Europe Returning to Pagan Roots

NewsMax ^ | May 30, 2003 | Fr. Mike Reilly

[Hugenot]

NewsMax.com's religion editor, Fr. Mike Reilly, sees a disturbing trend in the latest news from the European Union.

Zenit News is reporting on the new Constitution for the European Union and the news is not good.

"Drawing inspiration from the cultural, religious and humanist inheritance of Europe, which, nourished first by the civilizations of Greece and Rome, characterized by spiritual impulse always present in its heritage and later by the philosophical currents of the Enlightenment, has embedded within the life of society its perception of the central role of the human person and his inviolable and inalienable rights, and of respect for law. ..."

Do you get the sense that there's something missing from the preamble? What "spiritual impulse" are they referring to? Could it be the Irish druids, who worshipped trees? Or perhaps the Norse gods like Thor and Loki? Maybe they mean ancient German legends about Siegfried coming from Valhalla.

Are these the "spiritual impulses" that united Europe, or rather was it something called Christendom?

"It borders on the ridiculous that the Preamble should make nominal reference to the Hellenistic and Roman component and jump directly to the 'philosophers of the Enlightenment,' omitting the Christian reference without which the Enlightenment is incomprehensible," Josep Miro i Ardevol, president of the Convention of Christians for Europe, said in a statement.

In an interview on Vatican Radio, Cardinal Roberto Tucci, a member of the executive council of the radio, said that "It was not a question of adherence [to Christianity], but of recognizing the historical fact of the enormous influence that Christian culture has had on European culture."

"The most unifying factor of Europe, which has been Christian culture, is missing" in the Preamble, he said.

The draft continues, "Conscious that Europe is a continent that has brought forth civilization; that its inhabitants, arriving in successive waves since the first ages of mankind, have gradually developed the values underlying humanism: equality of persons, freedom, respect for reason. ..."

Where do they think these values come from? What other civilizations espouse these values? The fact is that it was Christian culture which civilized and united tribal barbarians into what was left of the declining Roman Empire, which would eventually become modern Europe. That is why every modern tyrant has seen the need to attack and suppress Christianity.

This does not bode well for Europeans who treasure freedom. If our rights come from men, then men can take them away. Our founding fathers were wise enough to acknowledge that "man was endowed by his Creator with certain inalienable rights. ..."

Sadly, the leaders of Europe lack that insight.

[petuniasevan]

The fact is that it was Christian culture which civilized and united tribal barbarians into what was left of the declining Roman Empire, which would eventually become modern Europe. That is why every modern tyrant has seen the need to attack and suppress Christianity

And now many European countries are voluntarily reliquishing their heritage and future to the tyrant Islam.

[AntiGuv]

Europe has always had an exceedingly tumultuous experience with the imposition of Eastern dogmatic religions (Judeo-Christian-Islamic) atop its Western polyvalent spiritualism (secularist paganism). The authoritarian, ecumenical impulses of the former have been breaking down inexorably for at least four centuries now into a fractured, decentralized patchwork.

[MeekMom]

Why am I not surprised?

[Kerberos]

"The authoritarian, ecumenical impulses of the former have been breaking down inexorably for at least four centuries now into a fractured, decentralized patchwork."

Exactly, beginning with the fleeing of people from Europe for the new world (America). And why were these people fleeing Europe, to escape the oppressive rule of church and state. So today, we have some people who want to re-create that European model here.

Maybe it is we who still have something to learn and not the EU.

[WorkingClassFilth]

Europe is toast.

Prepare for war.

China is on the entre menu and the Europeans are ala cart.

[TheAngryClam]

I don't really see the problem- Christianity is just a neutered, tired religion.

Once, it was like Islam is now, full of fire and passion and global conquest, but now is nothing more than memories.

I don't really mind, either. The glory of European civilization came from the pagan parts- Rome and Greece, and their rebirth and rejection of Christianity in the Renaissance and Enlightenment.

[LiteKeeper]

SITREP

[nightdriver]

"Sadly, the leaders of Europe lack that insight."

Even more sadly for us, the governmental and intelligentsia leaders in the U.S. lack that knowledge also.

[ffusco]

And the notion that all virtues came exclusively from Christianity is preposterous. As if the pagans threw out the baby with the bath water.

[Dat]

Pre-Christian Europe was a patchwork of barbarian tribes, with perhaps the exception of Greece, and later on Rome. All subsequent development came from the integration of its Christian roots with its ideals, albeit in an undesirable way. For instance, pagans had no compassion whatsoever for weaklings and children who were born with any physical defects were killed at birth. War and oppression were not merely a means to an end, but were seen as the most glorious of human endevours.
Greece and Rome were not half as glorious as modern day armchair historians make them out to be.

[Pelham]

I thought Germany already tried the return-to-paganism thing in the 1930s and '40s.

[nightdriver]

"I don't really see the problem- Christianity is just a neutered, tired religion."

More's the tragedy. The only Christianity you see may be as you describe, I can't deny that, but Christianity isn't really a "religion" at all in the true definition of the word. It has only become (falsely) represented as such in this last century.

[philetus]

The pagans usually burned the babies.

[Mark17]

I thought Germany already tried the return-to-paganism thing in the 1930s and '40s.

Well, many did, but when I was there, (80 to 84) I thought, for the most part, they were still pretty much a bunch of pagans, but that is just my opinion.

[ffusco]

"pagans had no compassion whatsoever for weaklings and children who were born with any physical defects were killed at birth."

It was legal for a Father to kill a only a horribly deformed child in the witness of 5 neighbors. Infant mortality rates wre high and medicine was crude. A mercy killing was often the best solution.

War and oppression were not merely a means to an end, but were seen as the most glorious of human endevours.
The Romans didn' see it that way:
 
Vergil's Aeneid
"Roman, remember by your strength to rule
Earth's peoples - for your arts are to be these:
to pacify, to impose the rule of law,
to spare the conquered, battle down the proud."

They thought it was their mission to civilize the world-and they did, just as we did with Manifest Destiny and our latest foray into Iraq.

Greece and Rome were not half as glorious as modern day armchair historians make them out to be.
The water in some aquaeducts still flows as well as echoes of Cicero and Plato in our laws and customs.

[ffusco]

Riiight.

[nutmeg]

read later bump

[TheAngryClam]

I'm a bit more than an armchair historian.

And "with the exception of Rome" at it's height was essentially all of Europe except for Germany and the lands more east. It also included all of northern Africa and the Levant.

Christianity was a disaster for Europe. It was only through turning to the traditions of pagan Rome, such as the Roman Catholic Church and most of the early kingdoms (for example, the Goths that ended the Western Roman Empire were more "Roman" in their habits than the Eastern Empire soldiers that came to retake Italy), that civilization survived.

[TheAngryClam]

Actually, they usually stuck them out on the hillside/local trashheap to die or passed them on to another family (adoption was far, far more prevalent in ancient Rome than today).

That hillside was where the poor went to pick up new slaves.

Actual death of children wasn't as common in ancient pagan Europe as you make it out.