I admire your work and I have to say your criticisms and critiques of movements are usually very solid, especially your criticism of the Alt-Right back in the day. That's where I think it's really a shame you've so dramatically missed the mark on this one, to the extent that I could only conclude you've either not talked to any intelligent Pagans or that you're ignoring some of the stronger arguments. (The dreaded word "strawman" comes to mind?)
For instance, in the first core critique of Christianity by Pagans, you merely say Christianity is responsible for progressivism and then agree partially in that you consider progressivism a Christian heresy. I think you ignore the much more fundamental and I’d argue more widespread right-wing Pagan argument that Christianity is a fundamentally leftist and progressive religion, that Jesus himself preached as fundamental values of pacifism, forgiveness, universalism, egalitarianism, and anti-elitism. Viewed properly, progressivism is the truest and most genuine interpretation of Christianity, and the past healthy, masculine, traditional, and hierarchical forms of Christianity are Pagan-influenced corruptions of the genuine faith. It’s not a bug, it’s a feature, and that ironically the only reason the software was working correctly is because it’s been bugged.
I also take exception to the analogy that if the heart isn’t working, it should be ripped out. That seems to view Christianity as something so integral to Western civilization and humanity at large that it could not function without it, like a heart, but that’s clearly wrong in view of history. The Roman Empire reached its height in physical power, morality, technology, and culture without Christianity, as did the Greeks, the Egyptians, and so on. This argument is also dismissive of Bronze Age civilizations beyond the Mediterranean, which while not leaving as strong of a written record as Christian Europe still birthed many great peoples, great stories, and great cultures.
These are just two illustrative examples of a general pattern of sloppy misrepresentation of Pagan arguments throughout this essay. As a practicing Asatruar I was eager to hear your viewpoint and am always open to strong arguments against what has come to be my own faith, but I’m disappointed. I feel you would benefit from an actual constructive dialogue with an intelligent Pagan or reading a stronger Pagan critique of Christianity rather than responding to what I can only conclude are poorly-thought out comments or posts on internet forums.
Pacifism - read the OT and get back to me. Or the crusades.
Universalism - yes, there is one truth.
Egalitarianism - spiritual egalitarianism, yes. But the progressives don't believe in the spiritual. And Catholics are certainly not material or genetic (not sure the right term) egalitarians. The talents parable, among others, speaks clearly to this.
Progressives:
Pacifism - BLM. Iraq. Ukraine. Vietnam. Need I mention more wars? Their opposition to "violence" is entirely shallow. They'd behead Hitler tomorrow without a trial if they could.
Forgiveness - only to those they deem less than themselves. Certainly no white forgiveness. I've never been forgiven by a progressive and I've never heard them pray for Hitler.
Universalism - they're entirely subjectivist. "my truth" etc.
Anti-elitism - perhaps. Most of them are down with the institutions and worship saint Obama of Harvard.
I don't see how these two are the same. I think the only way you could see they are is by watching progressives talk about Jesus and not read the Bible / the Early Fathers yourself.
Tbh I think this critique is the worst of the Pagan critiques. It's like watching SNL and saying that comedy is intrinsically progressive.
Since you're Christian now, I'll just have to repeat the problems for myself. The article has a lot of issues.
He's trying to approximate pagan criticisms with a hyperbolic sentence or two to be brief, and so he gets exactly that - a hyperbolic approximation of pagan beliefs. I don't think he had any intention to take paganism seriously as something of itself, but only as a perceived threat. And so the article's attempts to make an apologetic defense against these criticisms suffers.
Yeah, honestly I still stand by my criticisms of this article two years on. I mean, obviously it was ineffective in converting me. From the other side, I can see why he wrote it the way he did, of course. One core teaching of the Christian faith is the belief that Pagans are worshiping demons in disguise, while as you know pagans have a much more accommodating view of other religions and spiritual beings outside their pantheons--I remember imagining YHWH as a mischievous spirit myself.
There's still likely a benefit to speaking to intelligent pagans and actually examining the more serious critiques of Christianity that I remember really speaking to me, but I know Dave doesn't love to get into religion too much.
This article doesn't contain the words 'jew', 'torah', 'judaism', 'hebrew' or 'testament'. Key words in my primary criticism of Christianity. Nice attempt other than that.
The Torah, as I said. Rather, I don't want to make a criticism of it, as it serves the tribe from which it sprung very well. I just don't understand why Europeans are expected to follow the religious scriptures of a foreign folk.
Does it serve them though? Rabbinic Judaism barely follows the old testament at all. They primarily follow whatever they want. Which is the purpose of the talmud.
It's self controdictory, and that's a feature not a bug. It allows them to assert whatever they want is true, while the old testament is consistent.
At this point, the church is the real Israel. He is our God, and we are his people. As was fortold in the prophets. The Jews meanwhile have abandoned him, and are abandoned in return.
Until the very end, this was an admirably measured and fair-minded critique. I would suggest almost too fair-minded. To me, the core issues with neo-paganism are twofold: that it is essentially ahistorical, and that it has no meaningful praxis.
On the former, neo-paganism is self-consciously ahistorical in some ways, it seeks to 'revive' pagan practice and belief but admits there has to be some creative licence in this as true pagan tradition has not been preserved intact into the modern age.
This is part of paganism's appeal, but also its great weakness - 'believers' are basically just making stuff up and projecting their own political values onto vague claims about honouring ancestors. It's especially acute for right wing pagans claiming to defend the core of western civilization - yes, Rome prospered under paganism and fragmented under Christianity, but pagans are weirdly eager to dismiss the past 1500 years, in which Europe conquered the world, as irrelevant (or, perhaps, achieved *despite* Christianity rather than *because* of it).
On the latter, I have yet to meet a truly practising pagan and I don't expect to encounter one any time soon. There are no pagan doctrines, no institutions, no moral instructions or hard and fast beliefs. I appreciate that polytheism is vaguer on some of these issues than the great monotheistic faiths, but meeting up in the woods to have a bonfire and invoke Odin is not religion, it is a LARP. Internal, deeply held fidelity to extrinsic deities and their moral demands is religious faith - dancing round maypoles or cutting up pig entrails is all externality, it doesn't mean anything and smacks of pretentiousness (at best). When I see 'organised paganism' I might take neopagans more seriously, but there are no solid principles for it organise around.
If you really want to find a modern practitioner of Indo-Aryan polytheism as a lived religious tradition, one can always talk to an Indian Hindu. Though I expect most right-wing neo-pagans would have nothing but scorn for the closest things in modern world to the pre-Christian traditions of their ancestors.
They have no doctrines and the world will not scorn them the way it scorns Christians. The regime loves paganism because it is content-free and easy to orient purely around temporal politics. It's godless larping.
"The regime loves paganism." "No they don't, read it straight from the regime." "Why are you quoting the regime?" You've responded to me just twice and both comments have been asinine and retarded. Anxious for the incoming strikeout
You cannot larp as your ancestors. You can larp as a jew though.
Real paganism is hated by the regime, but you have no conception of this because you cannot fathom what '“real paganism” is.
