Who's Your Sky Daddy?

In this episode, we take a closer look at the complex concepts of gods and worship. We start by defining God and then discuss how historical figures, like George Washington, have been worshipped in certain situations. We also explore the historical practice of deification, focusing on the worship of emperors and monarchs.

Moving on, we discuss divine intervention in American history and how historical figures are sometimes treated like deities. Our perspectives on worship highlight its submissive nature and stress the importance of having a real connection to a deity or hero.

We touch on monotheism and the challenges it poses, examining the history of religious leaders being treated as gods. Lastly, we explore various gods and entities, including the portrayal of ancient gods in modern times, and discuss the potential problems associated with excessive or harmful worship practices.

Support us at Patreon and Spreadshirt

Join the Community on Discord

Learn more great religion facts on Facebook and Instagram

**

Katie Dooley  00:11

Alright, welcome to the next episode of The Holy watermelon podcast. Preston, what are we talking about today? Because it's all you,

Preston Meyer  00:21

we are talking about what is it God? And without looking at our show notes, what do you How would you describe or define a god?

Katie Dooley  00:30

Oh, no. I would describe a god as an invisible being that controls our lives. So pretty strong Yes. Yes, that has some sort of control over the outcomes of things, life. Stuff we pray for and asked to happen. Okay, outcomes of the Superbowl and whether we're gonna get a rain for harvest. Okay.

Preston Meyer  01:12

But it has to be invisible. Does it have to be here?

Katie Dooley  01:17

No, it definitely doesn't have to be here. But that's just the feminist in me. And I don't know of any visible Gods unless we're talking about

Preston Meyer  01:28

idols. What about George Washington? I

Katie Dooley  01:31

wouldn't consider him because

Preston Meyer  01:35

believe it or not a lot of people do.

Katie Dooley  01:40

Oh, wasn't his slave owner?

Preston Meyer  01:43

He was a slave owner. That's okay. Yeah, absolutely. Back in a time when that was the economic norm. If you had any sort of power at all, you definitely own somebody.

Katie Dooley  01:57

I mean, back in

Preston Meyer  01:58

those days, that's the way it was still on people. Right? I mean, you can get a slave from Africa for 400 bucks. cheaper if you, you know, hunt around a little better than the average person grows. We don't condone slavery, no, slavery is bad. Owning another person treating them as property instead of a person is definitely not okay. And there's a reason it's not normal anymore. But it used to be. And that sucks. But absolutely, George Washington is worshipped as a god, if you go to Washington, DC, there's this huge painting. And I wish I can remember the the name of the building it's in. There's somebody out there who'd be happy to share that information of the deification is huge painting of George Washington becoming a god. And there's a shrine in Hawaii of all places, that has a portion of it dedicated to George Washington. It's also very close to a nearly identical shrine for Abraham Lincoln, who was also worshipped as a god. It does not seem weird.

Katie Dooley  03:10

It does. It sounds like anyone or anything could be a god. And I know. For poor listeners, the next few episodes are going to be very big and very vague with no answer. So we're just going to talk around what a god is for the next 45 minutes to lay the foundation for the next episodes because this is information that although there's no answer to people need to know,

Preston Meyer  03:38

a religion can't exist without these ideas, whether they use the same vocabulary there has to be in some measure these ideas

Katie Dooley  03:47

and that's the worship of person, place or thing, right.

Preston Meyer  03:51

The worship of a noun object.

Katie Dooley  03:57

Yeah, an object.

Preston Meyer  03:59

Yeah, yeah. Yeah,

Katie Dooley  04:01

you just need to be a noun. Should we replace the word God with a noun? Like what? No, just like noun. So thank God. Oh, my Oh my God. Oh, my noun. I mean, that's a t shirt idea. Doesn't go in the opposite Brian, just remind me Oh, my noun. Oh, my noun.

Preston Meyer  04:19

So a quick Google search, which I've done more than once as I've taken Theology and Religious Studies in the university

Katie Dooley  04:32

Preston goes to the computer what

Preston Meyer  04:34

is so much of education is it might not start with a googling but it will definitely include a googling

Katie Dooley  04:42

this sounds like such a newbie question right but it got

Preston Meyer  04:46

well and for a lot of boys that's how they're gonna get any sort of answer from that question and a Google search of God I mean, you're gonna get the Judeo Christian God come up for sure because the English speaking world, mostly Judeo Christian. But that the definition also includes the idea that a god is anything that is worshipped, which could be a hero, a champion of an emperor, almost every Emperor is worshipped as a god, if you look back historically, they had a cult around their personality, which is a little creepy, but also a great way to keep control over your empire.

