Why is it that when it comes to Pagans...?

[Gentoo]

What's a pagan?

It's a fair question. We have a hard enough time defining ourselves now without thinking about how to define pagans in the past. Which leads me to answer the OP. I think people don't talk about it is because the label of "pagan" didn't really exist. Each group was it's own separate entity and had their own name for themselves. Not only that, but many were peasants, and atrocities against peasants was nothing new, nor anything to lose sleep over.

 

[Gentoo]

So you are saying that we should just ignore what happens to Pagans? Gee I can see the OP was lost on you.

I think you're missing the point of his post. The pagans of old don't exist anymore, and therefore have no direct bearing on your present life. Aside, of course, from the phase that most converted pagans go through, dredging up the past: "Never Again The Burning Times!" (etc.) as if shouting that in the streets is going to make people take them seriously.

 

[Caladan]

people try to deny that any attrocities against Pagans has happened or taken place? Why is this? People can talk about the Holocaust, the slaughter of the Native Americans, and various other genocides, but when someone mentions the genocide of Pagans by the Church, you get a cold shoulder like: "shut up you Pagan, no one cares." Why do people not want to acknowledge that any inhumane crimes have been done against Pagans? Does it mean nothing that several nations were force converted by the sword who were previously some form of Pagan belief?

Because these pagans are no longer with us. what we have today are neo-pagans who follow a reconstructionist religion.

 

[dieingchild]

The witch trials and other such things just have no connection with modern times and modern paganisim. We are not the same Pagans, and never will be. Today there are more relavent things to fight. Like pagan resource centers getting shut down because some small group decided they had to.
Why throw that turd when so many christians and people in general still do foolish and idiotic things "in the name of god"? It's only a small selection of christians that do this but they are still there.

From a more American view we should just focus on freedom of religion. We need to look at worshiping freely no matter what religion.

 

[Father Heathen]

Get those pagans to the back of the bus.

 

[dieingchild]

Get those pagans to the back of the bus.

I'd rather sit in the back, I can get away with alot more back there.

 

[Wannabe Yogi]

Nobody ever talks about the Northern Crusades to convert the Pagans. Like the failed attempt of the Teutonic Knights to subdue pagan Lithuania. They stayed pagan till 1386.

I did not even know about this History till my 11 year old son got into it.

 

[AxisMundi]

Are there any particular atrocities against Pagans you have in mind Senedjem?

A short list...

• As soon as Christianity was legal (315), more and more pagan temples were destroyed by Christian mob. Pagan priests were killed.
• Between 315 and 6th century thousands of pagan believers were slain.
• Examples of destroyed Temples: the Sanctuary of Aesculap in Aegaea, the Temple of Aphrodite in Golgatha, Aphaka in Lebanon, the Heliopolis.
• Christian priests such as Mark of Arethusa or Cyrill of Heliopolis were famous as "temple destroyer." [DA468]
• Pagan services became punishable by death in 356. [DA468]
• Christian Emperor Theodosius (408-450) even had children executed, because they had been playing with remains of pagan statues. [DA469]
  According to Christian chroniclers he "followed meticulously all Christian teachings..."
• In 6th century pagans were declared void of all rights.
• In the early fourth century the philosopher Sopatros was executed on demand of Christian authorities. [DA466]
• The world famous female philosopher Hypatia of Alexandria was torn to pieces with glass fragments by a hysterical Christian mob led by a Christian minister named Peter, in a church, in 415.
  [DO19-25]

• Emperor Karl (Charlemagne) in 782 had 4500 Saxons, unwilling to convert to Christianity, beheaded. [DO30]
• Peasants of Steding (Germany) unwilling to pay suffocating church taxes: between 5,000 and 11,000 men, women and children slain 5/27/1234 near Altenesch/Germany. [WW223]
• Battle of Belgrad 1456: 80,000 Turks slaughtered. [DO235]
• 15th century Poland: 1019 churches and 17987 villages plundered by Knights of the Order. Victims unknown. [DO30]
• 16th and 17th century Ireland. English troops "pacified and civilized" Ireland, where only Gaelic "wild Irish", "unreasonable beasts lived without any knowledge of God or good manners, in common of their goods, cattle, women, children and every other thing." One of the more successful soldiers, a certain Humphrey Gilbert, half-brother of Sir Walter Raleigh, ordered that "the heddes of all those (of what sort soever thei were) which were killed in the daie, should be cutte off from their bodies... and should bee laied on the ground by eche side of the waie", which effort to civilize the Irish indeed caused "greate terrour to the people when thei sawe the heddes of their dedde fathers, brothers, children, kinsfolke, and freinds on the grounde".
  Tens of thousands of Gaelic Irish fell victim to the carnage. [SH99, 225]

Victims of the Christian Faith

 

[AxisMundi]

The witch trials and other such things just have no connection with modern times and modern paganisim. We are not the same Pagans, and never will be. Today there are more relavent things to fight. Like pagan resource centers getting shut down because some small group decided they had to.
Why throw that turd when so many christians and people in general still do foolish and idiotic things "in the name of god"? It's only a small selection of christians that do this but they are still there.

From a more American view we should just focus on freedom of religion. We need to look at worshiping freely no matter what religion.

When we lived downstate, we were invovled in attempting to get a non-Abrahamic community center started in an old, run down theater.

From the reaction we got from the fundies, one would think we intended to put a "Touchdown Phallus" out front.

For these people, religous freedom and equality only applies to them.

 

[Midnight Pete]

My best guess is that pagans are simply not often thought about. Most people think of them as mysterious, ancient people from fiction.

But we all know that's nonsense. Pagans are still here.

 

[painted wolf]

Because these pagans are no longer with us. what we have today are neo-pagans who follow a reconstructionist religion.

With all due respect... First Nations do not practice reconstructionist religion. Nor do most other living aboriginal cultures.

I personally try not to get worked up about the past. Native people have enough modern problems to be worried about, without carrying the baggage of the past.

wa:do

 

[acidrica]

I try not to get worked up about the past either. I wasn't a victim of those atrocities.

I -was- a victim of bullying growing up because I wasn't Christian. I am a victim of bigotry because of my beliefs. That is something that worries me in the now. Whining about the burning times does nothing to help us nowadays

 

[bowingtoGod]

With all due respect... First Nations do not practice reconstructionist religion. Nor do most other living aboriginal cultures.

I personally try not to get worked up about the past. Native people have enough modern problems to be worried about, without carrying the baggage of the past.

wa:do

I agree with Painted Wolf.
Some things are far more important then just dwelling on the past.

 

[AxisMundi]

I try not to get worked up about the past either. I wasn't a victim of those atrocities.

I -was- a victim of bullying growing up because I wasn't Christian. I am a victim of bigotry because of my beliefs. That is something that worries me in the now. ******** about the burning times does nothing to help us nowadays

Quite agreed, even leaving the historical inaccuracies of the "burning times" alone for the moment.