The gods always hear our prayers but seldom choose to answer.

Mortals were such fickle creatures. They called into the dark demanded answers and attention from forces they could not comprehend and yet when they had that attention and those answers they complained about them.

Know child that the One GodHe is so vast that He cannot be moved else the Universe falls. Nor can He answer for the very act of opening His Mouth is Movement indeed the greatest Act of all for it is the Word. And this is precisely why He has made an infinity of lesser gods creating them in His own image so that we can do the lesser things on His behalf. We are His hands and arms and feet and mouths. We are His answers to your prayers enacted along the great Framework of Being.

Atheism rises above creeds and puts Humanity upon one plane.There can be no chosen people in the Atheist philosophy.There are no bended knees in AtheismNo supplications no prayersNo sacrificial redemptionsNo divine revelationsNo washing in the blood of the lambNo crusades no massacres no holy warsNo heaven no hell no purgatoryNo silly rewards and no vindictive punishmentsNo christs and no saviorsNo devils no ghosts and no gods.

Maybe we are less than our dreams but that less would make us more than some gods would dream of.

The more formidable the contradiction between inexhaustible life-joy and inevitable fate the greater the longing which reveals itself in the kingdom of poetry and in the self-created world of dreams hopes to banish the dark power of reality. The gods enjoy eternal youth and the search for the means of securing it was one of the occupations of the heroes of mythology and the sages as it was of real adventurers in the middle ages and more recent times. . . . But the fountain of youth has not been found and can not be found if it is sought in any particular spot on the earth. Yet it is no fable no dream-picture it requires no adept to find it it streams forth inexhaustible in all living nature.

We read the pagan sacred books with profit and delight. With myth and fable we are ever charmed and find a pleasure in the endless repetition of the beautiful poetic and absurd. We find in all these records of the past philosophies and dreams and efforts stained with tears of great and tender souls who tried to pierce the mystery of life and death to answer the eternal questions of the Whence and Whither and vainly sought to make with bits of shattered glass a mirror that would in very truth reflect the face and form of Natures perfect self.These myths were born of hopes and fears and tears and smiles and they were touched and colored by all there is of joy and grief between the rosy dawn of birth and deaths sad night. They clothed even the stars with passion and gave to gods the faults and frailties of the sons of men. In them the winds and waves were music and all the lakes and streams and springsthe mountains woods and perfumed dells were haunted by a thousand fairy forms. They thrilled the veins of Spring with tremulous desire made tawny Summers billowed breast the throne and home of love filled Autumns arms with sun-kissed grapes and gathered sheaves and pictured Winter as a weak old king who felt like Lear upon his withered face Cordelias tears. These myths though false are beautiful and have for many ages and in countless ways enriched the heart and kindled thought. But if the world were taught that all these things are true and all inspired of God and that eternal punishment will be the lot of him who dares deny or doubt the sweetest myth of all the Fable World would lose its beauty and become a scorned and hateful thing to every brave and thoughtful man.

The padres set great store by addressing prayer to personal gods Genuine prayer exists only in religions in which there is a God as a person and a shape and endowed with a will.That was stated by a famous Protestant. The anarch does not want to have anything to do with that conception. As for the One God while he may be able to shape persons he is not a person himself and the he is already a patriarchal prejudice.A neuter One is beyond our grasp while man converses ten with the Many Gods on equal terms whether as their inventor or as their discoverer. In any case it is man who named the gods. This is not to be confused with a high level soliloquy. Divinity must without a doubt be inside us and recognized as being inside us otherwise we would have no concept of gods.

Perhaps he still hopes. If theres any justice in the Gods injustice then may they let us keep our dreams even when theyre impossible and may our dreams be happy even when theyre trivial....Every dream is the same dream for theyre all dreams. Let the Gods change my dreams but not my gift for dreaming.

Aeneas mother is a starNo a goddess.I said cautiously Venus is the power that we invoke in spring in the garden when things begin growing. And we call the evening star Venus.He thought it over. Perhaps having grown up in the country among pagans like me helped him understand my bewilderment. So do we he said. But Venus also became more...With the help of the Greeks. They call her Aphrodite...There was a great poet who praised her in Latin. Delight of men and gods he called her dear nurturer. Under the sliding star signs she fills the ship-laden sea and the fruitful earth with her being through her the generations are conceived and rise up to see the sun from her the storm clouds flee to her the earth the skillful maker offers flowers. The wide levels of the sea smile at her and all the quiet sky shines and streams with light...It was the Venus I had prayed to it was my prayer though I had no such words. They filled my eyes with tears and my heart with inexpressible joy.