Ask a Pagan

[mackbrislawn]

A pagan is a religionist who is neither Christian, Jew, nor Muslim.

They can be Hindu, Buddhist, etc, or they can make up their own pagan religion.

 

[rinnie]

No, not really. I fell out of Christianity because the older I got and the more I learned about it the more absurd some of its doctrines and teachings sounded to me. I saw people imposing god on everything. I was a pretty hardened deist by high school and still am quite a bit. That might have been a bit young but as I became older and began to really start looking at religion rather than simply distancing myself from it I still found Christianity to be… not something I believed. The drift was not sudden, and in fact I started praying again for a point after my grandpa died, but over time as I grew older I looked at Christianity objectively and decided I didn’t believe it. No matter how much fire and brimstone the street preachers on campus throw at me, no matter how genuinely concerned for me that missionary may try to appear, I don’t fear what they say. I honestly have concluded I think they are wrong. I can respect them and I respect most Christians, but its a respectful disagreement.

I will say though that this wouldn’t be true of all pagans. There are some serious Christian haters out there. Especially certain witches, They may have had some problems with christian people in the past and alot of witches still arn’t over the whole “Burn the Witch!” time period yet. Yo also get a few of those super feminist ones that think Christianity suppresses women.

What about the part of Jesus comming to this world and his death on the cross out of his love for you? What do you feel about that part? Do you reject that? Do you believe it was just something made up and thousands testified just for the sake of testifying?

I wouldn’t worry about withes hating us. They aren’t the only ones. Usually people who reject God and his love hate us worse. We have to just be Christlike and pray for them and pray for his peace to enter into their hearts. That all we can really do.

Do you celebrate Christmas? IF so why? I mean you know beings you reject Christ and all?

 

[Skadi]

What about the part of Jesus coming to this world and his death on the cross out of his love for you? What do you feel about that part? Do you reject that? Do you believe it was just something made up and thousands testified just for the sake of testifying?

I wouldn’t worry about withes hating us. They aren’t the only ones. Usually people who reject God and his love hate us worse. We have to just be Christlike and pray for them and pray for his peace to enter into their hearts. That all we can really do.

Do you celebrate Christmas? IF so why? I mean you know beings you reject Christ and all?

I believe he was a historical person and was executed, but I don’t believe he was divine.

And I celebrate Yule, which is two days earlier. The rest of my family is christian, at least nominally, so I still give and receive presents and eat Turkey. But that’s out of cultural affiliation, not religious belief.

 

[PRmerger]

I believe he was a historical person and was executed, but I don’t believe he was divine.

And I celebrate Yule, which is two days earlier. The rest of my family is christian, at least nominally, so I still give and receive presents and eat Turkey. But that’s out of cultural affiliation, not religious belief.

What sources do you have for Nero’s persecution of the Christians, Skadi?

(Question posed way back).

 

[Skadi]

First, is this what you believe probably happened:

The apostles, who feared the Romans, knowing that breaking the law could lead to crucifixion (and as a result were hiding) had a change of heart (not as a result of Pentecost but rather a need to invent a religion) and then proceeded to beat those well-trained Roman guards up, steal the body, bury it, and then boldly proclaim a lie and knowingly die for a lie?

It is not insane to suggest the apostles could have done similar. Is it insane to suggest that the apostles were in fact who they claimed to be: the first leaders of Jesus’ church i.e. Gods’ church?

No, it isnt, but I dont believe it to be so. No one knows with absolute certainty, we weren’t there. that’s why its called faith. You have faith in the story of the resurrection, which is totally fine, I don’t. I just get a little tired of Christians acting like all the alternatives to the resurrection happening are so crazy and far fetched.

 

[Skadi]

What sources do you have for Nero’s persecution of the Christians, Skadi?

(Question posed way back).

I believe I answered but im to lazy to look for it so here goes:

I am a history major, I have read several history text books and taken classes over the years (including a Church history one in high school) which described Neros ungodly torture of Christians, such as using them as living torches for his parties. Nero was certifiably insane, as were a surprising number of Roman emperors. Id say he is about a trillion more times likely to have started that fire than the Christians.

