/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.23227695]

Let's talk Paganism.

Do we have any followers of the old gods here?

Where to start with the Pagans? (Book recommendations).

[Anonymous No.23227708]

What is the epistemology of paganism? How does paganism justify its assertions?

[Anonymous No.23227747]

>>23227708
Pagan means simply a peasant. An outsider. A sneed doing sneedy things in the usual places: by the railroad tracks, inna woods, in the basement. Hence, Christ was a pagan. Christ is the spear. Made a cut (Deleuze) in a thick and reluctant garment (some might argue a straitjacket) of the Old Testament, Christ is the fissure by which men are made free. Christ is the pagan redivivus, the head of the PAGANG. You might not believe it, but it is the truth. And now, after you are free from unnecessary dialectical tension, is time to ask: but what was the nature of his (pagan) teaching? What does it even mean 'Do we have any followers of the old gods here?' – Like in a backdoor Catholic psyop lovecraftian (anti)saturday cartoonish version of le '''ancient gods''' just to make sure the pope (formerly antichrist) gets his jousy cut of the nyyg feet to lick, as in catho-lick? Bro, some McChudder nonsense. Listen, Christ is Love. Which is an abundance of mana. You cannot love if you are a slave. You will play schemes and tricks to navigate with the trial version. Christ is fearlessness. And the final word: sneed over the face of the antediluvian waters. That is what every older and newer god bows to. (In contact with aliens.) And they too applaud to Christ, because He is the Gamer God. Which means 'complete'. The Absolute sharpened into the spearhead, banishing the untruth. Christ is the very essence of every nobility.

[Anonymous No.23227755]

>>23227747
Technically, Jesus was a coastal pagan, but you're right, Jesus was an outsider, and he does resemble a pagan deity a lot. A very cryptic one, probably some kind of reincarnation of Adonis

[Khata !QbbPtVuCKo No.23227761]

>>23227695
>>23227747
>>23227755
>>>/x/

[Anonymous No.23227766]

Neopagans are either far left polyamorous cucks or far right neonazis with nothing in between.

[Anonymous No.23227767]

>>23227766
lol true

[Khata !QbbPtVuCKo No.23227779]

>>23227766
Real
Pray for them frens

[Anonymous No.23227784]

>>23227755
>probably some kind of reincarnation of Adonis
It realigns it all back to vegetation. Which, as with many many things, is just another way to look at it. And in my opinion, 'things' are only mirrors, they reflect our own fears and desires back to us.

What if Christ is not a 'god', or whatever our rational mind tries to conjure up, but the very principle of individuation, separation, salvation? It is a cryptic mystery, meant to lift the lost ones into an advanced understanding. Or to damn those who deserve it. (So, it might be a black mirror.) Here's what I mean:
>>23227766
>>23227767
Yeah, sure. 'All's clear.' The door in question can be comfortably closed. And we're (so) back to the precession of eternally returning things. – Which is what I call the lack of mana, the inability to love.

[Khata !QbbPtVuCKo No.23227788]

>>23227784
>Which is what I call the lack of mana, the inability to love.
Man stop playing video games and watching fantasy series. May peace be with you. Goodnight.

[Anonymous No.23227797]

In Egil's saga, some boy carves runes on a whalebone as a type of love charm and gives it to a girl he likes
Eventually the girl starts getting very sick and when Egil is passing by he offers to help the family
He finds the carved whalebone, says that the boy didn't know what he was doing and that those who don't know the runes shouldn't carve them and then carves his own runes which saves the girl

[Anonymous No.23227799]

>>23227788
It's December peace, letting you know. And it's pretty much good morning out my window. You seem tense, how come? :)

[Anonymous No.23227809]

>>23227695
I’m assuming you mean Norse/Germanic paganism?
There is no real “Bible” or primary text for it. You can read the Havamal but it’s likely been heavily tampered with by Christian’s. Most of the surviving Norse/Germanic texts we have are from Christian’s who recorded them — and even then, they were recorded at the very tail end of authentic pagan practice.
Read the sagas. Poetic Edda and Prose Edda.
If you’re not descended from Norse/Germanic people stock, though, find the paganism that corresponds to your ancestry.
Best wishes

