A thought I had about polytheism and Paganism.

[Saint Frankenstein]

As one of those you asked, I'll try to answer.

1. If you are set on by a mugger in the street and robbed, does that make him superior to you?

2. The persecution of Christians was a very sporadic thing that relied on people denouncing them to a magistrate. The persecution of pagans was different. The historian Peter Brown has written of the "wave of religious violence" carried out by "bands of monastic vigilantes." In such circumstances, one either keeps ones head down or dies. In Iceland in 1000, Thorgeirr the Lawgiver advised his fellow heathen to convert to avoid a civil war and a Norwegian invasion. Paganism encourages realism, not fanaticism. And admittedly some people just jumped on the band wagon for personal gain.

3. We do not believe the gods are omnipotent. They could no more stop the persecuters than Yahweh could and, as I've said, they would not encourage people to become "martyrs". Nor do they have the obsessive desire to have people grovel to them that it attributed, rightly or wrongly, to Yahweh. If people want a relationship with them, they are welcome; if they don't, that's their loss, not the gods'.

4. The religion is not "broken beyond fixing." The gods still speak to their worshipers, guide them, and aid them, and increasing numbers find. Christianity, however, is in decline. Similarly, only legal repression protects Islam in Muslim countries: a recent survey shows a quarter of Muslim immigrants to the USA have abandoned the religion. The gods take the long view: what are a few centuries to them?

Thank you for your perspective. This is the sort of reply I was looking for.

I probably should've put this in another area since I'm not looking to debate. It was an honest question I'm curious about. So if the staff could move this to another area like Interfaith Discussion, that would probably be better. Thanks.

 

[osgart]

I argue myself into and out of stances and beliefs a lot. One of the more interesting thoughts I had lately was why didn't the Pagan gods defend their religions from decline and persecution? Classical Greco-Roman polytheism declined and then was banned. Celtic polytheism basically just disappeared at around the same time. Germanic religion was persecuted at times but the people also just converted along with their leaders. Similar things happened around the world with indigenous religions.

So what happened, on a spiritual level? Were the Pagan gods just weak as compared to the Abrahamic deity? How could they allow their religions just to be destroyed and broken beyond fixing (it's not possible to truly reconstruct those religions, sorry)? Why didn't they give their followers the strength to persevere under severe persecution as the Abrahamic deity seems to do with His followers (look at how many times Jews faced annihilation and Christians were/are persecuted)? If you are a true polytheist, you must admit that the God of Abraham is a very powerful deity to be able to triumph over the old gods and capture the worship of billions.

I'm not trying to offend or be rude. These are honest questions I have. Why do you think the old gods might've allowed their worship to be veritably wiped out? Is it part of a cycle? Free will? Fate?

Note: I'm primarily interested in spiritual reasons why this happened, especially from Neopagans who practice religions like Hellenismos and Asatru. If you have some other input from a more practical perspective, that's fine but not the main point of the thread.

@DavidMcCann, @The Ragin Pagan, @DanishCrow, @Reaper, @Hildeburh might you have some input from your traditions?

Christianity gave something of hope to the poorest of the poor. They can relate to a poor sheperd carpenter moreso than any pagan god. It probably sounded more believable.

 

[robocop (actually)]

I argue myself into and out of stances and beliefs a lot. One of the more interesting thoughts I had lately was why didn't the Pagan gods defend their religions from decline and persecution? Classical Greco-Roman polytheism declined and then was banned. Celtic polytheism basically just disappeared at around the same time. Germanic religion was persecuted at times but the people also just converted along with their leaders. Similar things happened around the world with indigenous religions.

So what happened, on a spiritual level? Were the Pagan gods just weak as compared to the Abrahamic deity? How could they allow their religions just to be destroyed and broken beyond fixing (it's not possible to truly reconstruct those religions, sorry)? Why didn't they give their followers the strength to persevere under severe persecution as the Abrahamic deity seems to do with His followers (look at how many times Jews faced annihilation and Christians were/are persecuted)? If you are a true polytheist, you must admit that the God of Abraham is a very powerful deity to be able to triumph over the old gods and capture the worship of billions.

I'm not trying to offend or be rude. These are honest questions I have. Why do you think the old gods might've allowed their worship to be veritably wiped out? Is it part of a cycle? Free will? Fate?