Katie Dooley  05:26

I imagine, I don't know, I haven't done any research into especially in Egyptian gods, those are probably all pass emperors. Not all

Preston Meyer  05:35

of them, but definitely many of them. There was the cult, immediately surrounding the Pharaoh, the pharaoh was absolutely worshipped as a god a little bit more intensely than a lot of other national religions. But a really cool example, to investigate and dig deep into Egyptian religion is also not a static thing. Things change from generation to generation. And over long periods of time, they changed a lot, which is why it's less weird to look at George Washington and see that he was worshipped as a god, actually.

Katie Dooley  06:08

I mean, I immediately think of and still probably the most modern idea that our monarchs have divine right? Absolutely. So in a country like the United States that by the time George Washington came around, didn't have a monarch, I imagine there'd be people who still believe that he had some divine right to lead and that there was some divine intervention in them winning the revolution under George Washington. Absolutely. I guess that's less of a stretch. But most

Preston Meyer  06:41

Americans genuinely believe that there was something very special and divine about the coming about of the American Revolution. There's the whole idea of what's the word now. Manifest Destiny, that the idea that we're here and we're awesome, because that was always meant to be, which I mean, every religion relies on that idea a little bit though most of them are going to say it the way American propaganda put it into print very strongly. But where was I going? Lost it.

Katie Dooley  07:18

Manifest Destiny and divine this around? Oh, yeah. Yeah, to mention for the revolution,

Preston Meyer  07:24

so most Americans buy into it, completely. Immigrants even usually love it, then it's it's all part of that idea of the American dream. Christians usually will ascribe some measure of revelatory power that helped the Founding Fathers build America, and then the Mormons straight up, would teach actively, that God inspired the founding fathers to create, which is sounds a little bit weird. But also, if you believe in God, it's relatively easy to believe that a country that ended up being so great and powerful, did get help.

Katie Dooley  08:03

I can see the, the belief that there was some divine intervention, right? I mean, people pray for a Super Bowl win. So if your team wins, and yeah, you might believe that there's some divine intervention. I just, it's harder for me to comprehend the jump from a divine intervention to George Washington is a deity worth of worship, like you don't go to church on Sunday to your you're not a Washington night. And you go and you pray to George Washington that your kids get to be healthier and get an A on their test, in the same way, but I guess that's where we're gonna dive into what is a God if you venerate a person? And there are idols of these people? Does that elevate them to God status Preston?

Preston Meyer  08:55

So the real question that we can't say all of you have to believe one single answer that I got can be literally anything but in the field of Religious Studies of a thing is worshipped as a god. We can't say that it's not a god. It's you

Katie Dooley  09:15

define what worship is?

Preston Meyer  09:17

I think we absolutely do have to define what worship is because this could get real weird real fast. Yeah. So what do you think worship? What what constitutes worship? Watch,

Katie Dooley  09:30

this is good to come up with a worship my dog or something weird. Totally AM. Worship trying to think in terms of Western religion. Sure. Because all those I'm an atheist. We're in Canada. So most people are familiar with worship. So it's definitely something elevated. Something that you like worship, I guess,

Preston Meyer  09:55

you can't use the word worship and your definition. To

Katie Dooley  09:58

worship is when you Worship in some ways, I don't see that it's something you're submissive to, right. So you're you're praying, you're asking for guidance or a specific outcome, you definitely think they have control over your life and your immediate outcomes. So again, back to like the Super Bowl, or but also after life outcome, and that if you do what the god entity deity wants, those good things will come to you.

Preston Meyer  10:37

Okay, so how about four year old Katie looking up to dad? Is that interesting?

Katie Dooley  10:47

Yeah, interesting. Oh, creepy. borderline creepy. But yeah, I guess that does fit that definition. And if anyone knows me and my dog, I'm definitely she's the alpha. So whatever she wants, she gets in hopes that she doesn't murder me in my sleep.