[Anonymous No.23227811]

>>23227708
>how does paganism justify its assertions?
with fire and steel, anon. =)

[Anonymous No.23227812]

>>23227797
This is important.
Don’t fuck around with runes like stupid LARPer pagans do. I don’t care how fashionable you think it is.
I repeat, do NOT fuck around with runes

[Anonymous No.23227822]

>>23227766
Neopagans feel like people who would've been atheists but then needed to try something else after atheism became synonymous with cringe. The far-right nazi chud-pagans in particular are basically just atheists who use stupid Odin bullshit as an aesthetic.

[Anonymous No.23227864]

>>23227708
>How does paganism justify its assertions?

lived experience

[Anonymous No.23228081]

Pic related is the best reading list I've found OP, although I've been meaning to get around to making a better one. Of those books I think de Benoist's is the most important for understanding the worldview. Get the updated edition from Arcana Europa.
If you read those books then you'll know where to look further if you want. I'd recommend adding in fairy tales from around the Germanic world and general history about our people. Assuming you're Germanic yourself of course. If not then de Benoist, Nietzsche and Heidegger, and Cleary are still useful, but swap in other works of mythology and interpretation.
>>23227708
Phenomenal experience, see Heidegger's Ontological-Epistemological approach.
>>23227766
>non-christians don't have a christian derived political morality (liberalism)
Imagine my shock

[Anonymous No.23228131]

>>23228081
>Benoist
Woke communist third-worlder who publicly trans-hearts niggers. Yikes!

[Anonymous No.23228138]

>>23228131
>buzzword buzzword buzzword
I know Benoist isn't as explicitly blood-based as he should be but do you fags get off on muddying the waters or something? Fuck off to plebbit.

[Anonymous No.23228171]

>>23228138
Muddying the waters? In any case it's Benoist who's doing that. Not only does he fail the most basic political litmus test (that is, opinion on niggers); he has literally nothing useful or true to offer for the right. There's nothing even particularly right-wing, every thing he has said could have been said by any continental de-colonizing academic. At least I'm glad no one in online RW circles remembers him save irrelevant eternally stuck on 2018 "old troons".
I'm not countersignaling Paganism as a whole, but I don't trust Benoist's French "nu-rite" circle at all.

[Anonymous No.23228186]

>With a spear-board's wielder
>blades I used to bloody,
>and test them in the tempest
>of swords and shields for keenness.
>The tally of the fallen
>grew then. I'm still ready,
>even now, my namesake,
>to play this game with you, too.
And the reply
>Wherever scabbard-serpents
>surface in a skirmish
>blood I'll dare to draw,
>redden deadly weapons.
>Bravely I have carved up
>bloody eagle-fodder.
>Raider, I'll repay you
>blow for blow in battle.

[Anonymous No.23228190]

>>23227695
The seed of Yggdrasil apparently has some kooky shit but also a lot of really deep explorations of Norse mythology you won’t find elsewhere.

[Anonymous No.23228201]

>>23228186
Btw for context this is a poetry competition that a man has in his dreams with the former owner of a sword which he took from the owner's cairn
In Hrafnkels saga one of the characters has a dream in which he is told by a man to move his farm and the day after doing so there is a landslide which destroys the farm buildings

[Anonymous No.23228204]

>>23228171
You don't have to agree with his politics.
On Being A Pagan remains the single most valuable work on comparative theology between native and abrahamic belief systems. It's a horse-sized red pill on centuries and centuries of cultural conflict.
His bit on pagan ethics, just a few pages, is the only remotely weak part of the book, and even then he gets 90% of the way there with intersubjectivity.

As for de-colonising, what's the issue? Forcing very different kinds of people into the same political entity is a chaotic shitshow. Mosley said exactly the same thing. Its not necessarily some "lets invite niggers to europe" dogwhistle. Nationalism is at odds with imperialism. But Benoist is fr*nch so he says it in a weird way.

