Once a Heathen

[Magister Eckhart]

Having disclosed this now to the one person whom I felt would be most affected by it aside from myself, I feel that I can now make public the change of heart that has overtaken me through personal experiences and extensive reading toward the end of developing a theology for Germanic Heathenry.

I have concluded that I have been in error to espouse polytheistic beliefs, worship forms of the divine that were misinterpreted as Gods in their own right, and to take an imperfect tribal approach to the One Divine Truth that is called “God”. Following this conclusion, I have decided to embrace the Christian faith preached and defended by the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church which recognizes the Bishop of Rome as its supreme head.

My reasoning is as follows:

For the past year or so, I have been reading St. Augustine of Hippo in an attempt to use his arguments for adapting pagan philosophy and thought into Christianity, to strengthen his religion. My hope was to adapt these arguments into an argument in favour of using Christian theology in Heathen discourse, and lend intellectual strength to the present Heathen community which is without a doubt lacking a major scholarly foundation. In the course of examining St. Augustine, I also encountered some of his early inspirations, including Plotinus and Neo-Platonic thought. Neo-Platonism had a distinct appeal to me because it seemed to capture much of what I found to be positive in Christianity but from a distinctly non-Christian source.

The reading I was doing led me ultimately to a conceptualisation of Heathenry in which the relationship of Óðinn and Yggdrasil played a central role. Yggdrasil, after all, is the source of all knowledge, itself supporting the entire universe and all the nine worlds, and also bestowed on the Alfather the occult knowledge of the Runes, thus also accessed by human beings and used for supernatural purposes. Yggdrasil became a representation of the Truth that formed the basis of the entire Divine, since even the highest god was still subject to the power of Yggdrasil and the Norns.

As I began to expand this concept more, and began to conceptualize the Runes as the λόγος, the “word” by which, as the Neo-Platonists and Stoics conceived of it as early as the third century BC, The One (τὸ Ἔν) reveals itself to human beings. Τό Ἔν as the expression of “the Truth” conceived of by Plato and his successors compelled me to begin taking a closer look at the Christian teaching on the subject. After some more research I began to realise that I was really just re-hashing Christian doctrine and putting Heathen trappings on it. This led me to an intense questioning of my belief, and self-examination as to what my core concern really was.

I began to speak to other people, specifically my father, who converted from Methodist to Roman Catholic when I was boy, and find out what brought them into the Church. I was disappointed in general with what I found, especially with the essentially experience-driven religion that I seemed to encounter with many converts. I then spoke to a friend of mine in training to be a priest and explained my own understandings and interpretations of what I had been reading. The answers he gave me were very reassuring.

At the time, I also was beginning a course on mysticism and modernist writing which used Meister Eckhart as its basis. The discussions I had been having regarding the unknowable nature of God and the unbridgeable gap between Divinity and Mortality were stated plainly in front of me on the selections from Eckhart that had been chosen for the course to be read – this the day after an experience that had communicated this very notion to me in clear language. There are no coincidences.

I began reading Eckhart in greater earnest and exploring the teachings on the subject. I also began re-reading Luther and a recent theologian by the name of Paul Tillich. Tillich’s Systematic Theology, in three volumes, has been interesting but ultimately spiritually unfulfilling document. It did, nevertheless, give me language in which I could phrase many of the problems I was facing and gave me a clear reason not to become a Lutheran Christian. My knowledge of Jean Calvin and his teachings had put me off of Calvinist Christianity for a long time, and the more vulgar forms of puritan Protestantism and Anabaptism have struck me as at best wrong, at worst pernicious for many years.

My knowledge of Aquinas, supplemented with Eckhart’s reading of Pseudo-Dionysius and Plotinus led me to a theology in which incomprehensible, ineffable Truth’s very existence necessitated the existence of a λόγος that could be comprehended by man. The person of the Christ captured this perfectly – the concept of the fully human, fully divine being embodied in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. Ultimately, as there can be only one Truth, there can likewise be only one λόγος – it is The Word, not a word. My reading of the Gospel of John, which long ago I had dismissed as being too much poetry and not enough content, began to reveal to me a religion that was deeper than any form of Christianity or Heathenry I had yet contemplated.

The only obstacle that remained were the Jews. Why would the Ultimate, the One, the Truth choose to express itself in such a primitive, savage way to an insignificant collection of desert-dwelling simpletons? Why choose them, of all the great races of men who have ever arisen? The Greeks, the Hindus, the Chinese – all of these are greater people than the Jews can ever hope to be. So I posed this question, in so many words, to a priest. He stumbled through it – clearly he was not used to dealing with people who regarded the Jews as a problem (not surprising, my college is in the middle of a Jewish neighbourhood). Ultimately, in all his stammering, he expressed one gem that seemed to get at the problem.

The key point, he said, was not who was called but who had answered. God did not choose Abram so much as Abram had chosen, on a whim, to uproot himself and do exactly what this disembodied voice was telling him. Abraham was a man of singular devotion and faith – ironic considering what his descendants would become. Rationally and theologically, it was absurd to think that God specifically chose the Hebrews and only the Hebrews – after all, the Ultimate is not a being that acts on whims or picks favourites in this way. Rather, if Abram had said “no,” it is not heretical or unreasonable to think that someone else would have been chosen and another people would have devoted themselves to God. From this point, I began to formulate that the Jews are wrong – they are not “the chosen people”, they are “a choosing people”. They misunderstood and misinterpreted God to be their special deity, superior than all other Deities, a master among equals, and that It was theirs exclusively. Because of their arrogance, the people who were meant to be the light to the nations became instead the principal obstacle in the way of the nations coming to the One.

