Neo-Pagan Apologetics

[latin_rite]

You cannot be serious.

The Church doesn’t teach that homosexuality is wrong, btw. The Church teaches that it is a morally neutral position.
Engaging in homosexual sex in what the Church forbids.
.

“O Phuleaseee” Thats like saying murder is ok, it’s just the killing part that is wrong. Sinning with the mind is just as bad as sinning with the body. Jesus taught me that btw.

 

[latin_rite]

How do you know this?
How do you know who will go to Hell and who won’t?

Jesus told me. if you have a problem with it go take it up with him

 

[Karianne]

It is up any religious apologist to justify his particular beliefs, to show them to be reasonable (in accordance to the rules of reason), to make sense–i.e. to be believable by the standards of logic, example, and evidence. -Lion

Really, what do we need Faith for, then?–> Kari

The beliefs that are more in accordance to this standard are to be held in higher regard than those that do not-Lion

You are trying to say:
If a person says something believable, the listener should hold the person’s belief in a higher regard?-Kari

–this is not (per se) a value judgement on the believer who espouses an irrational statement–though a person who consistently make egregious errors that violate logic and evidence may quickly find himself being disregarded and labeled as a person who should be disregarded. Lion

By Whom?

A statement or position (religious or non religious) can make “sense” (in accordance to reality) or “non-sense” (not in accordance to reality). There it is, flat, unambigious, unemotional, NOT personal or degrading.-Lion

LOL, nice try, Lion!- Kari

(BTW, per Peter Kreeft, via CS Lewis and Aristotle: “One speaks the truth when one says of what is that it is and of what is not that it is not; one does not speak the truth when one says of what is that is not and of what is not that it is.”)

-Lion, (making some obscure point thru the words of three others instead of her own.)

My words were very clear and I didn’t use a thesaurus to write them. BTW, it occurred to me while reading your post that you might be a youngster (a teen) and in that case, I apologize for sounding harsh and I applaud your efforts though I think that you are wrong.

 

[Karianne]

Jesus told me. if you have a problem with it go take it up with him

If Jesus told you who is going to Hell and who is going to Heaven why are you worrying about it anyway, it sounds like you already know the end result and nothing you say will make a difference anyway.
I do not believe that Jesus told you any such thing!

 

[prodigal-sun]

Hey Karianne & Latin rite add to this discussion or get of the pot and take your argument somewhere else! you are totally off topic.

Don’t amke me come over there!
(said in my threatening Dad’s voice!)

Peace!

 

[prodigal-sun]

HI all - thanks for finding a place for this material. I’ll post my answers to the anti-neo-pagan apologetics article in bits, so they’ll fit.
here’s the first:

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The Nature of the Gods
Some comments from www.catholic.com’s neopaganism pages, answered.

Many neo-pagans advance the claim that there should not be a single world religion with a single deity or set of deities to be worshiped by all mankind, but rather each group should worship the gods of their ancestors or of their preference.

To be more specific, neopaganism asserts that there is plainly not a single deity or set of deities that is worshiped by all mankind. Simple observation of human interaction with the divine shows that the divine always manifests as multiple persons, forms and beings. In the same way, the core and universal principles of physical nature always produce multiple physical entities. As always, neopagans look to the facts of nature as a model for what the facts of spiritual existence will be.

The plain fact of the multiplicity of divine manifestations has led monotheism into some pretty wild assertions. The notion that all forms of the divine except those described in whoever’s revealed scripture are either simply fantasy or demons has been the traditional resort of the argument. Again, observation fails to support this idea. Descriptions of human relationships with the many-armed, skull-wearing deities of India, or the Gods of Voudoun and West African religion, or the still-simmering Neopagan relationships with the Deities all make it clear that such beings bless and aid their worshippers as surely as the deities of the Bible or Quran ever have.

When we look at material nature, we see a nearly infinite variety of forms and local expressions. In the same way the spiritual world has a riot of gods, local spirits, flows of energy and sacred potentials, which are expressed locally.

Point #1 There is only One God in the bible not plural!

Just because you say it is so does not make it so.

Christianity is based on scripture and tradition that predates ancient eygpt. The Old testament talks of the coming of Christ. Then there is countless eye witness accounts & the martyrs and another 2000 years of tradition and scripture and thought all of which is tempered and directed by the Holy Spirit. Although Christianity is hugely based on faith there is countless other proofs that provide a basis for our faith.

If I’m understanding you correctly you are telling me because there is a tree there must in fact be a God of trees. FIre, Wind, Earth, Water.

Your theory of the need for countless dieties does not ring true and there is no evidence in nature that provides you with proof of multidieties over one true God!

.

