What do you think the pagan gods were?

Question

Demons?
Natural phenomena?
Angels?
other?

Answer 1

Yahweh (the so-called "God" of the bible) was a pagan god.

Yahweh was originally a sky god - a god of thunder and lightning. He was associated with mountains and was called by the enemies of Israel 'a god of the hills'. His manifestation was often as fire, as at Mount Sinai and in the burning bush.

Originally, the four consonants YHWH represented the four members of the Heavenly Family: Y represented El the Father; H was Asherah the Mother; W corresponded to He the Son; and H was the Daughter Anath. In accordance with the royal traditions of the time and region, God's mysterious bride, the Matronit, was also believed to be his sister.

All gods given human qualities are fiction.

Answer 2

Star clusters and evolving myths. Polytheism has its roots in anceint astronomy where the position of the sun at sunrise against the stars in the background was used to tell seasons. People invented stories related to the seasons to these various clusters to help remember them.

There are twelve such groupings because the moon was originally used for this purpose and there are ~12 lunar cycles in a year.

Over time these came to be associated with super beings living in the sky in control of the seasons (and eventually everything else). These became gods, as did the 'nonfixed' eye-visible celestial objects; sun, moon, mercury, venus, mars, saturn, and jupiter.

Cults developed to honor one or more of these gods, and competeing cults turned the deities of the other cults into demons. Over time the myths evolved into numerous gods and demons, many of which are just subtle rehashings of others.

The gods of the ancient Hebrew people (primarily El, YHWH, Baal, Molech, and Ashera) also factionalized with the cult of YHWH coming to dominate. They syncretized El into YHWH making them the same god, and turned the others into demons.

Answer 3

They were/are Gods, to be honest to try and define them by Christian terms is a bit foolish really. I tried to do this when I was Christian and all it did was cause me to feel anger and it made feel resentment towards myself. I am Pagan now not because I lost my way as others have told me, but because I put aside my hatred (no I do not think this a hate inspired question) and started looking into there beliefs.

I hope this helps, and I do not mean to offend anyone, so if I have I apologize in advance.

24 y.o. Pagan College Student

Answer 4

The creations of people trying to make sense of the world around them. So in many ways they were the beginnings of science.

Natural phenomena are a substantial part of that world, of course, and are the basis for many gods. People tried to learn how to control them and eventually personified many of them. It's all evolved from that.

Answer 5

Gods

My Goddess gave birth to the Christian God, too bad His people turned on His own Mother

Answer 6

Delusions caused by mental illness, biochemical imbalance, or drugs. However, the important thing to note is that regardless of the non-spiritual origins, the belief did teach man the concept of ritual, and ritual is vitally important to the formation of cohesive social structures.

Answer 7

natural phenomena

Answer 8

I believe in god.

But if you ask my mother, who practices the religion of Wicca (a form of paganism) she would tell you that They are gods and goddesses of the earth.

Answer 9

Who can tell? Whatever they were, I'm willing to bet that the god of the Christians, Jews, and Muslims is the same thing.

Answer 10

pagan belief is quiet the same as christianity, they suggest god of having companion in the form of human.