These sources are based on other books, which stretch back all the way to Tacitus (the only one to describe the fire in detail.) Even Tacitus, who you earlier stated hated Christians, implies Nero burned the city to make room for him to build a splendid palace, the “Golden House”.

 

[Skadi]

A pagan is a religionist who is neither Christian, Jew, nor Muslim.

They can be Hindu, Buddhist, etc, or they can make up their own pagan religion.

out of curiosity, do you consider the Zoroastriansor and the Baha’i pagan? The Baha’i consider themselves an Abrahamic faith.

 

[ffg]

There’s such a thing as being mistaken, or being overcome by emotion, or being so distressed that your mind can’t function properly. People do make mistakes.

This is one of my favorite arguments along with ‘group hallucination’.

It’s important to understand who the people were, the context of the situation, etc.

What would be their benefit to continue to pronounce what they witnessed, knowing full well that it was illegal to be Christian in Rome at the time!? (a known) Ramifications of which, when caught was sure death, how was the only question.

If this Christian stuff was a big hoax, it would have been wiped off the planet in the 350 years it was illegal to be Christian.

For 2 reasons, death to believers, and truth being not Christian. Relatives of believers might throw up their hands with a “this isn’t worth it” attitude, and general populations would have figured out the hoax.

Another key fact against the ‘emotional’ or other arguments - the societies back then were verbal.

You didn’t need someone to take an oath to know they were going to tell the truth. Their word is what they had as a foundation for their trustworthyness and this was seen as an important asset. Unlike today.

Today people lie constantly. Even when they know, you know they are not being truthful, they still lie.

 

[PRmerger]

I believe I answered but im to lazy to look for it so here goes:

I am a history major, I have read several history text books and taken classes over the years (including a Church history one in high school) which described Neros ungodly torture of Christians, such as using them as living torches for his parties. Nero was certifiably insane, as were a surprising number of Roman emperors. Id say he is about a trillion more times likely to have started that fire than the Christians.

These sources are based on other books, which stretch back all the way to Tacitus (the only one to describe the fire in detail.) Even Tacitus, who you earlier stated hated Christians, implies Nero burned the city to make room for him to build a splendid palace, the “Golden House”.

So do you see how your standard for the history of Christianity is quite different from your standard for the history of all other ancient things?

Would that you set the same canon for both. Either say, “I will only believe things about the ancients based on what is a first person narrative”, so that means you can never state anything at all about Nero, since we have nothing at all that this man has written, esp. in regards to the persecution of Christians…

OR!

Say: the Christian texts are as reliable as any other ancient manuscripts we have ever had.

 

[Skadi]

If this Christian stuff was a big hoax, it would have been wiped off the planet in the 350 years it was illegal to be Christian.

Im sorry but the logic of the “We survived all that bad stuff so it must be true” argument is very poor. Plenty of other religions can make that claim.

“If Islam wasn’t true Muhammad and his followers could never have retaken Mecca”

“If Hinduism isn’t true it wouldn’t have survived the rule of the Muslim Mughals”

“If Mormonism isnt true it never would have spread and survived in such a hostile environment”

“Japan could not have survived for so long as a single nation without being the chosen people of the Shinto Gods”

History is full of examples of remarkable stuff happening.

 

[ffg]

Im sorry but the logic of the “We survived all that bad stuff so it must be true” argument is very poor. Plenty of other religions can make that claim.

“If Islam wasn’t true Muhammad and his followers could never have retaken Mecca”

“If Hinduism isn’t true it wouldn’t have survived the rule of the Muslim Mughals”

“If Mormonism isnt true it never would have spread and survived in such a hostile environment”

“Japan could not have survived for so long as a single nation without being the chosen people of the Shinto Gods”

History is full of examples of remarkable stuff happening.

Thanks for taking 1 line out of context, you should have at least quoted the next two. But had you done so you would have negated your post.

Besides, the lack of understanding the purpose of the post was a response to writing off the key to the religion as a whole.

 

[Skadi]

So do you see how your standard for the history of Christianity is quite different from your standard for the history of all other ancient things?

Would that you set the same canon for both. Either say, “I will only believe things about the ancients based on what is a first person narrative”, so that means you can never state anything at all about Nero, since we have nothing at all that this man has written, esp. in regards to the persecution of Christians…

OR!

