/lit/ - Literature

None of them were seen as the sacred word of God himself like the bible is for Christians.
What you have is poems and compilations of folk tales about the gods, like theogony, metamorphoses, the poetic edda etc.

>>16690384
>... pagan...
>... holy...


OXYMORONIC.

>>16690388
Weren’t the Vedas authored by immortals or something?

Odyssey, The Iliad...I could go on all day

>>16690401
I don't know much about eastern religions so i couldn't tell. I was referring mostly to ancient European beliefs and texts

>>16690402
Lot that aren't even holy texts, just poetry

The concept most ingrained in western morality is not prodestantism, it's not niggardry, It's hypocracy. Everyone hates hypocracy. Retards! I am a proud hypocrite. It must be concealed, however, or people will freak out.

>>16690384
Bhagavad gita

>None of them were seen as the sacred word of God himself like the bible is for Christians.
That’s actually a very good thing

>>16690384
They were actually living in the immediate sacred reality instead of denying the world and believing the sacred to be transcendent which you needed books to get to

>>16690384
>like the Bible

Lmao you'll find nothing of the sort

>needing abstract bullshit books to twist your brain rather than just using your senses to engage with the infra-natural spiritual processes of everyday life and to adhere to simple sensible wisdom

Christians and modern men are worse barbarians than those who he called by this name. They are not living entities through experience and actions but empty filing cabinets to be filled with their mere scholarly data of the bible.

The word "Pagan" means uneducated hill-folk. Tell me, were the Greeks and Romans uneducated hill folk? They didn't even have a name for their religion because it was not doctrinal it was just a part of daily life to venerate the Gods.

>His pantheon has only one God, having no real characteristics or distinguishing qualities which contradicts everything every living creature has ever seen and experienced or known to be true.

>His God has "prophets", men who walk the earth annexing their own abstractions to various faiths to erode what could be eternal living tradition. Ye have believed one thing at one time and another thing at another time, and the trail of breadcrumbs leads only to a mere man having an unbound spiritual experience, not the daily and eternal works of the divine through the forces of nature and eternal wisdom.

>His God speaks to him through books and their authors rather than tangibly through daily life and adherence to omnipotent wisdom. These books an utter abstraction and lesser truth to a true divine glory, the "word" being scribbles to be made sense of opposing an actualized infinite wisdom beyond the bounds of books.

>His God's only concern was to ultimately gain ideological/doctrinal influence over the lowest masses of the west, thereby he manifested in a peasant carpenter and through him he inspired plebian revolts and political upheavals which destroyed Old Europe.

>His God is not that of his own blood or order because His God is the great equalizer who leveled the playing field from spiritual paths of real world actualization and ordeals which strengthen the inside and the outside to blind faith in one indistinguishable ruler that entirely neglects every will of nature.

Jee it sure is hard to find out how the modern world has ended up with things like Marxism, Egalitarianism, and Atheism foaming out of the mouths of mentally ill slaves controlled by an unknown material elite.

Christianity is a false end with no means.

>>16690601
Right wing schizos need lobotomies

>>16690418
Same thing

>>16690622
Seethe harder BORG-stianity tranny

>>16690622
>You've read the same codes as us, you have the same data files in your brain, you are saved ! .txt
>you don't even need to act on it as long as you believe bro.txt

>pagan
By the image you posted I take this to mean "European Polytheism". The Mahabarata, the Vedas, and the Bhagavad Gita are some of the vast library of Hindu holy texts, and the Kojiki, rikkokushi, Fudoki, Jinno Shotoki, and Kujiki are all Shinto Holy Texts. I've been really interested in finding works on Chinese Folk Theology, which is something distinct from Confucianism or Taoism, but have had little luck on anything in English, so check out "What the Master Would Not Discuss", which is on ghosts, Gods, Spirits, and the ancestors in Confucius' day. I'm currently reading Towards an Igbo Metaphysics, which is a discussion of the philosophical (and in particular metaphysical) ideas of the Igbo people of Nigeria. It's really neat, because the author, in his autism and low ethnic self-esteem, goes out an interviews hundreds of people over like ten years to actually get hard data on what they believe.

We have nothing of what the Celts thought. We know they had writing, they had long-term contact with the Greeks and apparently had access to the Greek alphabet. They had a priestly order, the Druids, who were the centerpiece of Celtic religious society. They were eradicated by the Romans in order to conquer Gaul. The insular Celts had druids too, but this priestly order was highly atrophied, and by the time St. Patrick came along (there were Christian Saints before Patrick, they were not successful) there were only a few dozen in all of Ireland. Anyone saying they have authoritative texts on what the Celts believed is lying.

The Germanics had writing, but lacked a priestly order akin to the druids. They initially had one, but somewhere around the birth of Jesus this died off. There's some thought that this is due to the Cult of Odin taking over and disrupting the balance of the entire religion, as Tyr (who is cognate with Zeus and Jupiter, and is the Germanic manifestation of Dyeus Phter) is second fiddle to Odin in Germanic religion. There's two Eddas, a Prose Edda by Snorri Sturlson, and a Poetic Edda written earlier by an anonymous source. There's some debate about how much Snorri adds of his own Christianity (he was a Bishop). There's a "folk-theory" that Loki being a bad guy is a Christian intrusion, but many scholars add that it's actually the opposite and that the Devil as a "evil lesser God" running around causing mischief is actually a fusion of the Judaeo-Christian ideas of "Satan" as a single badguy fused out of several nominally independent characters in the Old and New Testaments (Helel, The Pharaoh, the Serpent, the King of Tyre, whatever tempts Jesus in the desert) with the Germanic idea of Loki as, well, an evil God running around causing mischief that has to be fixed. The Germanics have a lot of other poems and stuff talking about the Gods, but those aren't on the level of the Eddas. The Havamal, a poem in the Poetic Edda, is the literal word of Odin on how to live a good life; it's not commandments, it's instruction.

Plato Complete Works
Leiden Hymns
Havamål
Iliad and Odyssey
Book of the Dead, Coffin Texts, Pyramid Texts.
Tale of Sinhue, The Debate Between A Man and His Soul, Shipwrecked Sailor, Ramsses II hymn to Amun at the Battle of Kadesh, Prophecy of Neferty...
Orphic Hymns.
Corpus Hermeticum, The Hymn of the Pearl, The Golden Ass.
Iamblichus De Mysteriis.
Julian's Orations
Aelius Aristides Hymns.
Orations of Themistius
Porphyry on the cave of the nymphs.
Sallustius On the Gods and World (less scripture more pseudo-dogma)
Plotinus Enneads (read with an eye for all the above)
Proclus Commentary on the Timaeus
My future exposition on the unity of the Neoplatonists.
All of these were from the top my head while taking a shit, there are a few more whole Egyptian legends, as well as Hesiod and other poets (all poets and artists are inspired in some way).

>>16690670
The Slavs are... interesting. We have nothing written directly from them, but we do have a lot of folklore written by Christianized Slavs. We also have the Book of Veles, which is an 18th century forgery intentionally written to sound archaic (the author made a few fuckups). You'd think that would make this garbage, but 1% of all ethnic Russians are polytheists practicing (what they claim) is their ancient ethnic religion. Some of this is just flat out Hinduism, because the Vedas were actually written by Slavs (or so they claim). These guys can be described as "hippies who don't like that the Russian Orthodox Church isn't racist enough for them".

