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    Re: Why did they crucify Jesus?

    That's very true. It contains a lot of mystic language that strongly recalls Platonist philosophy that would have been more familiar to educated Greeks. Each of the Gospels are likely directed at...
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    Re: Why did they crucify Jesus?

    Ehhh, that downplays the mythological roots of the New Testament. It draws from abstracted Greek philosophy (especially Middle Platonism), Late Second Temple prophetic apocalypticism, and Dionysian...
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    Re: Moral Codes before the 10 commandments?

    I'm a Hellenic pagan myself, that's something I'm aware of. In my own practice, I honor gods known to the Greeks, Celts, and Germans alongside Jupiter and all the rest.
    B that's not quite what I'm...
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    Re: Moral Codes before the 10 commandments?

    Regarding the cluster of recent posts: to be honest, I think the attempts to discern the Christian Trinity in the Old Testament smack of some really deep antisemitism. You're basically reworking...
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    Re: Moral Codes before the 10 commandments?

    If you are all-powerful and you allow abuse, when you can instantaneously, miraculously remove that abuse, then you're approving of it. Passive approval is still approval. Doing nothing is allowing...
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    Re: Why do you believe in God, or why not?

    Well, I've never been high or had any kind of psychosis. So I can't say, though experience, how they're similar.
    I suppose my opinion is that the use of entheogenic drugs doesn't make such...
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    Re: Why do you believe in God, or why not?

    Their followers would direct the same criticism towards Jesus of Nazareth, and any other competing claimants. Anything you can say about Jesus, they could say with equal faith towards their messianic...
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    Re: Why do you believe in God, or why not?

    Vague prophecies about a Messiah which could be-- and were-- applied to several candidates.


    You can't use Biblical narratives to justify a Biblical narrative idea. That's just circular logic.
    ...
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    Re: Why do you believe in God, or why not?

    It's something that I've come to believe and feel due to my experiences with the gods, and with spirits of local places. I came to Paganism before those experiences, so it's not necessarily something...
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    Re: Why do you believe in God, or why not?

    For me? They are beings of pure spirit, but nevertheless intimately tied into the world around us. In the same way that a human body might have a soul, the world around us has gods and spirits-- and...
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    Re: Why do you believe in God, or why not?

    To be fair, a significant minority of Wiccans don't believe in their gods as literal beings; they see them as Jungian archetypes that "live" within us, and ritual as a way of actualizing that...
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    Re: Why do you believe in God, or why not?

    I am a devotional polytheist, I believe in many gods. I believe in them largely because I have had personal spiritual experiences involving them, up to and including ecstatic and mantic...
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    Re: Christmas time again

    If this is your attitude, then you are demeaning towards mythology. Myth is vitally important, and an incredible cultural force, and can convey deep meaning and insight into the divine. Myths are not...
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    Re: Christmas time again

    In this one area, I'll grant him. An empire is really just the domination of one group by another group, usually by military means. The Israelites certainly did hold sway over other tribes and...
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    Re: The Stoic philosophy thread

    Admittedly, I may have a bit of a bias myself since I am Pagan, I am in mostly Pagan or pagan-friendly circles. But I figured that Modern Paganism was a pretty widely-known phenomenon; it's been in...
  16. Re: Infant Male Circumcision is Genital Mutilation without Consent

    Well I guess we just have different priorities, then. I think stopping fascists comes first, regardless of platform. They're a direct threat to all life, whereas circumcision is an unpleasant thing...
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    Re: The Stoic philosophy thread

    Really? Modern polytheists aren't that rare. Especially in online circles, we're a rather outspoken crowd.


    Why wouldn't I be?


    On that, we differ. I think the divine, while in some ways...
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    Re: The Stoic philosophy thread

    I adhere to Classical Stoicism, as part of my overall angle into Hellenistic Roman religion. I am, as I've said before (though I have not logged onto this forum in a while) a hard polytheist.
    To...
  19. Re: Infant Male Circumcision is Genital Mutilation without Consent

    Yes, probably. But rhetoric about circumcision has been used as a dogwhistle for Antisemitism. So we should probably do away with the greater evil, before tackling this lesser one.
  20. Re: Do religious beliefs survive encounter with Carl Sagan's "Baloney Detection Kit"?

