I think many (but certainly not all) Pagans and Heathens detest Christianity for several reasons:
- They don't understand it, never having been Christian; they parrot, meme and regurgitate that which they don't understand.
- Those who were Christian feel "wounded" and overcompensate i.e. "The lady doth protest too much, methinks".
In the end, Christianity or anything else, is as relevant or irrelevant as you make it or want it to be.
Why not accept what people write in stead of making all kind of allegations up?
My view on this:
For me Christianity is not what the average Christian believes, I have no beef with those people, It is not Pagans who judge people on beliefs. If I like someone I do not care what his beliefs are. Generally sane people have sane beliefs as few even read the bible.
My problem is Christian ideology and how that worked out in history. I was raised a Christian by the way, I know it inside out. I read the bible five times to try to understand how pious Christians could do horrible things to their fellow man. And I finally came to conclusions that they understood the bible better than me. Jesus is not the wonderful kind peaceful person normal people automatically presume. He is an megalomaniac of the worst kind. The bible is very deceptive. In the bible values are cleverly redefined.
Truth = parroting the bible
Love from God = mercy, not destroying you for being born (original sin)
Love to God = unconditional obedience (your only chance to escape gods torture)
Peace = not harmony in this world, but joining Jesus in heaven. Om Earth Jesus brings division and the sword.
justice = not based on action but belief. Those who join are forgiven anything, those who reject nothing
Neighbor = A Christian or a prospect, but never someone who rejects Christianity
Satan/Devil = all other Gods
Children of Satan = All people who continue to worship their Gods after being brought the gospel
Honesty = only necessary when testifying in court of law, and swearing on the bible
Slavery = fine, do anything the master desires, accept beatings, work even harder for Christian masters
Injustice = accept any injustice and NEVER revolt
Suffering = good for you, it is the path to heaven
Buddhism, Christianity and Islam should not be compared with Pagan religions. They are doctrines that came about as cults around founders. They carry an ideology that is independent of peoples culture/tradition and tries to replace it with some ideal of perfect human being that creates incredibly vain people who think they live in the truth.
Pagan religions are simply culture based traditions, customs, knowledge that protect their identity and harmony. The two are totally different. Ideologies are spread by empires to break peoples own identity. People with strong identity will revolt to being colonized. In Europe you can see it in Scotland, Basque Country, Catalonia. These people keep striving for Independence, freedom. In Turkey it is the Kurds. In the Soviet Union they did everything to destroy peoples own culture by moving people around. Empires want to destroy peoples own character, create subjects that are like loose sand, individuals with no allegiance. People that can not revolt to their exploitation because their is no coherence. That is why they use these ideologies, it is not enough to enslave peoples bodies, you need to enslave their minds as well. The call it religion but is only an artificial substitute with fake values.
If it does not bother you what Nazi ideology did bring about, call yourself a Nazi. If it does not bother you what Christian ideology brought about, call yourself a Christian. And if they attack you, just say: Those were not the real Nazi's, those were evil people. But they are the people that were highly trained in the ideology. Common people never ever persecuted a witch. It was always trained intellectuals that followed crazy theories based on book ideology that did that.
I will befriend as easily with a Christian as the next person. I look at the spirit (s)he carries. For me a Pagan is not a better person than a Christian. That is Christian ideology. Paganism does not even feature ideology. Christianity likely started out as a violent revolt of the oppressed against the evil of the Roman empire. When it became to dangerous it was adopted by the rulers and changed in a religion of the oppressors, by bribing the priests with a monopoly on religion. Then revolt became the thing forbidden most.
Yes the Roman empire was already deeply perverted when it was Pagan. The imperial cult and its Godmen worship was an abomination that was continued in Christianity when Jesus was turned into God. When people in power start to believe they are Gods (or highest servants of God) and let themselves be worshiped as such, they become utterly ruthless. The idea that a man can be God is extremely dangerous and a great inspiration to psychopaths. That is why so many psychopathic leaders were inspired by this idea.
Of course people like to have an human being as an example to look up to and follow and if these people are truly virtuous they can be very uplifting. King Rama certainly answers to the highest standard of ethics. Krishna does too but is a more complex figure, Buddha is a more limited for people seeking a way to end suffering. Abraham is a conman, Moses is a murderer who turns into a mass murderer. Jacob is a deceiver. Jesus is sadomasochistic megalomaniac. Mohamed is a fairly merciless military commander using religion for his own pleasures. When people start to call less honorable people perfect, this automatically creates degradation of values, as all shortcomings are whitewashed. That is why mangods and other "perfect humans" are a dangerous affair.
