pith…

It seems there is a shortage of gods in the universe today. Here on earth, if you mention the name Baal, Njord, Horus or even Krishna, people will look at you like your nuts, or like you’re alluding to someone out of a fairly tale. These gods, now considered to be blatant myths, are basically extinct. In a day and age when people can recite at least a dozen basketball players, it’s all too interesting that most people are only familiar with their one god, and sometimes that’s even a stretch.

If you ask a neighbor, coworker, friend or family member to name their god, you will find confusion and ignorance. Seriously, try it. At work a few days ago, I took it upon myself to ask this question to ten colleagues. Most people responded by saying, “My god is the god of the bible” or “Jesus Christ” or “I have no idea” or “The Judeo-Christian god.” Out of the ten, not one responded, “well, obviously Yahweh is my god, and he is the great god of the New and Old Testament.”

Shouldn’t one at least know the name of the god they choose to worship? I personally wouldn’t want to pray to an invisible manifestation I don’t know the name of.

The problem with this new evolutionary juncture regarding the few gods still worshiped on this planet is that we have used up all of the gods. Gods are not evolving like they used to – Krishna is not transforming into Jesus (both stories are presumably taken from the same myth). We are stuck. Once these remaining few are christened as myths, what will we do? People are not as superstitious as they were in the past. I don’t see people propagating gods out of thin air. Maybe the Catholic Church will offer a few new gods (as they always have good responses to crises). Maybe alien life will be referred to as gods.

As for now, however, we remain in our comfortable world with our comfortable myths. But the myths, and therefore, the gods, are becoming more and more obsolete.

Currently, we have less than 5 prominent gods to work with. The three-headed monster consists of Christianity’s Yahweh, Islam’s Yahweh and Hinduism’s Krishna and Rama (Hinduism is polytheistic and worships other gods as well, but Rama and Krishna are the main culprits). Add Mormonism’s Yahweh, and we are still only at three gods. These gods are so popular that nearly 5 billion people adhere to them.

So there they are, the three gods the average person should know, but doesn’t. Will these gods continue their reign through child indoctrination, perpetuation of organized religion, and other popularizing techniques, or will they fade into the realm of reason? With the rise of secularism, agnosticism, atheism or other nonreligious groups, it seems as if reason is on the way. Over a billion people in the world today consider themselves secular, agnostic, atheistic or nonreligious – and one can only hope that these people tell (or have told) their children the beauty about the cosmos and the fantasy of the mythos.

It is reassuring to think of the extinction of these gods, and maybe, just maybe, reason will prevail in our future.