Go tell the ancient world they had no doctrines. Now tell me that I cannot read their works and decipher their meaning.
Don’t be so foolish. There is cosmology, philosophy, theology, rites, and ethical systems outlined in every pagan religion. They have to have these if they are to be religions. It was all recorded.
Show me were the regime persecutes real pagans. I see no such thing.
Show me were you have creeds. Which is ultimately what alphonz means by doctrines. Common teachings you will confess and adhere to for the sake of unity. I see no such thing. Don't tell me to ask someone else, the entire point of a creed is that you all adhere to it, so there's no reason you cannot give me one which I can check with another pagan.
Unless of course you don't have one.
Come on man, at least the Muslims have _one_ creed! Don't you have at least one?
My point on doctrine is that there is no institutional structure or agreed corpus of dogma to prevent any organised pagan group from being infiltrated or subverted. There are an awful of left wing pagans in the world as well - look at witchcraft tik tok, the Manson family or the Hare Krishnas.
The churches have definitely and deliberately been subverted in the last 100 years or so - like every other institution in the west. All the same, there is still an agreed deposit of the faith for genuine believers to coalesce around in resistance to the modern world.
Paganism does not have that - it's a choose-your-own-adventure consumer spirituality, not a religion. You choose norse/ celtic warrior larping, the dudes at Burning Man choose to act like hippy rock stars or Buddhist monks.
Also, Christianity is not larping as a Jew. Read some medieval history - or go to a Catholic or Orthodox Church. Evangelical dispensationalist boomers do not speak for us,
"My point on doctrine is that there is no institutional structure or agreed corpus of dogma to prevent any organised pagan group from being infiltrated or subverted. There are an awful of left wing pagans in the world as well - look at witchcraft tik tok, the Manson family or the Hare Krishnas. "
I am in the pagan sphere and I can assure you, leftist pagans are a giant nothing burger. They are an internet fad and probably a way for jews to subvert the west through fake meditation schools and such. I reject that stuff just like you do. You don't accept the gay pastors, and I dont accept the gay gothar. Now, will you accept the black pastor? Because I hate the "black viking".
"Paganism does not have that - it's a choose-your-own-adventure consumer spirituality, not a religion. You choose norse/ celtic warrior larping, the dudes at Burning Man choose to act like hippy rock stars or Buddhist monks."
That's not how folkism works, and dude every pagan religion like Hinduism or Asatru are very different from each other and thousands of years old. They have their own rules, rites, myths, and creeds. Just because you don't know them doesn't mean they don't exist. Just because faggot wicca thots do whatever they want with the old ways doesn't mean they are right. The fact of the matter is that a folkish tradition can only be properly followed by someone of that folk. You should not be a European buddhist. You should not be a Greek Odinist. You should not be a Gaelic Hellenist. You should follow the traditions of your forefathers - we are a patrilineal people and have been even as Christians. From there, due to the different religions of the folk, things look different. A Greek, Gael, and Nord all practice things somewhat different, because they have different religions.
And you definitely should not be a European who worships Levantine things. Your paragon of womanhood is a jewish woman - Mary. Your heroes, the disciples, are jewish worksmen.
You can worship any race I guess, its possible in light of modern African worship, but the folkish tradition teaches that is a transgression against your forefathers. If you want to circumcise and pray to Yahweh so bad, go marry a jewess. If not, join tens of thousands of years of your pre-Christian ancestors in their halls - their halls predate the houses of Christ, and they are open to all of us for eternity.
I chose my ancestral path, which includes much more than just my clan name and my tribe. I have to love and honor all my ancestors. Half of my poems are glorifying my Christian ancestors. You don't understand the very religion of your folk. I don't mean to be rude, but its true. You should really learn, not to convert - but to understand where you come from.
Like most serious pagans, I assume you're either gay or have some kind of visceral personal grievance against the Church (I note your Irish name). And yes, that is ad hominem, sue me if you like.
You can love your ancestors whilst being Christian. If you are a white European, almost all of your recent ancestors almost definitely were Christian, and you disrespect them by lapsing into this 'folkish' babble. All of the great achievements of western civilization were achieved when we were Christian cultures, attributing everything since the fall of Rome to (((them))) is - ironically - anti-white because it denies the living legacy of European greatness.
I will pray for you and I wish you well on your spiritual path. God bless.
Something interesting I've begun to notice when talking to pagans (and atheists)—they don't seem to comprehend sincere conviction. The first thing they do is when you engage is enter into a dialectic in which historical facts and philosophy are used in an attempt to demonstrate why Christianity is false or bad. Anyone who understands sincere religious conviction should realize that it is impossible to argue someone out of the position simply with facts and logic. They should also understand why getting my to question my faith would immediately provoke a hostile demeanor. I've also noticed the tactic of attempting to get a Christian to feel guilt over things Christians have done to pagans—this is a mirror image of the left wing white guilt tactic. Again, why would anyone who understood sincere conviction think that this would be a good idea? It's for this reason that I question the degree to which pagans actually have any sincere conviction, since they clearly don't understand it at all. Obligatory #NotAll. For example, a pagan would say that Christianity is bad because it destroyed native religions. On the opposite side, I would never say that the native beliefs were false because Christianity destroyed them. This would obviously be a stupid thing for me to say, if I believed that my interlocutor actually held the native beliefs in any capacity. Yet pagans do this
Both sides are equally culpable of this. I find it ironic when Dave accuses pagans of trolling, when an easy 90% of the time, Christian debate amounts to "ha ha pagayn" followed by some various garden-variety Wojak memes.
Likewise, you make valid points about Christian faith not meeting with pagan historical dialectics, but this too works both ways: Christians will approach debate with a firm base of innumerable faith-based priors, which cannot be evidentially substantiated enough to sway a pagan operating within a historical/philosophical frame
Or perhaps more simply put, arguments that amount to "because Bible says..." are nearly always ineffectual, especially when that doesn't answer any presented concerns from the other camp
Hierophany didn't work for me in the Christian religion.
I have conviction, it's just not yours. I have piety, it's just not yours.
I don't think Christians understand other religions at all, specifically due to your dogma surrounding the topic of spirituality. You guys cannot view anything except if it's parsed through your specific lens.
I was Christian for many years. It didn't work for me. It doesn't work for many people. I sought out the divine, and found it in the ancestral path.
You found it with Jesus. Cool. I found it with my ancestors and the divine personalities they first perceived thousands of years ago.
When a logical argument is presented it can create a splinter in the mind, that while it remains unanswered can grow to weaken conviction. Some Mormons that relied on the "burning in the bosom" feeling have ended converting after exposure to enough apologetics.
I have to say: this was certainly more combative than my essay! Then again, I completely understand. Having this kind of rhetoric being lobbed at Christians time and again is vomit-inducing, and it is especially infuriating when it comes from people who claim that they are on "our side."
How about hearing White Christians who supposedly love the West crap all over thousands of years of their ancestors and their religion? How about that shit lobbing Christians love to do? Oh, it doesn't matter if you cut off your nose to spite your face, because Jesus is better than thousands of years of ancestors.
