DISCUSSION: Do Gods Need Us?

[Roma]

The gods of the Old Testament needed a lot of physical food - including human children. Perhaps they had/have physical bodies

 

[Saint]

The gods of the Old Testament needed a lot of physical food - including human children. Perhaps they had/have physical bodies

We can sacrifice and offer anything from the physical plane, it is about the energy which it contains, it have nothing to do with the physical plane itself. Blood, meat offering/sacrifice neither about the blood/meat itself, but what it contains, that is what can makes it valuable (the life essence for example). When you offer food, the deity won't consume the food itself, but the essence (it can actually make the food to spoil faster, which can indicate that the food as offering, was accepted), which is non-physical. When you offer blood, the blood will remain, the essence however, belongs to the entity.

I'd rather imagine it in this way, since offering or sacrificing anything to a non-physical, transcendental being (at the very end, neither of us are physical, we are just manifested, our soul was never "physical" being) who isn't even manifested on the material plane (however they might have avatars), seems like more about the energy itself and not the material object.
For us, the food needed the way it is, with all of it's material qualities, because or body requires it to build in and make our body work, but for them, these are not important. Maybe they considered that, the "biggest" the sacrifice is, the more valuable the essence/energy might be, and sacrificing life energy is the very top of everything.

 

[Mider2009]

The gods of the Old Testament needed a lot of physical food - including human children. Perhaps they had/have physical bodies

there’s multiple references where the prophets tell the people God doesn’t want or need sacrifice, in fact in Jeremiah 6, and Isaiah God says I don’t want your offerings nor accept them as the people were acting horribly...Rambam said it was more a cultural thing.

but I agree with Telafiel, it’s about energy. Today it’s said prayers are like offerings, does God eat them? No, my understanding is that they are used on behalf of the Jewish people and the world, to bring blessings.

Other spirits? Well when you die you don’t suddenly stop loving coffee, smoking, etc...honestly I’d love a cold coke on my altar when I die lol.

supposedly if one uses an animal sacrifice during a ritual it adds that much more energy

of course don't Quote me on this stuff

 

[Jaide]

I'm of the mind that if gods exist (agnostic to my dying breath, I guess), they were gods before humans worshiped them, and the worship came after their power was evident. Mostly because that's how the stories are told. I find the theory that they have more power when they receive offerings/worship intriguing. It would explain why they demand tithings for favors. But a lot of gods and goddess are described as arrogant and egotistical, so that could also factor into why they would want offerings before giving aid. Truly nothing is free? If I were a god, I'd expect something in return for going out of my way, but that could just be the human in me. Anyway...

 

[Roma]

The OT tells us that the sons of the gods took the daughters of men as wives and their off-spring were heroes/giants.

How did non-physical gods/angels breed with humans?

Perhaps we prefer not to think about some things

 

[Saint]

The OT tells us that the sons of the gods took the daughters of men as wives and their off-spring were heroes/giants.

How did non-physical gods/angels breed with humans?

Perhaps we prefer not to think about some things

These are manifestations, incarnations, not the soul themselves. Perhaps, we prefer to focus on the plane we think we exist only, and forget who we really are (and I am not talking about the ego and it's mostly childish games, which literally close us away from our true self).

I also refuse to limit my mind and strictly bound it to the physical world. If you decide to try to explain everything based on the rules of the third dimension - in spite that you aren't originate from there and your sour neither limited by these rules -, that is up to you, but the origin of our true identity was never physical.
​

How did non-physical gods/angels breed with humans?​

The soul itself can have different "qualities", energy type and origin. We as humans, we have words to categorize different things as we do it with them too (but it is more than obvious that sometimes, our words are not accurate enough or carry the right meaning to get a proper image of what we are actually talking about when we name something as we do).

As I said, any soul can have the potential to manifest, if they have the power and/or reason. Does it change the fact that we are transcendental beings? No.​

 

[SkullTraill]

Truly nothing is free? If I were a god, I'd expect something in return for going out of my way, but that could just be the human in me. Anyway...

This is exactly why I too chose not to believe in omnipotent gods. It makes no sense for someone with infinite power and ability to "want" anything. However, being powerful but still not omnipotent, opens up the possibility of the god wanting or desiring something in return.

