I Really Hate That Meme….

There is a very popular meme, which frequently makes the rounds at Facebook and elsewhere, and every time it pops up in my feed, it literally makes my skin crawl. It goes a little something like this:

“We do not bow or bend our knees to our Gods. Instead we open our arms embracing them. We do not beg them to do things for us, we ask to be empowered and to assist us, so that we may do those things ourselves.”

Author Unknown

Why does this meme illicit such a violent reaction from me?

Because it casts us as equals to the Gods, which we patently are not! We are humans, They are Gods. By that very definition, we cannot be and patently are not Their equals.

This attitude of “equality with the Gods” has its origin in the pseudo-pagan volkisch movement of nazi Germany. In order to convince physicians to perform atrocities against their patients, physicians who were sworn to uphold the “commandment to attend to the incurably ill person and render him medical aid unto his death” on religious grounds, it was necessary to convince them that they were equal to God(s). Rudolf Ramm, a member of the medical faculty of the University of Berlin, wrote an influential medical manual of the time in which he recommended that individual physicians must become “caretakers of their race” and “politicians of the population”. Another high-ranking SS doctor, Joachim Mrugowsky, proclaimed in an introduction to a book on medical ethics, that the doctor was “the priest of the holy flame of life” on a “divine mission”. Courtesy of his surviving sister, Nietzsche’s work was subsequently taken completely out of context and used by the nazi party to convince people that evil did not exist, and that any form of humility (up to and including and perhaps most especially bowing before a God or Gods) was an intolerable sign of weakness. (Suggested reading: The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide and Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism: A Study of “Brainwashing” in China, both by Robert Jay Lifton)

If we never “beg the Gods to do things for us”, but instead ask only that we be “empowered to do those things ourselves”, what does this say about our Cultural Ancestors? Are we implying that they were a gang of weak idiots, since they basically spent over half their lives petitioning the Gods to do things for them, such as make the fields and animals fertile, assuage diseases, make sure their families didn’t starve to death, etc.? Isn’t asking for such empowerment in and of itself asking the Gods to do something for us? Those Cultural Ancestors also bowed before the Gods and routinely did even more than bend the knee: we have images and iconography showing us, via the archaeological record, that they did, and we also have contemporary accounts telling us that they did. If they were such a gang of “superstitious idiots”, as this meme implies, why in the hell are so many of us trying so desperately to emulate the rest of what they believed and practiced?

I have seen far too many people–some of whom I actually respect–say things like “I don’t worship the Gods; I work alongside Them”. Why must those two things be mutually exclusive of one another? I think it has a lot to do with an ignorance of the definition of the word worship:

worship: verb. to honor or show reverence for a being, as with a divine being or supernatural power; to regard with great or extravagant respect, honor, or devotion.

worship: noun. reverence offered a divine being or supernatural power; an act of expressing such reverence; extravagant respect or admiration for or devotion to an object of esteem.

While we’re at it, let’s also take a look at that word, respect:

respect: noun. an act of giving particular attention, high or special regard to another being or thing.

respect: verb. to consider worthy of high regard; to appreciate and admire.

One could very readily ask: if you do not respect the Gods, why do you even work with Them in the first place? Would you willingly and happily work alongside another human being for whom you lack respect? Do you routinely disrespect other humans whom you do hold in high regard? Again: hypocrisy.

Showing the Gods respect by worshipping Them is not disempowering anymore than showing respect to a fellow human being whom we hold in high regard is disempowering. In the end, respect is respect, and we get what we give! The empowerment which we apparently so deeply crave can only be gained by developing mutual respect: our respect for Them leads to Them respecting us. That doesn’t make Them our equals–They will always be Gods and we will always be humans–but it does enable us to work together, and that is the truest definition of empowerment.

In short, this meme is hypocritical and sourced from one of the greatest periods of atrocity in human history. If that isn’t enough to incite a visceral negative reaction, I don’t know what ever will be! We cannot, on the one hand, say that we respect the “witches of old” or the “shamans of old” or the “whoever of old” that we claim as our Cultural Ancestors (Ancestors of Path, regardless of our genetic pedigree, which shouldn’t even be “a thing” in the first place!), and then, on the other hand and at the same time, actively spit upon everything they believed and practiced when it came to relationship with the Gods. We also cannot continue to perpetuate attitudes and ideals which were forged by the minds of nazis and then continue to scratch our heads and wonder why in our modern realms of practice the would-be-inheritors of that regime (white supremacists, et al) keep “showing up to the party”!