I swear, you guys don't understand the debate at hand.
As an extension of 4 I frequently see this Idea that Christianity is a hostile foreign belief system not native to Europe thrown around by specifically those championing Norse religion. It seems queer to me because to most of Europe that is just as hostile and foreign of a belief system that was not native to their area but it certainly is better known than whatever pre-Christian religion that existed there. Because that specific tradition is dead and forgotten they seem to think that they have been given the right to assume its place as they are "genuine" European belief system unlike Christianity. The likely-hood of more than some tiny offshoots of my family tree practicing it's historical version is very low and it would be beyond a larp for someone like myself to adopt it out of some sense of it being the real belief system of my ancient ancestors.
Most pagans or vitalists probably don't view civilization as inherently good or bad, having more babies as the top indicator of societal health or that anti nomianism is inherently bad. You're projecting these mid 20th century middle class values onto us when in fact almost nobody else besides a small minority of Christians believes these things. From our perspective, many left hand path pagan traditions are/were antinomian, having more babies without a vitalistic culture for them to live under does nothing but contribute to the yeastification of life, and an indicator of a civilization's health is the feats of greatness that it is able to achieve.
Anyway arguing for Christianity is pointless because it has been dying for hundreds of years straight with no signs of recovery whatsoever. It's successor progressive strain is much more well adapted to the modern world and people who believe in the universalist egalitarian values of Christianity will just follow that. If there is a second religiosity it would have been something new that's able to summon up more vital energy. Paganism, transhumanism or practically anything else seems more likely than Christianity.
To your point that ancestor worship doesn't make sense because our Christian ancestors would abhor it, I suspect a pagan would respond "exactly, Christianity alienates us from our ancestors".
I recently re-read the Iliad, and what really stood out to me was the concept of virtue. The gods of the Homeric tradition are quixotic, to say the least, and it is arguably the humans on both sides of the Achaean-Trojan war that are the true heroes. There is such a display of virtue by both Achilles and HEctor, both of whom are flawed in major ways and yet heroically resign themselves to the mutual demise they know is coming. For all the flaws of pagan society (which were critiqued by Plato and Aristotle LOOOONG before Christianity even existed) they had a sense of virtue that simply doesn't exist anymore and hasn't for a good hundred years or so. Neo-Pagans are LARPERs of the wignat variety: they are merely trying to be "cute", and don't actually have any beliefs or even comprehensible opinions on anything. They are far too busy yelling thing like "ye gods" and trying to convince us that pre-scientific folklore is more believable than theism within a modern framework to actually ask themselves what their spiritual system even is or what pragmatic purpose it serves in pulling society together. They have no concept of the virtues of their ancestors, and no interest in resurrecting them. The fact that their current life style and aesthetics would be considered cringe, if not shameful by anyone living even five hundred years ago much less in pre-Christian times, doesn't even occur to them.
This may be a good time to mention that the original "vanities" thrown on the bonfire destroyed the artwork, the material culture produced under the patronage of Lorenzo di Medici. Was that dialectic Christian Savonarola vs. Pagan di Medici or (proto) Protestant Savonarola vs. Catholic di Medici, or was it the iconoclastic heresy rearing its ugly head against beautiful Christianity?
He certainly was proto-prot, insofar as key prot figures like Martin Luther took inspiration from him, to the extent of even exalting him as their ideological forebear
I might say I'm inspired by Mao to revolt, but it sure doesn't mean we share any political views. Likewise, Luther might have been inspired by Savonarola's disobedience to the Pope, but that's where similarities end. Savonarola would have hated Luther.
Perhaps you're simply not that familiar with either:
"In Germany and Switzerland the early Protestant reformers, most notably Martin Luther himself, read some of the friar's writings and praised him as a martyr and forerunner whose ideas on faith and grace anticipated Luther's own doctrine of justification by faith alone."
Either that, or you're simply being obtuse/disingenuous. I cannot rule out the possibility among internet commentators. But this late at night, I'll accept any plea of being none the wiser in good faith.
I think you're arguing the semantics and splitting hairs. There is no hard and fast distinction between Catholicism and protestantism, not least because there are innumerable shades of the latter.
Take lutheranism, which is far closer to Catholicism than many contemporary shades of Prot like LDS. Take Anglicanism, which in nearly every way is Catholicism, just without Rome.
The point here being: neither me nor the other chap are arguing that Savonarola is *identical* to a modern Prot. No one is saying that Savonarola was the James White of yesteryear.
However, he was to all intents and purposes a proto-protestant for the reasons already laid out, which is a different beast entirely, and something that your book wouldn't invalidate if it simply picks the parts where Savonarola aligns with the Vatican.
Anyone can do that. I can find the parts where Lutheranism, or Anglicanism, aligns with the Vatican, and then write a book to make whatever invarious logical leaps are needed to therefore claim identicality.
What really matters are the historical and philosophical developments that led to movements like Protestantism or any other movements forming. And I don't think one can genuinely argue, without being trite, that Savonarola's perspective on Christianity didn't start the ball rolling for Protestantism.
What you call “Judaism” today is the religion of the Pharisees that Jesus opposed. The fact that the two religions share a common ancestor makes about as much difference as the fact that humans may share a common ancestors with Chimpanzees.
The entire Old Testament is about the bagel people and their non-European god. One of the most significant components within the Pagan critique of Christianity is the racialist/identitarian aspect.
Furthermore it makes a tremendous difference that Christianity and Judaism share a common root. Christianity is not European in origin and does not worship a European god, and thus we see it as unfit for biological Europeans. European Paganisms, regardless of flavor, do not share this problem.
Most biological Europeans were nothing but savages when they worshiped your vaunted European gods, and those who were civilized would have looked on you with scorn if you suggested there was any similarity between themselves and the Celts or Germans. A Roman or Greek would have seen far more similarity between themselves and the Phoenicians, Egyptians, Persians, Ethiopians, or, yes, Jews, than between themselves and the peoples North of the Alps.
>Furthermore, I see scant historical evidence to demonstrate that the European folk culture which comes to us organically through the ages has any real connection to pagan religious worship.
Ehh, a lot of popular folktales and "fairy tales" probably descend from pre-Christian stories or at least a pre-Christian literary tradition, based on cognates. Some might even predate the Indo-Europeans. Stuff like "Christmas/Easter is Pagan" is usually somewhat less grounded.
I think this is a good criticism against Christianity but not a particularly good reason to become Pagan. These traditions, for the most part they are dead and there is no point in trying to revive them verbatim unless they speak deeply about something. Especially in America, where not only have most of us become mixed between several European groups but also we are totally separated from the soil of our ancestors. I strongly recommend every White American returns to Europe as a sort of pilgrimage, because it really does feel like something you are deeply connected to, but like I said earlier we cannot spend all of our time trying to return to a gone past. We have to rebirth the past instead. Some of it might be instinctual, but this is more of the broad elements like the pantheons and the major rites and conception of social order.
