The Great Silent Polytheist Majority

I should say at the beginning that this is specifically not an entry in the whole polytheist vs. atheist Pagan debate. Rather, I think that the polytheist side of the debate has been poorly represented until now, and I would like to take the opportunity to ruminate on that failure of my side of the argument to present a more balanced picture. One thing that has been lost in the din of recent days is the voice of those polytheists-among whom I count myself-who believe in the literal existence of the Gods and Goddesses, spirits of the land, shades of my ancestors, etc. but who do not have the intense "devotion is everything" attitude towards Them that some do. It is a misnomer (an understandable one, given the participants on that side of the discussion) that all polytheists must by their nature be God-spouses, engage in ritual "horsing" (possession by spirits, including one or more Gods), consult with Them multiple times every day on even the most trivial matters, and, most important, insist that anyone who does not indulge in such "uber"-piety (or-Gods forbid!-deny Their existence) is somehow less of a "real" Pagan/Heathen than they are. Historically, such cases are few and far between, and their true nature is shrouded in poetic language and possible misinterpretation. Even taking such accounts at face value, they represent an infinitesimal fraction of the total Pagan community of the time, and even of the total sub-community of Pagan priests and priestesses. Read the Pagan and Heathen polytheist blogosphere today and you can't swing a dead cat without hitting someone who married Loki or who chats with Dionysus over breakfast. For most of us hard polytheists, that crosses the line into what the ancient Romans termed "superstitio" ("excessive fear of the gods, unreasonable religious belief, superstition (different from "religio", a proper, reasonable awe of the gods)." - from the entry in Lewis ">Folks on the atheist side have spoken up, to their credit, saying that they, as a whole, don't share that dismissive attitude. I hope that I can do at least a little to help foster the notion that those of us on the other side of the debate don't all share the exclusionary attitude similarly on display by a (vocal) minority. (Originally posted to J"on Upsal's Garden)