Most pagans do believe in God, y’know.
- THEIST
'θi.ɪst adjective. Believes in the existence of God or gods. - 2. Believes in one God, a personal being, the universe’s creator, who interacts with its creation.
- [Theistic
θi'ɪst.ɪk adjective, theism'θi.ɪz.əm noun]
- DEIST
'di.ɪst adjective, noun. Believes God exists, specifically as a creator who doesn’t supernaturally intervene in his universe. - [Deistic
'di.ɪs.tɪk adj., deism'di.ɪz.əm n.]
If you believe in gods, you’re a
- MONOTHEIST: Just the One God, thanks.
- POLYTHEIST: Multiple gods. Sometimes two, a good and bad god, in a dualistic system. Sometimes three, among
heretic Christians who really misunderstandthe trinity. Sometimes a whole pantheon. - HENOTHEIST: Multiple gods, but they only deal with the one, so functionally they’re more monotheist than polytheist. The other gods are off limits, bad, or have their own realms which don’t involve us any.
- PANTHEIST: The universe is God. (People often assume Hindus are polytheist, ’cause of all their gods, but really they’re pantheist.)
NONTHEIST : No god.
There’s a certain category of theist called
This God created the cosmos. Made the Big Bang go bang. Maybe directed evolution so humans would arise; maybe didn’t. Probably provided us some form of afterlife, so when we die we don’t simply cease to exist. May expect us humans to be good… or maybe he doesn’t care. See, pagans
Deism insists God’s too foreign, too transcendent, too far beyond figuring out… other than assuming he’s good. Generally deists agree God’s good. (Won’t always agree what they mean by “good,” but still.) Since God’s good, we should be good. Concentrate on that. Be selfless and noble and rational and generous, and strive for all those other humanist ideals.
But as for what God’s like: Don’t know, so don’t fret. He’s too different. Probably not at all interested in what we’re going through, ’cause we’re too puny and petty to be worth his worry. If he cares about us at all (and maybe he does) he’ll sort us out somehow. If he doesn’t… well, what can we really do about it? Best to just live our lives. Be good. But otherwise don’t worry about God.
I know: This apathetic attitude towards God sounds an awful lot like a nontheist’s apathetic attitude towards no God and no religion. Both groups definitely have apathy in common. But the big difference becomes obvious once deists and nontheists drop apathy. When deists finally decide to take their beliefs about God seriously, they tend to fall into a religion. Whereas when nontheists decide to take their beliefs in no God seriously, they pick fights with theists.