Preston Meyer  11:09

So when looking at Gods and what is it, God helps a lot to have something concrete, to have a connection to that God, you've got your heroes. For example, you look at the way you see people behave in superhero movies, and the way they react to their superheroes. They either see them as scary villains, or even if they're good, or they see them as gods, people who have great power, who deserve veneration. And an awful lot of the gods that we see in various national pantheons started out that way. An excellent example of a mortal person who came to be worshipped as a god is Jesus. There's there's no way around that he was a moral person, he died. He is currently worshipped as a god. Pretty solid example. There's also examples like Zeus, there's not a whole lot of strong reason to believe that he was a historical figure. Everything we know about him comes from stories that are far outside of what we expect to be human behavior. But they are classic literature. And we can talk on another occasion on how the Iliad and the other writings of Homer and other Greek poets are pretty much analogous with the Hebrew Bible. It's just a national library. But there is a place in 90% Sure, it's the city of Crete where Zeus has a a tomb, that is said to be this is where Zeus is buried. And it's, that's what I'm looking for. Oh, hello. The hits. It's not an exception to the rule that most Gods either were people or they are simply anthropomorphized phenomena. Like you've got gods of the rain. This is especially well illustrated in old nope, old Japanese commie. That's you've got the spirit of the river, you got the spirit of the rain, you got the spirit of the earth, you have the spirit of mountain Fuji, you've got all these spirits, that we we call them commie because that's the word used in Japanese that means spirit or God or anything in between. There is a distinction, but it's not transmitted very effectively through the one word that you use to cover the whole umbrella. It's a little bit weird. And if I knew more about the Shintoism, and Japanese national religion, I'm sure I could answer questions about that better. But commies are a pretty good example of that. You've got even Mesopotamia, there's gods of the river. Things like that. Pretty standard here in North America, the local Native Americans, they have bear worship, for example, among countless other things. There's a spirit that is manifested in the bear. And then you've got gods of ideas, which aren't terribly different from Gods of this river in the mountain. But like, you've got chaos gods, you've got trickster gods, many of whom probably were actually people. But that's a

Katie Dooley  14:44

tricky thing to explore. And that's a Greek one, isn't it? Oh,

Preston Meyer  14:47

there's god of wine. Yeah, gotta drink a God of hallucinogens, more or less. And I wish I can remember his name right now. He was played by Stanley Tucci in the Percy Jackson Movie.

Katie Dooley  14:59

Is googling.

Preston Meyer  15:01

Oh man, it bugs me that I can't remember his name. I took a class on Greek mythology. As part of my degree. I enjoyed it. And I can't remember his name right now.

Katie Dooley  15:13

I'm on it. I'm on it.

Preston Meyer  15:15

It's gonna be really unhelpful if I'm wrong about him being played by Stanley Tucci. Diagnosis,

Katie Dooley  15:22

that's what I thought it was. But I didn't want to say it.

Preston Meyer  15:25

I'm embarrassed how long it took me to remember it because I've talked about diagnosis a few times, in present presenting to my classes and whatnot. And I actually really love their portrayal of him in Percy Jackson, based on the movie I have read, none of the books and I've only seen the two movies that I recognize most people hate. But I love that version of Dionysus, who can't get drunk anymore. He's, you know, AAA or whatever. And so he pours himself a glass of wine and turns into water. And there's some sort of lament about, you know, there's this other guy who can do the exact opposite Jesus. And so there's, you know, he's the God of revelry, and good times and whatnot, his party was back in the day would have been the biggest, most insane, fun that definitely would have transitioned, at some point into celebrating Aphrodite and a big old orgy, maybe I'm feeling confident that was good I can,

Katie Dooley  16:30

I can see how that can start as a real person who just had like

Preston Meyer  16:35

parties, and when you would have these parties to get him to come? Yeah, which definitely would have started while he was alive. And then

Katie Dooley  16:43

funeral would have been a big party in honor of, and

Preston Meyer  16:46

then just keep doing it every year. And there's, there's loads of gods that are like that, a lot of the gods that we can look back in history, we think we're probably people, a lot of them probably weren't. And they're just this idea of this, this element that became deified to to explain it to currents, like the lightning that eventually turned into a person like Thor, for example. Was he a person we straight up don't know. Odin, probably was, there's loads and loads and loads of material written over the centuries on this topic of need to read the word so I can say it properly. Loads of things written on you hemmer ism, which is this old word named after this old dude, who tried to explain how people became Gods after they died, or even sometimes before they died, and how these gods that we look at now we're actually people, and there's, there's loads of different people. There's loads of different reasons why a person would be deified. You've got teachers like Confucius, most people are looking look at Confucianism. Don't venerate him as a person of worship, in the way that we see worship in the Judeo Christian tradition. But if you're going to repeat something, that dude says for 1000s of yours, and get mad when somebody says this person's a fool, there's a degree of worship there.