Say: the Christian texts are as reliable as any other ancient manuscripts we have ever had.

Firstly, Tacitus was a historian, out to record history, not a man of god out to write a religious book. He was alive during this period and used not only first hand accounts but also documents from the time, and the burning of Rome is attested to i other sources as well as with archeological evidence.

Shouldn’t the story of a man working miracles be scrutinized a bit more? especially if you think it is a matter of your eternal soul? What makes the story of Jesus more credible than the story of Mithras? If today they were to dig up a Mithraic bible would you believe that?

 

[djeter]

Saw the thread and wondered whether those responding to our Pagan host would enjoy reading this:

Admittedly, I suppose, it is possible to mistake the word “God” for the name of some discrete object that might or might not be found within the fold of nature, if one just happens to be more or less ignorant of the entire history of theistic belief. But, really, the distinction between “God”—meaning the one God who is the transcendent source of all things—and any particular “god”—meaning one or another of a plurality of divine beings who inhabit the cosmos—is one that, in Western tradition, goes back at least as far as Xenophanes.

And it is a distinction not merely in numbering, between monotheism and polytheism, as though the issue were simply how many “divine entities” one thinks there are; rather, it is a distinction between two qualitatively incommensurable kinds of reality, belonging to two wholly disparate conceptual orders. In the words of the great Swami Prabhavananda, only the one transcendent God is “the uncreated”: “Gods, though supernatural, belong . . . among the creatures. Like the Christian angels, they are much nearer to man than to God.”

This should not be a particularly difficult distinction to grasp, truth be told. To speak of “God” properly—in a way, that is, consonant with the teachings of orthodox Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Sikhism, Vedantic and Bhaktic Hinduism, Bahá’í, much of antique paganism, and so forth—is to speak of the one infinite ground of all that is: eternal, omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, uncreated, uncaused, perfectly transcendent of all things and for that very reason absolutely immanent to all things.

God so understood is neither some particular thing posed over against the created universe, in addition to it, nor is he the universe itself. He is not a being, at least not in the way that a tree, a clock, or a god is; he is not one more object in the inventory of things that are. He is the infinite wellspring of all that is, in whom all things live and move and have their being. He may be said to be “beyond being,” if by “being” one means the totality of finite things, but also may be called “being itself,” in that he is the inexhaustible source of all reality, the absolute upon which the contingent is always utterly dependent, the unity underlying all things.

To speak of “gods,” by contrast, is to speak only of a higher or more powerful or more splendid dimension of immanent reality. Any gods who might be out there do not transcend nature but belong to it. Their theogonies can be recounted—how they arose out of the primal night, or were born of other, more titanic progenitors, and so on—and in many cases their eventual demises foreseen. Each of them is a distinct being rather than “being itself,” and it is they who are dependent upon the universe for their existence rather than the reverse. Of such gods there may be an endless diversity, while of God there can be only one. Or, better, God is not merely one—not merely singular or unique—but is oneness as such, the sole act of being by which any finite thing exists and by which all things exist together.
David Bentley Hart, God, Gods, and Fairies

In Christ,

dj

 

[PRmerger]

Firstly, Tacitus was a historian, out to record history, not a man of god out to write a religious book.

Fair enough.

So is your criterion for accepting a historical event: it must be recorded first hand by a historian?

I surely hope not, because you would have to discount (my estimate) about 90% of anything we know of history.

Be sure that you are consistent, ok?

 

[rinnie]

I believe he was a historical person and was executed, but I don’t believe he was divine.

And I celebrate Yule, which is two days earlier. The rest of my family is christian, at least nominally, so I still give and receive presents and eat Turkey. But that’s out of cultural affiliation, not religious belief.

Okay but history states yes he was executed and came back on the thrid day. Now why do you accept half of history but not the other half then?

Are you with that also on all history? You only believe what you want to believe and reject what you don’t believe. Just wondering, No disrespect.

 

[Skadi]

Thanks for taking 1 line out of context, you should have at least quoted the next two. But had you done so you would have negated your post.

Besides, the lack of understanding the purpose of the post was a response to writing off the key to the religion as a whole.