 

[IanCorrigan]

Thank you for that qualifier. Some of us here, both on the Forum and “real” life have encountered some neo-pagans who don’t recognize that reality (most of them young and very arrogant)–and aggresivly reject any evidence to the contrary, even when it comes from Wiccan sources, like Ronald Hutton

Many newly self-identified Pagans and Wiccans - especially the enthusiastic young, as you say - feel a need to bring ‘strong belief’ to whatever myth they feel is central to their new religion. One of the real differences between traditional religions as opposed to revealed religions is that traditional religions don’t require a credo. Traditional religion is based on practices and customs, not on ‘believing things in your heart.’ Those of us who talk this way say that traditional Paganism, and much of Neopaganism is orthopraxic, rather than orthodoxic - it is doing the work well, not believing the right things, that makes it happen.

This point is often lost on new members. They have learned that being true to your religion means being willing to adopt any irrationality that ‘authority’ demands, so they choose some, and invest their ‘faith’ in them.

Hutton is favorite of my lot, along with Kelly, Greenwood, Bonewits and quite a few others who are in tune with the facts of Neopagan history.

Ian

 

[prodigal-sun]

**This claim creates a
These questions were examined by the ancients as well. It’s worth pointing out that neopaganism, like its ancient models, does not depend on or require doctrinal unity for its cohesion. Pagan ways depend on ritual, vision and myth to produce experiences that are plainly true at the time. These experiences are not required to fit neatly into a doctrinal structure, and doctrine is more likely to be shaped by such experiences than the reverse. Paganism spends a great deal of time teaching how to achieve these experiences, and rather less time on apologetics and doctrine.

Devout Pagans are not all expected to believe the same things about the Gods, though we are expected to be willing to join together around the traditional forms and practices. So in any Pagan congregation (or party…) you will be likely to find folks with any of the above opinions, and lots of folks who haven’t decided on any one opinion about what the Gods are. There might be rather more agreement about what the Gods do – provide blessings of bounty, love and wisdom, open our hearts to the spirit, help us grow closer to the spirit of the world we live in, etc.

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Ths sounds like chaos to me! God is not of Chaos but of Order! All you have to do is look at nature to see this is true!

Peace!

 

[IanCorrigan]

Point #1 There is only One God in the bible not plural!

Just because you say it is so does not make it so.

Let’s make it clear that as a Pagan I simply don’t accept the Bible as having any particular authority. Arguments from scripture just aren’t going to cut much ice.

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[IanCorrigan]

Ths sounds like chaos to me! God is not of Chaos but of Order! All you have to do is look at nature to see this is true!

Peace!

In nature, all is a whirl of change, collision and competition. Order and chaos are lovers, not competitors - the whirl of chaos is the matrix from which Order arises, and into which any given form must return. No form is eternal, nothing endures forever, except the Great Dance itself.

If you know the eastern artistic model of the mandala, that might be helpful. A mandala is a collection of many different images and patterns, all placed together in one order. Many individuals, one great pattern, made by the interacting wills and deeds of the many beings.

Ian

 

[dessert]

I work with a lady at my job and she claims to be a witch. She says she has been in training for 2 years and practicing for 1. I have not asked her about what she believes because i don’t really have an interest in it but I thhink she feels the unrest with in herself so she may like me to pray for her to get out and I believe she doesn’t know how on her own because she is in so deep. Do you feel you could get out of the neo thing yourself? Just if you wanted by chance? She is involved in emotional relationships so it is like a sister hhood to her. The first thing she said was don’t tell anyone so that speaks a lot. I guess she is fessing up but I am not the confessor. Is this what you are doing fessing up? return from the desert

 

[IanCorrigan]

I work with a lady at my job and she claims to be a witch. … … I thhink she feels the unrest with in herself so she may like me to pray for her to get out and I believe she doesn’t know how on her own because she is in so deep. Do you feel you could get out of the neo thing yourself? … She is involved in emotional relationships so it is like a sister hhood to her. The first thing she said was don’t tell anyone so that speaks a lot. … … Is this what you are doing fessing up? return from the desert

Neopagans often face misunderstanding and discrimination because of the old notion that Pagan worship involves ‘devil worship’ and various unsavory practices. As any reader of history will know, accusations of vile rituals, child sacrifice, orgies, etc have always been levelled at strange sects, including the early Christian church. However, modern Pagans and Wiccan/Witches must still face this sort of difficulty. I’d guess that’s why she asked you not to tell.

Could I get out? Sure - as easy as deciding to, and as easy as it would be for a devout catholic to detach from a local parish and its community. As you say, a religious and spiritual bond is like family.

There is no cultish coercion in any legitimate part of the Neopagan movement - it is not ‘Satanic’, or concerned with power, money, etc. People come and go in and from the movement freely, often staying friends with Pagans that they no longer participate with spiritually.