[Anonymous No.23228222]

>>23227695
>>23227708
Read Iamblichus.

[Anonymous No.23228234]

>>23227695
I've always found the term pagan slightly confusing. Not the term itself, I know what pagan means as people use it, but I'm confused as to what qualifies as pagan and how certain things came to be considered pagan while others managed to slip the noose of being considered pagan. Nobody I'm aware of calls Islamic, Far Eastern, or native American religions 'pagan' for example, it always seems to be European traditions. People also refuse to the use the names of these old traditions if they have any, simply calling them 'pagan traditions' instead. I never understood why the old European traditions are approached this way unlike others, even front antiquity, that never caught the label.

[Anonymous No.23228244]

>>23227695
Yes, mine is a mixture of the Germanic and the Celtic pantheon, so to me, the Edda and the Tain are very important. I also walk a lot to reconnect to nature, but also have a passion for the technological side of life, thus covering both the Celtic free spirit, and Germanic autism. My rituals are for me.

[Anonymous No.23228256]

>>23228234
The traditions don't have their own names because 'religion' is a modern concept. In the past it was a total worldview fully integrated with every other aspect of life. It was 1:1 with culture. If you traveled 2000 years into the past and asked a Teuton what his religion was he'd look at you baffled and just say "I'm a Teuton". The latin term that later became religion just meant 'duty', and norse forn sidr means custom.

"Pagan" has become a catchall term for traditional ethnic religions like this. Islam isn't called pagan because it's abrahamic, but I've definitely seen native american or chinese practices called pagan. They're sometimes not though because language assumes an in-group and out-group, so its heavily contextual.

Personally I don't care for the term 'paganism', not just because it derives from a pejorative but because it's a catchall and its a negative definition. It doesn't actually describe what these traditions are about.

[Anonymous No.23228290]

>>23227812
Fuck you don't tell me what to do

[Anonymous No.23228309]

>>23228222
Read Platonism in general. Early, middle, and late. It’s all pagan theology, despite christqueers, joos, and shitslamists stealing from it.

[Anonymous No.23228340]

>>23228309
Yes but it's also degenerate. Heidegger permanently btfo platonism.

[Anonymous No.23228366]

>>23227695
Wagner's Ring Cycle.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CoYkK6T-lGk

>He then plays Siegfried’s awakening of Brünnhilde, is pleased with the character of this work, its trueness to Nature: “Like two animals,” he says of Br. and Sieg. “Here there is no doubt, no sin,” he continues, and in his Wotan he recognizes the true god of the Aryans.

>But in the evening the 3rd act of Siegfried, very well played by Herr Rubinstein, pleases both him and us. “That is Gobineau-music,” R. says as he comes in, “that is race. Where else will you find two beings who burst into rejoicing when merely looking at each other? The whole world exists just to ensure that two such beings look at each other!” “Here is just forest and rocks and water and nothing rotten in it.” “Here is a couple who rejoice in their happiness, immerse themselves in the happiness of being together—how different from Tristan!”

[Anonymous No.23228736]

Decent guide for Greek stuff. Add in some secondary literature like Five Stages Of Greek Religion or the Blackwell Companion To Greek Religion

[Anonymous No.23228741]

One for linguistics nerds

[Anonymous No.23228746]

commence with the Achaeans

[Anonymous No.23228751]

>>23227766
sad

[Anonymous No.23228757]

>>23228204
Read that one, it's pretty interesting.

[Anonymous No.23228759]

>>23227695

The problem with pagan LARPers is that they think of paganism as something like Christianity or Buddhism - a coherent worldview, having something to do with nature... or something.

Real paganism was more like a bundle of superstitions, and toward the end most people didn't even but half-way believe in it. The pagans were not religious in the way modern people think about religion.

[Anonymous No.23228764]

>>23228309

Plato rejected popular paganism. He critiques it at length in, for example, the Republic. Saying Plato=paganism is absurd, most pagans were not Platonists any more than most Christians are Swedenborgians.

