PS in general I was thinking of the Greek (and Roman) pantheons and the Germanic pantheon. Incidentally the Slavic pantheon appears to have been close to the Greek one from what we know of it. Ain't no evil gods there. There are gods who are stupid, but none who are evil. Come to think of it, is this true of the Egyptian pantheon as well? Maybe Set counts?
--- On Mon, 10/20/08, Michael Pollak <mpollak at panix.com> wrote:
>
> Chris, you're forgetting the entire Axial Age theory,
> which argues that
> the transition from a world of "noble ones" to an
> ethicization of the
> afterlife (where there were good and evil gods, and good
> and evil outcomes
> to life that depended on our deeds) happened sort-of
> simultaneously in
> several places circa 800 - 200 BCE. And so each of those
> "pantheons" had
> evil gods. For example, in Zoastrianism, gods are split
> into daevas and
> the ahuras, the first evil and the second ethical. And
> they each had
> chief gods, Ahriman being the head of the evil pack.
>
> There are several other examples. The whole point of the
> Axial Age theory
> is that Christianity didn't invent this, it inherited
> it.
>
> Michael
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