The Romans had the Twelve Tables, which were given to the holy priest-king Numa Pompilius by Zeus and Fides, alongside a huge corpus of technical literature detailing the precise relationships of the Gods, what they wanted, and how they wanted man to act. It's all lost to us, with time and Christianization having destroyed it. The Sybylline Books were a collection of ancient prophetic texts the Roman Senate used to divine the will of the Gods. They were destroyed by Stilicho in 405AD. Why is sort of complicated, the running theory is that the books had a passage that described the invasion of Alaric I as punishment for Christianization and Stilicho's bad governance (ironically, Stilicho's actions would directly lead to the rise of Odoacer, who destroys the WRE).

The Greeks had a similarly large body of literature, ranging from oracular proclamations to wisdom literature to "spiritual technical manuals". At some point the Greeks get the idea that poets and playwrights are divinely inspired. This leads into Homer and Hesiod, whose works were treated like the Ancient Greek Bible (Greek religious practices changed swiftly because of how holy Homer was perceived as). At another point, they get the idea that Philosophers are too. Plato is the shining example of this, with many Greeks considering him to have been a religious prophet of Zeus and other Gods. Homer and Hesiod are THE "Greek Bible".

Someone's going to get upset that I used "Judaeo-Christian" in the previous post, this process of combining Biblical figures to make a singular badguy is being done concurrently by both Jews and Christians, who are taking notes from each other. It's a shared activity.

>>16690670
>>16690671
>>16690722

Based

>>16690601
HOLY FUCKING BASED

>>16690670
>>16690671
>>16690722

teach us more sensei

>>16690601
Evola is a hylic who misconstrued what Guenon said to fit it into his own narrative.

>>16690601
>Tell me, were the Greeks and Romans uneducated hill folk?
unironically yes. romans had huge developments in fields of philosophy and theology thanks to the advent of christianity.

>>16690601
>>His pantheon has only one God, having no real characteristics or distinguishing qualities which contradicts everything every living creature has ever seen and experienced or known to be true.
Stopped reading there, you got filtered hard lol.

>>16690384
Having a single book is fairly novel and kind of unnatural. A lot of the Bible is basically just hodgepodge Jewish mythology so I guess any mythology that managed to be recorded fits.

>>16690670
Loki is probably only tolerated because he is Odin's blood-brother or something. Blood-brothers seem be more binding than even close family members, which are already rather binding.

>>16692841
lmao. more like christianity was jewish folkloretier until it encountered med intellectual culture, which is, yes, pagan. european christianity is barely even christian.

>>16690418
Homer and Hesiod had a sort of weird semi-canonical status in greek religion. Not enough to say theyre really like holy scripture but definitely enough that everyone was familiar with it to a degree that it influenced religious thought and practice

>>16690418
Please, look up the original meaning of inspiration.

>>16692863
>Theres an aspect of War in nature
>Theres an aspect of Harmony in nature

Whoops better pray to the same all encompassing God for two different distinct purposes

Monotheism is pure schizo, it's an imaginary figure who you hope can solve your problems, not a living eternal archetype you can distinguish and adhere to.

If The bible was a book about a guy in the clouds telling you to eat children the monotheism vs polytheism aspect of the circumstance would remain the same, it's a complete abstraction written by psychos who want to make up their own worldview rather than work with the one reality has laid right in front of their face.

If God was truly all and everything then you couldn't find fault or sin in any particular part of him. There would be no such thing as morality except whatever any random one of his "prophets" decided to lob at us. I for one think not having a backbone and being a weak bitch is a sin but christians excell at that and get mad at you for attempting to be stronger.

>>16690670
Do you think Tolkien was cursed for being born in modern times? He tried his best to inculcate some sort of anglo-saxon medieval mythos, but our technology will never let his works fade away into the collective unconscious.

Despite his decades of work and honest enjoyment of epics, his world will never be any thing fanfiction to the eyes of historians.

>>16692832
Guenon is irrelevant to fucking everything because he didn't believe action was better than contemplation or more accurately, sitting around and just beleeeeeving bro.

I've said it before, the works of most Perennial philosophers is like going on a grand expedition to find the fountain of youth and simply checking a clipboard to confirm it exists. Meanwhile Evola is there handing out little filled glasses to everyone who succeeds in getting there.

>>16693503
We won't even have books in 20 years nigga the clock is ticking

>>16692841
Everything about European Christianity is a composite spliced with European/Pagan foundations.

>>16690670
>Kojiki, rikkokushi, Fudoki, Jinno Shotoki, and Kujiki are all Shinto Holy Texts
Huh, I thought shinto was just folktales, had no clue they had ancient texts.

>>16690601
Such a stupid mischaracterization, when nothing of what you said is necessarily applicable to Christianity, it is only how Christianity falls within your Procrustean bed. The Bible is the beginning of your journey, we are not sola scripturaists, works are needed, a spiritual life and relationship are also necessary. Christianity caused atheism, Marxism, and Egalitarianism? Anything could have caused the aforementioned. Christianity also caused Imperialism and a load of other shit; in short, it caused everything because we need to blame all of the world's ills on a contemporaneous religion when any other religion could've taken its place, even a pagan abstraction that's still just a religion at its core

>>16693087
European Christianity is the Christianity of the Europeans, distinguishable from the Christianity of the Jews how? Does this have any bearing on its veracity, if you cannot name what traditions or ideas it has severed, beyond outwards traditions or philosophies?

>>16693626
You don't understand anything about society or human nature if you read that and didn't understand how the entire west completely inverting our relationship with tangible living and entirely adhering to a mere book opened up the doors to a world where we value speculated abstract ideology rather than tangible living common fucking sense. It externalized our general mode of consciousness moreover it externalized our relationship with divinity into something where we allegedly can't work with it until we are deceased. It's the single biggest contributor to the downfall of the west.

>>16693487
>Whoops better pray to the same all encompassing God for two different distinct purposes

Absolutely no problem with that

>Monotheism is pure schizo, it's an imaginary figure who you hope can solve your problems, not a living eternal archetype you can distinguish and adhere to.
He's actually not an imaginary figure who you hope can solve all of your quotidian problems, He's what you must return to. You cannot imitate God if He is a wholly transcendental being, so you must imitate Christ, who is a living eternal archetype you can distinguish and adhere to, just as you can use the lives of saints as examples

>If The bible was a book about a guy in the clouds telling you to eat children the monotheism vs polytheism aspect of the circumstance would remain the same, it's a complete abstraction written by psychos who want to make up their own worldview rather than work with the one reality has laid right in front of their face.
Bold words to align yourself with reality and gods that are really just dead archetypes with divine trappings. If we could not conceive of these archetypes without these gods existing, then you know why a singular God exists- He encompasses all, and His energies sustain all of creation. He is the archetype for all life, and all that strays from Him becomes an archetype for death, decay, vitiation. There are several sub-archetypes under the aforementioned two that we can deduce ourselves, or by creating our own gods (as the gods of the Greeks were merely created), saints, heroes, stories, etcetera.

>If God was truly all and everything then you couldn't find fault or sin in any particular part of him
Humans can find fault or sin in everything, even where there is none. Your point is flimsy

>There would be no such thing as morality except whatever any random one of his "prophets" decided to lob at us.
This assumes morality is an arbitrary set of laws we must follow, but as you've said, we must follow archetypes to attain some goal. This is morality, as given by God- a set of laws given to attain a goal that is objectively beneficial to us.