Katie Dooley  18:25

Well, that's, but that's an interesting point to this idea that God is quite a broad term, which has, I mean, we were talking politics a little bit before we press play. And yeah, sometimes people are passionate about who their political leader is, whatever side you're on, and you get mad when someone disagrees. So are like worship, that I don't like that idea of worshipping these political party leaders bus, right?

Preston Meyer  18:56

Well, for example, yum. There's videos circulating on the internet, as there always is of Trump rallies. And you've got these dudes with shirts on, that are hoping and they're illustrating on the shirts of a dynasty of Trumps. You got Donald for four more years, and then Ivanka for eight years, immediately after, and then Donald Jr. Immediately after that for eight more years. And eventually, when Baron is old enough, get him for eight more years. And that's worship. The idea that Donald Trump is the best possible President America could ever have, and that nobody else or no other family should ever hold that office. That's worship. It's a dangerous, democracy destroying kind of turd, worship. Worship, I like that. And I bet you If you were to go and look through that chart I showed you of all of the different gods and how they're categorized a bunch of there's a turd God. somewhere, somewhere in the world some point in history scab

Katie Dooley  20:11

and ISIS. Sure.

Preston Meyer  20:15

I feel like there's a God who's responsible for making sure the latrines don't stink to bed or something, something connected.

Katie Dooley  20:23

I think that that's probably, yeah, how other gods started and said, that was not saying Trump's a great leader, but that there was a great leader that people sort of wanted to continue, especially in the time sort of before democracy when monarchs again divine right were more common. Yeah,

Preston Meyer  20:44

there's, there's all kinds of leaders, there's teachers, like, like I mentioned before, you've got military leaders, there's Chinese fella that I appear to have failed to record his name. I wrote him into my paper. There's there's Chinese generals that have been established as Gods after they died, even just because they fought against a power, even having lost their battles. They what they stood for, it became so important to the people that they said, Yeah, this person will be deified. Which seems super weird in a Western worldview. But that's a thing that happened.

Katie Dooley  21:33

But I immediately think being knighted by the Queen and also Catholic saints, especially in Catholicism, because you can worship someone. I think it's kind of odd, but in this sort of denomination of Christianity where it's okay to pray to a saint in a monotheistic religion. Yeah, I'm sure we'll get into that in a different episode. monotheism

Preston Meyer  21:55

is a tricky, tricky, tricky beast. That

Katie Dooley  22:01

is it because of the Trinity.

Preston Meyer  22:04

Honestly, the Christian monotheism makes no sense at all. There's no way you can defend it. It doesn't work

Katie Dooley  22:12

because of the Trinity. Yeah.

Preston Meyer  22:16

Jewish monotheism, the way it's been explained to me is, you've got one God, and that's the deal. There is no split next to it. Now, these ancient Israelite religion absolutely had a huge number of Gods so yeah, and then the exile around 600 ish BC, they very quickly modified their religion, to focus on one God while they lived in a world surrounded daily by people who really wanted them to not worship anything of their own, but worship Babylonian gods. So, history is super exciting. They're fun to look into. If you like the history of religion.

Katie Dooley  23:04

If you don't like the history of religion, you're listening to their own podcast. I know it's a laugh, so to butt. Heads up. It's coming.

Preston Meyer  23:16

And yes, you've got teachers, you've got military leaders and Emperor's, like I said before, almost every Emperor has been worshipped as a god. That includes Pope's

Katie Dooley  23:29

do we get a worship? Queen Elizabeth?

Preston Meyer  23:32

Absolutely. Yes, I like I am 100% certain that there are people who worship Queen Elizabeth, though it is actively discouraged in the Church of England of which she is the head. There are people who absolutely worship her. And I mean, it helps that she's been the queen for longer than my parents have been alive.

Katie Dooley  23:53

She was for coronated quarantine. The year my mom was born and my mom just turned to her mom 68 So she's been clean for 60 a long time. And I don't know if we're keeping this in Brian might be like, this is completely irrelevant. But I think I mean, little bit to the point of worship and worshiping the queen I mentioned to someone, you know, it won't be long before she's not on our $20 Bill anymore, not on our coins. And they said well, you can't take Queen Elizabeth all our coins. I said, Yeah, I can. We used to have to King George on there. And then George died and we put on Queen Elizabeth like, my grandpa was a coin collector. He had some coins with King George on it. It's just because after 68 years, nobody can imagine. Charles $20 bill but it's coming mean Elizabeth is old as balls. And I that might be a really great example of worship. If she does stay and I am not the Bank of Canada. I don't know who's in charge of this. But some people have said well, maybe they'll just keep her on the money because she's been on my Memphis along.

