I think something that initially confuses many non-polytheists is that when I say I believe a given deity exists, that doesn’t necessarily mean I worship that deity. In reality, there are many deities that I think exists (or am at least open to the possibility that they exist) that I have no interest in worshiping. This includes Egyptian deities, indigenous deities or spirits, most of the Greek deities,¹ and even a majority of the deities mentioned in the Norse and other Germanic mythologies. This can be for a variety of reasons, though the most too common are that they are part of a culture that I’m not drawn to² and their worship tends to focus on aspects of life and/or spirituality that I’m not particularly interested in.

And for many modern polytheists,³ that’s perfectly okay. As a rule, we have no rule saying that other people must honor our particular deities. We say “go worship other deities if you wish, or no deity at all. Just be decent people.”

This is also why I don’t see the need to comment on whether other people’s gods are “real.” Maybe? Probably. The only thing I question is the claims that some other theists make about their deities. For example, I’m never going to accept monotheists’ claims that their deity is the “only game in town.” But does that mean that I don’t think that deity exists? Or do I just think they misunderstand the nature of their own deity?⁴ In the end, I don’t think it matters. As long as they’re willing to live and let live, I’m happy to follow suit.

This kind of attitude makes it fairly easy for me as a polytheist to embrace a pluralistic society.

Post History: I drafted this post on 9 February 2025. I proofread, revised, and finalized it on 10 February 2025.

Footnotes

1. The only exception seems to be Pan. i keep feeling drawn to him from time to time for some reason. ↩︎
2. And in the case of culturally bound closed traditions, I have no business messing with their gods as someone outside that culture/tradition. ↩︎
3. A year or two ago, I made the mistake of not making that clarification on BlueSky. I made a similar statement about “polytheists” in general and a Jewish man rightfully called me out on it. He pointed out that while ancient Romans were okay with people praying to other gods in addition to the Roman ones, praying and making sacrifices to the Roman gods was absolutely mandatory. This was a cause of much conflict between them and the Jews of the time, especially since the Romans insisted that getting everyone to honor their gods was essential to the health of their empire. Fortunately, I think most polytheists are less inclined to fuse their religion with such nationalism. But it’s also important not to erase our history, even unintentionally. ↩︎
4. I suppose that if I were to accept that the deity themselves were claiming to be the only deity in existence, I’d have to conclude that said deity is being untruthful. However, I have no verifiable evidence that any such deity is making that claim for themselves. i just have their followers making that claim on their behalf and claiming it’s from the deity. ↩︎