> for one think not having a backbone and being a weak bitch is a sin but christians excell at that and get mad at you for attempting to be stronger.
Similarly, anything can be reduced to being a little bitch. Sometimes the psychoses of chair-ridden men like you reduce everything that they disagree with to a weakness, when the exact opposite is the case. In both my religion and yours, we have archetypes, or rules that must be followed. To follow these rules for the attainment of some lofty state or goal is not weakness, because it is extremely difficult to follow through with, and transforms the man quite literally into an Ubermensch (resurrection after death and final judgement).

>>16693544
Name those aspects that are copied from paganism (keep in mind- correlation =/= causation).

>>16693666
Yes, that's cute. Everyone has their "single biggest contributor to the downfall of the west," and their particular crusade. We can work with divinity even before we are deceased, it's just more difficult than reciting X incantations and sacrificing Y cuts of lamb to Jupiter. I would argue that it does not necessarily entail an absolute spiritualization of one's life, that would be an asceticism reserved only for those called to such a life. Rather, I would call it a balancing of a cloying, materialistic pragmatism with a higher telos to give such a donkey of a worldview some direction. Furthermore, atheists (which you likely are not) always say that you can be moral without being a Christian; therefore, is the downfall of the West not rather a product of some other ailment than Christianity? Decadence? Cycles of time? Don't be like those quacks who expose "one root cause of all disease," and "if you fix this one thing, you'll never get sick again!" You'd just run from the devil and happen upon his mother, most likely.

If European Christianity is primarily paganistic, and Christianity has caused the fall of the West, what does this tell us about paganism?

>>16693672
Christcucks missing every point once again and purposely reversing my rhetoric instead of addressing what it implies.

Smug retard kys

>name those aspects
Fuck you, tell me how a dirty backwards desert tribe in a shitskin hellhole had the sense or structure to make a massive divine order but the civilization with thousands of years of vast accomplishment where they actually set the seeds of the church somehow had nothing to do with it.

Guess what, Catholicism didn't happen in Palestine/Jerusalem and up until 100 years ago that place has been fly guts on the wall and a complete shithole and always has been.

>>16693704
It tells us that the Roman empire chose a bad period to fall because the entirety of European culture was tangibly extinguished with the advent of plebian revolt Christianity nestling in the ruins of old Rome and it's various territories.

>>16690384
Pagan (European) and holy text/bible-like are an oxymoron. Pagan spirituality and ritual are centered around culture and tradition. To assess what Pagan culture ought to be like you should familiarize yourself with old tales and stories, like the Prose Edda and the Iliad/Odyssey; academic works and reconstructions like "The Golden Bough" or "Comparative Mythology"; as well as current paganic religions in the world such as Shinto or Buddhism.

>>16693742
I addressed your points exactly. In addition, none of your points accurately encompass Christianity as a whole, they're just a characterization of some thread, extreme, or even heresy.

>Fuck you, tell me how a dirty backwards desert tribe in a shitskin hellhole had the sense or structure to make a massive divine order but the civilization with thousands of years of vast accomplishment where they actually set the seeds of the church somehow had nothing to do with it

>Fuck you, tell me how a dirty backwards desert tribe in a shitskin hellhole had the sense or structure to make a massive divine order but the civilization with thousands of years of vast accomplishment where they actually set the seeds of the church somehow had nothing to do with it
I thought you were referring to concepts that Christianity "copied" from other religions (or that the OT copied, like muh Abraham=Brahma). Of course, if "pagan concepts" are just certain philosophical ideas produced by a once-pagan world, it means very little. The pagan "ideas" to be seen in Christianity (that you haven't named) are so broad and dissolute as to be anything, so I don't see why paganism has a monopoly on such ideas.

>Guess what, Catholicism didn't happen in Palestine/Jerusalem and up until 100 years ago that place has been fly guts on the wall and a complete shithole and always has been.
So what? I'm not an apologist of Jerusalem/Palestine, nor do I know enough about its history. But if you think civilization and cities are a thing peculiar only to white peoples, then you're in for a surprise. Not every place will be an Athens or Constantinople, but in the same vein not every poet will be a Homer or an Ossian.

>It tells us that the Roman empire chose a bad period to fall because the entirety of European culture was tangibly extinguished with the advent of plebian revolt Christianity nestling in the ruins of old Rome and it's various territories.
An empire never chooses a time to fall, it just collapses in on its own weight. The Roman empire's time had come, the time of another empire had come.

>>16693879
What's the difference between a holy text and a culture/tradition? That one is written, and the other is transmitted orally and socially (not like Herpes)?

>>16693879
>Pagan spirituality and ritual are centered around culture and tradition.
Not true. The texts are 'holy' but not in the same sense that the Christian book is. Reading from the perspective of modern history distorts things severely.

>>16693533
Contemplation is more important than action.

>>16693899
It's simple, a holy text is dogmatic and is seen as infallible; it is not supposed to change and can not be interpreted in ways which would be seen as too far derived from what is actually written (though this has happened many times, in the case of christianity said instances were referred to as schisms). Culture/tradition in the Pagan sense is more anarchic; one can interpret myths and the properties of certain rituals in a slightly different way than others, without being subjectable to the label of heretic. Heresy in Paganism is much more unknown, if anything could be said to be, it would be the breaking of your own established customs and traditions in relation to the gods which you worship, but to do this one would have to go to extremes e.g., stopping all ritualistic veneration, and alright insulting the gods by disrespecting their shrines and temples, or just verbally to others with the intention of defaming them. An example that might show this flexibility might be the variation in specific attributes a particular deity might have in comparison to their direct counterparts in close by tribes, i.e., the merging of two gods into one or vice versa, or the slight difference in ceremonial sacrifices.

>>16693961
I disagree, but this might just be based on your own rendering of what "holy" means. If you were to ask me what was holy in Paganism, I would refer you to the Oak and Olive trees, any physical structure which is made to represent or venerate the gods, and the physical spaces in which ancestral spirits and forces are to be more present, such as the dolmens, barrows, and certain bodies of water.

>>16693626
>when any other religion could've taken its place
How could Marxism and Egalitarianism come out of a religion like Hinduism? I could see atheism coming out of it because I believe there is an atheistic branch that is a part of it, but with things like the caste system something like egalitarianism coming from it seems nonsensical.

>>16694223
This, egalitarianism doesn't exist in normal religion where people understand a hierarchy of souls and castes

>>16693981
No it fucking isn't, if Achilles or Hector was a grug brain but still maintained their physical superiority they'd still be equally as important.

Contemplation is the skill of making rope to climb the cliff, it does not account for the strength and actiin you also need to climb it. Then again some people are brave and strong and grapple the rock with their bare hands because they can amd because they don't need to spend time making rope like a pussy.

>>16694122
It's hard to have a heresy in European Polytheism because it's so fucking straightforward and sensible that nobody really has any questions, and even if they do they inevitably serve the point because there's a place for everything to be allocated. It's not a blind dogma from a random text from random desert people, It's universal archetypes everyone with an IQ above 50 understands.

>>16693961
>nope, your old better system of understanding Divinity don't count because my peepeepoopoo book said so

>>16690388
>>16690601
Isn't this the same reason why the main religions (Islam, Judaism, Christanity) became so prominent, the fact that you can find all of the relevant text and information of such religion in just 1 book, their holy book.

>>16690392
kys

>>16693899
Modern people are such detached asshats that they seriously don't get it when you explain these things to them.

