Anxieties of Anne

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," consumed with anxiety since 1962! I know, I know, you'd never guess it from reading this drivel, but I'm a nervous wreck. I was born that way.

Today I've got a new worry that's nagging at me. It should really take a number and be seated, because there are a gazillion other things to worry about. But it's nagging at me like a hangnail.

I've been reading a book called 1491, by Charles C. Mann. The writer brings together all the recent archeological findings about the Western Hemisphere's human population prior to the arrival of Columbus. And let's just say that for every Athens and Sparta, there was a corresponding clash of city-states on these shores, stretching back in time to, like, Stonehenge era or farther.

Today I was reading that the ancient Maya civilizations had huge pantheons of gods and goddesses, almost all of them lost to the mists of time. One presumes that other Native American cultural groups also had deities, or a single deity, whose name and exploits have vanished from all human memory, no chance of retrieval.

What's worrying me is simple. Suppose one of those lost deities was the One True Deity? You know what I mean -- the one Big Cahuna we're all supposed to worship to the exclusion of all others?

If you look at the Christian religion, you find millions upon millions of people who lived before Jesus who never had the chance to be saved by him, so those people must all be in hell.

What if it also works the other way? What if some ancient Indian tribe pulled the lucky straw and got the One and Only? Now all those people are gone, they can't tell us about their True Deity, and so we're as lost as if we were ancient Greeks or modern Hindus!

You see, the bored gods we know about are just the tip of the iceberg. There are thousands and thousands of deities who we know nothing about at all. If one of them's the Big Dog, it won't matter if we're Christian or Pagan or Golden Dawn. We'll all be cooked.

To make matters worse, the dread Tiki is still haunting my neighborhood, and something is hitting the fan in gobs around here. I guess the d.T. didn't like the wishbone I left for it any more than it liked the little gold pin for service to disabled veterans.

Oh, what is to be done? I wish I knew.