uberkuh

There used to be a thousand gods.
They ruled antiquity.
What are the odds?

The fear and hope of countless sods
Lay shrouded in mystery.
There used to be a thousand gods.

All but one were damned as frauds.
There were so many.
What are the odds?

From fires to floods,
They cursed iniquity.
There used to be a thousand gods.

Every race lauds
Its chosen divinity.
What are the odds?

A million synods
Voted what to believe.
There used to be a thousand gods.
What are the odds?

—

This form of poetry is called a villanelle. I learned about it last night and wanted to try my hand at it. It’s not that hard to make.

Polytheism used to be all the rage. Monotheism became popular because people were lazy and didn’t want to pray a thousand times to a thousand different gods. Oh, we need rain today? Let’s pray to Rain God. Oh, we need sunshine tomorrow? Let’s pray to Sun God. And so it goes. It gets old, I imagine. The only semi-reasonable solution is to consolidate your deities into one gigantic, all-powerful savior. Now you can pray for everything at once and your one awesome god will take care of it all with his infinite capacity and goodness.

Yet, even when you have decided to worship only one god, you can still find a thousand other gods. This absurdity of worshiping one out of a thousand gods is what inspired this poem. One of the silliest presumptions of any monotheist is that his or her chosen god is the only true or existing god.

How does anyone know that other gods don’t exist? Maybe they do. Maybe they sit up in Heaven together and play games with our minds. Can’t you see Zeus, Odin, and Jesus sitting around a cloud-filled roulette wheel, betting on when some poor sap will kick the bucket or lose his marbles from some preordained misfortune?

If anyone tries to tell you that only one god exists, ask that person how he or she came to know such privileged information and why the rest of the world is still so confused. It’s a good question. And faith is not the answer. It’s avoidance of it.