Preston Meyer  25:00

I really look forward to the day we have the kid from Mad Magazine on the back of the loony.

Katie Dooley  25:14

It's so true. I actually am. I mean, I don't want Queloz dies. He's pretty cool. But she has all those balls. I would love to see Charles on the money just for a shake up after I'm only 30. But like my mom's entire life, the Queen's been on her money. So let's have a shake. That was But Charles on it. Yeah, that's a modern example of when I'm like, Well, what happens when Charles goes on our money? I was like, don't happen. Yes, it probably will happen. Well, that's,

Preston Meyer  25:43

she's she's not on our money by virtue of Oh, yeah. She's super cool. Or by state in forest worship. She's there because she's the monarch, she will be replaced.

Katie Dooley  25:57

Last year is actually a lizard person and lose forever, which is another feat.

Preston Meyer  26:00

Yeah. For those conspiracy folks are right. And they're not a small number, which is embarrassing. But if, if they're right, then yeah, so probably between her but a lot longer to see your actual lizard face and put that on the money. Well, she can only go so long before she asked to reveal it. Right. Yeah.

Katie Dooley  26:22

I mean, she keeps shedding her skin eventually your lizard faces. Human body that she procured 68 years ago will eventually deteriorate? Yeah. So just back to the question, what is a God is there? I guess? I mean, clearly, there's no official definition. But there is a difference between my dad and the Queen, and Jesus. Right, or, you know, God, capital G.

Preston Meyer  26:55

But there's differences between Loki and Thor and Odin as well. And they're all worshipped as gods, though the worship of Loki is odd, especially to a culture where we want to worship a God that we expect to be righteous. Loki is never seen as a righteous figure.

Katie Dooley  27:15

I guess what I'm saying is, we worship the latter ones I listed on mass, and we have buildings dedicated right people, whereas there is not a building or shrine dedicated to daddy, Julie. Katie's Dad, I don't know if I want my last name on the podcast, right? And where am I? Right? It's not something we, you know, write literature about, and we don't pay tax or tithe to these people. So there is, but you care for them? I do and I buy him Christmas presents. Is

Preston Meyer  27:57

that not an offering even a sacrifice? Oh?

Katie Dooley  28:05

Yes, but how can you haven't got my dad a Christmas present, then?

Preston Meyer  28:10

Because I don't wish what and worship is in respect to things are more broadly recognized as the gods have just very often regionalised or localized?

Katie Dooley  28:22

You've got hyper localized family of five? Absolutely.

Preston Meyer  28:26

There's, if you look in the Middle East, for example, back 4000 years, you there's archaeological evidence of gods who are worshipped just in one town. Right? There's, there's loads of those very local gods. The Bible actually has words talking about household gods. So they were more likely more slightly more recent ancestors that were just past the cusp of memory.

Katie Dooley  28:58

Well, and I use ancestors, and that immediately makes me think of Chinese families that talk to their ancestors. So you don't even need to be you can be recently did. Right. And ancestor worship is Yeah, somebody asked you for things that they need. Yeah.

Preston Meyer  29:16

Hmm. Ancestor worship is pretty much normal around the world, based on the structure of the word. I like to do that sometimes dig into Etymology and where words come from, you worship something if you declare by word or by action that it has worth, which sounds way too broad,

Katie Dooley  29:43

vastly too broad, then I worship chocolate.

Preston Meyer  29:48

Right. And so we do have to, we have to narrow that in just a little bit. And the real question is, how much can you narrow it in before your definition? Isn't isn't right, the same question but has bothered academics for ages on what is religion except is that everyone you narrow it in too much you've got nobody but Christians which is a Christian anthropologists dealt with it for a while and that has caused its own problems. So narrowing in worship is tricky like the dollar has value that's the whole reason that it exists but the worship of the dollar there are people who live their lives around the dollar like it is their god some workaholics That's

Katie Dooley  30:41

the deal. Almost every Christmas movie is based off of that

Preston Meyer  30:45

is true like your Hallmark Christmas movies. The the first half of the movie is money. The second half of the movie is skipping that money man I wish I hadn't been worshipping money. And but it's a fun example because it's it's a thing that on the on the surface base level broad definition of worship doesn't apply

Katie Dooley  31:09

when money is universal. So everyone can kind of use this as a baseline. It's an

Preston Meyer  31:13

easy baseline to hit. But then you've got people who straight up do worship not not the dollar bill itself, but the accumulation of wealth. There's I haven't looked into it, there's probably more than one god that represents the accumulation of wealth. Half of our dragon stories. That's what that's what they are.