An eternal tradition is something that works, has always worked, will always work, and maintains a great state/stasis by which human civilization can flourish as intended. When your dumbest populations have forced upon the whole of falling Roman civilization that you pick up something new and foreign BOUND ENTIRELY TO AN ABSTRACT BOOK WRITTEN BY ABSTRACT FIGURES which is ever contradictory to everything you have ever and will ever experience it means your entire civilization has just committed suicide. The circumstance in which you detach yourselves from a living adherence to a natural wise method of existing to CLIMB INTO THE SNARES of ONE BOOK which is not your own and demands OBEDIENCE(a book mind you) is the circumstance where you've damned humanity to an intellectualized world where people will inevitably become empty filing cabinets to be programmed and filled with whatever information is pumped into their heads because that is the furthest extent to which they are evolved even for existential matters like spirituality.

God is an eternal something, God is not supposed to be contingent or anidead. Jesus was a signal of the Kali Yuga, if he is somehow the good guy it means he has opened the doors to a lower easier level of salvation for the lower weaker and atomized masses so some may still maintain a faith in this corrosive and disorderly period.

>>16694779
Exactly, it's the earliest form of intellectual subversion

>>16694814
Contingent or an idea*

>>16690722
based effortpost

>>16690384
Careful. Mods gave me a warning because I made a thread here asking for books to red pill me on Islam.

Evolatards are hylics incapable of comprehending divine gnosis, cute display though, at least you're trying

>>16694861
>Not true.
Why? Because you say so?
>The texts are 'holy' but not in the same sense that the Christian book is.
Aha, another death worshiper.
>Reading from the perspective of modern history distorts things severely.
Exactly, that's why looking at paganism through a christian lens like you do won't work. Try again.
>>16693961
Have fun comprehending divine gnosis while your country is overrun by foreign invaders, retard.

>>16690384
If by pagan you mean ethnic European then none.
It is part of the Aryan logos to conduct the rites by RECITING them.
The concept of a "holy book" was abominable to them.

>>16693981
Action is the necessary effect of contemplation.

>>16690392
The ecclesiatical languages of apostolic churches are of pagan origin actually.

>>16690670
>>16690722
Goddamnit, I forgot a few.

The Iberians count as Celts in this regard. The Basques and Etruscans are the only two non-Indo-European peoples to have survived to the historical period. We have a bit on what the Etruscans believed, but no actual texts of importance. We have tons of Basque folklore, and even folk practices that survived up until WWII, but no texts.

The Finns have the Kalevala, among a handful of other texts. The Kalevala is actually a 19th century compilation of stories, so while it's colloquially treated as "Finnish Homer" (it is beautiful, and moving, and very intellectual in its themes), it's not actually ancient. The Finns TECHNICALLY were never 100% converted to Christianity, as Russian Karelia (or is is Murmansk?) still has a 100% Pagan Finnic group living there. They sacrificed a horse to their God of Winter to stop Napoleon. A lot more "folk practices" survived here than anywhere else. I use quotations, as a folk practice is just an explicit religious rite that is no longer held as valid and authoritative.

The Balts were the last European people to be converted, and people that we could refer to as "actual Pagans" still continued handing down their traditions until WWII. They have a LOT of folklore and myths, folk practices, etc. I believe there's a few varieties of a "Baltic Kalevala", but they're not as popular as the Finnish one. There's still shamans and priests, and they're rather popular, but most of them follow a reconstructionist bent. One could argue if they're "authentic" and if this is "LARP", but I'd say that "my grandfather tripped balls on mushrooms and spoke to the Gods, my dad didn't, but I did" is totally authentic.

>>16693503
I feel that Tolkien wanted to solve the fundamental problem of Christianity (and Islam) in that the religion fundamentally divorces man from any position in the universe and leaves him just "floating". The English have no connection to England, and the Greeks to Greece, that isn't just historical affectation. Christianity says that everyone except the Jews are in truth immigrants to where they live now, and can be displaced at a whim. Only Israel is "special", and only the Jews have a true connection to their land. No one is "autocthnous", no one is "part of the land". Tolkien sought to craft a system (I don't think it's fair to call it a "mythos") whereby the Anglo-Saxons, and thus the English, were part of their land. He wanted to give them a history where the Bible says "no, only the Jewish people have history, the rest of the world are just side characters".

>>16695504
This is the parent of Modernity. At least under Abrahamism, you can have ways of living that "skim" the surface of the land. In Modernity, you can't even have a way of living, you're just an economic unit. This fundamental disconnect between man and land is part of the whole "Is a myth a holy text?" problem. The entire dichotomy between sacred and profane that Abrahamic religion posits is totally alien to European polytheism. The Gods were, they had certain properties, certain personalities, and they could be interacted with. A story telling you how to interact with such-and-such God was historical fact, a holy poem, a technical manual, and a statement of cultural allegiance all in one. The entire conception of "holy vs non-holy text (or oral tradition)" just doesn't work. There's one world, and any description of it is going to touch on many things at once. It's an inherently and deeply authentic and sincere position to take.

Tolkien, then, is trying to craft for a sort of Anglo-Catholicism just that: a history that is also holy, a holiness that is also technical, and a technical history that is also cultural, for the Anglo(-Saxon) people. In that regard, I find him totally admirable. Varg has a series of tweets where he autistically rants about how Tolkien is actually pagan, and he's totally wrong (or at least his reasoning is). He is, however, close to the truth that Tolkien wanted to sidestep something in Abrahamic religion. He's also correct that when Tolkien's books came out, there were those who accused them of being Pagan. They were low-church Prots upset that the books were "too Catholic", however, not about polytheism and dwarves. Like Varg, these men too have sort of missed what Tolkien was really trying to, in my opinion, do: Make Christianity into a non-Abrahamic religion. Did he succeed? No. I don't think he could. But I think he appreciated the poetic struggle against impossible odds.

>>16695504
There are also the Mayan and Aztec texts which are dispersed throughout various codices.

>>16695555
Entirely true. The Maya have the Popol Vuh, which is novel if just for the fact that it's not really a holy text, but rather a holy theater instruction manual.

>>16694122
>It's simple, a holy text is dogmatic and is seen as infallible
But there is still room for interpretation

>Culture/tradition in the Pagan sense is more anarchic; one can interpret myths and the properties of certain rituals in a slightly different way than others, without being subjectable to the label of heretic.
Then it is dissolute, and is still minimally dogmatic because it does not allow for the extremes you mentioned. If these extremes were allowed, it would be too chaotic and anarchic to allow for a label. So I ask, why not have a coexisting culture/tradition and holy text? The Holy Text supplies injunctions against "extremes" (in your case, destroying a temple, in my case, the ten commandments), while the culture/tradition supplies the specifics

>>16694223
Just search up "Hinduism and egalitarianism," or "Buddhism and egalitarianism." Thus, you will see that these religions can be interpreted as egalitarian by their adherents, which shows that egalitarianism could have arisen from them. What even is Christian about Marxism? That the two incidentally share some beliefs? Every falsehood contains some measure of truth, distorted, so Marxism having a Christian influence doesn't mean much (when it distorts or exaggerates that Christian component).

>>16694754
Explain why it is important to have a hierarchy of souls? Christianity has individuals who go to Hell, Heaven, Saints, martyrs, or even Purgatory (if you're a Catholic). Is this not a hierarchical system, or is it wrong by virtue of not directly imitating your pet religion?

>>16694759
Therefore, both are important. Prioritizing one over the other is like prioritizing the blade over the handle, meaning you end up with half of the job done.