Ian

 

[brotherhrolf]

Yes, we struggle with that ourselves. (I assume you refer especially to the ‘Druidic’ approach, since those wishing to revive, say, Athenian religion would have pretty firm pre-Christian documentation.) The formulaic answer is to cite up to 4 scholastic sources from which we draw. First, there are the comments of Greek and Roman writers. Second there are vernacular literatures, written down early in the christianization process. Third there is archeology, and fourth there are the remnants of folklore and customs in Celtic and Norse cultures. To these, we add comparative mythography and study of comparative ritual systems, especially from better-preserved branches of the Indo-European family, such as the Brahminic or Graeco-Roman religions.

Each of these presents only scraps and bits of the Old Ways. We entirely understand (despite the unscholastic excesses of some of our more poetical or popular writers) that what we end up with is a modern construct, that can only vaguely resemble what the ancients probably did. It isn’t unfair to suppose that, had the Old Ways not been extinguished by fire and the sword, their expression in our age would, itself, be greatly different from that of 2300 years ago. Nevertheless we hold as a goal for ourselves creating systems that the ancients would recognize as religion like their own, if they could see it.

Religion depends, always, upon inspiration. It is the flow of the divine spirit into human society through the words, images and deeds of humans that creates each and every religion. Paganism values that human power, and reverences the deities that we find through it. We even have a little term - Unverifiable Personal Gnosis (UPG ; ) that we use to refer to what we often resort to, to build flesh onto the bits of bone that scholarship offers. Such constructions are then verified by experiment - we try our ideas, in ritual, art and life, and if the results seem good, and it fits our aesthetic and intellectual preferences, it stays.

Neopaganism is a new religious movement, even though we seek our inspiration in the Old Ways. While we do have our legends of ancient origins, based mainly in the scholarship of 100 years or so ago, most all Neopagans today know that we’re doing something new, and making it ourselves, with the aid of the Gods and Spirits.

Ian

Thank you, Ian, for your cogent explanation and open acknowledgment of the elephant standing behind you. Far too many of the “neo-pagans” posting here are totally unaware of the Indo-European roots. You are correct that someone wishing to revive the Greco-Roman gods and their rites would have an awful lot of historical references. Likewise if someone wanted to resurrect the cult of Isis. But I have real problems with the Aesir folk and even bigger problems with the “I’m a Druid” folk.

I am constantly amazed by the number of the Aesir worshippers who see old One Eye as a benign force. They must be getting their information from the stories that once appeared in the back of the old Thor comic books. Or they’ve seen one too many cartoons with the happy song “Cross the rainbow bridge to Asgard…”

As for the druidic element, do they honestly have any understanding of the mnemonic training that bard, brehon and druid received? And that with the exception of some ogham inscriptions, none of it was written down. Or that Stonehenge didn’t have anything to do with the Celts.

What I see here is the same kind of phenomena that swept the old South before the War of Northern Agression. As you might recall, there were all sorts of books and poems being written about chivalric knights - Tennyson, Scott et al. This really did infect Southern culture leading to J.E.B. Stuart and his plumed hat and cape and all sorts of other oddities.

The same thing is happening with the Aesir and Druid variants of this. It is not based in fact, it is based in romanticism. As an ex-member of the Society for Creative Anachronism, it is the Middle Ages as it ought to have been not as it was. That’s why I’m not comfortable with the neo-pagan title. Where is the blood eagle? Where is the strangled male bog burials? The underlying assumption with this title is that “Hey, we know there is a God but we reject this concept in favor of adopting what we think our ancestors believed”.

Or to put it another way…the Hindus have never stopped believing in the original Indo-European gods. The Bhagavad Gita is an ancient Sanskrit text. If one were to acknowledge and accept that the twelve gods of our Indo-European past were Indo-European, wouldn’t this be the best place to start?

 

[JonathanKinsman]

In nature, all is a whirl of change, collision and competition. Order and chaos are lovers, not competitors - the whirl of chaos is the matrix from which Order arises, and into which any given form must return. No form is eternal, nothing endures forever, except the Great Dance itself.

If you know the eastern artistic model of the mandala, that might be helpful. A mandala is a collection of many different images and patterns, all placed together in one order. Many individuals, one great pattern, made by the interacting wills and deeds of the many beings.

Ian

Wow! It sounds good but what does it mean???

And to think I thought it was all due to the strong and weak nuclear forces and electromagnetism! Move over Einstein! Roll over Feynman!

It’s all “interacting wills and deeds of the many beings.”

I guess I better keep the poultry away from the beef or they may unite their gods against me!!

Ian, your assertions are tautological and ultimately absurd (you know, from the Latin for “without sound”) and to throw in a little Shakespeare for Karianne’s benefit (look K no Thesaurus!) “signifying nothing.”