Note: I'm primarily interested in spiritual reasons why this happened, especially from Neopagans who practice religions like Hellenismos and Asatru. If you have some other input from a more practical perspective, that's fine but not the main point of the thread.

@DavidMcCann, @The Ragin Pagan, @DanishCrow, @Reaper, @Hildeburh might you have some input from your traditions?

I think that if you are poly-god you just keep developing new gods to hopefully help you, but when you are one-god you have to take responsibility. Incidentally, for Raelians God is an Alien race, but they are all people. Satan and under Jehovah are two different groups of them... so they have diversity, but they are all together in charge of you and so you have to deal with it. Sorry for rambling.

 

[Spiderman]

I think the God of Abraham was likely the original Spirit to exist and he created the other Spirits who would become Pagan Deities....he enjoyed giving the Pagan Deities power over the world for a time, and then found entertainment glorifying himself by miraculously conquering them...

There have been many antichrists, but if there is ever "The Antichrist", as many prophecy about, who will establish a one-world Gov, New World order, the God of Abraham will give him permission to resurrect Paganism, and let Pagan Deities dominate earth for a time....Then the God of Abraham will move back in to overthrow the Antichrist, convert the pagan temples and shrines into Churches, and claim the one-world Empire for himself.

When I was a kid I used to enjoy playing risk, building up my army, then moving my army to one country, let the enemy conquer all the world but one nation, let them build up their forces, than conquer the whole world for myself...I think the God of Abraham likes to play like that...just my hunch

 

[Spiderman]

Good points in the OP

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

I think the God of Abraham was likely the original Spirit to exist and he created the other Spirits who would become Pagan Deities....he enjoyed giving the Pagan Deities power over the world for a time, and then found entertainment glorifying himself by miraculously conquering them...

There have been many antichrists, but if there is ever "The Antichrist", as many prophecy about, who will establish a one-world Gov, New World order, the God of Abraham will give him permission to resurrect Paganism, and let Pagan Deities dominate earth for a time....Then the God of Abraham will move back in to overthrow the Antichrist, convert the pagan temples and shrines into Churches, and claim the one-world Empire for himself.

When I was a kid I used to enjoy playing risk, building up my army, then moving my army to one country, let the enemy conquer all the world but one nation, let them build up their forces, than conquer the whole world for myself...I think the God of Abraham likes to play like that...just my hunch

Lol. So you think God is just playing a game?

 

[Spiderman]

Lol. So you think God is just playing a game?

I think he plays lots of games and that is why he hides himself and remains a mystery

I think he's like a child in many ways.

 

[Milton Platt]

I argue myself into and out of stances and beliefs a lot. One of the more interesting thoughts I had lately was why didn't the Pagan gods defend their religions from decline and persecution? Classical Greco-Roman polytheism declined and then was banned. Celtic polytheism basically just disappeared at around the same time. Germanic religion was persecuted at times but the people also just converted along with their leaders. Similar things happened around the world with indigenous religions.

So what happened, on a spiritual level? Were the Pagan gods just weak as compared to the Abrahamic deity? How could they allow their religions just to be destroyed and broken beyond fixing (it's not possible to truly reconstruct those religions, sorry)? Why didn't they give their followers the strength to persevere under severe persecution as the Abrahamic deity seems to do with His followers (look at how many times Jews faced annihilation and Christians were/are persecuted)? If you are a true polytheist, you must admit that the God of Abraham is a very powerful deity to be able to triumph over the old gods and capture the worship of billions.

I'm not trying to offend or be rude. These are honest questions I have. Why do you think the old gods might've allowed their worship to be veritably wiped out? Is it part of a cycle? Free will? Fate?

Note: I'm primarily interested in spiritual reasons why this happened, especially from Neopagans who practice religions like Hellenismos and Asatru. If you have some other input from a more practical perspective, that's fine but not the main point of the thread.

@DavidMcCann, @The Ragin Pagan, @DanishCrow, @Reaper, @Hildeburh might you have some input from your traditions?

Same could be said of the Christian god, no???

 

[Reaper]

Paganism never disappeared, it was driven underground but not out of existence. People who were inclined to do so still hailed their Gods in secrecy so the religions were not "destroyed". Also the Gods do not require us to worship them, they live on and do what they need to regardless of that, we are but a small piece of a very large whole.

 

[Jumi]

If a city was defeated, that meant its god had been defeated (ancient Greece).

At least that's the thinking of the conquerors.