Katie Dooley  31:37

Dragons money.

Preston Meyer  31:38

Yeah, that's just sit on their pile of gold and tell you to piss off. Anytime you come looking for trouble.

Katie Dooley  31:49

Good old dragon.

Preston Meyer  31:49

The idea of God is just so broad. It's really tricky.

Katie Dooley  31:54

Yeah, like I said, this is an episode of this talking around an answer not actually getting to one.

Preston Meyer  32:01

Yeah. Every religion has an official. This is what Gods are there, boy. Yeah, pretty much like Christianity. Obviously. You've got Jesus, the other two gods of Christianity.

Katie Dooley  32:16

And then a whole bunch states if you're Catholic.

Preston Meyer  32:18

Oh, yeah. That's I mean, even

Katie Dooley  32:21

Mormonism arguably Joseph Smith, in a little bit, Brigham Young.

Preston Meyer  32:26

I mean, that's that's the tricky thing is just like the Anglican say, Don't worship the queen. Mormons do say don't worship Joseph Smith don't worship Brigham Young, don't worship Russell Nelson. But there is absolutely a level of hero worship. You venerate that person as having accomplished this thing. Or having been a good teacher or eggs, acknowledged the is particularly in Mormonism, the idea that they should be deified in the next life. But, and worshipping them is a tricky thing. But how,

Katie Dooley  33:05

how do you not and right, and there's a lot of I mean, this is almost every religion, right? You have Islam and Muhammad you have every denomination of Christianity, Martin Luther Lutherans, and even probably Moses in Judaism as they are the founders or you know, they took that tangent that whatever religion needed to take. So how do you not venerate them? To some extent? Or, or even the, you know, the Pope is, you know, the mouthpiece of God, how do you not

Preston Meyer  33:42

to deny them on a pedestal is insane, right? Yeah.

Katie Dooley  33:47

Absolutely. But they're even then there's still a separation between them. And yeah, I mean, these examples, the Judeo Christian gods.

Preston Meyer  33:58

Yeah. Religion is tricky. Yeah. And that's why

Katie Dooley  34:01

we're talking about it because people don't have these conversations. Right. And I think maybe quickly to wrap up is perhaps when is worship dangerous or whatever. So and we'll we're going to do a full episode on cults. Or maybe in not even the realm of cults. But when does worship go too far? There were I don't know if there were confirmed allegations that you know, Pope John Paul flogged himself. Is that worship gone too far? Yeah, so the clearly there's varying degrees of worship and at some point, it becomes religious and maybe that's the defining factor and I don't want to get say anything too concrete, but whatever. We worship money, we worship our friends and family. Katie worships her dog. But at some point, it becomes so devotional. My dog's coughing in the background. It becomes so devotional that now sir It takes that pivot to religion. And then there's probably another pivot where actually becomes dangerous and you're harming yourself and or others thoughts.

Preston Meyer  35:11

I liked the phrase devotional worship, for example, worshipping the dollar. Not a thing that people do like as far as worshiping this pile of coins in my hand that makes up $1. Devotional sounds

Katie Dooley  35:24

conscientious, you're like, yeah, get my dad a birthday present. I hope he's gonna give me a better birthday present, because he's my daddy. But it's not like conscious, I'm going to constantly give and give and whatever I submit myself for,

Preston Meyer  35:45

that's the exact same the relationship you just described, exchanging gifts with your father. That's the way most Christians look at their relationship with God. Yeah, you offer your devotions, which is, in many religions, nothing more than prayer. And so I

Katie Dooley  36:00

guess I'd say it's like routine. And it's, it's very conscientious, where, you know, if my dad didn't give me a birthday present, and be like, Okay,

Preston Meyer  36:09

that's a bummer.

Katie Dooley  36:11

That's a bummer. But this is like, yeah, I guess conscientious. And then there's like, obviously, there's like this afterlife piece to it. which no one can know. There's

Preston Meyer  36:23

no solid evidence.