>>16694765
No, it's hard to have a heresy because practically anything goes, as that anon said. You can believe what you will about the gods so long as you venerate them and do not destroy their temples/holy places. That which you see as "straightforward" can be surprisingly misinterpreted.

>and even if they do they inevitably serve the point because there's a place for everything to be allocated
Conceding my previous point. The only difference is that its dogmas are not only blind, but also ambulant. Christian dogma manifests itself in the laws of the state, how do pagan beliefs manifest themselves? Surely, not also through laws?

>>16694771
The Bible provides archetypes to follow, and its "stringent dogma" isn't so stringent as you think..

>>16694816
Where do you receive your information regarding paganism from? Several books? You do know the Bible is several books compiled into one book?

>>16694765
...really? Im pretty sure excicutions and banishments for impiety were not that rare of occurances.

>>16690384
>What are some pagan holy texts like the Bible?
The works of Plato.

>>16694814
>An eternal tradition is something that works, has always worked, will always work, and maintains a great state/stasis by which human civilization can flourish as intended
Such a tradition would be best given by an omniscient God, no? How is an "eternal tradition" not dogmatic, if it allows for no change because it is perfect? That does not seem to be in accordance with previous anon's definitions of paganism, unless you are not that.

>When your dumbest populations have forced upon the whole of falling Roman civilization that you pick bla bla...
This is just atheism, at this point. Then, there is no eternal tradition that always works, or create s stasis, because limited men cannot conceive of such a tradition. They can only create and perpetuate what serves them at their point in history, but their tradition will cause them to stagnate

>which is ever contradictory to everything you have ever and will ever experience
Not quite so

> it means your entire civilization has just committed suicide
Let's ignore the periods of flourishing Christianity has brought, and lament over the fall of Rome, Athens, etcetera only. What even are these eternal traditions that should be prioritized above all? More abstractions? Once you name them, you'll find they're not so different from Christianity, I'm sure.

> CLIMB INTO THE SNARES of ONE BOOK bla bla...
It is my own, because I am composed of a divine element and a human element, and the book is from the divine. That it has "marinated" in a white milieu has made it of my own flesh as well.

>a book mind you
Gods forbid! A book? Is it that much better if the tradition is orally or culturally perpetuated, rather than being written down? It's all the same, just methods of transmitting information.

No, humanity is not damned to become filing cabinets; that is not the fault of a mere book, but of industrialization and other modern trends. Having faith and the Book alone will not save you, but even someone who is illiterate in Christian theology might have expected this. Mere "obedience" is like the dogmas previous anons mentioned, where one must venerate his god and not desecrate his temple.

>God is an eternal something, God is not supposed to be contingent or anidead
God can do whatever the fuck God wills to do, there is no "God is supposed to do X" because otherwise He does not fit in my paradigms.

>Jesus was a signal of the Kali Yuga
This Kali Yuga's taking a long time.

> he has opened the doors to a lower easier level of salvation for the lower weaker and atomized masses so some may still maintain a faith in this corrosive and disorderly period.
Is something wrong with allowing salvation to all people? If they are truly "weak," they will not attain salvation.

>>16695214
It is evil to write things-this is not a dogma or laughable. Time to concoct a spiritual reason for why recording's bad, then complain that there are few sources left to learn about the faith of your ancestors

idk. i think a part of the modern discourse is that saying what paganism "is" is very easily to become subjective and conform to whatever mental scape you project onto it. "no this is pagan, no this is pagan, no this is dogmatic, but this is how they always did something and doing this other thing is anathama". it really becomes mirror showing whatever the prospective "pagan" wants to see. not that different from wicca, really.

>>16690384
Popol Vuh
David Myatt translation of the Odyssee

>>16696284
Effort posters cannot be deceitful contrarians

You have to go back

>>16690384
The Gathas is the closest thing. They are largely the unaltered words of Zarathustra.

>>16696284
>lol bro how does a bunch of people worshipping foreign mass spread words detach people from the immediate and deeper ontology they evolved within themselves for thousands of years.

>lol bro how does externalizing consciousness into a book have us end up with wars of ideology to win over the most gullible people

>lol bro how does externalizing consciousness into text make way for the internet and other modern nightmares that detach the human from daily bouts with reality

>No, humanity is not damned to become filing cabinets; that is not the fault of a mere book, but of industrialization and other modern trends.

>Lmao bro, there definitely wasn't a significant political and ideological current in which everyone limited entirely to christian theology and secularism argued over philosophy before the industrial revolution and it definitely didn't happen in the middle ages and renaissance and "enlightenment"

Every actual conflict in the pagan world was fought to eliminate or conquer a THING, not an IDEA. You wouldn't have the disgusting modern militarism/demilitarism/regimechange unless the entire political current has been shifted from direct effect and actualized ontology to lmao bro none of that matters just believe these WORDS. Your entire world built in autism and data not character or being. Which is why Christianity and being an oversocialized midwit perfectly suits you.

Mankind is meant to be a conditioning force, not conditioned by that around him.

He's not an empty envelope to be filled with whatever, he has an inner character that he is should be able to express into the world.

>>16696858
>lol bro how does a bunch of people worshipping foreign mass...
If Christianity was just a brief set of teachings that they adopted and made their own, then it merely became an extension of their deeper, evolved ontology. Their previous ontology would have evolved through similar methods- cultural diffusion and the like.

>>lol bro how does externalizing consciousness into a book have us end up with wars of ideology...
Wars of ideology have been fought and will always be fought, just for less worthy reasons than "winning over people" (a mischaracterization- they cared about saving others, ideally; in reality, these wars of ideology were just secular wars for land, politics, and money with a veneer of religiosity). What did the pagans fight over, incidentally?

>lol bro how does externalizing consciousness into text make way for the internet and other modern nightmares...
What is so wrong with "externalizing consciousness?" Why is Christianity only "externalizing consciousness?" Besides, saying "lol bro it totally doesn't" doesn't actually show how it does. On one hand, the internet is an example of white ingenuity, on the other hand it's the product of externalized religion. What's it going to be? First, define internalized and externalized religion specifically so I know what we're talking about here. Externalizing consciousness produces superior technology?

>No, humanity is not damned to become filing cabinets; that is not the fault of a mere book...
If one book can damn us all, then let us die because we're hopeless. No, it's not ONE book but generations of changes, pushes, revolutions, brotherhoods and cults, all of which are about as Christian as Satanism (they are perversions, or exaggerations)

>Every actual conflict in the pagan world was fought to eliminate or conquer a THING, not an IDEA
All THINGS are IDEAS.

>unless the entire political current has been shifted from direct effect and actualized ontology
What does this even mean? It's just a vague abstraction.

>to lmao bro none of that matters just believe these WORDS
Isn't that all law, tradition, and culture? Believing a set of words in order to effect some practical change?

>Your entire world built in autism and data not character or being
What gave you this impression?

>Mankind is meant to be a conditioning force, not bla bla
According to who? Besides, mankind is ALWAYS conditioned by that around him, all of his actions are responses to the environment. All obedience is conditioning to the environment around one. In reality, mankind is not meant, but rather is both a conditioning force and a conditioned force.

>He's not an empty...
And Christianity is somehow at odds with this? It seems you are more attacking intellectual lethargy and domineering dogma, neither of which Christianity entails. All dogma allows for breathing room, even the dogma you believe in. You'll always fight wars for an ideology; not only to conquer a THING but for an IDEA.