You are proselytizing in violation of rule 6 of the Forum. You have found a soapbox and so you spout the vague semi-literacy of the New Ager.

If you want to address the “proofs” (albeit from nature or from philosophy) of God, then fine, have it.

But regardless of any touchy-feely “It’s a big tent for many clowns” posters claiming religious superiority (yes, K, your replies are more mean spirited than the original slingers) you haven’t answered any of the points in the article.

My dogma ran over your karma

 

[jbuck919]

Wicca is the fastest growing religion in America. Please refrain from calling another person’s faith nonsense.
I have been ridiculed for my devotion to our Blessed Mother.
Words can hurt and yours have.

This is a specifically Catholic site. Wicca is inconsistent with Catholicism. (Many posters here would consider your mentioning it and “our Blessed Mother” in the same paragraph blasphemous.) I am not required to go out of my way to be courteous to people who profess a superstitious belief that contradicts the tenets of basic Christianity, and if I want to call it nonsense, that is exactly what I will do. Garbage and apostasy are other words that come to mind. If you want to discuss these cultish things without receving responses like mine, go to another set of forums.

 

[geraldffff]

No we shouldn’t. It’s this “I’m ok you’re ok” attitude that hurts people in their faith. Was Jesus “civil” with those people? No he was very blunt and straight forward. It’s time Catholics went back to basics and stop handling these people with kid gloves. His word tells us that homosexuality is wrong, that abortion is wrong, that sex out side of marriage is wrong,
that paganisim/wiccan is wrong ok? (thats another thing i have against the nativity story Mary and joesph both appear to heed the words of a fortune teller, thats a sin and Mary was sinless). So it’s time we as followers of the Lord start heeding his words and tell them what is wrong and what is right. I for one will not compromise my faith corrupt Jesus teachings just so i won’t hurt someones feelings.

Was Jesus “civil”? He certainly was. He spoke rather harshly to the errant leaders of his religion as he realized their hypocricy was hurting the weak in faith. But speaking to pagans and such is an entirely different matter and one who wishes to show his love for Jesus should bear that in mind. The Bible is full of phrases which tell those who wish to be recoganised as Jesus followers to be loving. Here is just a few, the first come directly out of the mouth of Jesus.
Matt 5:43"You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor[h] and hate your enemy.’ 44But I tell you: Love your enemies* and pray for those who persecute you, 45that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. 46If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? 47And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? 48Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
2 Timothy 2:24
And the Lord’s servant must not quarrel; instead, he must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful.
1 Peter 2
1Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind.
1 Thessalonians 5:15
Make sure that nobody pays back wrong for wrong, but always try to be kind to each other and to everyone else.
Colossians 3:12
Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.
In conclusion brother Jesus was very specific in that we should treat pagans with kindness as the Father has given us a gift they can never have if they presist in their self worship.*

 

[dessert]

I did not that she was having a spiritual or religeous bond, I called it a sisterhood because she feels like she is helping people out. This makes her feel needed. She also has a medical condition of a low thyroid. Just to clear that up.How long have you been into this?return

 

[geraldffff]

There is no cultish coercion in any legitimate part of the Neopagan movement - it is not ‘Satanic’, or concerned with power, money, etc. People come and go in and from the movement freely, often staying friends with Pagans that they no longer participate with spiritually.

Ian

Is there a big book, group or person that decides for all adhearants what is a "legitimate part of the neopagan movement? If not is it rational to say “there is no cultic coersion”?

 

[Shawdude]

Neopagans often face misunderstanding and discrimination because of the old notion that Pagan worship involves ‘devil worship’ and various unsavory practices.

Really I would just like to use this time to commend you for your excellent defense of your beliefs. Sticking to your topic without being bothered by the noise of some irrational, ignorant, and misunderstood members of this forum. Everything you have posted has been unbiased and reasonable and has truly been a great read. Oftentimes I wonder what people believed in before the major religions took control over a civilization, and now I have a clearer understanding. I am a devout Catholic; however, I do believe that if you truly believe 100% in your religious experiences, then by all means go for it. It is my belief that the God of Abraham is God of all, his mercy endures forever, and his love is boundless. Surely he would not condemn you, for you have come with reverence and respect rather than viciously attacking the church. It would almost seem to me that you are acting more in Christian faith than some of the would be Christians on this forum.

Again, thank you for the good read, I do have a question though.Where do the beliefs of Adolf Hitler fall into the form of “paganism” you practice? I know he believed he was the incarnation of a great knight. is any of the aryan belief structure a part of this paganism?

 

[johnbres2]

Can someone here do a cyber-exorcism? Get thee behind me pagan!