Katie Dooley  36:27

Rats. Yeah, I think there's like this, this routine, devotional, conscientious aspect to it that's different than, you know, some of these sort of everyday relationships we're talking about. And then there's this danger point, probably along the way. Yeah, I

Preston Meyer  36:48

think worship is definitely defined by the way it affects your behavior. Like, the way you treat your dog is different than the way you'll treat the money in your wallet, you will happily part with the money in your wallet, knowing that more will come. And you'll get something in exchange for that. partying with Paige is going to suck when that happens.

Katie Dooley  37:13

I just say one day, she's gonna move out.

Preston Meyer  37:18

And that helps make things easier. And if you look at the story of Jesus, for example, in the book of Acts, he moved out. I mean, he died, he came back, so we're gonna skip that part of the story. But then he just took off into the clouds, right. So he's

Katie Dooley  37:37

I don't know anyone that's moved out like that before. And I yeah, that brings obviously a level of comfort to people knowing that he will come back one day, and you'll get to see him at the end of all things. Maybe.

Preston Meyer  37:52

That's the story. That's the hope. Yeah.

Katie Dooley  37:57

Talking about time that devote

Preston Meyer  37:59

your life. Yeah. So a lot of your worship of the old, the old gods, the god of thunder, the God of the river that really affected your life and you would behave in particular ways to help the way that affected your life. You would pray that the river would not dry up because sometimes they would you pray for the rain to come because sometimes it wouldn't you pray for the lightning not to come because that keeps setting your house on fire. That's a personal, deeply personal issue.

Katie Dooley  38:27

Yes, you getting electrocuted is a deeply personal issue.

Preston Meyer  38:33

Yeah, well, I mean, and also having your little grass huts set on fire that blows that in dangers more than just you. So lightning, hella bad. And so you would pray for god of thunder lightning, whichever, like Thor, to not strike your home or your village or your crops. You would have Gods like Hades, who is villainized way more than he should be? The Hercules movie is terrible. Because historically, Zeus is a dickbag raping any pretty girl as

Katie Dooley  39:07

a swan goose I was gonna say she Yeah. And then

Preston Meyer  39:11

he's taken loads of shapes and raved lower than just humans.

Katie Dooley  39:17

Oh, by

Preston Meyer  39:20

the way, they treat Hera in that movie is honestly super disappointing that Hercules movie could have been way more fun. And Hades is never a bad guy. The story of the rape of Persephone, if you read the story, he never rapes her based on the current definition of rape. He seduced her and convinced her to come live with him. That's not different than most relationships today.

Katie Dooley  39:50

mean that's why I'm here.

Preston Meyer  39:54

My relationship isn't wildly different. I

Katie Dooley  39:57

used to do so she Cities.

Preston Meyer  40:00

I feel like there was a lot of effort both ways, which is why it worked.

Katie Dooley  40:05

Yes, stay tuned for our podcasts on relationships cool.

Preston Meyer  40:11

But so, Hades is the keeper of the dead. He's not Santos, the, the god of death. He is the keeper of the dead and also of various other elements of the underground. And so he would be a God that is prayed to to preserve and care for your departed dead, like great, great grandma, things like that. And absolutely should not have been the villain of their Kilis movie. Zeus is far easier to villainize because we know well enough that we should villainize right.

Katie Dooley  40:47

So what's Preston is saying between Percy Jackson and Disney movies is don't get your religious education, from movies.

Preston Meyer  40:56

And we'll talk about popular culture and religion later. Greek religion is well, one not monolithic, and to always poorly represented in popular culture, but we like to romanticize things, it's to a Christian based population, it's kind of important that we stick with the narrative of God is good. And so Zeus being the God of the gods, has to be a good guy. And so he's so jovial and bright orange and whatnot, and actually looks a little too much like Trump in the Disney movie, in the Disney movie, whereas you've got Satan who because he lives underground in Dante's Divine Comedy. He has to be a parallel to Hades who therefore must be evil. So popular culture really messes with religion, and actually changes religion, which I'm straying too far from our current topic of gods can be literally anything. And they are changeable. You've got all kinds of gods who are seen as one thing in one place and seen as something else somewhere else. You've got gods who are deified before they die, you've got gods who are deified centuries after they've died. The little less common but has actually happened. And literally anything can be a god, literally anything can be worshipped to that devotional religious level. And most of it shouldn't be. I mean, it's super easy to say none of it should be worshipped to every religious devotional level. I feel like that's your position. But there are things that drive us to be better. Absolutely. And I feel like that is something that is a little harder to discourage.

Katie Dooley  43:13

I, I guess that sort of goes back to my previous point, of anything taken too far.