This explanation fits perfectly with the accusations of all the prophets against the Hebrews for their arrogance – and explains why throughout the Old Testament the Jews come off as an exclusivist, domineering, arrogant race with a massive inferiority complex. Their imperfection necessitated the λόγος being born into their number and then forcibly breaking God out of their stewardship. This is the meaning of the veil tearing in the temple at the death of Christ, and also Paul of Tarsus, a Greek Jew, called after the resurrection, came to play a central role. The fulfilment of the Old Testament and the creation of a New Testament were the necessary means by which God fulfilled the covenant with Israel and still brought Himself to all the nations of Earth. The death of Jesus at the hands of the Jews was a necessary fulfilment of their entire history as a people in front of whom God has always been and whose Truth they had willingly and forcibly rejected despite the covenant that bound them to Him. “The light shineth in the darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not.” (John 1:5)

Having established this and overcome the Jewish problem, Christianity became something thoroughly Greek and ultimately European – but, more truly, it became a faith that transcended the nations and was not bound anymore to a “chosen people”. “The chosen people” is a concept directly repugnant to the Truth of Christianity.

I have begun setting out a defence of the seven sacraments and explanations for this conversion in far greater detail in a book. The more specific details of why the λόγος is necessary for Truth’s existence and why the Jews were a historical and human inevitability in the path to Christianity are detailed within, but I’ll be happy to answer questions posed here (indeed, my hope is they might help me in writing the book).

No, the book will not be titled "Confessions"; it will follow a similar line though.

[GeistFaust]

snip


I want to thank you very much for this post it was truly inspiring and delightful to read. Although I know that we do not necessarily agree in so far as Neo Platonic Theology is concerned I do have to say a large part of what you have said here I can agree with quite thoroughly. I would like to read your book when it comes out.

[Murphy]

Now everyone knows what my "happy thread" was all about. Quite frankly nothing I type here will do justice to the yell of joy I gave out at first hearing the news :D!

http://img121.imageshack.us/img121/9649/victorydemotivationalpo.jpg

[The Journeyman]

Now everyone knows what my "happy thread" was all about. Quite frankly nothing I type here will do justice to the yell of joy I gave out at first hearing the news :D!

http://img121.imageshack.us/img121/9649/victorydemotivationalpo.jpg

With all due respect, humble yourself man! You're too prideful and your arrogance only serves to turnoff others.

"In the mouth of a fool is a rod of pride. But the lips of the wise will preserve them." - Proverbs 14:3

[Grumpy Cat]

Now everyone knows what my "happy thread" was all about. Quite frankly nothing I type here will do justice to the yell of joy I gave out at first hearing the news :D!

http://img121.imageshack.us/img121/9649/victorydemotivationalpo.jpg

I wouldn't take it as a victory. It happens more often than you think.

[Murphy]

With all due respect, humble yourself man! You're too prideful and your arrogance only serves to turnoff others.

A man has returned to the Church. This is a time for celebration and rejoicing. It is not about pride or arrogance and I would thank you not to pervert my emotions regarding this event.

[Aramis]

...always a Heathen.

---

But for now, let's celebrate!

http://answers.bettor.com/images/Articles/thumbs/extralarge/Ireland-victory-against-England-Irish-political-leaders-praise-national-team-57945.jpg

http://alex.leonard.ie/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Kevin-OBrien-007-2.jpg

[Psychonaut]

I'll continue our previous dialogue here. ;)

Question two: What, then, do you make of the plenitude of emanative divine beings that exist between τό ἕν and Φύσις? For, I'm not sure if you read Iamplichus and Proclus, but if you did, you'd remember that the hierarchy looks something like this:
The One
Gods
Archangels
Angels
Daimones
Heroes
Sublunary Archons
Material Archons
Human Souls
In the theologies of the above two thinkers these intermediary layers functioned as a bridge between the top and bottom levels. For, as Iamblichus works out in De Mysteriis, direct connection between the two is illogical and is not borne out by religious experience. He would argue that most regular people who experience "God" are really experiencing a daimon who is misrepresenting itself as the One. Thus, he and Proclus believed that the theurgical rites were the only route to ἕνωσις, that such an experience must be a gradual process of ascent, not an immediate one. And, it was for this reason that the polytheistic cults became so important. They viewed the Gods as necessary points of focus—bridges—between mankind and the One, without which mankind would be cut off from the source (each intermediary level functioned thusly). So then, why ditch the Gods for the One?

[Osweo]

Hoho! I could smell the incense on you right from the start! No surprise to me. Phew - we are saved from chapter and verse theocracy again (till the next disaffected Papist comes along ;) )!

Anyway... That´s interesting about shifting the focus to Abram. I could accept that, were it not for the fact that Jehovah then couldn´t be arsed with any other people than the Abrahamites for a few millennia. I know he´s busy crafting each and every snowflake and the like, but come on - it does seem a bit lazy. This God could have been reaching out to susceptible peoples in every tribe, not settling for the ungrateful great great great grandkids of one Mesopotamian who showed some promise, once upon a time.