[Anonymous No.23228771]

>>23228309

Oh and a BTW for you, Plato was a monotheist.

[Anonymous No.23228774]

>>23227695
Here's a good channel for paganism if anyone is interested:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQFhSP60gWw

[Anonymous No.23228776]

>>23228764
"paganism" is a logically negative definition, it means not being an abrahamist golem, Plato was by definition a pagan no matter how you put it

[Anonymous No.23228824]

Kalevala

[Anonymous No.23228841]

>>23227695
Since [neo-]paganism is inherently a rejection of Christian values, theology, and culture, it is important to understand Christianity first. If you find you actually agree with Christianity but are sad over something entirely superficial like that you can't have an idol because it isn't kosher to be mistaken for a heathen—fear not! There is no need to leave a church which opens its altar to Pachamama.

[Anonymous No.23228847]

>>23228764
>most pagans were not Platonists any more than most Christians are Swedenborgians
Your pilpul needs work Juanito. Categorically, Plato was a pagan theologian, and Sneedenborg was a Christian theologian

[Anonymous No.23228890]

>>23228759
Do you have any sources for these assertions or are you just talking out of your ass?

[Anonymous No.23228896]

>>23227695
Here is my list of primary sources focusing on Celtic minus Roman/Greek

Paganism is LARPing. There is no living pagan tradition and hasn't been for a long time. As a result this leaves its LARPing followers to make things up from marvel movies, popculture and their heavily syncretised Christian texts.
>>23228222
That's a different kind of Paganism that I don't think OP is referring to. Besides their influence is still felt in Sufism and to a lesser extent, Christianity (perhaps even Judaism) today. In other words, if this is the kind of pagan that you are, you should just convert to one of those religions.
>>23228841
Yet their pagan texts were written by Christians...
Even if it's LARPing, it's still better than a*heism

[Anonymous No.23228898]

>>23228890

"Hurr durr do you have any, like, sources bro? Citation needed much?"

How about you read a book for yourself and see. Not a website about paganism, a real book about pagan "religion", maybe at the library.

[Anonymous No.23228902]

>>23228896

Those are all myths. Myth is not the same thing as religion. That's one big problem with pagan LARPers right there, they think they can reconstruct the "religion" from the wacky stories people would tell around the fire. They think pagan myths must be sort of like what the Bible is for Christians.

Not so.

[Anonymous No.23228922]

>>23228896
>larp larp larp larp
Can't you faggots get new material? I don't have to roleplay to express my ethnic soul. Paganism isn't just a construct that relies on continual transmission. Christianity is not a native tradition nor is it an authentic one, it had a beginning. Paganism is not a textual tradition. If you're going to come here to try and be incendiary at least be informed.

[Anonymous No.23228925]

>>23228896
>Yet their pagan texts were written by Christians...
Christians had no problem looting paganism for whatever they needed. Personally I think people with spiritual rather than scholastic goals are better off studying living, non-abrahamic religions and traditions and modifying those instead of attempting an impossible reconstructionism, which carries in it the bold assumption that at a precise moment in a given culture we have some sort of eternally resolved "religion" that should be mimicked exactly. Better crank that coconut radio

[Anonymous No.23229046]

>>23227766
>Neopagans are either far left polyamorous cucks or far right neonazis with nothing in between.
Neopagans are left wing or right wing. Big brains we have on lit these days.

[Anonymous No.23229188]

>>23227766
I am polyamorous bisexuals cuck but only for white people

[Anonymous No.23229310]

>>23227695
Christ is the only truth. Simple as. He is the Alpha and the Omega. He is the beginning and the end. "Paganism" and anything else is just filler. It's just the beta gamma delta. It may look like nice and s say some things that make sense but at the beginning there was only Christ and at the end there will only be Christ.
Christus Rex.

