The Bible

[Metatron]

I read the Bible just because it offers great spiritual advice. Who gives a fuck if the Christians worship by it? Who gives a fuck if it's false? Really, and here's a Pagan saying this, it provides us with priceless guidance that no spiritual advisor could give himself. Not only that, but most of the novels with literary value take symbolism or a story line from the Bible.

Nike, I'm not liking the "Our society is based on Christian morals and ethics" statement there. "Our society" is in no way founded by Christianity. I'm assuming you meant the United States when you say that..."I do not find in Christianity one redeeming feature." - Quote President Thomas Jefferson. "A just government has no need for the clergy or the church." - Quote President James Madison. "The Bible is not my book, nor Christianity my religion." - Quote President Abraham Lincoln. Oh, and my personal favorite, a quote from our first president..."The government of the United States is in no sense founded on the Christian Religion." - Quote George Washington. Just because George Bush said it, absolutely DOES NOT mean that it's true. I don't feel the need to elaborate on anything I've just said.

[Dark Art]

The sad thing is, these days, if the press had gotten hold of that statement, I doubt Abraham Lincoln would have been elected.

It's kind of sad, really. The Christians feel attacked because, as the most prominent religion, they are also the most jumped on when people go after a) religion in general or b) religion in government. When some fundamentalist whacko starts spouting off nonesense, all Christians take the rap. That's not fair.

On the other hand, those who follow other religions (myself included) are hyper-aware of the deep influence Christianity has on modern society. If a Christian wears a cross, they're pretty much applauded for strong faith. If I wear a pentagram, I could be accused of being a devil-worshipper or, worse, some shallow kid who wants to curse everyone she knows.

To sum up...NOBODY is winning this religion thing.

[Metatron]

FYI - This isn't a battle. And a lot of Christians should be attacked just for calling themselves Christians. 'Love thy neighbor.' Just that statement alone eliminates most Christians from being 'good'. More would be eliminated with their rule of forgiving. I respect a lot of Christians because they follow what their creed teaches. But I also disrespect the Christian side of many people because they go and commit 'sin' and then expect to be forgiven because all they have to do is "confess it to God". Modern day Christianity is nothing like it used to be...but then again I couldn't say early Christians were any better as a whole.

[1TOOMANY]

Has anyone heard the old Circle Jerks song "Killing for Jesus"?
That songs pretty fucking awesome!

[1TOOMANY]

PENNYWISE LYRICS

"My God"

People on the street they wannna find a god they'll never know,
organized religion pulls the blinds then they pull the wool,
they open up your head, they're fuckin' with your mind,
now you can't see because you're blind
You try to make amends but your heads still spinnin' round,
the church of Jesus Christ said it's time, don't fuck around,
you wanna go to heaven, you see it isn't free, give your money up to me
My god is not the one that you wanna see, your god is a mirage,
a conspiracy, you pray for forgiveness cause your sinnin',
scared to death so your money you'll be givin', yeah
(Ohoh) [x2]

Holier than thou with your one way morality,
I think your shallow faith isn't based in reality,
you don't like how were live, we're sinful and obscene,
why are you judgin' me?
You're richer than God but you're cryin' out for more,
you're livin' like a king while you steal from the poor,
wanna be forgiven, get on your knees and pray,
send in your cash and be saved

My god is not the one that you wanna see,
your god is a mirage, a conspiracy,
you pray for forgiveness cause your sinnin',
scared to death so your money you'll be givin',
yeah, better hope you've been chosen to be saved
(Ohoh) [x2]
Cause your empathy only goes so far today
Pay no mind to those in pain if you just want the souls
who are willing to pay
Their way, your god's not for me

My god is not the one that you wanna see,
your god is a mirage, a conspiracy,
you pray for forgiveness cause your sinnin',
scared to death so your money you'll be givin',
yeah, my god is not the one that you wanna see,
your god is a mirage, a conspiracy,
you pray for forgiveness cause your sinnin',
scared to death so your money you'll be givin',
yeah, stop

[Corpus_Draconis]

Originally Posted by Xnguela

If you want, i can email you my paper..?

I would love to read your paper. I know very little about religion.