But still, Christians destroyed many elements of Pagan culture which set the cultural development of Europe back. The Christians destroyed or mutated countless works of art and architecture for the sake of anti-Idolatry and out of a disdain for the Pagans, who they either imagined were not their ancestors or were correct in assuming they were not their ancestors (by that point, Rome had been turned into something of a racial cloaca). This includes Northern European sites, and is part of the reason we now view the Germanics as a very primitive people. The complex at Irminsul and the later one at Uppsala were described in ways by Christians that demonstrate grandeur and sophistication, but they were not long for this world.
>My suspicion begins with patterns already alluded to. Within paganism there seems a tendency to prefer the remote, the distant, and the mysterious
?? this is more Christian than Pagan, aside from exceptional mystery cults and the like
As far as your questions about the gods go, I would recommend late Neoplatonic writers like Iamblichus, Sallust, Julian, and Proclus. There are other people who attacked Christianity like Celsus but most of his writings don't survive because -- as it turns out -- Pagans DID respond to these arguments. Their responses were largely destroyed with exception to the parts Christians felt like quoting in their rebuttals. WAOW!
>What is the pagan interpretation of Dante’s Divine Comedy?
I was just talking about this with someone. Dante's Divine Comedy is an Aristotelian book with a few Platonic elements. The sins are essentially all derivations from a Nicomachean mean, ex: the 4th Circle represents people who spend too much AND those who spend too little. The severity of the sin is related to the layer of the Platonic soul which it corresponds to. The sins of incontinence represent a failure of controlling the appetite. The sins of violence represent a failure of controlling the spirit. And the sins of fraud represent the failure of controlling the Logos. The worst sin, the sin of treachery, is reserved for those who break oaths, who were often viewed as the worst offenders among Pagans too (ex: Norsemen believed oath-breakers were gnawed by snakes in Náströnd. I'm still on the Inferno, but from what I understand there are Aristotelian elements in Dante's Paradise too. Dante is also obviously very sympathetic for certain Pagans, especially Romans and Trojans, and his variation of Limbo is a sign of his hopes that the Virtuous Pagans do not have to suffer so terribly for their ignorance.
Goethe I have never had experience with, but he was kind of philic for Pagan culture and I could probably dig up some quotes of his which represent this. Both Dante and Goethe definitely had something of a Pagan in them, despite ultimately being Christians.
Criticism 5:
>In my own life this has been a good rule of thumb. Before I try to convince people to give up their own religions, I first try to convince them that I believe my own. Yet somehow, in my conversations with pagans, the issue of personal belief is always glossed over. Perhaps because it's boring?
I'll admit this is a bit of a problem, but only because the people who make this 5th criticism come from all sorts of backgrounds. Some aren't Pagans, they are atheists, and yes I will admit that some Atheists rather vacuously use Pagan aesthetics but in the end cannot really be called Pagans... How important is this really to the fact that we have the same goals provisionally? It isn't like being more grounded in your beliefs is going to make the flames of hell burn any less got. Like you said, Christians have an innate and uncompromising repugnance towards Pagans or anyone who is not Christian, because it is a core tenet of Christianity to spread to the ends of the earth and smash the Idols.
>Furthermore, Christians (in contrast to the other two monotheistic faiths) are prohibited from employing white lies, deception, and tactical misstatement to obscure their belief in this for political purposes. Full stop. No exceptions.
Christian missionaries are constantly employing schemes to spread the faith. They did in antiquity, and they still do in rural parts of Africa and China.
A better debate to have is whether to embrace a detached, faith-based approache to religiousity. This applies both to Pagans and Churchians or to embrace a hands-on experiential approach imho.
None of this matters. There are many verses in the Bible that make abundantly clear that God chooses who will be saved, his "elect". He had to, or salvation becomes about US, and not HIM. We cannot earn or deserve it; even Jesus said only those the Father draws come to Him. The elect know who they are, and who HE is. The sheep know their Shepherd, and vice versa. It matters not who claims to be a Christian; even if they really want to be, if they are not of the elect, nothing will save them. So of course the non-elect are mad. Of course they attack Christianity and Christians. Of course they try to earn it. Of course they want their "religion" to be superior. But....We are NOT God. These conversations are intellectual masturbation and a waste of time. Being chosen by God is not intellectual, it is spiritual.
Well, certainly not "New Age", not Protestant, raised Catholic, but I DO have the audacity to know and believe the Bible, and my life was altered radically after meeting Jesus, so there is that....if someone does NOT believe the Bible, what else is there to discuss?? We all worship something. Believe what you like. "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord".
I've never had any intention of deliberately insulting a person's faith only highlighting what doesn't make sense when stressed tested. Some might say that's precisely what always happens. But kudos for your reply to my somewhat provocative comment.
I appreciate the respect - and I am not insulted, despite the clear assumptions which you confidently placed on me. My Savior says I must defend what I know is true while being kind and gentle, among other things which do not come naturally to the "human condition" and certainly not mine! 😂 You may be better served not to underestimate people, considering that you have no idea what they have overcome in life. I am fully capable of defending what I know is true without bitterness or ad hominems. My confidence is unshakeable, because it is not based on me; it is based in HIM.
I didn't think that I gave the impression of underestimation of you or other believers. But one's own personal story is always the vector behind your take on a subject. In my case I've gone from the Catholic faith of my upbringing to atheist to agnostic and back to Catholic before settling on agnostic. But I fully recognise the power of faith for self improvement and then the potential for helping others those close to you and further afield too.
I admire your work and I have to say your criticisms and critiques of movements are usually very solid, especially your criticism of the Alt-Right back in the day. That's where I think it's really a shame you've so dramatically missed the mark on this one, to the extent that I could only conclude you've either not talked to any intelligent Pagans or that you're ignoring some of the stronger arguments. (The dreaded word "strawman" comes to mind?)
For instance, in the first core critique of Christianity by Pagans, you merely say Christianity is responsible for progressivism and then agree partially in that you consider progressivism a Christian heresy. I think you ignore the much more fundamental and I’d argue more widespread right-wing Pagan argument that Christianity is a fundamentally leftist and progressive religion, that Jesus himself preached as fundamental values of pacifism, forgiveness, universalism, egalitarianism, and anti-elitism. Viewed properly, progressivism is the truest and most genuine interpretation of Christianity, and the past healthy, masculine, traditional, and hierarchical forms of Christianity are Pagan-influenced corruptions of the genuine faith. It’s not a bug, it’s a feature, and that ironically the only reason the software was working correctly is because it’s been bugged.
I also take exception to the analogy that if the heart isn’t working, it should be ripped out. That seems to view Christianity as something so integral to Western civilization and humanity at large that it could not function without it, like a heart, but that’s clearly wrong in view of history. The Roman Empire reached its height in physical power, morality, technology, and culture without Christianity, as did the Greeks, the Egyptians, and so on. This argument is also dismissive of Bronze Age civilizations beyond the Mediterranean, which while not leaving as strong of a written record as Christian Europe still birthed many great peoples, great stories, and great cultures.