I don’t see how the next two negate anything. If figuring out a hoax was so easy for ancient people and Christianity is the true faith then why weren’t all phony religions cast out? Why didnt the people immediate abandon their other faiths and swarm to Jesus after Christianity became legal? It took centuries after the Edict of Milan for Christianity to fully dominate Rome, and centuries more for it to dominate Europe. Why would people follow a phony like Muhammad or Martin Luther when hoax’s are just so evident to illiterate tribesmen and farmers?

 

[rinnie]

Firstly, Tacitus was a historian, out to record history, not a man of god out to write a religious book. He was alive during this period and used not only first hand accounts but also documents from the time, and the burning of Rome is attested to i other sources as well as with archeological evidence.

Shouldn’t the story of a man working miracles be scrutinized a bit more? especially if you think it is a matter of your eternal soul? What makes the story of Jesus more credible than the story of Mithras? If today they were to dig up a Mithraic bible would you believe that?

Personal experiences and emothions I have, the connection I have had with Jesus for as long as I could remember.

Being 51 years old and seeing that he has never let me down, Sure there are times he has not given me my will but his, but it is by this that I came to realize his will was always what was best for everyone.

By the way Jesus didn’t come down to write a book, Jesus is the only person that was put on this earth for one reason and one reason only, To Die! For the sins of others.

What more could they have done to Jesus, what could they have missed. They betrayed him, they tortured him, they spit on him, they denied him. There is not one suffering in this world that Jesus did not suffer. And you think he should have been scrutimized more?

 

[djeter]

No, it isnt, but I dont believe it to be so. No one knows with absolute certainty, we weren’t there. that’s why its called faith. You have faith in the story of the resurrection, which is totally fine, I don’t. I just get a little tired of Christians acting like all the alternatives to the resurrection happening are so crazy and far fetched.

And some replies to the thin gruel ideas that our Pagan Master has of what faith is:

FAITH INCORPORATES the unknown into our everyday life in a living, dynamic, and actual manner. The unknown remains unknown. It is still a mystery, for it cannot cease to be one. The function of faith is not to reduce mystery to rational clarity, but to integrate the unknown and the known together in a living whole, in which we are more and more able to transcend the limitations of our external self.

Hence the function of faith is not only to bring us into contact with the “authority of God” revealing; not only to teach us truths “about God,” but even to reveal to us the unknown in our own selves, in so far as our unknown and undiscovered self actually lives in God, moving and acting only under the direct light of his merciful grace.

This is, to my mind, the crucially important aspect of faith which is too often ignored today. Faith is not just conformity, it is life. It embraces all the realms of life, penetrating into the most mysterious and inaccessible depths not only of our unknown spiritual being but even of God’s own hidden essence and love. Faith, then, is the only way of opening up the true depths of reality, even of our own reality.
Fr. Thomas Merton, O.C.S.O. [The Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance (O.C.S.O.: Ordo Cisterciensis Strictioris Observantiae)]

to be continued…

 

[ffg]

I don’t see how the next two negate anything. If figuring out a hoax was so easy for ancient people and Christianity is the true faith then why weren’t all phony religions cast out? Why didnt the people immediate abandon their other faiths and swarm to Jesus after Christianity became legal? It took centuries after the Edict of Milan for Christianity to fully dominate Rome, and centuries more for it to dominate Europe. Why would people follow a phony like Muhammad or Martin Luther when hoax’s are just so evident to illiterate tribesmen and farmers?

If you take a writing in context and respond in kind, it will make back peddling much easier (not needed).

 

[djeter]

And continued from my last post:

When he entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, appealing to him and saying, “Lord, my servant is lying at home paralyzed, in terrible distress.” And he said to him, “I will come and cure him.” The centurion answered, “Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof; but only speak the word, and my servant will be healed. For I also am a man under authority, with soldiers under me; and I say to one, ‘Go,’ and he goes, and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes, and to my slave, ‘Do this,’ and the slave does it.”When. Jesus heard this, he was amazed and said to those following him, “Amen, I say to you, in no one in Israel have I found such faith.”
(Matthew 8:10)

Faith Is Perfectly Normal
AT SOME LEVEL, faith is perfectly normal. Even Gentiles have no excuse for not believing: “What can be known about. God is evident: to them, because God made it evident to them” (Romans 1:19). This is why in Charles Peguy’s work, The Portal of the Mystery of Hope, faith leaves God disaffected: “Faith doesn’t surprise me,” God says, “It’s not surprising.” Apart from this scene with the centurion, in fact, the only time Jesus is “amazed” in the Gospels is at Nazareth when he faces boggling unbelief. “He was amazed at their lack of faith” (Mark 6:6).