 

[Roma]

In the Sumerian accounts the Annunaki "gods" bred slave humans by combining the Annunaki DNA with that of a hominid already on the planet. (Why was the hominid DNA compatible with Annunaki DNA?)

There were many experiments before they came up with a human that could hold its urine, reproduce and was intelligent enough to follow instructions.

Some of the Annunaki females collected human males for sexual purposes e.g. Lilith.

The reason for breeding slave humans was to replace the Annunaki in the mines. The Annunaki kept going on strike because they did not like the heavy work and were dying under this aging sun. The food of life and water of life was provided to them to maintain their immortality

 

[Roma]

As we know from George Orwell: Ignorance is Strength

 

[Mider2009]

This is exactly why I too chose not to believe in omnipotent gods. It makes no sense for someone with infinite power and ability to "want" anything. However, being powerful but still not omnipotent, opens up the possibility of the god wanting or desiring something in return.

God wants to share his goodness, but wanting things? No, the descriptions of God hating, loving, etc are humans trying to describe God as human emotion....it’s complicated. God is beyond emotion yet he encompasses every emotion?

 

[Mider2009]

The OT tells us that the sons of the gods took the daughters of men as wives and their off-spring were heroes/giants.

How did non-physical gods/angels breed with humans?

Perhaps we prefer not to think about some things

The Sons of God is interpreted to being humans who were mighty in stature

but there is a belief that the angels came down thinking they could do better then us in our low vibration world And mated with woman. It’s said The angels can put on physical bodies, read When Jacob wrestled a man.

the man is said to be Samael the guardian Angel of Esau. How can a man wrestle an Angel? Because Jacob tapped into his higher self Metatron. Yet Jacob was left injured for the rest of his life.

 

[Jaide]

God wants to share his goodness, but wanting things? No, the descriptions of God hating, loving, etc are humans trying to describe God as human emotion....it’s complicated. God is beyond emotion yet he encompasses every emotion?

(And also @SkullTraill, I suppose) You’re conflating (the Christian) God with gods.

The various gods in polytheistic religions are usually very human in personality, with all the “bad” human traits as well.

Odin is a liar. Thor is arrogant and rude. Athena and Aphrodite are vengeful. Hades is a thief and a master manipulator. Poseidon is moody and greedy. (I didn’t cover all the pantheons, but you get it.)

Generally speaking, people pray to/worship the gods and goddesses for what they represent or have control over. So you’d pray to Poseidon for calm seas, Aphrodite for love or beauty, Odin for support in war or healing, etc. In the old days, many cultures only truly worshipped 1-2 gods/goddesses and prayed to the others when they needed something under the purviews of those deities. And they weren’t afraid to curse the gods when something happened that they believed the gods should have prevented, like a ship going down or a battle lost.

Most gods are not omnipotent, though they (in some pantheons) may have a bit of psychic ability and/or ability to see into the realm of humans in ways humans can’t. They aren’t all powerful. Most specialize in certain areas and have “powers” related to that specialization. In many cases, the requirement of an offering in exchange for aid comes from a place of arrogance and entitlement, but some gods believe you shouldn’t get something for nothing.

A lot of forms of magic require some sort of offering. The fae can make their own fairy cakes, Odin can acquire his own tobacco and mead, Aphrodite can conjure up the prettiest roses you’ve ever seen. But if you want them to do something for you, why shouldn’t you do something for them in return? And besides…I’m human and food tastes better when someone else cooks it.

Some people believe gods aren’t actually beings at all, but keys to put you in the correct mindset to achieve what you’re aiming for. I used to believe that but I don’t know what I believe these days. I’m also not sure it matters if you get the result you’re looking for.

 

[Nana]

I'd like to get everyone's stance on this so I'll expound further: do gods or any other spirit that receives worship or veneration need us to continue to worship and venerate them? Or can they survive and perhaps even thrive without us giving them energy?

Let's discuss!