>>16696927
You really don't like reading. You ask questions that have already been answered by several people in the thread or previously in the post you reply to.

I could reply to every failed attempt to hoodwink the point but I'm just going to reply to one.

to lmao bro none of that matters just believe these WORDS
>Isn't that all law, tradition, and culture? Believing a set of words in order to effect some practical change?

This is the 1000% fundamental point you keep fucking missing.
>isn't all traditions just ideas
No you fuckwad Paganism sustained itself primarily on action and natural impulses with intellect waaay on the periphery, the second greece and rome opened up to "ideas" mattering everything immediately went into freefall. And you're dead wrong, pre-christian wars were entirely fought for THINGS AND PEOPLE AND GODS AND GLORY, calling that "ideas" is superfluous and retarded. It's like saying instead of "using the computer" you're using the electricity, or you're using the mouse or looking at the flashing lights, missing the entire fucking point of why you may be sitting there working on something. You wander into a forest and miss everything It entails ans does in it except, "this is a mass of wood", hell, at your level it might as well be a mass of strange randomly occurring shade or a place with opaque pillars that aren't all the same uniform shape ignoring every function or meaning for the lowest easiest basest assessment.

A world where everything is ideas might as well be a giant calculator.

>ALL THINGS ARE IDEAS
>MANKIND IS ALWAYS CONDITIONED BY THAT AROUND HIM
>(again saying that using a BOOK is fine and didn't cause the chain of events)
>(again missing the value of spiritual hierarchy which the bible actively undermines and)
Roflmao Post your natal chart I wanna see how grotesquely Aquarian it is.

>>16697063
I ask questions that have not been sufficiently answered in the thread. For instance, your tranche of "lol bros" that didn't even have any support. You're probably just bluffing

>lmao just believe these WORDS
As opposed to believing what? "Action and natural impulses?" Or a set of traditions, or oral laws?

>No you fuckwad Paganism sustained itself primarily on action and natural impulses with intellect waaay on the periphery
Which paganism? What about all of the philosophies and poetry of Greece and Rome? Were these anti-intellectual?
"Actions" and "natural impulses" are things that must be delineated and prioritized, as not all natural impulses lead to favorable outcomes. Are you telling me that they performed actions impulsively, and with no telos in mind? Why can't one marry both action and intellect, why must there be some kind of tension or choice between the two? For clarification, what do you mean by "idea?" Paganism is a belief, it is an idea that sustains itself on action, unless you mean something else by "idea." Christianity also places an emphasis on action and natural impulses (compassion, etcetera), so I don't see what you're getting at.

>And you're dead wrong, pre-christian wars were entirely fought for THINGS AND PEOPLE AND GODS AND GLORY
All wars are fought for THINGS AND PEOPLE AND GODS AND GLORY, but not only for Gods, or any isolated thing that you can wholly blame.

>calling that "ideas" is superfluous and retarded. It's like saying instead of "using the computer" you're using the electricity
I don't see how your analogy is accurate to my point. This is why I read your posts and ask questions like "what is an idea?"

The rest of your post is a psychotic mischaracterization, I'm not a reductionist gone wild, the things pagans would have fought for are also ideas; they believed in service to the state, service to the gods, and other things, no?

>again missing the value of spiritual hierarchy which the bible actively undermines and
How does it undermine a spiritual hierarchy? Perhaps it undermines your idea of a spiritual hierarchy, but there is a hierarchy nonetheless.

>>16696571
I don't think it's proper to call Zoroastrianism "Pagan", at all. It's something else entirely, and saying it's "Pagan" makes people think "oh, it's just Germanic Polytheism, but in Iran", which is was absolutely fucking not.

>>16696317
This is entirely correct. The term comes from "paganus", meaning "rural folk", but more accurately "hillbilly". A pagan was some hayseed from the country that hadn't gotten with the times and was on the Wrong Side of History. This term wasn't really used that much, the more technically precise "gentilicum", from which we get "gentile", was used. The meaning then was the same as today, referring to peoples who still practiced their native ethnic religions. It's much more proper, and easier on everyone, if you just drop these arbitrary classifications and just refer directly to things.

>>16696249
Not him, but heresy is something special. Heresy is specifically a wrong set of ideas that are held, deviating from a "correct" set of ideas. In the Pre-Christian European world, you could get murdered on the spot for committing some bad action, but no one (but the Gods) would be able to punish you for Wrongthink. This is only something that even becomes "a thing" in Europe when Christianity shows up and introduces the entire conception of "right and wrong ideas". As long as you made sacrifices, didn't speak ill of the Gods, and did your part in society, it didn't matter what you thought. Why? Because it literally didn't. Jesus will punish you for not believing the correct Trinitarian Formula, but Zeus frankly could not have cared less if you believed some incredibly whacky genealogy or whatever.

>>16696284
Stop worshiping semitic desert demons!

>>16697216
But did Zeus care if I believed in him? Did the followers of Zeus care if I believed in Zeus? And the point of persecuting heresy was to preserve something some group saw as truth without allowing any perverts to exist and continue to teach their deviant teaching. Of course, if someone taught that Zeus didn't actually desire offerings, or that the Emperor wasn't a God, I'd like to see what they'd do to him.

>>16697297
He didn't care about this >>16690656
Being Nous he cares about what you do, for doing is believing, assertions and thoughts are empty in themselves.
"actions speak louder than words", literally, unironically; anyone who does good believes in God in heir heart.

>>16697297
I don't think the entire conception of "belief" would even be something that would factor in. There were Greeks who denied the reality of Zeus, and as far as I'm aware none of them suffered harm for it. But then, Socrates and many others were put to death for impiety and committing bad actions. Socrates for example was put to death not for having the Wrong Ideas, but for corrupting the youth. So, in theory, if he'd kept his mouth shut, no one would care. Would Zeus? That's a good question, from everything I've read the answer would be "no". An argument could be made that he would, but then we're getting into divine retribution rather than the purely human idea of "heresy".

There's a saying in Judaism that comes down to "Believe in G-d? Go to temple. Don't believe in G-d? Go to temple". If making sacrifices to the Gods was required of you, I don't think the various city-states would care if they knew you were a fedora tipper who thought that ackchyuyually, Zeus doesn't exist as you slaughtered the cattle to Zeus anyways. The rest of the city knows (or thinks that it knows) that Zeus is real, so what do they care what the village idiot thinks? Zeus will punish everyone if this retard says something dumb, and doesn't do as he's told, so if he doesn't shut up and do what he needs to, he gets expelled.

>>16697154
Done replying

>>16697297
Zeus is Samsara and The All Consuming Fire, the King of the Gods, the conduit through which all things are Made and Destroyed, he doesn't give a fuck whether you pass his tests and get to remain existing or not. He doesn't care what you think of him, that said the most typical acknowledgement of him is in his ability to rule by fear and automatically light a fire under petty mortals asses when they are reminded of him or some big part of reality. The brave typically do his bidding and on a rare occasion challenge his great tests and obstacles.

If you get burned it's cause you suck and you weren't fireproof. Once again, devotionalism and "hurr durr I aksep gurd in me brain" is completely fucking irrelevant to Pagans because we're not that utterly subhuman.