It takes little notice of non-Biblical accounts of the religious development of the Hebrews, either. Where is poor old Mama Ashura?

And okay, you want to go back to monotheism - but don´t you think you´ll be straining at the bit at the limits imposed on you by the Roman hierarchy´s discipline? How come this universal creed only ever really kept a hold on the Romance peoples with a few Celts and the odd German thrown in for good measure?

Is it just all a case of "Better keep a hold on Nurse" as Chesterton put it? ;)

[Wyn]

Eck down, Aem to go.

[Tolleson]

Eck down, Aem to go.

There would be a divorce on the horizon if that happened! :viking

[Murphy]

There would be a divorce on the horizon if that happened! :viking

No she'd have you whipped in proper order :P.

[Tolleson]

No she'd have you whipped in proper order :P.

If you mean not farting during a sermon.....not a chance! :D

[Grumpy Cat]

If you mean not farting during a sermon.....not a chance! :D

You shouldn't be farting during a blot, either. :p

[Wyn]

There would be a divorce on the horizon if that happened! :viking

Divorce? Excuse me, there'll be no talk of things like divorce when Aem finally makes her glorious return to Popery. ;)

[Loki]

Magister Eckhart, the depth of your research into your search for the truth is impressive. Congratulations on your newfound reality. I hope it works out for you. For me, it did not. It took roughly 13 years after a very genuine conversion for it to all become unraveled. And yes, I also found much spiritual wisdom in the teachings of Catholicism, despite my adherence to a more free-spirited brand of Christianity. It was no less real to me (or to God for that matter, I would imagine). Looking back now I see much of it as wasted years, although my Christian experience had a profound influence on my character.


With all due respect, humble yourself man! You're too prideful and your arrogance only serves to turnoff others.


I am baffled by how you can mistake happiness for arrogance - there is a huge difference! :rolleyes2:

[Magister Eckhart]

I'll continue our previous dialogue here. ;)

Question two: What, then, do you make of the plenitude of emanative divine beings that exist between τό ἕν and Φύσις? For, I'm not sure if you read Iamplichus and Proclus, but if you did, you'd remember that the hierarchy looks something like this:

The One
Gods
Archangels
Angels
Daimones
Heroes
Sublunary Archons
Material Archons
Human Souls

In the theologies of the above two thinkers these intermediary layers functioned as a bridge between the top and bottom levels. For, as Iamblichus works out in De Mysteriis, direct connection between the two is illogical and is not borne out by religious experience. He would argue that most regular people who experience "God" are really experiencing a daimon who is misrepresenting itself as the One. Thus, he and Proclus believed that the theurgical rites were the only route to ἕνωσις, that such an experience must be a gradual process of ascent, not an immediate one. And, it was for this reason that the polytheistic cults became so important. They viewed the Gods as necessary points of focus—bridges—between mankind and the One, without which mankind would be cut off from the source (each intermediary level functioned thusly). So then, why ditch the Gods for the One?

I would submit that if those who are experiencing a daimon misrepresenting itself as the One, there is no reason to believe that such a daimon or a "god" necessarily need be worshipped or even paid attention to.

The connection between the One and the human being is not something that happens without some means, to be sure, but the means of communication between Truth and Knower seems necessary to Truth's being. If, after all, Truth is perfect knowledge, and knowledge exists only to be discovered, then a being which is perfect knowledge in itself must will to be known. This willing to be known, however, cannot be sufficed in desire or craving, things which are foreign to the Ultimate, but can only be answered in the act of eternal (that is to say, transcending) creation of the λόγος.

The Gods, I would suggest, are insufficient means of realisation; if there is a One, an Ultimate, a Truth, then it must be a Totality and a Unity, in which all things dwell and which dwells in all things - in this way a direct connexion is not illogical nor is it denied by religious craving. Any means to achieve the One that is not wholly The One itself will be insufficient in reaching the One; therefore the One, the limitless and ineffable must become limited and comprehensible to mankind.

There is only one tradition that allows for this - that is the messianic tradition. "Messiah" is a perversion of the concept, of course, but that is due to the insufficient choices of those who received the revelations. Man has in himself the total potential to detect and know the Divine, evidenced by the very fact that he is the only being who can imagine there being a Divine. This potential, however, due to the free will and born ignorance of man, is often squandered or ignored. Only through direct and total revelation could it be overcome.


Hoho! I could smell the incense on you right from the start! No surprise to me. Phew - we are saved from chapter and verse theocracy again (till the next disaffected Papist comes along ;) )!

Anyway... That´s interesting about shifting the focus to Abram. I could accept that, were it not for the fact that Jehovah then couldn´t be arsed with any other people than the Abrahamites for a few millennia. I know he´s busy crafting each and every snowflake and the like, but come on - it does seem a bit lazy. This God could have been reaching out to susceptible peoples in every tribe, not settling for the ungrateful great great great grandkids of one Mesopotamian who showed some promise, once upon a time.

Just as the apple when ripe falls from the tree into the hand available to catch it, the ages are given to seasons. The ripeness of the time and place in which the Christ incarnated is certainly undeniable: one need only look to the way the history played out to see the hand of Providence. There is no reason, also, to assume that "Jehovah" didn't also engage in revelation elsewhere. The notion of "crafting every snowflake", while I know it's in jest, neglects the eternal and therefore transcending nature of the Divine Unity - God is by his very nature at all times in all places for all people. The fact that the Hebrews had a tradition which began with one who answered the call and were bound by covenant to the revelation of the One necessitates that the prophets and the Christ should have been derived from them. However, their covenant was fulfilled with Christ, and in rejecting Christ they rejected the new covenant, and forsook their place as the light of nations.