Gods & spirits don't need us to exist, they need ties to the world strong enough for them to do what we ask of them. Gods & spirits are beings of purpose, the genius of an inhuman phenomena or the crystallizations of a concept or event like Survival, 1776, or the Smith Family. Except for the spirits & gods explicitly tied to humans we are not necessary for them to survive or thrive.
The complications arise with humanity not the spirits. We are each born at the intersection of Divine Will, Elemental Facility, and Human Fiat, a conspiracy of destiny and aptitude bordered by matter, time, and space. Spirits and gods occupy elemental affinity which, with our ancestries and societies, influences our temperaments and talents.
The result is that humans can pull these geniuses free of their elemental or conceptual moorings and move about unfettered into spaces usually denied them. We aren't sources of power for spirits, we are doors and our acts of worship condition us to be "opened" by specific spirits. This is a very crude and inexact explanation of psycho-spiritual dynamism but it serves to illustrate why some spirits value worshippers more than others and how and why spirits and gods travel with their worshippers.
What this doesn't address are the circumstances of innate or "head" spirits or gods. That dynamic is very different and has more to do with human spiritual anatomy and eschatology than the anatomy of spirits and the spirits have been very tight lipped about that particular subject so far.
I've said a lot and went on a few tangents so I'll offer the answer directly

1. Other than our innate spirits, spirits need worship or veneration.
2. That need has nothing to do with their survival and everything to do with their ability to trigger events in the Material World that will impact their spiritual world.
3. Acts of worship are about synergy not energy.
4. Innate deities & spirits have their destinies & well being bound up with the individual's; working with us is a part of it's innate function which is why they can be either the most helpful or most harmful of spirits to come across, particularly because the inverse is also true.

Harming that relationship is self harm, but people take self destructive actions all the time.

 

[Irish Bard]

Yes but we need them too. Carl Jung pretty much nailed this stuff down with his archetypal theory .

"Archetypes (Spirts/Gods/Angels) resemble the beds of rivers: dried up (Human Consciousness left in thirst) because the water (Worship/Contemplation) has deserted them , though it may return at any time. An archetype is something like an old watercourse along which the water of life flowed for a time, digging a deep channel for itself. The longer it flowed the deeper the channel, and the more likely it is that sooner or later the water will return."

 

[Mider2009]

Yes but we need them too. Carl Jung pretty much nailed this stuff down with his archetypal theory .

"Archetypes (Spirts/Gods/Angels) resemble the beds of rivers: dried up (Human Consciousness left in thirst) because the water (Worship/Contemplation) has deserted them , though it may return at any time. An archetype is something like an old watercourse along which the water of life flowed for a time, digging a deep channel for itself. The longer it flowed the deeper the channel, and the more likely it is that sooner or later the water will return."

I wonder if maybe the gods change names when they lose worshipers under one name

 

[Saint]

I wonder if maybe the gods change names when they lose worshipers under one name

Presumably a God can have different names, can and do appear in different religions while carrying the same role. Of course, there is a debate around the question if they are really the same entity or not (like the Egyptian God Seth and his Greek equivalent, Typhon), this is something what everyone have decide by themselves.

Some God can actually find a way back to the stage in different way, and one of the most effective is the Pop Culture. Inspiration is a great tool for them to find a way back to modern humans' mind. While the fandom won't "worship" these Gods anymore in a way how people did back then, what they do, how they connect with them is also very fruitful and rich in energies. The love, bound what people can feel towards a character can serve these beings quite well (writings, poems, songs, paintings, comics, books, movies, video games, cosplays etc.) and they can also, help others. They can teach, motivate and deliver certain messages via the character. If you think about the theory which is states that a God may appear in different cultures, perfectly shows that they can also appear in modern culture.

It may seem like a "sneakier" way to stay in humans' mind, but our culture is always changing, and these beings can also adapt to these changes, and follow us in a different form, since we live our life different now. None of us should live in the past, we build the future in the present, and Gods knows this as well.​

 

[William]

A common and misleading type of thinking is that we are physical beings. We are eternal spiritual/immaterial entities who created this Hologram Experiential Reality Simulation [HERS] for the purpose of going within it for the experience and the data said experience would provide.

Egregores are our 'teammates' re the game-play.

 

[Roma]

Presumably a God can have different names, can and do appear in different religions while carrying the same role.

Zechariah Sitchin made a pretty good job of demonstrating that there was/is only one set of gods at a time on this planet - until the next phase of the war in the heavens replaced them with a new set.

He compared characters and events to match the gods across cultures, even demonstrating that one god, disappearing from the Middle East, had an exact counterpart appearing in South America at the same time

 

[William]

We create this reality - and coinciding realities - as we respond to them...

 

[Roma]

Since there are many intelligences creating reality there must be colliding realities