The thing is, I am not an atheist… I seem to fall into that category that one thoughtful poster on a forum I frequent referred to as having a “radically more nuanced position than the doctrinaire, materialist-reductionist, stance you tend to find among your classic Bertrand Russell sort of atheists. And sometimes seems to converge, albeit not actually meet, with similarly nuanced beliefs about the nature of divinity held by many Pagan polytheists.”

As I have said before, my sensory relationship is with those I would choose to refer as the living community of the spirit of my ancestors. But within that relationship I am drawn to various non-human people who would certainly share qualities that I might recognise as being of “Godness”.

I also recognise a hierarchy of power and influence within the non-human and that can lead to a perception of some beings as Gods. In the discussions I’ve had with polytheists about the matter, having more “power” has often been one of the key characteristics of godhood.

Problem I have with that is that many people have power, both non-human and human, and we rarely (at least in the context of the culture I am embedded within) elevate human persons to Godhood in this stage of their existence, and it makes little sense to me to reserve godhood for non-human persons based on a hierarchical power relationship alone.

So what can I hold as being sufficient and/or necessary for defining status of Godhood? I had the pleasure of Heron on CF encouraging me to be a little more robust than I might otherwise have been in my thoughts on this matter whilst contributing a broadening perspective, and I realise that it is by no means a question with a simple answer. What is the nature of the Gods?

Somehow, it seems to boil down to the Gods having an intrinsic and fundamental involvement with aspects of our experience of reality that are in and of themselves intrinsic and fundamental. So to me, the spirit of a place may not be a god (though in some cases it may be… the cultural manifestation and significance of a place would have a real bearing on that), though it is a powerful person worthy of respect… but the spirit of time, the spirit of transition, the forces that cleave the world and create distinction. These would strike me as being very difficult to place in anything other than the “God” category.

I guess I’m just coming to understand that the answers are not going to be conceptually neat and clean If I was going to take a pop, I’d say that the nature of Gods is to sustain reality and our experience of reality. I would also say that it is in the nature of Gods not to sit in human boxes.