These are just two illustrative examples of a general pattern of sloppy misrepresentation of Pagan arguments throughout this essay. As a practicing Asatruar I was eager to hear your viewpoint and am always open to strong arguments against what has come to be my own faith, but I’m disappointed. I feel you would benefit from an actual constructive dialogue with an intelligent Pagan or reading a stronger Pagan critique of Christianity rather than responding to what I can only conclude are poorly-thought out comments or posts on internet forums.
A note of irony to anyone still reading this comment: Less than a year after making it I converted to Christianity.
Welcome
Praise the Lord.
Welcome to the Church.
Nice.
Not an argument
Welcome, brother!
pacifism - not Catholic.
forgiveness - yes
universalism - heresy
egalitarianism - not Catholic.
and anti-elitism - depends on what one means, but I sure don't see this in Christendom.
Sounds like 4/5 of the issues you have only prove Dave's point that progressivism is a heresy of Christianity, not The Real Deal.
Pacifism - read the OT and get back to me. Or the crusades.
Universalism - yes, there is one truth.
Egalitarianism - spiritual egalitarianism, yes. But the progressives don't believe in the spiritual. And Catholics are certainly not material or genetic (not sure the right term) egalitarians. The talents parable, among others, speaks clearly to this.
Progressives:
Pacifism - BLM. Iraq. Ukraine. Vietnam. Need I mention more wars? Their opposition to "violence" is entirely shallow. They'd behead Hitler tomorrow without a trial if they could.
Forgiveness - only to those they deem less than themselves. Certainly no white forgiveness. I've never been forgiven by a progressive and I've never heard them pray for Hitler.
Universalism - they're entirely subjectivist. "my truth" etc.
Anti-elitism - perhaps. Most of them are down with the institutions and worship saint Obama of Harvard.
I don't see how these two are the same. I think the only way you could see they are is by watching progressives talk about Jesus and not read the Bible / the Early Fathers yourself.
Tbh I think this critique is the worst of the Pagan critiques. It's like watching SNL and saying that comedy is intrinsically progressive.
Since you're Christian now, I'll just have to repeat the problems for myself. The article has a lot of issues.
He's trying to approximate pagan criticisms with a hyperbolic sentence or two to be brief, and so he gets exactly that - a hyperbolic approximation of pagan beliefs. I don't think he had any intention to take paganism seriously as something of itself, but only as a perceived threat. And so the article's attempts to make an apologetic defense against these criticisms suffers.
Yeah, honestly I still stand by my criticisms of this article two years on. I mean, obviously it was ineffective in converting me. From the other side, I can see why he wrote it the way he did, of course. One core teaching of the Christian faith is the belief that Pagans are worshiping demons in disguise, while as you know pagans have a much more accommodating view of other religions and spiritual beings outside their pantheons--I remember imagining YHWH as a mischievous spirit myself.
There's still likely a benefit to speaking to intelligent pagans and actually examining the more serious critiques of Christianity that I remember really speaking to me, but I know Dave doesn't love to get into religion too much.
An excellent and devastating criticism.
As a believer and a former Celtic reconstructionist pagan,
You nailed it.
Thank you.
Cheers
This article doesn't contain the words 'jew', 'torah', 'judaism', 'hebrew' or 'testament'. Key words in my primary criticism of Christianity. Nice attempt other than that.
You want to make a criticism of the Torah or the Talmud? Christianity has nothing to do with the later.
The Torah, as I said. Rather, I don't want to make a criticism of it, as it serves the tribe from which it sprung very well. I just don't understand why Europeans are expected to follow the religious scriptures of a foreign folk.
Does it serve them though? Rabbinic Judaism barely follows the old testament at all. They primarily follow whatever they want. Which is the purpose of the talmud.
It's self controdictory, and that's a feature not a bug. It allows them to assert whatever they want is true, while the old testament is consistent.
At this point, the church is the real Israel. He is our God, and we are his people. As was fortold in the prophets. The Jews meanwhile have abandoned him, and are abandoned in return.
The Roman Empire wrote the New Testament. It's the Culmination of Judaism and Paganism. Read Eros and Magic in the Renaissance for more info on that.
And why did we need our native ways (Paganism) to 'culminate' with a foreign, Semitic religion? Are we not good enough in our natural state?
The truth isn’t Semitic, it’s available to everyone.
Nah. Christianity is real.
I know it's real. They still wrote it though.
You literally worship a jewish rabbi dude. You can ignore the actual debate if you'd like. It will probably help you retain your dogma.
Your ideal woman is a jewess. Your ideal men are jewish disciples. Your God is a deified rabbi.
Until the very end, this was an admirably measured and fair-minded critique. I would suggest almost too fair-minded. To me, the core issues with neo-paganism are twofold: that it is essentially ahistorical, and that it has no meaningful praxis.
On the former, neo-paganism is self-consciously ahistorical in some ways, it seeks to 'revive' pagan practice and belief but admits there has to be some creative licence in this as true pagan tradition has not been preserved intact into the modern age.
This is part of paganism's appeal, but also its great weakness - 'believers' are basically just making stuff up and projecting their own political values onto vague claims about honouring ancestors. It's especially acute for right wing pagans claiming to defend the core of western civilization - yes, Rome prospered under paganism and fragmented under Christianity, but pagans are weirdly eager to dismiss the past 1500 years, in which Europe conquered the world, as irrelevant (or, perhaps, achieved *despite* Christianity rather than *because* of it).
On the latter, I have yet to meet a truly practising pagan and I don't expect to encounter one any time soon. There are no pagan doctrines, no institutions, no moral instructions or hard and fast beliefs. I appreciate that polytheism is vaguer on some of these issues than the great monotheistic faiths, but meeting up in the woods to have a bonfire and invoke Odin is not religion, it is a LARP. Internal, deeply held fidelity to extrinsic deities and their moral demands is religious faith - dancing round maypoles or cutting up pig entrails is all externality, it doesn't mean anything and smacks of pretentiousness (at best). When I see 'organised paganism' I might take neopagans more seriously, but there are no solid principles for it organise around.
If you really want to find a modern practitioner of Indo-Aryan polytheism as a lived religious tradition, one can always talk to an Indian Hindu. Though I expect most right-wing neo-pagans would have nothing but scorn for the closest things in modern world to the pre-Christian traditions of their ancestors.
Exactly. Just like Evola says you can't bring back a dead religion.
This is ridiculous. You clearly don't know what you are talking about.
You could go meet folkish pagans in a state near you today. They meet every month and are quite open to talking. Runestone.org
They have no doctrines and the world will not scorn them the way it scorns Christians. The regime loves paganism because it is content-free and easy to orient purely around temporal politics. It's godless larping.
Wrong on several of these points. Suggest reading the words of Israel's former antisemitism and holocaust programs for public affairs.
https://jcpa.org/article/neo-paganism-in-the-public-square-and-its-relevance-to-judaism-3/
Now you're quoting Zionist Jews?
"The regime loves paganism." "No they don't, read it straight from the regime." "Why are you quoting the regime?" You've responded to me just twice and both comments have been asinine and retarded. Anxious for the incoming strikeout
Christians quote jews from the 1st and 2nd century going back to the OT. C'mon.
