#Im NOT saying this is better than religions with a personal or devotional or transactional god

[nateconnolly]

The gods are not aware of us. That’s what I like most about Aristotle’s cosmology. The gods are perfect, and therefore they only think about perfect things (themselves). We are imperfect, therefore we are not worth thinking about. They don’t know that they caused us. 

You’re probably more familiar with the Olympians—figures like Zeus, Athena, and Poseidon, the sort of Greek gods that appear in Percy Jackson or Disney’s Hercules. Those gods are deeply invested in human affairs. Homer portrays the gods sponsoring armies, and making alliances with humans. Aeschylus has Athena begin democracy. They have children with us, they accept offerings from us, they even lash out at us in judgment. But Ancient Greece was a huge civilization that lasted an incredibly long time. Sometimes they disagreed with each other.

For Aristotle, praying to the gods can’t ensure a good harvest or military success. It can’t even get their attention. We are able to relate to the gods, but it is a completely one-sided relationship. If your motivation for practicing religion is purely transactional, then there is no reason to care about these solipsistic prime movers. But for Aristotle, the gods can help us achieve virtue. 

We can imitate them. We will never win their favor, we will never have their love, but we can follow their example. Although we will never be perfect, we can observe perfection and try to learn from it. We can be a little better than we are today. Perhaps that is enough. 

#Im NOT saying this is better than religions with a personal or devotional or transactional god #but it’s a fascinating position #if your religion is important to you then one way to nurture your religiosity #is to compare and contrast with the alternative religions and spirituality #so if you have a devotional religious practice #then this is good to know about #this is NOT a knock on Percy Jackson #shoutout to rick riordan fr #gotta be one of my favorite young adult authors #I’m just saying he didn’t have time to cover every single theological position ever held by an Ancient Greek #nate's writing #philosophy #greek philosophy #classical theism #god #aristotle #original post