The people accepted, and were forced to accept by decree, the gods of the conquerors.

Accepted and forced are different concepts.

It took a long time for folks on the countryside to accept Christianity of that time, since the religious authority was concentrated in the city, hence the name pagan.

 

[qaz]

every belief , civilization, artistic sensibility , every human "form" is intended to fade.
cosmotheism lasted for 50.000 years, although still kept from india to japan (which is nearly 30% of the world population).
monotheism appeared about 3.000-2.500 years ago, and yet its decline , which began in the XVI century, is now glaring in the western world. i'm talking about the relelegation of christianity at the bottom of the people's priorities, rather than atheism.
in europe we remember that stage of thought - i mean christianity, scholasticism, romanic and gothic art , feudalism and cavalry, asceticism - we remember it as a middle, dark age beteween the classical and the modern eras. indeed , while polytheism was born as a cosmic speculative system ("what makes a river flow?", "what makes a tree give fruits?", etc), judaism set "morality" , that is society , at the center of its cult (the revelation of god to moses, the "convenant" , was nothing more than a commonplace civil code) .
the spread of judeo-christian beliefs throughout the roman empire , at the beginning of the migrations period, coincided with a renouncement to understand experience in order to transform society in a more organic, primitive whole, and it worked for more than a thousand years.

 

[Araceli Cianna]

The rise and fall of civilisations is just something that happens. Give it another millennia or two and everyone will be asking "Christianity what?" Christianity is still a fairly new religion. It will have its time.

 

[blü 2]

why didn't the Pagan gods defend their religions from decline and persecution? Classical Greco-Roman polytheism declined and then was banned.

This all kicked off with Constantine. When the emperor backed you, you tended to win in those days.

Celtic polytheism basically just disappeared at around the same time.

On the one hand, the Celtic world was largely under Roman control by then. On the other, in the villages and out in the countryside, folk religions continued largely untouched. We have records of a remote French village in the mid 19th century demanding a new Catholic priest because he wouldn't baptize their cattle like his predecessors did; and the priest complaining that his parishioners said they wouldn't trust Jesus or God, and gave all their devotion to the Virgin. And so on right across Europe.

Germanic religion was persecuted at times but the people also just converted along with their leaders.

But the Romans never conquered the German tribes. In time their leaders were converted, and Charlemagne became Holy Roman Emperor because he was the most powerful man in Europe. The outsider got to run the show.

Similar things happened around the world with indigenous religions.

Yes, the whole charming history of colonial Christianity, at the hands of the Spanish, British, Portuguese, Dutch, French and so on.

So what happened, on a spiritual level?

The record shows that gods are only as good at surviving and winning as their followers and their luck allow. Christianity's great strength, given to it by Constantine again, has been centralized authority and strong traditions of trained administrators. That's been steadily eroding in the West since WW2, some would argue since Darwin, but never so quickly as when e-communications became available and began to supplant established regional forms of social authority and cohesion.

How would you handle that if you were the Christian god?

 

[Rival]

I think what Frank is saying is a bit more nuanced than a lot of folks seem to be discussing it. I'll break this down and if I'm wrong Frank will obviously tell me.

First, the Abrahamics see G-d as being responsible for everything. I suppose, in a way, we put that belief onto how Pagan gods work as well.

What Frank is asking is that even despite the fact that monotheists were pushing back Pagans, it wasn't really about what the Pagans were capable of or could they defend themselves. It's about even if the Pagans only had six swords between six hundred and facing an army of six thousand, their gods, had they any gusto, could and should have given them a victory and kept their faiths alive, instead of the life-support they are now on. In the same way we see G-d saving a remnant of the Jewish people over and over again, and how we now see Him being praised by at least four faiths, Judaism, Christianity, Islam and Baha'iism, just as He said he would be.

So even if there were only five hundred Pagans left on the planet their gods ought to come save them. But they're not coming.

It seems as if these gods have no power whatsoever to save their people, and leave it up to the people themselves. Why are they worth worshipping, since they seem to be able to do nothing?

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

I think what Frank is saying is a bit more nuanced than a lot of folks seem to be discussing it. I'll break this down and if I'm wrong Frank will obviously tell me.

First, the Abrahamics see G-d as being responsible for everything. I suppose, in a way, we put that belief onto how Pagan gods work as well.

