I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. Are these criticisms of Modern Pagan practice? Or the muddiness of boundaries between pagan traditions? My comment was only that you seem surprised enough...
Type: Posts; User: MaximiIian; Keyword(s):
I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. Are these criticisms of Modern Pagan practice? Or the muddiness of boundaries between pagan traditions? My comment was only that you seem surprised enough...
I guess, man. It's not like Modern Paganism is that uncommon these days. And I've been pretty openly Pagan on this very site for a decade and a half.
I mean...ancient philosophy is my starting...
I'm confused by this. Where are you seeing sarcasm? I'm a Hellenistic polytheist; I have been for many years, and I've never been shy about that on here. In fact, I've usually been very up-front...
Do you mean your specific conception of god? Or do you allow for our own interpretations, our own theologies, our own experiences? If not the latter, then you're narrowing the field unnecessarily.
...
That's very true. It contains a lot of mystic language that strongly recalls Platonist philosophy that would have been more familiar to educated Greeks. Each of the Gospels are likely directed at...
Ehhh, that downplays the mythological roots of the New Testament. It draws from abstracted Greek philosophy (especially Middle Platonism), Late Second Temple prophetic apocalypticism, and Dionysian...
I'm a Hellenic pagan myself, that's something I'm aware of. In my own practice, I honor gods known to the Greeks, Celts, and Germans alongside Jupiter and all the rest.
B that's not quite what I'm...
Regarding the cluster of recent posts: to be honest, I think the attempts to discern the Christian Trinity in the Old Testament smack of some really deep antisemitism. You're basically reworking...
If you are all-powerful and you allow abuse, when you can instantaneously, miraculously remove that abuse, then you're approving of it. Passive approval is still approval. Doing nothing is allowing...
Well, I've never been high or had any kind of psychosis. So I can't say, though experience, how they're similar.
I suppose my opinion is that the use of entheogenic drugs doesn't make such...
Their followers would direct the same criticism towards Jesus of Nazareth, and any other competing claimants. Anything you can say about Jesus, they could say with equal faith towards their messianic...
Vague prophecies about a Messiah which could be-- and were-- applied to several candidates.
You can't use Biblical narratives to justify a Biblical narrative idea. That's just circular logic.
...
It's something that I've come to believe and feel due to my experiences with the gods, and with spirits of local places. I came to Paganism before those experiences, so it's not necessarily something...
For me? They are beings of pure spirit, but nevertheless intimately tied into the world around us. In the same way that a human body might have a soul, the world around us has gods and spirits-- and...
To be fair, a significant minority of Wiccans don't believe in their gods as literal beings; they see them as Jungian archetypes that "live" within us, and ritual as a way of actualizing that...
I am a devotional polytheist, I believe in many gods. I believe in them largely because I have had personal spiritual experiences involving them, up to and including ecstatic and mantic...
If this is your attitude, then you are demeaning towards mythology. Myth is vitally important, and an incredible cultural force, and can convey deep meaning and insight into the divine. Myths are not...
In this one area, I'll grant him. An empire is really just the domination of one group by another group, usually by military means. The Israelites certainly did hold sway over other tribes and...
Admittedly, I may have a bit of a bias myself since I am Pagan, I am in mostly Pagan or pagan-friendly circles. But I figured that Modern Paganism was a pretty widely-known phenomenon; it's been in...
Well I guess we just have different priorities, then. I think stopping fascists comes first, regardless of platform. They're a direct threat to all life, whereas circumcision is an unpleasant thing...
Really? Modern polytheists aren't that rare. Especially in online circles, we're a rather outspoken crowd.
Why wouldn't I be?
On that, we differ. I think the divine, while in some ways...
I adhere to Classical Stoicism, as part of my overall angle into Hellenistic Roman religion. I am, as I've said before (though I have not logged onto this forum in a while) a hard polytheist.
To...
Yes, probably. But rhetoric about circumcision has been used as a dogwhistle for Antisemitism. So we should probably do away with the greater evil, before tackling this lesser one.
I have, and my religion's community does approach things critically. Modern Paganism is based in equal parts on having personal, mystic experiences with divinity, and adherence to traditions and...
It's patently absurd to claim it's the same religion. But it is rooted in Judaism and Christianity, and generally claims to worship the same god as the other two.
But religion is much more than just...
Considering how tightly integrated religion was with society and government, I wouldn't call it a "thin" veneer. It's a thorough emulsion.
In addition to Akar's point, this line here is a huge falsehood on several levels.
For one, we don't really have any myths from Proto-Indo-European peoples. We have certain myth-themes that show...
That's nonsense. Society exists between the state and the individual, and can produce its own kinds of sanction.
It should definitely be shamed and a reason for social ostracism.
Well, yeah, for about a thousand years Catholicism (and Orthodoxy, which were unified until the 1050s) was the predominant, if not sole, form of Christianity in the West. It has the juciest material...
I see the gods as having emerged with the universe, inextricably linked to it, but not before it. I might make some accommodation for the Hermetic notion of a panentheistic unity of all the gods and...
[sigh] Much as I hate to admit it, Stario kinda has a point.
Just to be clear, I do not believe the gods are "creators" so much as they are "influencers" of the universe. Sustainers, perhaps. I see...
Religion, for me, is pretty fluid. I practice what I feel is best for me and my spiritual needs, and my religious framework has shifted over the past decade and a half, from a broad neopaganism to...
I was raised as an atheist, in an atheistic household; I was not even raised around Christianity really, and was unaware that people seriously believed in god until late in elementary school. Though...
It developed, as did Platonism, Aristotelianism, Epicureanism, and other ancient philosophies, out of the polytheistic religious landscape of the Classical Greek world. Religion was inseparable from...
1. Wicca is probably the largest single religion in the Pagan umbrella, yes. There are other Pagan religions, i.e. Neodruidry, Hellenismos, Asatru and Heathenry, various kinds of reconstructionist...
Neopaganism is small, but I don't think we can describe it as marginal; that ship sailed years ago. It's grown steadily since the last major boom in the early aughts. There's more Pagans than...
So...you think genocide is a reasonable or acceptable response to differences in belief and practice? That's insane.
Christianity is in decline, religion is not. The proportion of atheists and agnostics has somewhat plateaued in the past few years. What's happened is more that religion has diversified.
The "why"...
The meaning of those stories and the intent behind the creation of those stories matters.
As has been said by sumskilz and conon, my usage is consistent with how mythology is defined in the social...
Mythology and fiction are entirely different things. The key is in the intention. Fiction is intended to be un-true or un-real from the outset. Myth is not.
And yes, being the foundation of a...