[Alex Linder]

parmenicleitus 10 months ago

I could only expect this much from Christians: more lying. All things to all men indeed.

First, your sense of history is rather, well, lacking. While it is undeniable that Christians stopped Islam from spreading into Europe, it seems you have no understanding of Islam, even in plain historicity. Christianity pre-dates Islam, and is tied to it. Christianity was the State religion of the Byzantine Empire through which Muhammad traveled and traded as a merchant. Islam is a reaction to what was perceived as both Christian and Jewish decadence, from yet another Abrahamic and yes, Semitic, perspective. But, the real meat is that if there were no Judaism, there'd be no Christianity, and hence no Islam. So, your point regarding who stopped Islam's advance is circular at best. None of the monotheisms like competition, after all, though Judaism is historically more or less indifferent to other religions.

Secondly, the main feature of monotheism in general, and Abrahamic "religion" in particular, is intolerance. No. I'm not speaking of "oppressed" women, minorities, etc. It is the distinction between "true" and "false" religion to which I refer. No such nonsense existed from a "pagan" perspective. Again, monotheism doesn't like competition, even within its own ranks.

Third, there is no such thing as "paganism" for it never was an "-ism," in the sense of a monolithic bloc.

Following from this, "paganism" isn't a "nature" religion as you (with your Wiccan Moon-Goddess crap), and your Hebraic-minded forebears couldn't, and can't, seem to understand. Religions, in the truest since of the word ("to bind together") was embedded in , and inseparable from, the cultures (in the truest, rock-bottom sense of *that* term) unlike Christianity which is an ideology which masquerades as "religion," but can't understand the fact that culture/religion isn't based in "ideas." While there are certain central features consistent in Indo-European religions (stemming, of course, from their shared Indo-European origin) the varieties of outlook on those themes came from, and comes from, the very places that IE's settle and live. Christianity, being an ideology, is u-topic, it has no place, but that doesn't mean it transcends place. It has simply subverted place for idea, a people for "belief".

It must be said, as well, that these various cultures had no teleological/eschatological "purpose." They were simply lived. Religion was, and is, the living of men, not a set of "beliefs" or a "faith."

Christianity had its day and nearly every failure of the "West" (again, an idea) can be pointed back to it. Christianity has opened the floodgates to, and created, "humanity" in a way that European polytheism never could, or would. Egalitarianism, the cult of the "individual," bureaucracy, the "anything goes" attitude, the myth of "progress," ( from Christian eschatology) multiculturalism, etc, can all find their origins in the cult of Christ, and its ever-shifting reinterpretation and subjectivity. The cult of Christ is, at rock bottom, anti-cultural, anti-family, anti-topic (being the universalistic screed that it is), appending itself however it could, and can, gain the most followers. I'm certain the hermeneutic atmosphere will be thick with apologia when you Catholics get your first black African Pope...But, then again, the "West," and Europe, are simply *ideas* that can be borne within by anyone "chosen by God", Belloc notwithstanding.

All in all, you have no clue of what you are talking about and Christianity has nothing left to offer us...except hope and change. Whoop-tee-doo!

And, no, I don't slaughter goats in the name of Thor. My gods aren't jealous little Middle Eastern tyrants who demand my worship before all else, if at all most of the time...