>>16697377
>Zeus is Samsara
For there is something like a centre, and in addition to it a circle
shining from it, and in addition to these another circle, light coming
from light.75 But outside these there is another circle no longer of light; 15
this one needs the brightness that belongs to another, since it is lacking
its own light. Let this last one be a wheel, or, actually, a sphere of that
kind, which receives from the third one – because it is next to it – the
amount of light that that one throws. The great light, then, remains
where it is and shines out, and the brightness that comes from it goes
through the world in due proportion, and the others join with it in its 20
shining, some remaining where they are, while others are drawn out to
a greater extent by the alluring gleam of what they shine on.7

>>16697401
Context, source?

>>16690601
>philosophically illiterate
>picks up evola to read

this is what happens when you are completely oblivious to platatonism, comparative religion and metaphysics as a whole.

>>16697411
plotinus, he's talking about Body, the fourth circle.

>>16697063
>No you fuckwad Paganism sustained itself primarily on action and natural impulses with intellect waaay on the periphery

You are an absolute idiot. A complete retard who has never read anything besides Evola. Do yourself a favor and start reading Plato and look up Egyptian theology.

You have no idea what you're talking about, imbecile.

>>16697063
>

>>16697373
That's the problem with heresy- the heretic doesn't keep their mouth shut, and "perverts the youth." Does Zeus care? I'm not well versed in Greek mythology, but from what I recall you go to Tartarus and become a shade unless a god takes a liking to you, and then you are a hero- but few achieve this state, so goodness is seldom rewarded unless it is outstanding. Disabuse me of my wrong notions if they are wrong

>>16697377
>devotionalism and "hurr durr I aksep gurd in me brain"
Devotion is for a reason; besides, they sacrificed to the gods whenever something went wrong, no? Isn't that a sort of devotion- sacrifice of external things rather than sacrifice of your own life? You do not accept God in your mind ultimately, but in your heart; and if you accept, it should show through your actions (unless you are weak and cannot put beliefs into action, but that is still something to be fixed).

>>16697469
In Indo-European religions a person is made up of multiple parts. In the Odyssey, there's actually five Herculeses: His mortal body (dead in the ground), his divine body (as he is a God), his shade (in Hades), his mortal soul (in Elyseum), his divine soul (on Olympus). This is sort of a quirk however, as Hercules is a demi-god, gets to be a God, AND is a hero. The souls of mortals (as distinct from their Shades, which were apparently something like their memory and consciousness copied and ossified) were kept in Hades, however, so you're right there.

I think the distinction between the heresy we see in, for example, Christianity, and this here is two fold: firstly, in Abrahamic religion, what you believe is important, so while you obviously want to catch heretics to keep them from corrupting the youth, you also want to catch them and fix their beliefs for their own sake (they'll go to hell if they don't change their mind, after all). In Greek Religion, I've never seen anything akin to this. Perhaps Greek ideas of the mind completely preclude the idea of "being a quiet atheist and just pretending you believe", so that it would be a totally moot point anyways because there were no quiet atheists.

Secondly, however, is the lack of enforcement of global dogma. So, while there might be the idea of "local heresy", there was no desire to go out and correct outsiders. Athens was Athens and Athens did things the Athenian way and if you didn't like it you could get fucked, but Athens never went out and tried to correct the Spartans on their views on Artemis.

I don't think "heresy" is useful in this regard, because what it is used to refer to in Abrahamic religion is clearly something different than what we might talk about in the Classical World.

>>16697442
For the average man intellect didn't fucking matter, even at the top it was never put before principle, Egypt was also Occultist in nature and kept their priestly/scholarly caste very hidden so in this case that is even more true.

>>16697442
>>16697453
>You only read Evola, yeah and you haven't

>>16697469
People can do Zeus related things to hone themselves collectively and personally, there is no "doing" Yahweh because he is fictitious. I interact with Gods by virtue of interacting with certain designated parts of reality when needed, you interact with a book and your imaginary God tulpa in your head.

>>16697583
Thank you for clarification. Hercules is an exceptional case, I was referring to a normal, moderately virtuous (if such a thing can exist) or struggling man who, I suppose, does not have a divine soul and divine body, but only a mortal body (which seems to unequivocally go to Elyseum, which raises the question of where the iniquitous go) and shade.

Or is it that both the souls and shades of mortals go to Hades? Is this religion living, in that do we still have heroes/demigods/gods walking among us? What is the consequence of us not giving sacrifices to Zeus/Jupiter and the gods anymore? Or do these consequences stretch only to the citizens of Athens/Rome?

>>16697588
>For the average man intellect didn't fucking matter, even at the top it was never put before principle
You are an intellectual, I presume, so why do you spit on intellect now? Don't you see that there is no tension between intellect and principle, and that there is no need to prioritize either, or enforce the belief that intellect is always below principle (whatever that may be)?

>People can do Zeus related things to hone themselves collectively and personally
Where do people learn how to do Zeus related things? From stories regarding Zeus surely; we can imitate Zeus because he is an imperfect, quarreling being, like us, and an archetype. Yahweh cannot be imitated because He is supposed to be transcendental and all-mighty; Jesus is the example given in His stead.

>I interact with Gods by virtue of interacting with certain designated parts of reality when needed
I also do this. Faith is proven through actions

>you interact with a book and your imaginary God tulpa in your head.
You seem to be adopting atheistic arguments. What's your evidence for your god's existence? What separates a madeup god from a real god? I interact with far more than a book, the book is just a collection of stories providing me with archetypes and a core set of broad precepts (ten commandments) and beliefs. Paganism also has core sets of beliefs, otherwise it wouldn't exist because there would be nothing to call (Greek/Slavic/etc.) paganism, it would just be dissolute chaos, with everyone believing what they wish (consequence or no consequence). For someone so "well read," you seem awfully insistent on strawmen

>>16697588
>average man
yeah average men don't receive divine inspiration, don't dedicate their lives to the divine and to the intelligible in order to come up with what will sustain a civilization. will you tell me that egyptian theopoesis was not the center of egyptian civilization? that the priests just like in hindu, christian, islamic, jewish traditions, in the greek mysteries, didn't hold the highest social positions in their societies?

>>16697637
that retard is not only insistent on strawmen, but he is so dumb that he ends up being literally what he criticizes as ''modern'' inclinations. his rejection of the intelligible is a common characteristic of modern materialists

>>16697588
>

>>16697612
The absolute worst people went to Tartarus, however I believe that this was a sort of "the Gods REALLY hate you and are actively fucking you over" thing rather than an automatic thing; that is to say, if you somehow did something really nasty without the Gods seeing it, you wouldn't be punished "automatically". Shades (ossified memory and consciousness) stay in Hades as a rule. So, while a Shade is always in Hades, the soul itself could go to Elysium, or be deified, or go to Tartarus, but if none of that happened then it went to Hades, which seems to have been rather sucky, but not actively torturous like Abrahamic Hell is. The Greeks were also, predating Plato and the like, engaged in various mystery cults that offered some kind of alternative to this setup. The Eleusian Mysteries were the oldest of these, with most scholars agreeing that they're a holdover from the Mycenaean religion that predated Greek religion. The general point of this seems to have been earning a "better" afterlife independent of being a Hero and what not.

As for if it's alive, that sort of depends. If you were an Ancient Greek in 200BC, you'd say yeah, even if the religion isn't practiced, it's still alive because the Gods are quite obviously real. But here we are in 2020, and how many people offer cattle to Zeus? I'd wager that if you were to ask an Ancient Greek the question of "so what happens", he'd say that we're constantly being buffeted by the whims of the Gods. Sure, they're abusing us, but then we're not really trying to talk to them, or listen to them, or give them anything. We're just adrift. If we got our act together, OF COURSE things would be better. I don't see why they wouldn't say that there weren't still Gods and Demigods walking around, we'd just be even less likely to notice the Gods among us and the Demigods would be left adrift and would probably get up to skullduggery and mischief. As a whole, today's society is just completely out of whack.