Idealism and ideology always have a bright and a dark side. They inspire people to work together, at the same time it creates a merciless attitude towards those who are said to stand in the way of the great ideal. The higher the ideology is held, the more human beings are lowered that do not fit in it. For the Pagan it is not black and white. But in ideology it easily becomes black and white. Or as Jesus puts it: "Those who are not with us, are against us". Friend or Foe, nothing in between.
People following this ideology will never respect Paganism. They will bring their Gospel, and it you reject that, you reject their God, and you condemned yourself to damnation. You are no longer a human being. Because as Jesus says in John, the people that follow him are different kind of people, a different race, the people that come from heaven and want to reunite with God, because they are made in Gods image. Those that reject Jesus and thus God, can not be made in Gods image and are people of the Earth, Children of Satan. You follow earth bound religions in stead of heaven ruler religions? Than you are basically an animal, not a soul who came down to Earth and want to return to heaven. That is why Christians have treated these people as animals, and often declared them to be animals. Try to understand the ideology behind it.
Now normal sane Christians and Muslims know little about these things, just the geste. They know to stay away from "those people". But if they have good character they are still good people. Did you never wonder why people with their nose deep in the holy books become the must ruthless murderers? Why often such people walk with their nose in the air? Why it is the priesthood that leads the attacks on people outside the fold?
Sorry Thorbjorn, you mean well, but suggesting that dislike for Christianity as a "religion" is based on lack of knowledge, distinction or familiarity is rather presumptuous. I know Christianity the good and the bad. If I reject Christianity it is not because it was bad for me personally. I have no trauma. But even as a child I simply could not understand how Christians could shove millions of people into the oven. But now I know Jesus says that the unbelievers will be thrown into the fire. They based burnings throughout history on that. They are perfectly rational, better kill a few and save a lot, than have all them be burned by God. It is inhumane but rational. Just like a general will sacrifice a few divisions to win the battle. In Christian ideology existence is a cosmic battle between good and evil and casualties are unavoidable. But not on their side, the side of humans.
Look how few in the USA bother much about the millions of innocent Vietnamese whose lives were destroyed, only tens of thousands of their own are commemorated. How they do not care about the millions of innocent Muslims that die in the Middle East, but are abhorred by the murder of tens of them. Or how they found it perfectly reasonable to throw two atom bombs on non-Christians civilians to save some of their soldiers. The life of a believer and an non-believer have not the same value in this ideology, and even if people do not know all this, they are breathing these racist ideas in. You know what, I met the kindest of Christians, helpful and kind, but when the subject comes to Jews or black people or homosexuals, or Muslims or people who do not believe in God, they can suddenly surprise you with strong bias and rejection, the poison they breathed in.
Please spare the moralizing preaches that we should all love each other. It is Jesus that preaches that victims should love their persecutors and enemies. It is heralded as the pinnacle of ethics, to be perfect like God. But it is rather the reversal of ethics. One shows one's humanity through acting humanely, not by following belief. And funny enough Jesus himself fails bitterly in loving the ones who reject him and can not forgive them. Can Jesus love Satan, the enemy of God? No he can not love his enemies, he only preaches that in his corrupt ethics. And People have a right and duty to stand up to injustice. To have all the power of God and not end the gross suffering in the world while you can, but only give demonstrations of power, is highly unethical too. To preach the road to heaven is through suffering is no less than perverse sadomasochism.
You talk condescending, the way Christians like to do. If you know so much better master, let young Padawam show you a
video and
text. Nothing special, Just some witnesses of people that haven been at the receiving end of this ideology for centuries. Maybe your heart will open not only to Christians who will always feel martyrs, but rather their victims. Yes my heart bleeds for these people. What is spirituality without being able to feel the pain of others? It is just ego-tripping. I feel for Christians too, for me most are simply victim of a brainwash that serves a unjust system. I do not hate them, but I feel more for the bigger victims. just like I feel for all those poor Germans being led to destruction by an megalomaniac, who also was inspired by the mangod idea and only wanted to bring his own people to greatness, but even more for those that ended in their horror camps.
The reason for writing about Christianity is to make clear the difference between cultural traditions of a people and universal ideological cults like Christianity. They are completely different entities. One seeks harmony the other seeks domination. We both call themselves religion, but Pagans would not talk about their "religion", for them it was simply their way of life, and they often did not even have a word for it. The never fully understood what happened to them when Christianity entered their territories. They never understood why they became the enemy. Would it not be great
if Christians could actually heighten their consciousness.
