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=> what is the definition of a neopagan anyway?
| what is the definition of a neopagan anyway? |
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Posted by
Shushan
(Guest)
- Friday, September 3 2004, 10:23:21 (CEST) from -  Windows 98 -  Internet ExplorerWebsite: Website title: |
I know I keep saying I am leaving, but I first want to push all that ugliness into the archive to minimize it, so let me opine... hi paul, Paul writes: The old Mesopotamian paganism was a far greater thing than your new. You are a neo-Pagan, not a Pagan. Paganism was the biggest thing in the world, and Christianity was bigger and everything since has been comparatively small - as your movements always will be. xxx yes but Christianity started out as the smallest of sects and what if you had judged it by this same meter, we never would have been graced with the teachings of Jesus for they would never been recorded and preserved. And I am not a pagan, I am half agnostic (don't know that I know for sure God exists and in what form.. just know for sure that all religions got it wrong cause they made it up)... and half gnostic christian (which I believe is the true teaching of jesus and his divinity and how he intended to share it with us, to not have heirchies and men ruling and ordaining over people for he rebeled against that, I think he felt the kindgom of heaven was on earth and in each of us and he was showing us how to find it in each of us... and as we find the world was not ready for him cause they crucified him and we probably still are not ready for him cause as i just learned cruelty and hate and injustice and unfairness and deception and lies etc.. can indeed make hurt us and bring out meanness adn make us say things we regret, even if just for a day... and no religion has ever been able to stop that in people, not even our Jesus, paul. paul wrote: There were at least three components to the old paganism that made it far greater than your neo-paganism. The first is the sense of piety....the natural religious instinct to respect something greater than yourself.....the humility that instinctively realizes man's subordinate place in the great scheme of things. xxx yes, it is good to respect something greater than yourself so you don't be come so ego centric so religion serves a good purpose there, and some like hitler knew how to channel that further into the higher purpose being your nation, so although it can be good for the individual to have this allegience and honoring and undying devotion to something greater, it can be manipulated and used to do evil from everything to homosapiens genociding neanderthals to viking invasions to mongol hords to all the mespotamian invasions to crusades to islamarabization to british imperialism to american manifest destiny and slavery to hitler's nazism to terrorism to all kinds of corporate interests, opressions, pillaging resource, manipulating others governemtns, devstations of war and bombings and all for th this sense o fgiving oneself and their morality up for this sense of greater purpose... it has two sides, good and evil, dark and light, and religion will always be used in corrupt ways as long as we allow the human psychology to have this sense of piety that allows the tribe mentality to let us justify things that go against the nurture mentality, both needed for survival in primitive peoples and the tribe mentality that allows and creates and builds religions and governments and wars and terrorism and all the ills of the world, is unfortunately who we are at this stage of evolution.. the question is will we evolve out of it before our level or technology allows our tribe mentality to destroy the world before our nuruture mentality saves it. paul writes: This natural modesty contrasts sharply with the arrogant attitude of neo-Pagans such as yourself. Your neo-Paganism is the virtual divinization of mankind, the religion of man as the only thing that matters. Your aim is building a heaven on earth, in your own words, a secular salvation. Another word for it is Humanism, the religion that will not lift up its head to the heavens but stuffs the heavens into its fat head. xxx didn't jesus say the kingdom of heaven is at hand here on earth. i believe as the gnostic christians that god is within all of us and we need to be free of a lot of things to find it... why i am still trying to leave these forums cause there are too many corrupt people and hateful situations that bombard good people like my fiasco the other day. and as much as i see bad in religions, i see the good to, but i disagree with you.. we have had thousands of yeras of religious salvation and the world has plunged deeper and deeper into selfishness, greed, corruption, oppression, wars, hate, divisions, etc. etc.. so maybe it is time to give secular salvation a try before religion gives us the armeggedon it promises... which i believe is a self fullfilling prophecy.. maybe without the religion there will be no armeggedon that it predicts and with it we are doomed, not by god, but by ourselves and our religious zealousness. paul writes: A second ingredient of the old Mesopotamian paganism that's missing in your new is some sort of an objective morality. To ancient Assyrians, pagan as they were, moral rules were absolute: unyielding and unquestionable. Abortion was abhorrent in middle Assyrian law, given the nature of the being being killed. This has all changed with you neo-Pagans. Your morals and principles are situational and pragmatic, and this is mirrored in your stance on abortion (despite your ancestors' abhorrence of it) and your willingness to deny who you are and your god at the whim of a Muslim with a set of plastic cutlery. xxx I am prolife too, but since the majority in America are for abortion and the majority are Christians, and the majority of Christians have prochoice stances, then you can't hold Christianity up as the beacon stopping abortions. They also don't believe in sex education or birth control, both of which would stop more abortions than any bible waving protester or aging pope mumbling about it. paul writes: Your neo-Paganism says WE are the makers of moral values. It not only finds the moral law written in the human heart but also BY the human heart. It acknowledges no divine revelation of any sorts, thus no one's values can be judged to be WRONG. paul writes: Neo-Paganism's favorite commandment is "judge not." The only judgment is the judgment against judging. The only thing wrong is the idea that there is a wrong. The only thing to feel guilty about is feeling guilty. And, since man rather than God is the origin of values, don't impose "your" values on me. xxx yes but we have a legal system to judge what is legally wrong. we have a social and family system to judge what is morally wrong. and we have God to judge what is eternally wrong. we don't need men and books written by men to be used as the ultimate, ambiguous, interpretable authority.. in my humble opinion. paul writes: This is really your religion — many gods, many goods, many moralities. No one, not even you, really believes in Ashur and Shamash and Ishtar any more. How can you possibly believe in a "god of war" who lost on his own battlefield? xxx if the old saying that man created god in his own image and not visa versa is true then in away many gods is write for we have so many aspects of humanity that you surely need more than one concept of it... and that is what the early "pagans" had wisdom to see and accept in others visions of Gods so they did not have to convert or kill them, and could embrace them. I am not pagan for one God all I can fanthom in my gnostic christianity but in my agnosticism i believe man does create god in his own image and that would mean there are many gods and goddesses indeed. paul writes: A third ingredient of the old Mesopotamian religion, but not of your neo-Paganism is the awe at something transcendent, the sense of worship and mystery. What the old Mesopotamian worshiped differed widely....almost anything from Marduk to a piece of shit — but at least he worshiped *something.* You worship nothing but yourself. xxx well, science has solved a lot of the mysteries so we don't have to think demons are responsible for illnesses and gin for sand storms, messages for the gravitationally induced movement of planets and our earth's rotational spin for the reliable rising and setting of the sun and stars... so the only mysteries really left our the fundamentals of physics that string theory is starting to guess at, the mystery of is there a God and since he is not around to ask, what is his will and what form is he, and the biggest mystery yet to be unravelled is how they human mind works at the most interesting of psychologies... and the first 2 may be related and the last 2 may be related but nonexclusively. paul writes: Your particular version of neo-Paganism is particularly dangerous in that it attempts to incorporate ancient Mesopotamian symbolism and appeals to an Assyrian's pride.....and it is dangerous not by opposing from without, but by infiltrating. A look at St. Mary's Assyrian Church in Los Angeles will give you a clear indication of this. Upon the holy altar lies the Assyrian flag, replete with the pagan images Shamash and Ashur together. On the Bishop's chair is inscribed the ancient symbol of Shamash. xxx okay so why is it there. does the priest want it. does the members want it. is it there to get them to come to church or is it there as you suppose to brainwash them into paganism. more likely the former reason. so that is harmless unless you are like a vampire and the site of a cross will destroy you then the site of "paga" symbols should not hurt you, especially since they are all throughout christianity anyway. paul writes: Your neo-Paganism is much more clever than the old. It knows that any opposition from without, even by a vastly superior force like Tamerlane's, has never worked against us, for "the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church." The Turks learned that with Dawith, Khatoun and Yosip. The Romans learned it even earlier and decided to JOIN in and control the church rather than watch it grow and control IT. Your new neo-Paganism understands this cannot work anymore. Tamerlane tried and failed to wipe us out. xxx is there really a new pagan movement.. i just thought we were debating religion.. i have not seen the pamplets, anyone care to send me them so i have one more religion to be skeptical about ;) paul writes: So it uses the soft, suggestive strategy of the serpent in Eden....it whispers his very words: "Has God really said...?" It's so seductive, it's even snared a son of a Shamasha and gotten him to change the name he was given at birth. It appeals to your pride when it softly whispers "He knows you'll be like Him, knowing good from evil..." xxx i think the serpent of satan whispers in men's ears (Even though i don't believe there is a devil so really the devil nature in us) come on say this came from God, create a religion, people need order, leaders, doctrine, they are sheep that need to be led... come one be the authority, tell others how to think so they can't think for themselves, let them think god is their master so you can be their master.. put it down in writing, it is for the greater good, for if you control them you can have stability and health and welfare for your people.. its for the good... come on do it.. and then one day satan comes in the ears of those reading these books now, and says come on there is something you want... someone you need to smite, to control, to destroy use these words they can convert them and if not then you can use them agaainst them to destroy them.. come on, "He knows, you'll be like Him, knowing good from evil.." paul writes: It is not a self-loathing on my part, nor even my disgust with some aspects of our ancestors history that is driving me to smash the idol on Saturday. It is this neo-Paganism of yours that I will be symbolically attacking as a protest against its infiltration of my Church. -Paul xxx glad you did not smash it, but maybe i will write you a video game so you can smash away in the privacy of your computer... but really smashing it would have only hurt yourself and assyrians, cause what you want to smash is the identity those in the community have with these symbols but your smashing it is not God's smashing it adn would not have taken away that identity but rather would have made them identify stronger with it and less with the church, and you would have done yourself and them great harm... in my humble opinion so as someone who likes and respects you, thank you for not smashing it on video. respectfully, shush --------------------- |
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