[Anonymous No.23229319]

>>23229310
>He is the Alpha and the Omega. He is the beginning and the end.
an idea stolen from Egypt by a certain exiled caste

[Anonymous No.23229327]

>>23229310
chriggers will post cringe redditor shit like this and then act flabbergasted when they are treated like vermin and lepers

[Anonymous No.23229329]

I think the pagan myths and stories are cool and interesting. And I’m always interested in reading about ritual and practice. But I can’t see how any of that could relate to modern life.

But I feel the same way about Christianity. The beliefs and practices of ancient people are interesting, but utterly alien to my own experience of life.

[Anonymous No.23229434]

>>23228898
>How about you read a book for yourself and see
Suggest one then. Most primary sources from that time are written by Christians so it's hard not to take what they say with a massive grain of salt. Also, anyone claiming what you are is basing that claim off of those sources. Who are you or anyone else today to say how seriously pre-Christian pagans took their beliefs? If anything, forced conversions and conversion for political reasons would seem to contradict what you're saying. I don't see many instances of wholesale conversion on contact without the threat of force. A lot of it was also the influence of court pedagogues who were hired to educate young nobleman and women. These individuals were often Christians as the clergy were the only people who could read and write. And I'd hardly say the rich and powerful are representative of the views and beliefs of the majority.

[Anonymous No.23229477]

>>23229434

This anon thinks we don't have a massive trove of literature from pagan Greece and Rome, so all our knowledge of ancient paganism comes from nasty biased Christians.

Not to mention modern anthropology, or all of the other pagan lit that has survived in one way or another. And yet my conclusion stands. There is no such thing as "paganism", there were different people, (Latins, Tiburians, Ouakapookeans, etc.) each of whom had a (somewhat) unique culture and its own stories about the gods, and rules for sacrifice. This was not a religion the way Abrahamic faiths, Buddhism, etc. are religions. It was just a function of the culture concerned, like its basket weaving.

You're retarded, I don't know how else to say it.

[Anonymous No.23229498]

>>23229477
>This was not a religion the way Abrahamic faiths, Buddhism, etc. are religions. It was just a function of the culture concerned, like its basket weaving.
This anon has read his Assmann

[Anonymous No.23229547]

>>23229498

You haven't read anything. You have this image in your head of a bunch of super chill, wise pagans hanging out smoking weed and fucking, and then a bunch of mean ol' Christians came around and ruined all the fun.

For you to think there's no information about paganism but what Christians said, you're functionally illiterate.

[Anonymous No.23229552]

>>23229498
Where to start with this aspect of Assmann's thought? Can I get a qrd?

[Anonymous No.23229555]

>>23228234
>Nobody I'm aware of calls Islamic, Far Eastern, or native American religions 'pagan' for example
to starters Islam is abrahamic, so it can't be pagan by definition, and both catholic and orthodox churches consider the non-abrahamic eastern, native american and african religions as pagan
Pagan as synonymous as pre-christian european religions is from modern pop-culture

[Anonymous No.23229559]

The problem with a lot of Northern European Faiths is that the traditions were not systematised. They were understood implicitly rather than codified explicitly. Greek/Roman revival is still viable because there is still a structure, decayed and abandoned but still existing, within which the religion might be revived in form.

[Anonymous No.23229572]

>>23229559

Yup, and modern people try to retroblast their own obsessions onto them (racism, polyamory, whatever). It's a flimsy canvas because these were not real religions with coherent belief systems, more of a hodgepodge of superstition and common sense.

Then you have fools like this guy

>>23229434

[Anonymous No.23229573]

read Plethon's Book of Laws for a solid system that isn't a giant LARP

[Anonymous No.23229576]

>>23229573

>he thinks Pethon wasn't a giant LARPer

Idiot.

[Anonymous No.23229586]

>>23229547
You are strawmanning me, so I don't care. I can return the favor. If there is no difference between Christianity and what came before it, or what has survived it elsewhere, you would not be this defensive and agitated by the imagining or representing of its alternatives.
>>23229552
He sort of evolves over time, but the main works on "counter-religion" are Moses the Egyptian and The Price of Monotheism, which take a more negative/critical view but in later works he moderates to a more positive depiction of "covenant theology." I do think both are useful and informative, and also that [neo-]paganism(s) should avoid being an ideologies of mere anti-Christian resentment. Like someone who hates Christmas or Easter for instance, because he hates Christianity, doesn't understand religion in the first place.

