Posted on 12/16/2004 11:04:00 AM PST by quidnunc
The sky was already murky at 4 p.m. when I locked my bike outside Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese on Fleet Street. Inside, it was even murkier: wood-panelled corridors stretched off into the gloom, men in grey suits were wedged together, smoking Bensons and drinking bitter. No one looked even slightly like an Arch Priest of the Council of British Druid Orders. At 4:10 I found a separate little bar near the back of the pub. As I walked in, a big man with round shoulders and grey hair stared at me and I saw the corner of a magazine poking out from inside his coat. As I watched, the whole cover slowly emerged: a yellowy-purple watercolour of a fairy, and the title: The Witchtower. ‘Steve?’ I said. He nodded.
We bought bitter, found somewhere to sit, and began what turned out to be a three-hour crash course in modern paganism, one of the fastest-growing religions in Britain.
-snip-
So, can a modern pagan just pick any god to worship? I asked. Egyptian? Roman? African? Are there any rules? Steve put his hands self-consciously under the table, ‘No rules,’ he said. ‘Being a pagan is about being free from institutional rules. And the gods? Once you start seeking they choose you, really. Everyone has their own path, but we all celebrate the same festivals: the summer and winter solstices, spring and autumn equinoxes and four other festivals: Samhain, Imbolc, Beltane and Lughnasad.’
Pagans, I discovered during our second pint, are also united by their sense of the injustices done them by Christians. The last 2,000 years of history is a heart-wrenching tale of innocent occult revivals squashed by ignorant Christians …
-snip-
(Excerpt) Read more at spectator.co.uk ...
It is like saying that Anton Zander LeVey had a place in Christianity because he used Biblical references in his Black Mass.
Actually the wedding ring comes from the Jewish faith -- an ancient tradition.
I think it has something to do with gravitational influences on the liquids and semi-liquids in the brain at the time of birth.
That may well be, but it not likely be defeated by committing the same fallacy.
It isn't just a matter of obeying the laws of the land. It's a matter of culture. It is pretty obvious that the current popular culture is undermining the foundations this country was founded on, regardless if one thinks the Founding was Deist or Christian.
Not if the Muslims have anything to say about it.
Seriously. The gravitational pull of a car 1 meter away from you is about Ten Times the gravitational pull of Mars.
I understand that, but it just seems that there are more and more whack jobs out there.
From the point of view of how we should treat different religions, you've nailed it on the head. So long as other religions do not harm me or mine, why should I care who (or what) my neighbor worships?
> It is pretty obvious that the current popular culture is undermining the foundations this country was founded on
And what does that have to do with pagans or religious belief? Worshipping one god, ten gods or no gods makes no difference in whether one thinks that rape is fine, gangsta rap is cool or that the lowest common denominator is the preferred target.
Hmm ... my parental control considers it "evil" too!
Also, I thought the big story was the rise of Muslim conversions in US prisions?
That's not to say that the Church, either the RCC and the Protestant (Lutheran), were guiltless. Hitler was enabled by 1800 years of anti-semitism combined with the political expediency of those in the pulpits. Furthermore, Hitler remained a Catholic in good standing, and to this day has never been formally excommunicated for whatever reason. The debates on why aren't particularly germaine to this conversation, so let's not get off track here.
To me, Hitler remains an example of what happens when occultism merges with Christianity in the presence of lukewarm pulpits and achieves high power. It's not a pretty picture, and I think we'll be seeing it again soon.
Now, DC, you don't like being grouped together with Hitler, and I respect that. However, it's a bit more difficult to separate modern paganism from their human-sacrificing spiritual ancestors, since today's pagans tie themselves to the Druids, et. al., in order to say that their faith is older than Christianity.
The closest parallel you can find in Christianity are the witch hunts of centuries later. However, no Christian today claims the Inquisition as their spritual forebears--we claim Jesus Christ. If you want to try to take us to task re: His teachings or actions or those of His immediate (first generation) followers, that's fair game. Likewise, if you want to claim spiritual descendence from some other documentable source, it's also fair to ask us to look at that source instead of the bloody practices of the Druids.
Candidly, I'd argue that we should look at fruits as much or more than sources. Christianity, when men stopped adding their own traditions and got back to the source, produced the most free, most prosperous nation in the history of Mankind, and the further we get from that Christian root, the more we're going to lose those blessings. Please tell us what pagan cultures you consider to be examples of the good fruits of your belief system so that we can consider it and judge for ourselves.
Nope, just capital punishment.
Amen to that. ;-)
The Christians don't celebrate sacrifice? So what's with that whole Easter thing then?
In this case, the difference is no difference.
You appear to have an inordinate interest in Herr Hitler or an abundance of disgust for for Christians .... or both?
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