The Old Testament was written by the Roman Empire too. You really need to learn real history.
You cannot larp as your ancestors. You can larp as a jew though.
Real paganism is hated by the regime, but you have no conception of this because you cannot fathom what '“real paganism” is.
Go tell the ancient world they had no doctrines. Now tell me that I cannot read their works and decipher their meaning.
Don’t be so foolish. There is cosmology, philosophy, theology, rites, and ethical systems outlined in every pagan religion. They have to have these if they are to be religions. It was all recorded.
Show me were the regime persecutes real pagans. I see no such thing.
Show me were you have creeds. Which is ultimately what alphonz means by doctrines. Common teachings you will confess and adhere to for the sake of unity. I see no such thing. Don't tell me to ask someone else, the entire point of a creed is that you all adhere to it, so there's no reason you cannot give me one which I can check with another pagan.
Unless of course you don't have one.
Come on man, at least the Muslims have _one_ creed! Don't you have at least one?
How do you not know the religions you deny? You don't even know our mythologies or beliefs. Then claim we have none.
How about the past 2000 years of jewish cultists subverting and supressing us? Oh, that's ok because it was all for Jesus.
Is that all you have?
I asked for specifics and you try to shame me.
I'll give you another chance. Specifics. For instance. Any man who denies the apostles creed is not a Christian. This is a doctrine we have.
Tell me one pagans have. And let me be clear, I don't believe you can. This is an opportunity to prove me wrong. So please take it seriously.
My point on doctrine is that there is no institutional structure or agreed corpus of dogma to prevent any organised pagan group from being infiltrated or subverted. There are an awful of left wing pagans in the world as well - look at witchcraft tik tok, the Manson family or the Hare Krishnas.
The churches have definitely and deliberately been subverted in the last 100 years or so - like every other institution in the west. All the same, there is still an agreed deposit of the faith for genuine believers to coalesce around in resistance to the modern world.
Paganism does not have that - it's a choose-your-own-adventure consumer spirituality, not a religion. You choose norse/ celtic warrior larping, the dudes at Burning Man choose to act like hippy rock stars or Buddhist monks.
Also, Christianity is not larping as a Jew. Read some medieval history - or go to a Catholic or Orthodox Church. Evangelical dispensationalist boomers do not speak for us,
"My point on doctrine is that there is no institutional structure or agreed corpus of dogma to prevent any organised pagan group from being infiltrated or subverted. There are an awful of left wing pagans in the world as well - look at witchcraft tik tok, the Manson family or the Hare Krishnas. "
I am in the pagan sphere and I can assure you, leftist pagans are a giant nothing burger. They are an internet fad and probably a way for jews to subvert the west through fake meditation schools and such. I reject that stuff just like you do. You don't accept the gay pastors, and I dont accept the gay gothar. Now, will you accept the black pastor? Because I hate the "black viking".
"Paganism does not have that - it's a choose-your-own-adventure consumer spirituality, not a religion. You choose norse/ celtic warrior larping, the dudes at Burning Man choose to act like hippy rock stars or Buddhist monks."
That's not how folkism works, and dude every pagan religion like Hinduism or Asatru are very different from each other and thousands of years old. They have their own rules, rites, myths, and creeds. Just because you don't know them doesn't mean they don't exist. Just because faggot wicca thots do whatever they want with the old ways doesn't mean they are right. The fact of the matter is that a folkish tradition can only be properly followed by someone of that folk. You should not be a European buddhist. You should not be a Greek Odinist. You should not be a Gaelic Hellenist. You should follow the traditions of your forefathers - we are a patrilineal people and have been even as Christians. From there, due to the different religions of the folk, things look different. A Greek, Gael, and Nord all practice things somewhat different, because they have different religions.
And you definitely should not be a European who worships Levantine things. Your paragon of womanhood is a jewish woman - Mary. Your heroes, the disciples, are jewish worksmen.
You can worship any race I guess, its possible in light of modern African worship, but the folkish tradition teaches that is a transgression against your forefathers. If you want to circumcise and pray to Yahweh so bad, go marry a jewess. If not, join tens of thousands of years of your pre-Christian ancestors in their halls - their halls predate the houses of Christ, and they are open to all of us for eternity.
I chose my ancestral path, which includes much more than just my clan name and my tribe. I have to love and honor all my ancestors. Half of my poems are glorifying my Christian ancestors. You don't understand the very religion of your folk. I don't mean to be rude, but its true. You should really learn, not to convert - but to understand where you come from.
Like most serious pagans, I assume you're either gay or have some kind of visceral personal grievance against the Church (I note your Irish name). And yes, that is ad hominem, sue me if you like.
You can love your ancestors whilst being Christian. If you are a white European, almost all of your recent ancestors almost definitely were Christian, and you disrespect them by lapsing into this 'folkish' babble. All of the great achievements of western civilization were achieved when we were Christian cultures, attributing everything since the fall of Rome to (((them))) is - ironically - anti-white because it denies the living legacy of European greatness.
I will pray for you and I wish you well on your spiritual path. God bless.
That's a LARP.
Sure thing, you can join Jesus in the house of Yahweh, I will be with my kin in the Halls of my Fathers. Thank you for your opinion though.
Something interesting I've begun to notice when talking to pagans (and atheists)—they don't seem to comprehend sincere conviction. The first thing they do is when you engage is enter into a dialectic in which historical facts and philosophy are used in an attempt to demonstrate why Christianity is false or bad. Anyone who understands sincere religious conviction should realize that it is impossible to argue someone out of the position simply with facts and logic. They should also understand why getting my to question my faith would immediately provoke a hostile demeanor. I've also noticed the tactic of attempting to get a Christian to feel guilt over things Christians have done to pagans—this is a mirror image of the left wing white guilt tactic. Again, why would anyone who understood sincere conviction think that this would be a good idea? It's for this reason that I question the degree to which pagans actually have any sincere conviction, since they clearly don't understand it at all. Obligatory #NotAll. For example, a pagan would say that Christianity is bad because it destroyed native religions. On the opposite side, I would never say that the native beliefs were false because Christianity destroyed them. This would obviously be a stupid thing for me to say, if I believed that my interlocutor actually held the native beliefs in any capacity. Yet pagans do this
Both sides are equally culpable of this. I find it ironic when Dave accuses pagans of trolling, when an easy 90% of the time, Christian debate amounts to "ha ha pagayn" followed by some various garden-variety Wojak memes.
Likewise, you make valid points about Christian faith not meeting with pagan historical dialectics, but this too works both ways: Christians will approach debate with a firm base of innumerable faith-based priors, which cannot be evidentially substantiated enough to sway a pagan operating within a historical/philosophical frame
Or perhaps more simply put, arguments that amount to "because Bible says..." are nearly always ineffectual, especially when that doesn't answer any presented concerns from the other camp
Hierophany didn't work for me in the Christian religion.
I have conviction, it's just not yours. I have piety, it's just not yours.
I don't think Christians understand other religions at all, specifically due to your dogma surrounding the topic of spirituality. You guys cannot view anything except if it's parsed through your specific lens.