Christ conquers not just the death of the body, but also the death of the Hebrews - for there is no living religion among the Jews. Throughout the Gospels, the message clearly sent is that the Jews keep a dead religion, a religion free of God and devoted instead to an insufficient understanding of God, despite being guardians of the clearest statements of God's nothingness and totality. They are the only nation, for example, to whom God declares "I am the Being" - "I am The One". This cannot simply be a matter of interpretation - it is proof of the revelation, and the history of the Jews is proof of their failure.

This is not anti-Semitic, either; the Jews remain guardians of the Old Covenant and living proof that The One wills to be known. They are, however, fundamentally wrong in how they receive The One.


It takes little notice of non-Biblical accounts of the religious development of the Hebrews, either. Where is poor old Mama Ashura?

And okay, you want to go back to monotheism - but don´t you think you´ll be straining at the bit at the limits imposed on you by the Roman hierarchy´s discipline? How come this universal creed only ever really kept a hold on the Romance peoples with a few Celts and the odd German thrown in for good measure?

Is it just all a case of "Better keep a hold on Nurse" as Chesterton put it? ;)

The failures of men cannot be overcome by the Almighty without changing the nature of man - which itself would rob man of the opportunity to be truly perfect. Perfection native to a created being cannot be as perfect as potential for perfection attained by the imperfect. You exaggerate the "Roman hierarchy" as well; theologically, Catholicism offers far greater movement than either Orthodoxy or Protestantism. While the Protestants have looser ethics, both the Protestants and Orthodox are driven by a rejection of the use of the rational to access the Truth - only the Catholic Thomistic tradition really allows for an intellectual theology coupled with apocalyptic theology and hermeneutic theology. The reason I decided to direct myself toward Rome is the insufficiency in the traditions of the αἵρεσεις.

[poiuytrewq0987]

The Church of Constantinople is the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic NOT the Church dedicated to antichrist pretenders in Rome.

[Magister Eckhart]

The Church of Constantinople is the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic NOT the Church dedicated to antichrist pretenders in Rome.

The Orthodox Church refuses to admit access to God through reason; it is not false, but it is certainly insufficient Christianity, and as such it is heretical in a categorical sense.

I am not here, however, to wrangle on this point. This is why I personally decided on Roman Catholicism rather than Orthodoxy, with which (as you know) I was toying.

[Murphy]

The Church of Constantinople is the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic NOT the Church dedicated to antichrist pretenders in Rome.

Yea.. why accept the mandate of Jesus Christ the Son of God when you have a secular Roman Emperor to do it for you :rolleyes:..

[Magister Eckhart]

Yea.. why accept the mandate of Jesus Christ the Son of God when you have a secular Roman Emperor to do it for you :rolleyes:..

Well, let's not start a fight. We know that the Donation of Constantine was a forgery and further that the only ecumenical councils were all called by a secular emperor - not by the Bishops of Rome. The faults of Orthodox Christianity are not historical, they are theological.

[Murphy]

Well, let's not start a fight. We know that the Donation of Constantine was a forgery and further that the only ecumenical councils were all called by a secular emperor - not by the Bishops of Rome. The faults of Orthodox Christianity are not historical, they are theological.

I was referring to the arrogance of "Orthodox Christians" due to the fact that the capital of the Empire was moved to Constantinople and that that somehow granted authority or even honour to the Bishop of Constantinople that in anyway rivals the Petrine See which was granted universal jurisdiction by Jesus Christ Himself.

Even the lesser Petrine See of Antioch surpasses Constantinople in honour and dignity.

[Wulfhere]

I was referring to the arrogance of "Orthodox Christians" due to the fact that the capital of the Empire was moved to Constantinople and that that somehow granted authority or even honour to the Bishop of Constantinople that in anyway rivals the Petrine See which was granted universal jurisdiction by Jesus Christ Himself.

Even the lesser Petrine See of Antioch surpasses Constantinople in honour and dignity.

What's the evidence that Peter even went to Rome? Let alone that he was granted any sort of authority. After his death, Jesus was succeeded by his brother James as the head of the Christian community in Jerusalem.

[Magister Eckhart]

What's the evidence that Peter even went to Rome? Let alone that he was granted any sort of authority. After his death, Jesus was succeeded by his brother James as the head of the Christian community in Jerusalem.

Evidence that Peter went to Rome is found in his First Epistle, "By Silvanus, a faithful brother unto you, as I suppose, I have written briefly, exhorting, and testifying that this is the true grace of God wherein ye stand. The church that is at Babylon, elected together with you, saluteth you; and so doth Marcus my son. Greet ye one another with a kiss of charity. Peace be with you all that are in Christ Jesus. Amen." (1 Peter 5:12-14) "The church that is at Babylon" is Rome.