But then, that assumes that you believe Zeus is actually real, and if he isn't, there's zero point in giving him cattle.

>>16697583
Indeed, each family, tribe and city state had their own gods worshiped in specific ways outsiders were not allowed to know about.

>>16697695
>>16697686
>>16697637
>>16697469
>>16697453
>>16697442
>>16697154
>>16696927
>>16696284
>>16696215
>>16693894
>>16693704
>>16693672
>>16693626
>>16692863

>>16697724
lol the divine scribe needs to put down the tablet and start picking up some dumbbells

>>16694779
>main religions
>judaism
there are more neo-pagans in the world than there are jews

>>16690601
evola converted to catholicism on his deathbed. he denounced all his life's work for christ. you will one day realize what a fool you are too.

>>16697981
Give me the source sounds like hearsay

>>16697840
Everyone goes to Hades, it's not just Abrahamic Hell a la grecque. You should have said Tartarus, but I don't see why that picture would be a point of triumph for you when you likely criticize Christianity for its belief in Hell. This is also applicable to all other religions, pagan or not, that do not practice the mysteries or distinguish themselves as heroes, right? Or do you go to Valhalla if you are a righteous Odinist, rather than being consigned to Hades? How do all of these religions find common ground? Which one is correct, or is each correct for the people that made it? What about mixed-race individuals? One foot in Hel, one foot in Hades?

>>16697775
>The absolute worst people went to Tartarus, however I believe that this was a sort of "the Gods REALLY hate you and are actively fucking you over" thing rather than an automatic thing
Yes, Prometheus and other cursed individuals come to mind.

> but not actively torturous like Abrahamic Hell is
I won't challenge this, but it's really God's presence that is "torturous" to you, just as the sun burning a cave-dweller and warming a plains-walker. I can't tell you if this Hell is an eternal state of mere punishment in proportion to eternal transgression, what an eternal state can feel like, or if it is really a place of redemption, or if it is proportional to how many evils you perpetrated (that would be in keeping with teaching, disproportionality would not).

>But then, that assumes that you believe Zeus is actually real, and if he isn't, there's zero point in giving him cattle.
In conclusion, how do you think Zeus fits in with other pantheons? If I sacrifice cattle to Thor, or dedicate my life to Yahweh instead of Zeus, will he be cross with me? Thanks for teaching me, by the way

>>16697971
Which one do you think holds sway over the world today?

>>16698087
Still waiting

>>16698227
I wouldn't count Prometheus as this sort of thing because he's not actually in Tartarus, he's just chained to Mt. Ida. He's being punished by the Gods, but he's neither dead nor actively put there. The Gods put the Titans (or rather, the pro-Kronus Titans, because it's really a political label an not an divine-ethnic or genealogical one) in Tartarus, presumably without having killed them as the Greeks didn't believe a God could really "die", although they could, apparently, be broken up into sufficiently many parts that they were unable to act, however. From all of the lists of the people in Tartarus that I've seen, all of them deserve it for being terrible people (such as Sisyphus, who kills guests in his house, fucks his niece, screws with Zeus's sexual escapades, and tries to convince people that he was a God) or don't have a reason for being there listed.

>In conclusion, how do you think Zeus fits in with other pantheons? If I sacrifice cattle to Thor, or dedicate my life to Yahweh instead of Zeus, will he be cross with me? Thanks for teaching me, by the way
I think that it's best to view this, and all European religion, as being intimately tied to places and peoples. The precise relationship between man and divine could vary between places, and between peoples. Poseidon might not care what people inland do because he's the God of the sea (he was also in charge of horses, but the example can be preserved by saying "there are no horses at this place inland"), so your relationship inland with him might be basically non-existent. Alternatively, maybe you (and your family, or all people in your tribe or whatever) are obliged by blood-oath to worship Poseidon, so every month you give him a cow wherever you go. This allows a great amount of very fluid relationships between worshipers and divines, and is part of what made the polytheism work, because no one God ever demanded you ONLY worship them and devote ALL of your life to them. So, just expanding the pantheon to include more Gods is obviously quite easy.

>>16698662
"put there" meaning "in Tartarus". My bad.

This would undoubtedly run you into problems if two Gods were upset at you (God A says don't kill cattle, God B says they want cattle, uh oh!), and the Olympians were at times quite fickle and had absolutely no qualms about screwing with each other's worshipers, so this isn't some hippy dippy love fest just because each God ONLY wants a piece of you and not all of you. This is why the Greeks (and Romans) were absolutely OBSESSED with signs and portents and omens. They had dozens of methods of trying to divine the Gods wills out of the ether. Augury (looking at birds) and haruspicy (looking at the livers of farm animals) were big with the Romans, but the Greeks preferred ecstatic oracles (almost always female), cleromancy (rolling dice), reading signs in water and fire, reading signs in the clouds, etc. Anything could be a sign of the Gods, and some of these signs might not even be a conscious effort on the Gods part (rough waves = Poseidon is mad = uh oh).

Yahweh (in the sense of "Yahweh is either the ONLY God" or of henotheism) is an interesting case, and I'd wager a Greek of this time wouldn't argue that Zeus would chase you down, but he might get grumpy with you if you try and, say, interfere in the politics of some city he likes. Some might even argue that Yahweh is Zeus anyways, so hey, it's all good. But then you can replace Zeus with Athena, and the question remains. Athena likely wouldn't chase you down, but if you refuse to "do business" with her, or to respect her, she'd get pissed at you. But then, if Athena likes Greece, and you simply never go to Greece, what do you care? You stay away from her, she leaves you alone.

This mode of religion is totally alien to us who have been raised in an Abrahamic (or "post-Christian", whatever that means) society. The relationship between man and God should be thought of as just that: a relationship between the two. It's less about "goodness" and more about "love", because the Gods were fickle and comically cruel at times, but they also deeply loved mortals and showered them in affection. Thinking of European polytheism as just "ye olde Christianity with many Gods and many Jesuses" is fundamentally wrongheaded. It's a completely different way of looking at the world and at the divine.

>>16693445
U guys realize how the greeks worked right? If they thought someone was cool they called them gods
Remember that time in acts wheee they mistook paul and barnabas for zeus and mercury because he was preached and they tore their clothes off and ran away naked? Great times

oh its another episode of pagans think their stick worshipping religion is on par with the founders of the western canon
yawn
>inb4 i get wojaked

>>16690384
>Hindu
>Vedas
>Upanishads
>Puranas
>Mahabharata
>Ramayana

These are the main.

>>16698717
> "ye olde Christianity with many Gods and many Jesuses" is fundamentally wrongheaded. It's a completely different way of looking at the world and at the divine.
Understood, and thank you for the lesson. How do we know about these greek or roman gods? Is poetry and philosophy valid? For instance, Prometheus Bound.

>>16698087
>>16698554
>>16697981

Still waiting

>>16690670
The Bhagavad Gita is part of the Mahabharata. You could add to that list the Ramayana, the Upanishads, the Puranas, Sutras, etc.

>>16697929
still worshiped for over a thousand years and then identified with Asclepius; wouldn't be shocked of he was the original Trismegistus.

>>16690388
>None of them were seen as the sacred word of God himself like the bible is for Christians.
>even christians call him divine