[Anonymous No.23229588]

>>23228759
>Christianity or Buddhism - a coherent worldview
Are you aware that exist many sects interpretations of both religions, many that held believes that are incompatible or contradictory with the believes of other sects, right ?
and that most people don't really know or care about the way some particular theologians tried to explain and rationalize their believes, right ?
at the end of the day Christianity or Buddhism are no different from the pagan believes in that regard (also the church considers Buddhism as pagan)

[Anonymous No.23229594]

>>23228922
>my ethnic soul
not a thing in the old pagan faiths, that's a 20th century invention
you just want something to affirm your failed politics

[Anonymous No.23229609]

>>23229576
how is he is a larper

[Anonymous No.23229611]

>>23229573
>Plethon
His system only works as a framework for a civic religion, not as a truthful understanding of divine influence and hierarchy. I enjoyed his ideas regarding a new Byzantium-city-state on the Peloponnese peninsula.

>their own obsessions onto them (racism, polyamory, whatever).
Paganism is when a hot alt girl pegs me (unironically)

[Anonymous No.23229627]

>>23229588
Christianity and Buddhism were and are proselytizing, scriptorial religions with historical founders and organized churches spanning across countries such that you can travel from one congregation to another and experience almost the same thing, have the almost same rituals and credentials cross-honored, read the same prayers and sermons, receive the same protections and privileges from states that support the church, and so on. It's totally different from being the priest of Deus in Deusopolis and going to Divapolis where the priests of Diva are in charge. You might swear on your own respective gods when you make a deal, or see similarities in how you worship, or even suggest that Deus and Diva are the same God under different names, but you have no authority to order the priests of Diva or the Diva worshippers to do things more appropriate to Deus, nor do you likely see any reason to—he is your God and them not directly worshiping him doesn't actually mean anything to you on a moral or spiritual or even political level. They are just pious foreigners with foreign gods.

[Anonymous No.23229638]

>>23227695
First understand that "pagan" is just an umbrella term for any non-abrahamic form of spirituality and it's not limited to old pre-christian believes
Second there's no such thing as paganism as a single coherent belief system with well define theology, doctrine and dogmas, but many different belief systems, and even in a single system people might subscribe to different philosophies, and therefore held different understanding of their believes
Third that paganism is not limited to old mythologies and that things like wicca also fall under paganism together with any new movement that put forth a non-abrahamic framework for spirituality; the idea of only the old practices and believes being valid is only a thing under a perennialist framework, that is not held universally

For starters I recomend pic-related

[Anonymous No.23229651]

>>23229611

>>23229573
Also as an aside to my last post I found this blog about Plethon that I quite enjoyed. I need to buy that new book about him that came out in 2019.

https://mechanicalowlblog.wordpress.com/2020/04/18/saving-the-city-and-giving-it-gods-pt-1-2/

[Anonymous No.23229678]

>>23229627
>Christianity and Buddhism were and are proselytizing, scriptorial religions
irrelevant(specially since different denomination use different collection of scriptures as cannon)

> historical founders and organized churches
irrelevant
also there's no unify and organize christian church, there's many different churches and also folk Christianity
and there's no organized buddhist church

>you can travel from one congregation to another and experience almost the same thing
as long you go to a congregation of the same or very similar denomination/sect

> have the almost same rituals and credentials cross-honored
no, the catholic church wont recognize the credential of some random non-denominal charismatic preacher for example

>It's totally different from being the priest of Deus in Deusopolis and going to Divapolis where the priests of Diva are in charge.
now you are just making shit up and ignoring actual history of how the cults worked and how widely gods were adopted and worshiped by the people

> but you have no authority to order the priests of Diva or the Diva worshippers to do things more appropriate to Deus
the same way a catholic priest has no authority to order Calvinists to worship in the way he wants like Theravada monks have no authority over Zen practitioners