That's not true at all. There is no evidence supporting any claim that James (not the brother of Jesus, whose tomb was only a recent discovery and has not actually been confirmed as the brother of Jesus of Nazareth) took head of the Church. I will not go as far as to say that Jesus had no siblings--that's stated rather clearly in the scripture-- but any ill-conceived claim made that anyone other than Peter was made head of the church (there are no " inheritors to Christ"; that is fundamentally blasphemous and counter to scripture "But be not ye called Rabbi: for one is your Master, [even] Christ; and all ye are brethren." (Matt. 23:8)

On the contrary, polemics against the Church as well as the scripture itself explicitly places the keys into the hands of Peter; indeed, his very name, Cephas/Petrus is derived from the purpose he was ordained to serve by Jesus himself: "And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." (Matt. 16:18)

The Latin reads: et ego dico tibi quia tu es Petrus et super hanc petram aedificabo ecclesiam meam et portae inferi non praevalebunt adversum eam. Ecclesiam here is clearly referring to the "community" of believers that would later come to take the name "church" - not necessarily the institution of the church, but certain the community of believers, in the centre of whom was to be Peter, clearly indicating that there was to be a single head of the church.

Peter inherited the position as head of the Church and we know for a fact that both he and Paul made their way to Rome, where Peter was crucified. Evidence of this is derived from ancient accounts of Peter's tomb correlated by a tomb matching that description, upon which the present Basilica of St. Peter is built.

Peter's successors are based in Rome, not anywhere else, making the Bishops of Rome, for all their human faults and errors, the ordained heads of the Christian community. One should remember that one's faults and errors in doctrine do not make one unworthy for the position of head of the church- even Paul had to reprimand Peter publicly, and while it did not immediately go well for Paul, ultimately Peter's errors were corrected, which is why Christians don't hold to Mosaic law.

The relationship of Peter and Paul in scripture as well as historically show that a single head of the Church with spiritual advisers and teachers to preserve the orthodoxy is an ordained Christian tradition.

The problems with this tradition were exacerbated by Papal Infallibility, a heretical doctrine, and the errors of Vatican II. However, these errors can still be reversed, having no dogmatic force in the Church.

[Wulfhere]

That's not true at all. There is no evidence supporting any claim that James (not the brother of Jesus, whose tomb was only a recent discovery and has not actually been confirmed as the brother of Jesus of Nazareth) took head of the Church. I will not go as far as to say that Jesus had no siblings--that's stated rather clearly in the scripture-- but any ill-conceived claim made that anyone other than Peter was made head of the church (there are no " inheritors to Christ"; that is fundamentally blasphemous and counter to scripture "But be not ye called Rabbi: for one is your Master, [even] Christ; and all ye are brethren." (Matt. 23:8)

On the contrary, polemics against the Church as well as the scripture itself explicitly places the keys into the hands of Peter; indeed, his very name, Cephas/Petrus is derived from the purpose he was ordained to serve by Jesus himself: "And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." (Matt. 16:18)

The Latin reads: et ego dico tibi quia tu es Petrus et super hanc petram aedificabo ecclesiam meam et portae inferi non praevalebunt adversum eam. Ecclesiam here is clearly referring to the "community" of believers that would later come to take the name "church" - not necessarily the institution of the church, but certain the community of believers, in the centre of whom was to be Peter, clearly indicating that there was to be a single head of the church.

Peter inherited the position as head of the Church and we know for a fact that both he and Paul made their way to Rome, where Peter was crucified. Evidence of this is derived from ancient accounts of Peter's tomb correlated by a tomb matching that description, upon which the present Basilica of St. Peter is built.

Peter's successors are based in Rome, not anywhere else, making the Bishops of Rome, for all their human faults and errors, the ordained heads of the Christian community. One should remember that one's faults and errors in doctrine do not make one unworthy for the position of head of the church- even Paul had to reprimand Peter publicly, and while it did not immediately go well for Paul, ultimately Peter's errors were corrected, which is why Christians don't hold to Mosaic law.

The relationship of Peter and Paul in scripture as well as historically show that a single head of the Church with spiritual advisers and teachers to preserve the orthodoxy is an ordained Christian tradition.

The problems with this tradition were exacerbated by Papal Infallibility, a heretical doctrine, and the errors of Vatican II. However, these errors can still be reversed, having no dogmatic force in the Church.

James is explicitly referred to as Jesus's brother and Peter was subservient to him in the hierarchy, making Jerusalem the mother church of the Christian community - for what it's worth. The monotheistic mentality - which appears to suit the Semitic mind very well (e.g. Judaism and Islam) - perforce calls for dogma, which then leads to schism.

[Cato]

I see needless theorizing here. Let me pull Marcus Aurelius out of my bag of Stoic tricks:

"Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones."

[Magister Eckhart]

James is explicitly referred to as Jesus's brother and Peter was subservient to him in the hierarchy, making Jerusalem the mother church of the Christian community - for what it's worth. The monotheistic mentality - which appears to suit the Semitic mind very well (e.g. Judaism and Islam) - perforce calls for dogma, which then leads to schism.

When you can come back at me with the same historical and scriptural evidence rather than this meaningless pseudo-historical anti-Christian nonsense, I will relent. Even as a Heathen I never disputed Peter's primacy - theology is the real matter at hand here.

"Here I stand."


I see needless theorizing here. Let me pull Marcus Aurelius out of my bag of Stoic tricks:

"Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones."

What is a good life? Until you know Truth, the basis for the ultimate Good, you cannot live that.

[Wulfhere]

I see needless theorizing here. Let me pull Marcus Aurelius out of my bag of Stoic tricks:

"Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones."

Perfect. We, as humans, should never let the gods dictate to us.