I'm vaguely interested in religion, I think partly because I grew up in a manifestly non-religious family. Christmas in my house is celebrated as a time of family, shortbread and a nice decorating scheme rather than as Jesus' birthday, and Easter is celebrated as an excuse to get the family together and eat ham, hot cross buns and chocolate eggs.

Perhaps I should actually read the Bible and the equivalent texts of other major religions.

[Nike]

Metatron-I was not referring to the United States, and I know that government and religion are two seperated things, not only in the States, but also in the european countries-something I'm quite fond of actually.

But look, how did the Western world develop-how did our ethics and morals develop? By our history we are heavily influenced by Christianity and its ethics and morals. Our society might not be "founded" -which is the wrong word for that context- by christianity, and don't confuse society with state or governmnet, but I think, when taking European history into concideration you can't deny that Christianity has influenced it in big parts.

Even though religion and government are seperated now, ourunderstanding of morals, values and ethic didn't jst come with one paper everyone read and applaused to it. It is worth to look back and look how it came to it, where which ideas come from.

[Metatron]

Christianity may have influenced European history, but that is still where Paganism originated. My point is, Christianity is only a few thousand years old. Paganism has been around for quite a bit longer, and you can still see Pagan influences throughout the world today.

[Scolaí]

Religion and spirituality are such deeply personal things that it is seldom the case that a discussion of these philosophies result in warm feelings and happy endings.

If I, a Pagan/Wiccan tell a christian his path is not the true way, then I have attacked a deeply held personal belief, and the christian will reward me with a barrage of reasonable (to him) defenses of his faith. Should the chrisitan attack me, I will likely retaliate in the same way.

Religious perspectives are as individual as the one who holds to the belief. It is fun to debate this topic, but never with insults and malice. To me, all paths lead to the same Source, therefore all people are my brothers and sisters no matter what their religious label might be. I cannot attack my brethren, even if I fundamentally disagree with him or her.

[Nike]

Metatron-of course, also Christianity didn't come out of nothing.
Still, what are you reffering to concretely with the term Paganism-are you aware of the fact that "pagan" is a christian term meaning "not Christian"?
And actually, a few thousand years is quite a lot of time to survive for one and the same religion with one and the same basic book, without being modified +-some gods and such.
And tking into concideration that one and the same religion has been official state religion for such a long time, ore than 100 years, I'd say it's also quite a lot.

Christianity had several origins-the Jewish tradition, of course, a lot of influences from greek and Roman saviour cults, like the orphic beliefs, the Mithras cult, just t name two f them. he ideas of a possibility to gain happiness after eath is not new.

Let me explain some religions and their connection to society with a few examples.

Let's take a very brief look at egyptian religions. They were connected with the political structures of ancient egypt. You have several gods who are connected with the Pharao, the Pharao usually orginins from them, and though he is the only one who will not pass ito shadows, but become a god himself after his death. In the pyramid texts of the Pharao Unas, 5th dynasty (old egyptian empire, about 2367 - 2347 BC) it is described how Unas goes into the heavens, eating the gods (!), he is superior to them. The less power the pharaos have in society, the less they have in religion. The developement is leading to negativ commitmets- "I did not do this and this and this" to be judged by the gods and allow to join them in the realm of the dead. The more pwer burocracy got, the ore burocrats were also allowed to write negative commitements into their graves (the books of the dead) and were also having art of the hope of a life after death. For the simple man though, here was no hope.
When egyptian policy went down the drain, there were doubts about the religion (because there were doubts on the pharao, too).

ok, next, the greek world.
One thing applying for dark ages to alost early classicaltimes is fatalism. No hope. After death, you go into the realms of Hades, where you are nothing more than a shadow longing for life. Ilias and Odyssee are some examples. There are gods, there are heroes, and there are humans. Gods are playing with the lives of humans, humans (and heroes) have a fate they can't do anything about.
Let us take a look at direct democray the Athenians- it was founded under the priciple of isonoia and isokratia. Meaning that everyone is on the same level. If you are not, meaning that if you are trying to be a hero, if people like what you do, you are a possible danger or the system-and the system had a weapon-the ostracism. The most populat person of the citystate was voted, and the person who was voted was banned (or politely askerd for suicide). Most the big military leaders of the Greeks, like Themistokles aor later Epaminondas, those, who actually saved Greece from the persian invasion, died in poverty(or by suicide), when the danger was out of touch, their purpose was fullfilled.
The system screamed "you are human, you are not a god". Also the basis of the phalanx, the military system was like this-never try to be different or better than the other-don't try to be hero in battle-you have one purpose only-to never leave your line. Understandable, because when the line was broken, the battle was lost soon.
So who are the heroes of Greek mythology?-if you take a look, they all descend from gods. Nevertheless, they never had a chance to escape their fates ( Sisiphus tried successfully for a while, but the punishment was hard, because after his death the godsyould lay their hands on him and put him to Tartaros (which could be compared with hell).
Achill is explaining it best in the Iliad (21.108-110):

