I would love to become a pagan but I can't get over that most of the pagan gods and goddesses have silly stories and incest attached to them, how can I get past that?
Obviously I’m only speaking from my own perspective.
In short: don’t think of the stories as literal but rather as a) reflections of the gods’ native human culture and the relationship between those humans and gods, and b) opportunities for insight into how a deity relates to their more abstract associations. Not all war gods or healing gods or death gods are alike, after all, so get into the themes and essence behind the stories and see how they’re relevant to you.
At (great) length: For me, at least, there are two levels of interpretation going on here.
The stories are reflections of how specific cultures understood and related to their deities.
We analyze these stories, argue over translations, pick them apart and generally treat them like historical events not because we believe they actually happened (although some may be based on events and people that became greatly exaggerated) but because it tells us a lot about how our ancestors of blood and spirit understood their gods.
Stories are always told within the context of their native culture, by which I mean their themes, motifs, characters, settings, and so on are shaped by how their humans understand these concepts. The Greeks and Romans, for example, had very different understandings of what constituted adultery and acceptable sexual behaviors, and because myths codify the experiences and circumstances of the people who originally told them, their mythologies reflect these no-longer-accepted values. Many polytheists now are dealing with deities who revealed themselves in very specific ways to specific people at certain periods of history, and those people used the familiar language of their own culture. (There’s a reason pop culture paganism is often considered much more accessible to the modern polytheist.) The gods didn’t literally do these things, most likely, but it’s how their humans could best understand them. As Dogma’s Serendipity says, “The person thatholds the pen adds their own perspective,” before finishing, “One of the drawbacks to being intangible is that you have no say in theeditorial process.”
The myths show how the deities themselves embody certain archetypes, concepts, and other abstracts, making them unique and individual.
A good example is Ares and Athena. Both are associated with war but in very different ways. Neither of them are the same as Sekhmet, who isn’t the same as the Morrígan, and it’s not just because each one was shaped by the culture in which they revealed themselves. Why might someone on a warrior path be drawn to one instead of another when they’re all associated with war?
When I’m doing personal work with the myths (not arguing all the academic theoretical bullshit, which is admittedly entertaining, but I mean actually putting it all into practice) I try to look past the trappings and get to the essence of the deities that inspired the myths. If the Morrígan is doing her Washer at the Ford thing and cleaning the clothes/armor/corpses (depending on the version) of those about to die in battle, well, someone might interpret that as morbid and walk away. But in essence it shows the grief and care afforded to people who have fought and suffered for it, that one can anticipate or even enjoy a battle without forgetting the very real costs.
My point is that most polytheists don’t take the myths as literal. The cultural elements of the myths can definitely be off-putting, but try looking beneath that. What is there about this deity that might have inspired the humans to which they revealed themselves to create these particular myths? And if you don’t like it, then try a different one.
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