[Cato]

I see needless theorizing here. Let me pull Marcus Aurelius out of my bag of Stoic tricks:

"Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones."

And

"Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth."

So, there is a Christian perspective, a heathen perspective and so on. I've seen on both sides of the isle, having been both a Christian and a follower of Asatru. In both cases I considered myself to have been faithful to the creed in question, yet also with the added comment that I had a tinge of doubt that what I was hearing, what I was believing in were simply the stories of divine hearsay uttered by others.

[Wulfhere]

When you can come back at me with the same historical and scriptural evidence rather than this meaningless pseudo-historical anti-Christian nonsense, I will relent. Even as a Heathen I never disputed Peter's primacy - theology is the real matter at hand here.

"Here I stand."



What is a good life? Until you know Truth, the basis for the ultimate Good, you cannot live that.

Acts describes Peter's subservience to James. But to be honest, since I'm not a Christian, and repudiate Semitic monotheism, it doesn't really matter to me. You may be right.

[Cato]

Perfect. We, as humans, should never let the gods dictate to us.

Gods that dictate terms are not worthy of worship.

[Wulfhere]

Gods that dictate terms are not worthy of worship.

If the gods do not serve our interests, they should be eliminated.

[Cato]

If the gods do not serve our interests, they should be eliminated.

Man makes his own myths of the divine. I believe in God perfectly well, but I can't say that it's a uniform belief. For example, I'm still dealing with the excess baggage of once being a Christian, a devout one. In my mid- to late-teens I pretty much decided that Christianity wasn't what it claimed to be. One of the earliest books that I read that presented another view of the divine was To Myself. Or The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. The emperor mentions the Christians at one point, noting that they were stubborn and morbid (just as Julian said that Christians were morbid, being obsessed with death, worshipping the bones of dead men and lurking in tombs, etc.).

The only doctrines to hold my interest for so long have beein Stoicism (20 years, give or take) and deism (about 10 years). I'd even say Confucianism as well; I first read the Analects about 5 years ago. These three belief systems have in common two things: belief in the Deity (or divine power/powers) but not in an overly obsessive/debasing manner such as is found in the monotheistic doctrines.

[Wulfhere]

Man makes his own myths of the divine. I believe in God perfectly well, but I can't say that it's a uniform belief. For example, I'm still dealing with the excess baggage of once being a Christian, a devout one. In my mid- to late-teens I pretty much decided that Christianity wasn't what it claimed to be. One of the earliest books that I read that presented another view of the divine was To Myself. Or The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. The emperor mentions the Christians at one point, noting that they were stubborn and morbid (just as Julian said that Christians were morbid, being obsessed with death, worshipping the bones of dead men and lurking in tombs, etc.).

The only doctrines to hold my interest for so long has beein Stoicism (20 years, give or take) and deism (about 10 years).

When I say the gods should be eliminated if the don't serve our interests, I'm not speaking metaphorically. As a Pagan who has had a great deal of interaction with non-corporeal entities, I know they're real. I certainly don't believe in any Semitic monotheistic deity though.

[Cato]

When I say the gods should be eliminated if the don't serve our interests, I'm not speaking metaphorically. As a Pagan who has had a great deal of interaction with non-corporeal entities, I know they're real. I certainly don't believe in any Semitic monotheistic deity though.

The concept of a "Semitic monotheistic deity" isn't entirely Semitic; there was an interplay of cultures in the ancient Near East, and the development of Abrahamic monotheism isn't strictly something of purely Semitic origin.

The founder of my preferred school of philosophy, Stoicism, was a Hellenized Phoenician named Zeno. Zeno carried his beliefs with him into Greece where they sort of mixed and mingled with the ideas of the followers of Socrates. Zeno's teacher was Crates the Cynic, a pupil of Socrates.

[Wulfhere]

The concept of a "Semitic monotheistic deity" isn't entirely Semitic; there was an interplay of cultures in the ancient Near East, and the development of Abrahamic monotheism isn't strictly something of purely Semitic origin.

It seems very much so to me, and fits the Semitic mentality like a glove. Uncompromising extremism, factionalism, and indiscriminate slaughter, are all part of such a world view.

[Cato]

It seems very much so to me, and fits the Semitic mentality like a glove. Uncompromising extremism, factionalism, and indiscriminate slaughter, are all part of such a world view.

Read my edited comments. The Abrahamic conception of divine monotheism has little to do with, say, the Stoic conception of divine pantheism.

[Wulfhere]

Read my edited comments. The Abrahamic conception of divine monotheism has little to do with, say, the Stoic conception of divine pantheism.

Some Greek philosophers developed an intellectual sort of virtual monotheism, but this never appealed to ordinary people, as all true religion should. The people remained resolutely Pagan, until long after the Church banned Paganism (in 391). Indeed, what sets Catholicism apart from Judaism and Islam is its willingness to accept Pagan ideas, because otherwise it could never have been so successful amongst Europeans. If the Catholic Church wants my advice, which I'm sure it doesn't, it should cast off all this Jesus bollocks and become a genuinely Pagan organisation.

[Cato]

Some Greek philosophers developed an intellectual sort of virtual monotheism, but this never appealed to ordinary people, as all true religion should. The people remained resolutely Pagan, until long after the Church banned Paganism (in 391). Indeed, what sets Catholicism apart from Judaism and Islam is its willingness to accept Pagan ideas, because otherwise it could never have been so successful amongst Europeans. If the Catholic Church wants my advice, which I'm sure it doesn't, it should cast off all this Jesus bollocks and become a genuinely Pagan organisation.