"And seest thou not what manner of man am I, how comely and how tall? A good man was my father, and a goddess the mother that bare me; yet over me too hang death and mighty fate."

Fatalism was being doubted by the philosophers, who tried to find other explainations for natural phainomena etc, but the common man still believed in it.
Then there was a school of philosophers-their leader pythagoras, who modified the reigious sytem- the orphic schools. What they were saying was, that (if you belong to a certain group of society (the higher one,of course )you have a chance for something they were calling Elyzium, the island of the blessed. (if you life your life a certain way you are reborn so often til you're good nough to go there). Also Dionysos, the god of the wine, became related to the Underworld-he was the new, more gentle god of it.

The there was Alexander. Powerful emperor, who expanded the makedon empire his father Philipp had established out of nothing in just a few years, to the end of the know world into all directions. One persn ruling. What did he do-he was connecting himself to Herakles, liked to be seen as a brother of Herakles and consequently a son of Zeus. Then he went to the oasis of Siba, where the oracle told him he was theson of Ammon, the god of the sun, and after him, all makedon emperors were searching for the close relationship t the gods. Again, religion and society combined, religion serves a purpose.

The Romans were qite openminded. Not very inventive they applied the greek pantheon to their own use, were open minded also for infuences that came from the provinces-as long- and this is important from Augustus on to the late Roman empire-tolerant, but only as long as the Roman emperor was prayed to as a god in all provinces, got sacrifices etc. Roman history, eyspecially the lines of the Emperors, were connected with the mythologica figure of Aeneas, son of Aphrodite, who was able to escape the burning Troy with his father Anchses on his back, and came to Rome after many dangerous journey, where he settled down. Vergil wrote the Aeneid for Augustus what became a basis for the understanding of the Roman empire. Religion was a certain deoration of the monarch strucure, that Augustus established in Rome, he, who calles himself Primus inter pares when he was still Octavian, after his coronation Augustus (blessed one).
The Roman world know somecults that promised hope after death for certain circles. They weren't ope for everyone,but only for some, kind of elites. There was the Mithras cult, for instance, the ost popular of them.

And then you have that idea of Christianity: everyone can go to heaven, even slaves, everyone, as long as they followed the rules during life. You have ideas of forgiving.
Even though christiaity was based on everything that has been there before of course (without orphan schools no christianity for instance), they also had some new points added, that werequite appealing. And early christians were active, you could even say agressive. They knew well how to make propaganda. They were going everywhere, speaking to the simple and to the rich, telling them of a chance to be saved.

And despite all the difficulties ith the Roman empire in the beginning, the managed it, in a few hundred years to be established as official religion of the Roman empire by Constantine the Great.
And after that, only Julian Apostata dared to go back to older traditions, but failed. The next centuries of european history are also centuries of christian history. Celtic and gothic myths of the migration, the dark ages from the 5th to the 9th century, were christianized while written down, like the epics of Theoderich, Nibelungenlied. The story, or the settng of it survived, but the contents were changed. Al we know of the celts for instance, we know from the Roman texts (and from archaeological findings)-without that, we would probablynot even remember their culture and religion.
The only place where you could actually speak of an active influence of pagan beliefs to christianity would be Ireland. There, many beliefs of the ancient Irish (part of the Celts) were traded into Christianity, in a quite friendly way.

How christianity was applied to each political system, is another story, there are many different ways.

Anyways, I written much too much for today, got to go now
Merry Christmas and a nice holiday, everyone!

