A World Full of Gods
John Michael Greer
ADF Publishing, 2005
ISBN 0-9765681-0-1

A World Full of Gods by John Michael Greer is a philosophical discusion of polytheism, and very refreshing in a world where almost all theology is defenses of and attacks on monotheism.

One of the central points is that if we accept the wide range of religious experiences that people report as true, or at least true for them, then that implies there is a large number of gods. However, even if there is a ground of all being or a deity that encompasses all of existence -- and religious experience does include contact with something of the sort -- that doesn't mean it's necessarily the best thing to worship. Maybe most people are better off worshipping gods which are closer to a human scale.

More generally, Greer suggests that sound religion can and should be based in tradition, experience, and good sense rather than in belief and theology. He asks whether miracles need to be drastic to matter, and suggests that people are generally content with meaningful, unlikely events -- they don't need for the laws of nature to be broken.

Greer also takes a look at the identities of gods, and concludes that it's an odd and blurry matter, even within single cultures -- for example, is the Apollo of the oracle at Delphi the same god as the sun god, plague god, and/or god of mice?

He sees myths as narratives which help people organize their experience, and so, he argues, there's no point in trying to prove they happened in historical time. In terms of Christian mythology, he suggests that apocalyptic prophecies are unlikely to ever come true, and lead to worse behavior rather than better because people who expect the world to end arenÕt worried about the consequences of their actions.

I liked a point he made about monotheism tending to define virtue as getting other people to do the right thing. While that is hardly the whole story about monotheist morality, it's a definite presence in modern religion and politics which I didn't notice it until Greer pointed it out.

However, I thought that Greer's contrast between the effects of monotheism and polytheism was too extreme -- polytheism doesn't reliably lead to tolerance, as he implies. He also tends to blur the difference between Judaism and Christianity (I don't know enough about Islam to have an opinion about how he handles it), as when he describes all monotheisms as based in the need for salvation.

Overall I recommend A World Full of Gods to anyone who's interested in an intellectual basis for polytheism.

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