whats wrong with Paganism ?

[Thomas]

Hey Wil!

Jeez guy! I know you love to get one over on us Christians whenever you can, but think before you leap!

And of course it is more...it will always be more....

By the same token, thousands of children die each day for the want of clean water or a mosquito net. You are saying that's acceptable, because there's so many more children being born anyway?

more in numbers....not more as in a percentage of the number of people or Christians...

Oh, I see, more children die in numbers, but as they comprise a smaller percentage of children worldwide, that's OK.

This is like how the weather channel touts that the latest hurricane is the most costly ever....as if they've never heard of inflation.

Maybe 'inflation' applies to material goods, but not a human life?

Calm down, guy!

Thomas

 

[Thomas]

I'm missing your point completely.

The point is that 'pagan' is too broad a term. It covers everything from cultic rites of passage, harmless agrarian ritual, through to scarification, mutilation and human sacrifice.

"One of the few things that ... sources agree on ... was that they played an important part in society... They were one of the two most important social groups (alongside the equites, or nobles), and were responsible for organising worship and sacrifices, divination, and judicial procedure. They were exempt from military service and from the payment of taxes, and they had the power to excommunicate people, making them social outcasts..."
Who does that remind you of? The assumption that everything in the pagan garden was lovely, and then along came the nasty Christians is naive, sentimental and usually prejudiced.

If someone was to ask me the problem with paganism, I'd say simply that we've outgrown its cosmology, as we've outgrown thunderstorms being the gods when they're angry, we've outgrown the spoilt-brat antics of the occupants of Mount Olympus, and, you'll never believe this, we've outgrown your notion of us as believers in God being an old man with a white beard sitting on a throne in the clouds!

That's not to say there's no virtue in those images, no wonder, no inspiration, no insight, no life ... but there are better ways, and having said that, there were, to quote Clement of Alexandria, 'Christians before Christ' who sang the New Song ...

God bless,

Thomas
(BTW: If you ever want an explanation why the archetypal grey-haired father figure is entirely fitting as a cataphatic figure of the Deity, let me know.)

 

[NiceCupOfTea]

The point is that 'pagan' is too broad a term. It covers everything from cultic rites of passage, harmless agrarian ritual, through to scarification, mutilation and human sacrifice.

I can see that, but I think thats there term the Bible uses at least I think my Bible does, and its the its the term used by my old fundi church.

 

[Etu Malku]

Hasn't the term really come to mean "any belief system that is not monotheistic"?

 

[radarmark]

EM, pretty much (at least in Traditionalist and Fundamentalist circles, I did not know you were one). "Pagan" is used to describe not just the "re-constructions" of neo-pagans, wicca, and lucerferians, but Yezidis, Native Americans, Hmong, Hindus, and Daoists.

But I think you first definition of "pagan" as a "reconstructed non-Abrahamic Western Modern Religion" (or words to that effect) are really what we are talking about here.

Using "pagan" the way Fundamentalists do makes it a mere synonym for "someone who does not believe as I do".

 

[wil]

Hasn't the term really come to mean "any belief system that is not monotheistic"?

I'm still thinking in many circles it means anyone who doesn't believe like me

And Thomas, yes I believe the Greek, Roman and Norse Gods have gone beyond time, holding up the earth, hauling the sun across the sky and the like....but I think the old grey white dude has gone the same way....his tossing of lightning bolts, plagues and bumper crops...to me is all latent godactions of the pagans....

so yes I'll appreciate why you think Michangelo's version has any merit....

 

[brijesh]

both islam and Christianity pretty much despise Paganism.

Now why is that ?


it seems quite nice and colourful be me.

In fact existance is colorfull. Imagine if Existance has any and single color. My color has meaning only because your color is another.

There is no problem with color but with colorism. Assign any specific colors to specific groups or country and see the result. From very first day there will be tention to spreed specific color.

So Enjoy colors and avoide colorism...Happy Holi the festival of colors...

 

[A Cup Of Tea]

You know, throwing the Christians to the lions for sport...

Is this fact? I think I saw a QI episode where they said that there are no records of this. I don't trust QI completely but I would like to see evidence of one or the other.

 

[radarmark]

Outside of church records, no. We know (from Latin sources) Christians were ripped apart by dogs in Nero's persecution. However the persecutions of Trajan and in Lyon are known to have had (per Latin sources) wild beasts (including lions) rip apart the living (and we know these victims were Christian).

One must ask oneself "given all the human fodder killed in games, why would an Emperor or a Governor acting on the Emperor's behalf write down all the names asnd reasons for deaths?" Highly doubtful.

So no, no real Roman sources (that I know of), but given the Roman sources on the persecutions and what went on in the circuses, it is very likely.

 

[seattlegal]

Is this fact? I think I saw a QI episode where they said that there are no records of this. I don't trust QI completely but I would like to see evidence of one or the other.

Here's the wiki article on the Diocletian Persecution

It was popular hostility—the anger of the crowd—which drove the earliest persecutions, not official action.[4] In Lyon in 177, it was only the intervention of civil authorities that stopped a pagan mob from dragging Christians from their houses and beating them to death.​

Opposite from the later Christian persecution of pagans?

 

[radarmark]

Nope. Most of the prosecutions of the Christians were of just this type. And they just continued (with the roles reversed) later. There were some limited "official deaths" (ordered by the Emperor or on the Emperor's behalf by governors... like Pontus Pilate) of which some were likely at the hands of lions.

We know at least one Christian was torn to pieces by dogs at Nero's order and we know that the Pliny-Trajan letters indicate some were killed in the arena (by animals or execution or gladiators we really do not know).

All of that being said, the books of the martyrs are probably at least partially correct. As are the claims of heretical groups (Gnostics to Mandaens to Catharis)
when it comes to persicutions by Christians).

It gets messy!

 

[A Cup Of Tea]

To what extent do you think Christians were sacrificed as entertainment?

 

[radarmark]

Since most offences throughout the Empire that were capital but not a threat to the Emperor or treasonous were done in coliseums, I’d wager the vast majority of those tried were,

Two caveats. First, if the individual was treasonous, he or she would be crucified. Second, the majority of Christian “martyrs” were martyred by the populace (like in Lyon). Same with the anti-Jewish persecutions following Cyrenaica and Bar-Kokhba (troops were involved in those, but locals did kill off some congregations).

Is that clear? Notice I am not claiming (see earlier posts) that we have proof lions were used. There were lots of entertaining deaths in the coliseums.

 

[A Cup Of Tea]

Good answers in my book! Everything is crystal clear as the rest of history.

 

[radarmark]

Peace upon thee, sister!