Scolaí-I am with you, relign and spirituality is indeed a deeply personal thing.
I disagree though, about the unhappy ending of iscussions about it- I don't discuss for the sake of saying one or the other religion is the right or the wrong way, and een though I am atheist personally I deeply respect, if others find hope and strengh in a religion. If you don't discuss for the sake of being right or wong there is no need to get feelings hurt or getting dramatic-you can oly learn by seeing other points of view, other ways of explainatins and so on -that how I see it, at least

[horrorgirl]

Originally Posted by 1TOOMANY

Has anyone heard the old Circle Jerks song "Killing for Jesus"?
That songs pretty fucking awesome!

Great song! I used to have fun bopping around in my car to that.

[MrMaelstrom]

Excelent bit Nike. I felt like replying to Metatron, but you did a fine job.

The point is, if one says that christianity influenced the West deeply, it doesn't mean it's the main influence or the oldest one, but politically it brought down the roman empire, and it did that by adding something extra to the Mithra followers, who had no social hierarcjies within their temple, which included noblemen and slaves.

The idea of ritual sacrifice ended on the West with Christianism.
The idea of enslaving someone who worships the same god is repulsed by christian culture, so, with the spread of christianity, for the 1st time ever, something united all of Europe. It influenced everything, both positive and negative.

People who dismiss this are usually mistaking this influence with the dangerous notions of Church and State. If we eliminated all religion everywhere in the world, people's cultures would still reflect the basic moral dogmas of their previous faith.

[WolfMoon]

Mael, I'm going to reply to you when I'm not hungover.......

[Scolaí]

Originally Posted by Nike

Scolaí-I am with you, relign and spirituality is indeed a deeply personal thing.
I disagree though, about the unhappy ending of iscussions about it- I don't discuss for the sake of saying one or the other religion is the right or the wrong way, and een though I am atheist personally I deeply respect, if others find hope and strengh in a religion. If you don't discuss for the sake of being right or wong there is no need to get feelings hurt or getting dramatic-you can oly learn by seeing other points of view, other ways of explainatins and so on -that how I see it, at least

I have found through my experience that it is very rare that one party or the other does not get their religious feathers ruffled at some point. More specifically, I have found that the evangelical christians are the most prone to becoming unpleasant. It is because the topic is so personal that it is so easy to be offended.

I'm sure I could have a discussion of faith, belief, or philosophy with a Buddhist, Hindu, or some other religious sect outside of the judeo-christian pantheon without difficulty or offense because I know that the other person is merely a seeker like myself. When discussing matters of faith with a christian - specifically an evangelical - I know they always have an ulterior motive. My soul is damned unless I accept their version of a savior. The conversation invariably comes around to, "if you were to die today, do you know where your soul would spend eternity?" Once I make them aware that I believe in neither a heaven or a hell, they really get bent out of shape.

[Nike]

Mael, thank you

Scolai- Well, I don't know-there are plenty of Christians I had great disussions with that noone left with feelings hurt. I highly respect my grand-aunt, who is a nun, living in Brasilia for more than 60 years and doing social work there. She's a great, open minded person, she's critic, also towards Christianity, and is still Christian. She is also a seeker, I think many of us are and she's just one examle.
Not every Christian feels superior, not every Moslem thinks Islam is the only good thing. I tend to say there are much ore openminded people you can discuss with than narrowminded followers of a golden path- but these are the ones who recieve most attention, not ithout reason.

It doesn't really depend on the religion you follow if you can discuss, but more on each person. It's not only religious discussions that are getting out of hands, we also had plenty of politics discussions, that went beyond any level, also on this board.

Right or wrong discussions are always dangerous and in 99% leading nowhere. But if you see a discussion as a possibility to share ideas, thoughts, opinions, to learn than they are a great thing.

[WolfMoon]

But if you see a discussion as a possibility to share ideas, thoughts, opinions, to learn than they are a great thing.



Exactly why we've sorely missed you, babe!

[Scolaí]

Nike,

Point well taken. Thank you.

[Nike]

Originally Posted by WolfMoon

But if you see a discussion as a possibility to share ideas, thoughts, opinions, to learn than they are a great thing.



Exactly why we've sorely missed you, babe!

*blushes* ohh, thank you, beautiful

Scolaí - nothing to thank me for

[| BlackOps |Leader]

Its All Over! Nooo!