I was Christian for many years. It didn't work for me. It doesn't work for many people. I sought out the divine, and found it in the ancestral path.
You found it with Jesus. Cool. I found it with my ancestors and the divine personalities they first perceived thousands of years ago.
When a logical argument is presented it can create a splinter in the mind, that while it remains unanswered can grow to weaken conviction. Some Mormons that relied on the "burning in the bosom" feeling have ended converting after exposure to enough apologetics.
I have to say: this was certainly more combative than my essay! Then again, I completely understand. Having this kind of rhetoric being lobbed at Christians time and again is vomit-inducing, and it is especially infuriating when it comes from people who claim that they are on "our side."
How about hearing White Christians who supposedly love the West crap all over thousands of years of their ancestors and their religion? How about that shit lobbing Christians love to do? Oh, it doesn't matter if you cut off your nose to spite your face, because Jesus is better than thousands of years of ancestors.
I swear, you guys don't understand the debate at hand.
As an extension of 4 I frequently see this Idea that Christianity is a hostile foreign belief system not native to Europe thrown around by specifically those championing Norse religion. It seems queer to me because to most of Europe that is just as hostile and foreign of a belief system that was not native to their area but it certainly is better known than whatever pre-Christian religion that existed there. Because that specific tradition is dead and forgotten they seem to think that they have been given the right to assume its place as they are "genuine" European belief system unlike Christianity. The likely-hood of more than some tiny offshoots of my family tree practicing it's historical version is very low and it would be beyond a larp for someone like myself to adopt it out of some sense of it being the real belief system of my ancient ancestors.
Most pagans or vitalists probably don't view civilization as inherently good or bad, having more babies as the top indicator of societal health or that anti nomianism is inherently bad. You're projecting these mid 20th century middle class values onto us when in fact almost nobody else besides a small minority of Christians believes these things. From our perspective, many left hand path pagan traditions are/were antinomian, having more babies without a vitalistic culture for them to live under does nothing but contribute to the yeastification of life, and an indicator of a civilization's health is the feats of greatness that it is able to achieve.
Anyway arguing for Christianity is pointless because it has been dying for hundreds of years straight with no signs of recovery whatsoever. It's successor progressive strain is much more well adapted to the modern world and people who believe in the universalist egalitarian values of Christianity will just follow that. If there is a second religiosity it would have been something new that's able to summon up more vital energy. Paganism, transhumanism or practically anything else seems more likely than Christianity.
To your point that ancestor worship doesn't make sense because our Christian ancestors would abhor it, I suspect a pagan would respond "exactly, Christianity alienates us from our ancestors".
It does, most Christians would cut off the entire ancestral body if Jesus asked them to.
I recently re-read the Iliad, and what really stood out to me was the concept of virtue. The gods of the Homeric tradition are quixotic, to say the least, and it is arguably the humans on both sides of the Achaean-Trojan war that are the true heroes. There is such a display of virtue by both Achilles and HEctor, both of whom are flawed in major ways and yet heroically resign themselves to the mutual demise they know is coming. For all the flaws of pagan society (which were critiqued by Plato and Aristotle LOOOONG before Christianity even existed) they had a sense of virtue that simply doesn't exist anymore and hasn't for a good hundred years or so. Neo-Pagans are LARPERs of the wignat variety: they are merely trying to be "cute", and don't actually have any beliefs or even comprehensible opinions on anything. They are far too busy yelling thing like "ye gods" and trying to convince us that pre-scientific folklore is more believable than theism within a modern framework to actually ask themselves what their spiritual system even is or what pragmatic purpose it serves in pulling society together. They have no concept of the virtues of their ancestors, and no interest in resurrecting them. The fact that their current life style and aesthetics would be considered cringe, if not shameful by anyone living even five hundred years ago much less in pre-Christian times, doesn't even occur to them.
This may be a good time to mention that the original "vanities" thrown on the bonfire destroyed the artwork, the material culture produced under the patronage of Lorenzo di Medici. Was that dialectic Christian Savonarola vs. Pagan di Medici or (proto) Protestant Savonarola vs. Catholic di Medici, or was it the iconoclastic heresy rearing its ugly head against beautiful Christianity?
Savonarola was not a proto prot and he was not an iconoclast nor anti art.
He certainly was proto-prot, insofar as key prot figures like Martin Luther took inspiration from him, to the extent of even exalting him as their ideological forebear
I might say I'm inspired by Mao to revolt, but it sure doesn't mean we share any political views. Likewise, Luther might have been inspired by Savonarola's disobedience to the Pope, but that's where similarities end. Savonarola would have hated Luther.
Perhaps you're simply not that familiar with either:
"In Germany and Switzerland the early Protestant reformers, most notably Martin Luther himself, read some of the friar's writings and praised him as a martyr and forerunner whose ideas on faith and grace anticipated Luther's own doctrine of justification by faith alone."
Either that, or you're simply being obtuse/disingenuous. I cannot rule out the possibility among internet commentators. But this late at night, I'll accept any plea of being none the wiser in good faith.
I up your quote with a whole book. Jerome Savonarola by J L O'Neil, OP writes a book defending the Catholicity of Jerome.
Also, as far as the people he inspires, is an argument, St Philip Nerri prayed to Savonarola as a saint. But I guess he was just a secret prot too.
I think you're arguing the semantics and splitting hairs. There is no hard and fast distinction between Catholicism and protestantism, not least because there are innumerable shades of the latter.
Take lutheranism, which is far closer to Catholicism than many contemporary shades of Prot like LDS. Take Anglicanism, which in nearly every way is Catholicism, just without Rome.
The point here being: neither me nor the other chap are arguing that Savonarola is *identical* to a modern Prot. No one is saying that Savonarola was the James White of yesteryear.
However, he was to all intents and purposes a proto-protestant for the reasons already laid out, which is a different beast entirely, and something that your book wouldn't invalidate if it simply picks the parts where Savonarola aligns with the Vatican.
Anyone can do that. I can find the parts where Lutheranism, or Anglicanism, aligns with the Vatican, and then write a book to make whatever invarious logical leaps are needed to therefore claim identicality.
What really matters are the historical and philosophical developments that led to movements like Protestantism or any other movements forming. And I don't think one can genuinely argue, without being trite, that Savonarola's perspective on Christianity didn't start the ball rolling for Protestantism.
>Dave says he will address the most common Pagan critiques against Christianity.
>Never addresses Christianity’s Jewish roots.
What you call “Judaism” today is the religion of the Pharisees that Jesus opposed. The fact that the two religions share a common ancestor makes about as much difference as the fact that humans may share a common ancestors with Chimpanzees.
The entire Old Testament is about the bagel people and their non-European god. One of the most significant components within the Pagan critique of Christianity is the racialist/identitarian aspect.
Furthermore it makes a tremendous difference that Christianity and Judaism share a common root. Christianity is not European in origin and does not worship a European god, and thus we see it as unfit for biological Europeans. European Paganisms, regardless of flavor, do not share this problem.
