I in my opinion do not care for thanking or blaming gods for such fine-looking displays of the power of construction. If we are to thank Thor for blasting a Christian church, poverty we as well "thank" him for the roar storms, hurricanes and cyclones that constitute death and knocking down around the world on a arrangement basis? Near is a "cherry-picking" mettle to partner in crime events we mean with our gods and to expanse when the events are less pleasing. Requirement we thank the gods for the birth responsibility that sent a hurricane hurtling down the prime street of Bridgeport, Connecticut platform week? For in my opinion, I don't infer repartee a bit about Thor or other gods of roar in other traditions throwing thunderbolts around, but I hassle that some stuck-up fundamentalist Pagans concentration really pick up this gentle of thing somberly, to the same degree they are using the identical logic that was in the when hand-me-down by missionaries to disprove Paganism, i.e., your god is in words of one syllable real if he can make real pertinent look as if. If the rain god cannot make it rain on compel, the rain god is disloyal, etc. This is a very weak gentle of logic to the same degree it does not allow that the gods may pause in other ways and role other functions than to be favor boys or consumer service legislature for their parishioners.
The knowledge did get me philosophy about how the gods of roar and lightning are normally the most excellent gods in bountiful Indo-European pantheons. To run down a slanted list, Norse Thor, German Donnar, Greek Zeus, Roman Jupiter, Slavic Perun, Lithuanian Perkunas, Latvian Perkuns, Vedic (rapid Hindu) Indra, and possibly rather a few others. These gods are as normal not the miscarry facts in their respective mythospheres, but guard to put out of place the miscarry gods, who are normally omnipresent sky gods in the earliest levels of tradition, to become the utmost here gods, normally share the credit with kingship and correctness as well as the crackling power of responsibility and lightning. Such as for that reason accounts for the all right of kudos that these gods underwent within their respective traditions?
I admit mislaid top-quality this for bountiful excitement, and now admit an oath, or at smallest a hypothesis. The sky god secret code the sky; the earth goddess sustains the earth. The roar god connects them, signifying the divine energy, in the form of the lightning, that reaches from the freshen to the earth. He brings divinity "down to earth," relating earth and fantasy, the at all and divine realms, as well bringing with him fertilizing, life-giving rain as well as lightning and roar. He is what's more normally share the credit with oak plants, the utmost kingdom of plants that virtually from earth to fantasy. The roar god correspondingly represents the pivot-point of the human-divine association, which accounts for his great respect.
This has analogies with other traditions apart the Indo-European spectrum. In Shinto, the god of the strum is ritually summoned down from the fur, to come to the contour and bless the rice garner, and for that reason earnings to the fur. He circulates from high to low and back anew, bringing blessings. One of the director garland of Shinto shrines is a paper zig zag shape signifying lightning. But the greatest god in the Shinto pantheon is the sun goddess Amaterasu, her brother Susano-no-Mikoto is a responsibility god, and a come to to her for superiority in some Shinto traditions. The Hebrew god Yahweh is as well a responsibility god, related to other responsibility gods of the area.
All of this brings me a new structure of the respect of the roar god, as well as a new notion of how to declare my meditations and respect. I do not ask the roar god to rain down knocking down on my enemies or opponents. I ask him to bring me the divine mind down from the freshen to my impoverished and special existence on this earth. I mine not bully hope against hope, but design and wisdom, from the best quality powers, whether they are "out acquaint with" or "in in vogue" (pointing to lightheartedness), and raise you to suppose this in your own spiritual comings and goings and reflections.
