A long talk about religions.

I have always been interested in mythology. Since I was just a little kid. I don't know why, but gods have always fascinated me. Ha ha!

I think it all began with Disney's Hercules. It certainly was not the most accurate of the versions of the myth, but it was interesting all the same.

Oh wait, maybe not since Hercules. Maybe it was before. Ha, I remember now, I was religious, nearly a zealot, when I was a kid. I knew quite a lot about the stories in the Bible. For a kid, I mean.

But my point is, those mythologies are once religions too. Maybe they still are, I don't know. And what I've seen is that, I think, the myths/religions tells a lot about the people.

For instance, the Greek gods are pretty weird. They are by no means perfect. Sure, they couldn't die, and have superpowers, but their characters are just about as flawed as that of the humans who worshiped them. For example, Zeus was a womanizer, Hera was very jealous, Ares was a coward. And the stories tell even more weirdness, even more scandalous ones. There were orgies, rapes, incestuous relationships, castrations, cannibalism, slaughters and of course war. Pretty twisted up for divine beings, I think.

The Norse gods are different. They could die. Hey, Baldr did. But they still have superpowers. And their stories are, as far as I know, dominated by warfare. All the male gods are warriors. And there are lots of vicious mythological creatures which are violent in nature. To mention some of them, there are Jormungandr, Fenrir and Hel, which are Loki's children with the giantess Angrboda. This, too, is kind of weird for me, since Loki is a shape-shifter, and Angrboda is, well, a giantess, while Hel is half-woman/half-corpse, Fenrir is a huge wolf, and Jormungandr is a gigantic serpent.

The Aztec deities are unique too. Most of their antics was quite mundane. You know, like using body parts of a dead monster to create the universe and such. But one thing I'd like to say here. The Aztecs practice rituals that are gruesome by modern-day standards. They sacrifice men and women atop high pyramids, and let the sacrificees' (Is it the right word? I don't want to use the word 'victim') blood flow down the stairs and dye the earth red, while the remains (I suppose you can call them 'corpses' or worse, 'carcasses') were eaten. By the people. Oh, and my favorite Aztec god, Xipe Totec. I forgot the story, but in any case, he was flayed (for those of you who doesn't know, it means 'skinned'). And afterwards, he wears his flayed skin. A bit redundant, I think, but it's still pretty cool. The Aztec drawings of their gods are by far my favorite depictions of gods. I personally like drawings of Xipe Totec (of course), Quetzalcoatl and Mictlantecuhtli. Look them up if you're interested.

As for the other gods, I think they are weird too. I mean, some of the Egyptian gods have heads of animals. The Hindu gods mostly have additional appendages. And that's just their appearances. Their characters and exploits are of course far more interesting and fun.

But my point is, again, these myths, these stories, were once (or still are) religions. They are the people's views of gods.

But nowadays, most people seem to believe differently. I am talking, of course, about monotheism. It is as if those gods were integrated into one Being, and that Being was stripped away of the more unwanted traits. Leaving an omnipotent, benevolent Deity.

Do you see what I see? We can see religions evolving through time. At the time of our ape-like ancestors, they were still quite savage and fearsome. Thus, their gods were fearsome spirits too. The Norse are a warlike people, and so are their gods. At Greece, there were diverse cultural practices, hence the various antics of the gods. The Mesoamericans believed in freeing the spirits from their fleshy prisons, so they sacrificed people and eat them, and their gods do so too. The Muslims are, for me, a bit confusing. Allah is both all-condemning and all-forgiving. Some hippies believe that Jesus is a peaceful guy, while Hitler views Him as a persuasive and tough leader.

You see? I see religions as human creations. We shape our own images of God. That is not to say that God is a product of man. I am just saying that we 'understand' God differently, according to our culture and influences upon us. And no one has the right to force his model of God upon another.

And what is my image of God?

That is a story for another time.