Most biological Europeans were nothing but savages when they worshiped your vaunted European gods, and those who were civilized would have looked on you with scorn if you suggested there was any similarity between themselves and the Celts or Germans. A Roman or Greek would have seen far more similarity between themselves and the Phoenicians, Egyptians, Persians, Ethiopians, or, yes, Jews, than between themselves and the peoples North of the Alps.
Criticism 4:
>Furthermore, I see scant historical evidence to demonstrate that the European folk culture which comes to us organically through the ages has any real connection to pagan religious worship.
Ehh, a lot of popular folktales and "fairy tales" probably descend from pre-Christian stories or at least a pre-Christian literary tradition, based on cognates. Some might even predate the Indo-Europeans. Stuff like "Christmas/Easter is Pagan" is usually somewhat less grounded.
I think this is a good criticism against Christianity but not a particularly good reason to become Pagan. These traditions, for the most part they are dead and there is no point in trying to revive them verbatim unless they speak deeply about something. Especially in America, where not only have most of us become mixed between several European groups but also we are totally separated from the soil of our ancestors. I strongly recommend every White American returns to Europe as a sort of pilgrimage, because it really does feel like something you are deeply connected to, but like I said earlier we cannot spend all of our time trying to return to a gone past. We have to rebirth the past instead. Some of it might be instinctual, but this is more of the broad elements like the pantheons and the major rites and conception of social order.
But still, Christians destroyed many elements of Pagan culture which set the cultural development of Europe back. The Christians destroyed or mutated countless works of art and architecture for the sake of anti-Idolatry and out of a disdain for the Pagans, who they either imagined were not their ancestors or were correct in assuming they were not their ancestors (by that point, Rome had been turned into something of a racial cloaca). This includes Northern European sites, and is part of the reason we now view the Germanics as a very primitive people. The complex at Irminsul and the later one at Uppsala were described in ways by Christians that demonstrate grandeur and sophistication, but they were not long for this world.
>My suspicion begins with patterns already alluded to. Within paganism there seems a tendency to prefer the remote, the distant, and the mysterious
?? this is more Christian than Pagan, aside from exceptional mystery cults and the like
As far as your questions about the gods go, I would recommend late Neoplatonic writers like Iamblichus, Sallust, Julian, and Proclus. There are other people who attacked Christianity like Celsus but most of his writings don't survive because -- as it turns out -- Pagans DID respond to these arguments. Their responses were largely destroyed with exception to the parts Christians felt like quoting in their rebuttals. WAOW!
>What is the pagan interpretation of Dante’s Divine Comedy?
I was just talking about this with someone. Dante's Divine Comedy is an Aristotelian book with a few Platonic elements. The sins are essentially all derivations from a Nicomachean mean, ex: the 4th Circle represents people who spend too much AND those who spend too little. The severity of the sin is related to the layer of the Platonic soul which it corresponds to. The sins of incontinence represent a failure of controlling the appetite. The sins of violence represent a failure of controlling the spirit. And the sins of fraud represent the failure of controlling the Logos. The worst sin, the sin of treachery, is reserved for those who break oaths, who were often viewed as the worst offenders among Pagans too (ex: Norsemen believed oath-breakers were gnawed by snakes in Náströnd. I'm still on the Inferno, but from what I understand there are Aristotelian elements in Dante's Paradise too. Dante is also obviously very sympathetic for certain Pagans, especially Romans and Trojans, and his variation of Limbo is a sign of his hopes that the Virtuous Pagans do not have to suffer so terribly for their ignorance.
Goethe I have never had experience with, but he was kind of philic for Pagan culture and I could probably dig up some quotes of his which represent this. Both Dante and Goethe definitely had something of a Pagan in them, despite ultimately being Christians.
Criticism 5:
>In my own life this has been a good rule of thumb. Before I try to convince people to give up their own religions, I first try to convince them that I believe my own. Yet somehow, in my conversations with pagans, the issue of personal belief is always glossed over. Perhaps because it's boring?
I'll admit this is a bit of a problem, but only because the people who make this 5th criticism come from all sorts of backgrounds. Some aren't Pagans, they are atheists, and yes I will admit that some Atheists rather vacuously use Pagan aesthetics but in the end cannot really be called Pagans... How important is this really to the fact that we have the same goals provisionally? It isn't like being more grounded in your beliefs is going to make the flames of hell burn any less got. Like you said, Christians have an innate and uncompromising repugnance towards Pagans or anyone who is not Christian, because it is a core tenet of Christianity to spread to the ends of the earth and smash the Idols.
>Furthermore, Christians (in contrast to the other two monotheistic faiths) are prohibited from employing white lies, deception, and tactical misstatement to obscure their belief in this for political purposes. Full stop. No exceptions.
Christian missionaries are constantly employing schemes to spread the faith. They did in antiquity, and they still do in rural parts of Africa and China.
A better debate to have is whether to embrace a detached, faith-based approache to religiousity. This applies both to Pagans and Churchians or to embrace a hands-on experiential approach imho.
Right wing "Pagans" are Identitarians just like left wing Social Justice Warriors. Neo-Paganism is a fake religion for freaks and chomos.
None of this matters. There are many verses in the Bible that make abundantly clear that God chooses who will be saved, his "elect". He had to, or salvation becomes about US, and not HIM. We cannot earn or deserve it; even Jesus said only those the Father draws come to Him. The elect know who they are, and who HE is. The sheep know their Shepherd, and vice versa. It matters not who claims to be a Christian; even if they really want to be, if they are not of the elect, nothing will save them. So of course the non-elect are mad. Of course they attack Christianity and Christians. Of course they try to earn it. Of course they want their "religion" to be superior. But....We are NOT God. These conversations are intellectual masturbation and a waste of time. Being chosen by God is not intellectual, it is spiritual.
Spoken like a new age Protestant female.
Well, certainly not "New Age", not Protestant, raised Catholic, but I DO have the audacity to know and believe the Bible, and my life was altered radically after meeting Jesus, so there is that....if someone does NOT believe the Bible, what else is there to discuss?? We all worship something. Believe what you like. "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord".
I've never had any intention of deliberately insulting a person's faith only highlighting what doesn't make sense when stressed tested. Some might say that's precisely what always happens. But kudos for your reply to my somewhat provocative comment.
I appreciate the respect - and I am not insulted, despite the clear assumptions which you confidently placed on me. My Savior says I must defend what I know is true while being kind and gentle, among other things which do not come naturally to the "human condition" and certainly not mine! 😂 You may be better served not to underestimate people, considering that you have no idea what they have overcome in life. I am fully capable of defending what I know is true without bitterness or ad hominems. My confidence is unshakeable, because it is not based on me; it is based in HIM.
I didn't think that I gave the impression of underestimation of you or other believers. But one's own personal story is always the vector behind your take on a subject. In my case I've gone from the Catholic faith of my upbringing to atheist to agnostic and back to Catholic before settling on agnostic. But I fully recognise the power of faith for self improvement and then the potential for helping others those close to you and further afield too.
"Self improvement"??? You have no idea how much you underestimate the power of redemption. For that, I am truly sorry.