As to the gods...

"As to the gods, I have no means of knowing either that they exist or do not exist. For many are the obstacles that impede knowledge, both the obscurity of the question and the shortness of human life." - Diogenes Laertius

Rationally speaking, the only belief that makes sense is agnosticism. That is, admitting that we really cannot know, definitively, if there are such things as gods, or if the world around us was created by some deliberate hand. There's no real proof of it. It seems as likely as anything that it's our awareness of our mortality that drives us to seek some deeper meaning to our brief lives, some broader purpose. If god did not exist, the saying goes, man would have to create him.

On the other hand, we don't have any proof that the gods do not exist. Science tells us the universe began with a great explosion; but where the matter came from, or what set it to motion, remains an elusive theory.  I believe in science, and the scientific method - hypothesis, observation/experiment, conclusion. I also believe that there is knowledge we can scarcely fathom, much less measure. In that realm lie the gods, magic, and mystery. For that reason, I choose to believe in the gods.

Growing up, I was taught there was only one god, Yahweh, god of the Jews. (Even so, many sects have him split into three aspects.)  This belief is presented as an axiom, accepted by (or forced upon) most cultures in the Western world as simple truth for hundreds of years.

Yet from very early childhood, I was called by the gods of ancient Egypt and Greece. I became fascinated with their stories, the forces they represent, the activities on Earth that they set into motion, and their integration with the Earth itself - river nymphs, tree nymphs, the gods and goddesses of the ocean, of the forest, of the underworld. The gods are everywhere, manifest in everything we see. 

Pantheism? Perhaps. Yet I also believe that the gods are distinct entities, beings we can approach. Beings that hear us when we call to them, and reply at their whim, as unpredictable as nature itself.

The role of the gods is not to serve as our parents, indulging our every request. They watch over us, but their purposes are their own, and they take the long view. Some paths suggest that the gods are not to be bothered often, particularly not regarding trivial things, and that every approach to them should bear a gift - an offering or a sacrifice in exchange for what is requested.

They do not give without expecting us to work, in return.

The philosophy is succinctly summed up in one of Aesop's fables, that of "Hercules and the Waggoner." It goes like this:

A Waggoner was once driving a heavy load along a very muddy way. At last he came to a part of the road where the wheels sank half-way into the mire, and the more the horses pulled, the deeper sank the wheels. So the Waggoner threw down his whip, and knelt down and prayed to Hercules the Strong. “O Hercules, help me in this my hour of distress,” quoth he. But Hercules appeared to him, and said:

“Tut, man, don’t sprawl there. Get up and put your shoulder to the wheel.”

The gods help them that help themselves.