>he is your God and them not directly worshiping him doesn't actually mean anything to you on a moral or spiritual or even political level. They are just pious foreigners with foreign gods.
Yeah, and you likely recognized those foreign gods as being as real as your and you likely sacrifice to them because the notion of religious exclusivity isn't a thing outside abrahamic religions

[Anonymous No.23229732]

>>23229678
Gay nitpicking over the term "church" I see... I can be a Catholic in Nigeria and a Catholic in Ireland and a Catholic in Rome; I could not carry around a pagan religion like that and find churches, priests, congregations ready to receive me. The Chinese scholar-monk Xuanzang traveled all over greater India and Central Asia and met with different Buddhists and visited different temples, stupas, and schools and wrote down whether they were Mahayana or Hinayana and how well they kept to the religion; he couldn't do this if he were a sinic folk shaman

[Anonymous No.23230015]

>>23229559
>The problem with a lot of Northern European Faiths is that the traditions were not systematised
Imagine being slavic now

[Anonymous No.23230046]

Does anyone know of any books like Turville's Myth and Religion in the North for the Greeks and Romans?

[Anonymous No.23230135]

>>23229329
Why wouldn't it relate to life in general? Our psyche is ancient and contains a permanent record of all our evolutionary history. It's not like we lose access to the archetypes of the gods just because iphones are around. Read Jung.
>>23229559
What makes you think it needs to be systematised? This is what makes its modern incarnations viable.
>>23229594
It's a permanent feature of the psyche and is expressed in older paganism in the form of the ninefold soul. You don't know what you're talking about and just trying to be a plebbit d&c fag.
>>23229627
You're ignoring many MANY examples from history of separate pagan cults sharing worship or initiation. From Romans being initiated into the Eleusinian mysteries, to Thoth, Artemis, and Isis worship by Greeks, to Interpretatio Romana of Germanic gods by Tacitus, to Thomas Morton inviting native american women to join his maypole dance festivals.
You're also not making a point. What makes you think one requires the same rituals across many countries?

[Anonymous No.23230306]

>>23230135
>You're ignoring many MANY examples from history of separate pagan cults sharing worship or initiation. From Romans being initiated into the Eleusinian mysteries, to Thoth, Artemis, and Isis worship by Greeks
These are all kinds of pre-Christianities if you think about the big picture, requiring a large empire with a common administration, lots of migration etc. Christianity outcompeted them so they don't get to speak to us as clearly. Similarly, Buddhism doesn't really take form as we know it until it is patronized by the Maurya emperors of India. There's not really a clean break here if that's what you're getting at then I would agree but we can distinguish this or that cluster of features being more prominent in the organized proselytizing religions versus the local or regional folkish or urban cults that were less mobile but at the same time similar enough to those of their neighbors that theology was seldom a pretext for political or military dispute the way it could be with Christian vs non-Christian, Buddhist vs orthodox Brahmin and so on. The most extreme example of the new kind of religion with these traits is Islam. When the Greeks conquered Persia they have no shortage of chauvinism for their own culture and religion, but they do not destroy Zoroastrianism. When the Arabs conquered Persia they did so under the very pretext of destroying the false religion of the Persians, who were given the choice to submit to the new book and the new priests, or face the sword.

[Anonymous No.23230499]

>>23230306
I completely agree that universalist, proselytising religion is an imperialist tool. I further agree that this kind of religion has warped the way people think about religion as such.
These religions are merely constructs of the power-hungry used to force people into fake identities and therefore a kind of madness. They aren't in alignment with the divine, with nature, with our wellbeing. So why accept them? Their rejection is obviously necessary.

If your point was merely that paganism is a catchall term that covers many different worldviews, including some contradictory ones, then yeah. But the term is a convenient if troubled shorthand. Nobody is saying we should fit traditional religions into the framework of the modern understanding of religion. We're saying we should embrace the traditional framework as well, i.e. particularism and nationalism.