Preston Meyer  43:22

Absolutely. I mean, that's part of the phrase too far. You can take it so far. And it still be okay. Like, even if you worship Xenu I mean, it's something I have a hard time defending the whole religion that built up Xenu is a topic for another day. Yeah, to the

Katie Dooley  43:41

point where you, you know, XENU exists, you've gone too far. Yeah, it's like 10 $50,000 to figure out anyways, another day. And maybe I feel like we need to do a full episode on worship, because there's so many varying degrees of worship, and different types of worship, and that it'll just be an interesting sort of cultural snapshot. But yeah, anything taken too far as bad. Anything can be a god.

Preston Meyer  44:11

What about Albert Einstein?

Katie Dooley  44:14

What about?

Preston Meyer  44:17

I'm very confident that the veneration that is heaped upon him, counts as devotional worship,

Katie Dooley  44:25

probably and I actually, perhaps even lump Addison in there because he didn't even figure it out. Tesla did.

Preston Meyer  44:34

Yeah, Edison definitely has a lot that I can't say fair share of worship, because it's definitely not fair that he has accrued a lot more worship than he ever deserved. But

Katie Dooley  44:51

I wonder I don't know enough about Thomas Edison. That's not my wheelhouse, but sort of same idea.

Preston Meyer  44:57

He paid for a lot of really good sign tends to be done. But he's not the genius that a lot of people like to write them up to be. There's a great episode of Doctor Who on that subject.

Katie Dooley  45:09

I guess my final points are, know what you're worshiping. Just be aware of what you're doing in your worship. Make sure not to hurt yourself or others. That sounds like a sex talk. Treat worshipping gods like sex, know what you're doing. Be ready.

Preston Meyer  45:34

Use protection, use

Katie Dooley  45:36

protection, check in occasionally make sure everything's still good. Not that you've gone too far or not enough, right? Because their spiritual well being even though I'm an atheist, that you need to take care of your spiritual well being make sure you're doing enough. Make sure not doing too much. Those are my final thoughts on worship. And no, we never answered what a god is. It can be anything. Whatever makes you happy and floats your boat, Flying Spaghetti Monster, love flying spaghetti monster, that's when I can actually get right.

Preston Meyer  46:05

He's as real as the God of the team's River. There's a god of the temperature. I guarantee it. If you were to look it up, you'd find his name or her. I'm going to be honest, I didn't look it up and can't say if it's male or female. But since every river in the old world has a god associated with it, you'll find one. Somewhere you might have to look for longer than this podcast has time and patience for old father 10s of school. That's his name. That's actually a reasonably common thing. But I couldn't feel confident enough to say yeah, that's totally it. Many rivers have the gods named right after the river. That's pretty normal. But a lot of God's rivers have their own independent name. There

Katie Dooley  46:50

is a statue of father Thames to see any final thoughts from you, Preston?

Preston Meyer  46:57

I have so many ideas that we've we've generated a lot of Gods on the idea of a land. Britannia, for example, is the god goddess. Britannia is the goddess of Britain, of Great Britain. I have to believe you on Portlandia.

Katie Dooley  47:17

There's a beautiful big statue over Borland. If you watch literally any

Preston Meyer  47:21

of the live action Spider Man movies, the first thing you see is the goddess Colombia, the goddess of North America, or maybe all of America, I'm pretty sure it's just north. But that's, that's the thing I'm gonna have to look up. But that's the thing. Colombia is the goddess of North America, or America. Columbia is the goddess of America. And that's a little bit weird, because guess where she got her name? Christopher Columbus, a total dick bag.

Katie Dooley  47:57

Total bag of dicks. But that makes the right that goes back to her to our points,

Preston Meyer  48:02

lots of dark blood, lots of dogs. Lots of gods are total big bags in and of themselves. And sometimes we romanticize them and create a whole new character that sometimes needs to be nothing like the original, including swapping genders. Gods are tricky. Gods can be literally anything, they can be a fiction created to cover an idea or represent an idea. And a god can be literally anything that you want to worship. If you want to worship the Flying Spaghetti Monster. That's your God. If you want to worship your dog, or a bag of beans, that's an option to you. And we will talk later about the God of sesame seeds.

Katie Dooley  48:50

Oh, I'm excited. All right, so stay tuned for our next episode. Next episode is going to be equally vague and vague on what is religion. Shalom. I don't remember how I signed off last time

Preston Meyer  49:09

with you