What then is so special about the centurion? Mechtilde of Hackeborn [Mechthild (or Mechtild) of Magdeburg (c. 1207 – c. 1282/1294), a Beguine, was a medieval mystic, whose book Das fließende Licht der Gottheit (The Flowing Light of Divinity) described her visions of God.] once heard these words: “I tell you the truth that I am very pleased when men trustingly expect great things from me.” The centurion expects great things-and as a pagan he expects more than he deserves. This is what fills Jesus with joy.

The Gentile trusts in God’s boundless goodness. He thus becomes the Son’s first taste of his unbounded universal mission. Jesus saves all by faith, apart from works of the Law. This includes us. We too make Christ wonder in gladness by expecting of him much more than we deserve: “Lord I am not worthy, but only say the word…”
Father J. Anthony Giambrone, O.P., Faith Notes

Two Ways To See The World
Intuiting the unseen is a gift of perspective. Albert Einstein said there are two ways to see the world: as if everything is a miracle or as if nothing is a miracle. Living with an awareness of the miraculous re-enchants the world. From a flower to a star, it is easy to confuse knowing what a thing is made of with knowing what it is.

Significance overspills the physical description; mastering botany is not the same as appreciating beauty. Acknowledging that overflow, what a flower means or what a human being is, not in chemical composition but in spiritual significance, is seeing everything as a miracle.

I joked with friends that I was going to rabbinical school “on spec.” I needed to understand more about God and about myself. When I asked my brother what he thought of my going to rabbinical school, he said, “It’s a phase.” He knew that Russell’s version of reality still lived in me: that faith was just my emptiness projected on the world; that science disproved the claims of religion; that religion caused the world’s wars; that if only people would get rid of these unsupported beliefs, they would be happier and more prosperous.

I thought I had to surrender my questions, doubts, and intuitions of darkness in order to believe again. Increasingly, I learned that the great spirits of religious traditions do not solve all questions but live in the questions, and return to them again and again, not as a circle returns, but as an ascending spiral comes to the same place, each time at a higher level.

Studying and teaching brought me to confront the reality of God in the lives of those I met. An intuition of God’s presence can come to us in closeness to another whose spirit touches our own.

I cherish the memory of a remarkable teacher, filled with learning and gentleness, precious to me despite the ridiculous conditions under which we met.

I was a new rabbinical student and in my reading had come across the phrase “noch einmal.” I approached Dr. Slomovic, knowing he spoke several languages, and introducing myself, asked him what “noch einmal” meant. “Once again,” he answered.

Well, he was old, and probably hard of hearing. So I repeated, a little louder, “What does ‘noch einmal’ mean?” He said, a bit more emphatically, “Once again.”

Poor man, I thought, must be difficult on him to make people repeat themselves all the time. “WHAT DOES ‘NOCH EINMAL’ MEAN?” I screamed. He looked at me with compassion, and placing his hand on my cheek, said, “‘Noch einmal’ means once again.” -
Sitting in his class, day after day, listening to him weave together stories of his life in the Eastern European home in which he grew up, listening to legends of the tradition and faith that survived the shocks of the twentieth century, was more powerful than any line of reasoning. Before me was faith as it is lived.

An argument looks different when it vibrates through a living person. Repeatedly in religious circles I came face to face with the force of faith, a faith that is not self-satisfied or closed-minded, but is a strength grounded in humility. Meeting such people reinforced the truth that faith is not an idea but a way to live, not a logical proposition but an outcome of encountering a noble soul. Russell made belief a question of logic; I was learning that it was a question of life.

Increasingly I was less concerned with what God might be than with what faith in God might make of me.
Rabbi David Wolpe, Why Faith Matters