Heraclitus didn't believe that ordinary people could be taught the secrets of things human and divine. He preferred the aristoi. The Stoics were a more moderate sect, preferring to teach morals over metaphysics.

[Wulfhere]

Heraclitus didn't believe that ordinary people could be taught the secrets of things human and divine. He preferred the aristoi. The Stoics were a more moderate sect, preferring to teach morals over metaphysics.

Heraclitus was a bit of a pessimist. Can you step into the same river twice? Yes, of course you can. If everything is in flux, as he asserted, then the word "flux" loses all meaning. In short, he was wrong. He might sit there fulminating, but real people got on with their Pagan way of life completely oblivious to him.

[Cato]

Heraclitus was a bit of a pessimist. Can you step into the same river twice? Yes, of course you can. If everything is in flux, as he asserted, then the word "flux" loses all meaning. In short, he was wrong. He might sit there fulminating, but real people got on with their Pagan way of life completely oblivious to him.

Then why am I interested in paganism? I thank the philosophers, not the fervent believers in pagan myths, for my interest in the pre-Christian historical past and pre-Christian conceptions of the divine. I'm no tribesman.

[Wulfhere]

Then why am I interested in paganism? I thank the philosophers, not the fervent believers in pagan myths, for my interest in the pre-Christian historical past and pre-Christian conceptions of the divine. I'm no tribesman.

There are no fervent believers in Pagan myths. They're just stories. But even Plato, the father of Western philosophy, indulged in mythologising.

[Rosenrot]

There's more in the gods then just personal interests or esotherics motivations. They are figures that carry the energy of an entire culture; their hopes and wishes. I can't say that there is a rainbow bridge that connects Asgard to the tree world, because someone questioned me with his whole sense of truth.

But i'm sure there's more in ancient tales that only superstition, maybe thousands of truths are hidden in metaphors that comes from times when humans were in tune with this world and their spirituality. I love every single chance to dream and believe that there is something too great behind the simple and beautiful things of this world. They are symbols of what is most special in our existence.

The truth does not exist. Everything comes from the ability of our mind that should never be underestimated. Humanity is a messy beautiful thing!

[Cato]

The truth does not exist. Everything comes from the ability of our mind that should never be underestimated. Humanity is a messy beautiful thing!

Incorrect.

[Magister Eckhart]

There's more in the gods then just personal interests or esotherics motivations. They are figures that carry the energy of an entire culture; their hopes and wishes. I can't say that there is a rainbow bridge that connects Asgard to the tree world, because someone questioned me with his whole sense of truth.

But i'm sure there's more in ancient tales that only superstition, maybe thousands of truths are hidden in metaphors that comes from times when humans were in tune with this world and their spirituality. I love every single chance to dream and believe that there is something too great behind the simple and beautiful things of this world. They are symbols of what is most special in our existence.

The truth does not exist. Everything comes from the ability of our mind that should never be underestimated. Humanity is a messy beautiful thing!

This is exactly the atheistic pseudo-religion that first inspired me to start doing theology for Heathenry and eliminate such relativistic approaches that lead down a path that will only end in irreligion and soullessness.

[Loddfafner]

Eck down, Aem to go.

I see you have written off dumb skins like me.

[Psychonaut]

There is only one tradition that allows for this

What?!?!

There is not only one tradition that allows for this. Please, before you sell your soul to St. Peter go back and read Iamblichus and Proclus. Leaping from Plotinus to Pseudo-Dionysus completely sidesteps all of the wonderful praxis associated with Neoplatonism: theurgy! If you accept that each level of the emanative hierarchy is directly contingent upon the preceding layer (if you don't then you have to revert back to the original Platonic formula of only two layers), then you run into serious logical problems with the idea that cosmogeny and anthropogeny must proceed downwards through each successive level but that apotheosis occurs directly between the very top and bottom.

[Rosenrot]

Incorrect.

Then tell me the truth! ;)

[Cato]

Then tell me the truth! ;)

We will be judged by the divine power/powers according to our deeds, herosim and virtues. Not our beliefs. Nothing else, nothing less.

But it does pay to have a divine patron, especially the One.

[Rosenrot]

We will be judged by the divine power/powers according to our deeds, herosim and virtues. Not our beliefs.

In your truth and in mine. I believe in such judgement, and in a supreme amazing power which we're connect with. But may this be everyone's truth?

[Cato]

In your truth and in mine. I believe in such judgement. But may this be everyone's truth?

Who is your patron? Mine was once Atena, great goddess of heroes and men who struggle, who I conflate with Minerva and even the Christian goddess called Sophia. My original name on the forum was Pallamedes, "inspired by Pallas [Athena]." I exchanged an oath with a goddess, forget about it, and have been punished by Atena's spear for far too long.

And yes, I merely regard Atena as an aspect of the Supreme Being, my favored aspect: civilization, combat, conflict, heroism, knowledge, struggle, warfare, wisdom and so forth.

[The Journeyman]

I am baffled by how you can mistake happiness for arrogance - there is a huge difference! :rolleyes2:

It didn't seem like happiness, but rather pride in claiming victory. :rolleyes:

[Cato]

theurgy

Mumblepeg!

[Psychonaut]

Mumblepeg!