    I have, and my religion's community does approach things critically. Modern Paganism is based in equal parts on having personal, mystic experiences with divinity, and adherence to traditions and...
  21. Re: Is Islam really the sams religion as Judaism ans Christianity?

    It's patently absurd to claim it's the same religion. But it is rooted in Judaism and Christianity, and generally claims to worship the same god as the other two.
    But religion is much more than just...
  22. Re: What would it take for you to change your stance on religion?

    Considering how tightly integrated religion was with society and government, I wouldn't call it a "thin" veneer. It's a thorough emulsion.
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    Re: Do knowledgeable ex-atheists exist?

    In addition to Akar's point, this line here is a huge falsehood on several levels.

    For one, we don't really have any myths from Proto-Indo-European peoples. We have certain myth-themes that show...
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    Re: The ethics of reporting a racist friend..?

    That's nonsense. Society exists between the state and the individual, and can produce its own kinds of sanction.


    It should definitely be shamed and a reason for social ostracism.
  25. Re: What would it take for you to change your stance on religion?

    Well, yeah, for about a thousand years Catholicism (and Orthodoxy, which were unified until the 1050s) was the predominant, if not sole, form of Christianity in the West. It has the juciest material...
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    Re: Do knowledgeable ex-atheists exist?

    I see the gods as having emerged with the universe, inextricably linked to it, but not before it. I might make some accommodation for the Hermetic notion of a panentheistic unity of all the gods and...
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    Re: Do knowledgeable ex-atheists exist?

    [sigh] Much as I hate to admit it, Stario kinda has a point.
    Just to be clear, I do not believe the gods are "creators" so much as they are "influencers" of the universe. Sustainers, perhaps. I see...
  28. Re: What would it take for you to change your stance on religion?

    Religion, for me, is pretty fluid. I practice what I feel is best for me and my spiritual needs, and my religious framework has shifted over the past decade and a half, from a broad neopaganism to...
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    Re: Do knowledgeable ex-atheists exist?

    I was raised as an atheist, in an atheistic household; I was not even raised around Christianity really, and was unaware that people seriously believed in god until late in elementary school. Though...
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    Re: Is the internet killing religion?

    It developed, as did Platonism, Aristotelianism, Epicureanism, and other ancient philosophies, out of the polytheistic religious landscape of the Classical Greek world. Religion was inseparable from...
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    Re: Is the internet killing religion?

    1. Wicca is probably the largest single religion in the Pagan umbrella, yes. There are other Pagan religions, i.e. Neodruidry, Hellenismos, Asatru and Heathenry, various kinds of reconstructionist...
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    Re: Is the internet killing religion?

    Neopaganism is small, but I don't think we can describe it as marginal; that ship sailed years ago. It's grown steadily since the last major boom in the early aughts. There's more Pagans than...
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    Re: How true is the Bible?

    So...you think genocide is a reasonable or acceptable response to differences in belief and practice? That's insane.
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    Re: Is the internet killing religion?

    Christianity is in decline, religion is not. The proportion of atheists and agnostics has somewhat plateaued in the past few years. What's happened is more that religion has diversified.
    The "why"...
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    Re: What does Christmas mean to you?

    The meaning of those stories and the intent behind the creation of those stories matters.

    As has been said by sumskilz and conon, my usage is consistent with how mythology is defined in the social...
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    Re: What does Christmas mean to you?

    Mythology and fiction are entirely different things. The key is in the intention. Fiction is intended to be un-true or un-real from the outset. Myth is not.
    And yes, being the foundation of a...
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    Re: What does Christmas mean to you?

    The map is not the territory. Religion is not the myths, that's a literalist misinterpretation (which Christianity is prone to, so we are unfortunately familiar with it).

    Myths are not "stories...
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    Re: How true is the Bible?

    Cultural inertia.
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    Re: What does Christmas mean to you?

    Fun fact: Yule had pretty much zip to do with the Winter Solstice directly, and was celebrated on the first full moon following the solstice. It's mostly a coincidence that we think of it as a...
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    Re: What does Christmas mean to you?

    Certainly not. While there are religious elements to the traditional celebration of Christmas, the overall festive period surrounding it has many secular elements that can be enjoyed without regard...
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