What Frank is asking is that even despite the fact that monotheists were pushing back Pagans, it wasn't really about what the Pagans were capable of or could they defend themselves. It's about even if the Pagans only had six swords between six hundred and facing an army of six thousand, their gods, had they any gusto, could and should have given them a victory and kept their faiths alive, instead of the life-support they are now on. In the sane way we see G-d saving a remnants of the Jewish people over and over again, and how we now see Him being praised by at least four faiths, Judaism, Christianity, Islam and Baha'i, just as He said he would be.

So even if there were only five hundred Pagans left on the planet their gods ought to come save them. But they're not coming.

It seems as if these gods have no power whatsoever to save their people, and leave it up to the people themselves. Why are they worth worshipping, since they seem to be able to do nothing?

You got it right.

 

[The Kilted Heathen]

The gods failed their people no more so than Yahweh aided in the conquest of Rome. Boniface cut down Thor's oak, Absalom toppled statues of Svetovid... Yet what the gods are was not defeated. Their power does not lie in artwork, holy spaces for human worship, or even the strength and number of their believers. The gods go about their work for the sake of existence, not for sake of how many eyes are on them while they do so. A thunderstorm still rages on whether one hails it as Thor or "angels bowling". Ensuring the might of their people isn't the purpose or job of the gods - except for maybe the Greeks, but those tellings seem more their gods playing games with humanity, rather than defending them for sake of the people.

Also David did make a point. Ancient Paganism didn't disappear entirely, and in more instances than not was incorporated into Christianity. Not only that, but it remained in local "folk" traditions, site names and customs, superstitions, and even outright worship going so far as the 1800's in scattered areas of Europe. There was never a deafeat of the gods, just an exertion of the might of men over other men.

 

[Koldo]

I think what Frank is saying is a bit more nuanced than a lot of folks seem to be discussing it. I'll break this down and if I'm wrong Frank will obviously tell me.

First, the Abrahamics see G-d as being responsible for everything. I suppose, in a way, we put that belief onto how Pagan gods work as well.

What Frank is asking is that even despite the fact that monotheists were pushing back Pagans, it wasn't really about what the Pagans were capable of or could they defend themselves. It's about even if the Pagans only had six swords between six hundred and facing an army of six thousand, their gods, had they any gusto, could and should have given them a victory and kept their faiths alive, instead of the life-support they are now on. In the sane way we see G-d saving a remnant of the Jewish people over and over again, and how we now see Him being praised by at least four faiths, Judaism, Christianity, Islam and Baha'i, just as He said he would be.

So even if there were only five hundred Pagans left on the planet their gods ought to come save them. But they're not coming.

It seems as if these gods have no power whatsoever to save their people, and leave it up to the people themselves. Why are they worth worshipping, since they seem to be able to do nothing?

You got it right.

Consider for a moment the massacre that Jews went through. If the most powerful god didn't prevent that, why would you think that the less powerful ones would be able to pull off something even harder ?

 

[Rival]

Consider for a moment the massacre that Jews went through. If the most powerful god didn't prevent that, why would you think that the less powerful ones would be able to pull off something even harder ?

It didn't destroy Judaism. Judaism is still very much alive and kicking. They have their whole corpus of holy texts and their practices, rituals and beliefs remain intact, not forgotten. With Paganism we scramble to find any sources on belief, practice, ritual and so on, especially for the Celts, Anglo-Saxons, Norse and so forth. Anything that remained of their practice from their own times is long dead. We know very, very little.

 

[Koldo]

It didn't destroy Judaism. Judaism is still very much alive and kicking. They have their entire corpus of holy texts and their practices, rituals and beliefs remain intact, not forgotten. With Paganism we scramble to find any sources on belief, practice, ritual and so on, especially for the Celts, Anglo-Saxons, Norse and so forth. Anything that remained of their practice from their own times is long dead. We know very, very little.

That doesn't answer my question. If even the most powerful god allowed a major chunk of his followers to be killed, why do you think that lesser gods would be able to do a thing at all ? Wouldn't it only be natural to see their followers die or be converted ?

 

[Rival]

That doesn't answer my question. If even the most powerful god allowed a major chunk of his followers to be killed, why do you think that lesser gods would be able to do a thing at all ? Wouldn't it only be natural to see their followers die or be converted ?

There are many warrior gods I would have expected to be able to stand their ground. Thor, Odin, Tyr, Zeus and his cronies come to mind. War gods were popular it seems, and what with there being so many gods you would have thought they could have bandied together.