So, if you ask people what a God is, they’ll probably give you the same answer. It’s an all powerful, all knowing being. Probably a bit controlling. Most likely not very nice. etc.

But I have lately been thinking about just what a God is. We have this image of the Christian/Muslim/Jewish god that’s omnipotent and omniscient, but who really doesn’t do much of jack with all that power. And we’ve really associated, as a society, our entire idea of tha with the word God.

But something most people don’t think of when they hear the word God is that it isn’t a Hebrew word. Or a Muslim word. Or even a Roman word. It’s a Germanic word. It was a Germanic word used to describe the Germanic Gods and Goddesses.

Over the last while, I’ve been considering just what a God is. To start at the most basic level, a God is a being. A being of a high spiritual level, certainly. Perhaps totally of the spirit, or perhaps more of spirit vs physical body, though certainly they can take “physical” bodies at will. What we consider spiritual in terms of physics and energy is certainly up for debate though, and I’m not getting into that as much at this time.

If we look to the Eddas and the Lore, what we see is that the Gods arose from the creation of life that happened when the powers of Muspleheim and Niffleheim clashed in the void known as the Gennungagap. From these primal energies, life arose, and following that life, further life, which included the Gods.

But the Gods are not all powerful, all knowing beings. They have to work within the fundamental laws of the universe. Sometimes, of course, they make these laws, are the source of the laws. But there are things even the Gods are bound to and by. Fate, for example, as much as mortal men. Just, perhaps, on a slightly “bigger” scale.

I’ve actually begun to wonder if Gods aren’t just another “race” of beings or “species” much like everything else. At least, as we would look at it from a modern perspective. I don’t hold with the Ancient Aliens theory, because that says they were just normal beings with advanced tech that pretended to be Gods or gave rise to the Gods. Yes, they might be “aliens” in the essense that they are not from Midgard/Earth. But I don’t think of them as we think of “aliens” these days. I do believe they are Holy beings, of a divine nature. But I do not think that a God is omnipotent or omniscient.

I just think that they’re incredibly powerful, that they do things we can’t, if only because they’re on a much larger scale. But really, everything I read says they’re pretty much like us, just…well. Bigger.

What do you think?