seeing" itself.

But I also do not believe that we are consciously chosen, nor that we are unique.