Pipe down kiddo, the grownups are talking.

[Cato]

Pipe down kiddo, the grownups are talking.

http://cache.ohinternet.com/images/3/30/MrSockpuppet.jpg

[Grumpy Cat]

Well, I was just thinking, I know an easy way Murphy could gain more converts from Heathenry. Well, maybe not THAT easy, it would take some computer savvy. It would be quite funny, though.

[Grumpy Cat]

:lol: Since people are curious: a Heathen WikiLeaks where what groups and organizations say about each other in private are published for all to see.

Sorry, there wouldn't be a bowl of popcorn big enough if that ever happened. Not even the ones that come out at Empire Theatres when a new Star Wars movie comes out.

[Psychonaut]

:lol: Since people are curious: a Heathen WikiLeaks where what groups and organizations say about each other in private are published for all to see.

Sorry, there wouldn't be a bowl of popcorn big enough if that ever happened. Not even the ones that come out at Empire Theatres when a new Star Wars movie comes out.

Oh that's all? :D

That would only be embarrassing for a certain group whose members talk shit about any and every other Heathen group/leader on their forum. The other (bigger) big org is really quite respectful even behind closed doors.

[Rosenrot]

Who is your patron? Mine was once Atena, great goddess of heroes and men who struggle, who I conflate with Minerva and even the Christian goddess called Sophia. My original name on the forum was Pallamedes, "inspired by Pallas [Athena]." I exchanged an oath with a goddess, forget about it, and have been punished by Atena's spear for far too long.

And yes, I merely regard Atena as an aspect of the Supreme Being, my favored aspect: civilization, combat, conflict, heroism, knowledge, struggle, warfare, wisdom and so forth.

Although I use a Thor's Hammer, I feel emphaty for Freyia and Frigga, two powerfull aspects of the feminine. Mani and Bil, gods of the moon (even the moon the Scaninaveans believes, masculine and racional, for me the moon is feminine and emotional) wich I feel that have an strong influence over me. Skadhi and Ull for the cold polarity; Ægir and Njord, cause I feel conected to the ocean. I also have emphaty for the constelations Cygnus and Cancer.

[Tolleson]

:lol: Since people are curious: a Heathen WikiLeaks where what groups and organizations say about each other in private are published for all to see.

Sorry, there wouldn't be a bowl of popcorn big enough if that ever happened. Not even the ones that come out at Empire Theatres when a new Star Wars movie comes out.

No one can look away from a train wreck! :D

[Cato]

Although I use a Thor's Hammer, I feel emphaty for Freyia and Frigga, two powerfull aspects of the feminine. Mani and Bil, gods of the moon (even the moon the Scaninaveans believes, masculine and racional, for me the moon is feminine and emotional) wich I feel that have an strong influence over me. Skadhi and Ull for the cold polarity; Ægir and Njord, cause I feel conected to the ocean. I also have emphaty for the constelations Cygnus and Cancer.

You do realize that these divinities that you mention are merely aspects of the Supreme God?

[Rosenrot]

You do realize that these divinities that you mention are merely aspects of the Supreme God?

The ones I said, aspects of myself. But the pagans gods in general, of humanity psique, needs and culture. I guess the supreme god must be totally unhuman, and we still don't have what is necessary to understand it.

[Cato]

The ones I said, aspects of myself. But the pagans gods in general, of humanity psique, needs and culture. I guess the supreme god must be totally unhuman, and we still don't have what is necessary to understand it.

That's the idea, the Supreme God is entirely ineffable. It does exist. I don't doubt this for a moment and can be called "Father" or "Mother" or "Creator" or any equivalent term.

Cbeck this out, a hymn to the Creator supposedly penned by Plato:

http://www.openbuddha.com/2005/10/09/a-platonic-hymn-to-the-creator/

People, being people, prefer to interact with the Deity via mediums, hence gods, messiahs, prophets, saviors, wisemen, etc.

[Wulfhere]

You do realize that these divinities that you mention are merely aspects of the Supreme God?

No, that is an insulting and Semitic-minded thing to say.

[Cato]

No, that is an insulting and Semitic-minded thing to say.

Pull your head out of your backside and learn something for once in your life. The antique Chinese (prior to 1,000bce) had the same ideas of an ineffable supreme divinity, ideas that co-existed alongside the popular folk religion that is still populated by gods, spirits and deified mortals.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shangdi

What, you'll call the Han people a bunch of Semites? :lol:

[Wulfhere]

Pull your head out of your backside and learn something for once in your life. The antique Chinese (prior to 1,000bce) had the same ideas of an ineffable supreme divinity, ideas that co-existed alongside the popular folk religion that is still populated by gods, spirits and deified mortals.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shangdi

What, you'll call the Han people a bunch of Semites? :lol:

I don't care what they were (and they weren't Europeans, anyway). Monotheism is a revolt against life, love and instinct into arid intellectual masturbation, and the sooner it is consigned to the cesspit of history the better.

[Cato]

I don't care what they were (and they weren't Europeans, anyway). Monotheism is a revolt against life, love and instinct into arid intellectual masturbation, and the sooner it is consigned to the cesspit of history the better.

This statement boggles the mind.

You seem to equate the belief of a Supreme God, lesser gods, spirits, deified mortals, etc. as being the same as Biblical monotheism. :rolleyes:

[Wulfhere]

This statement boggles the mind.

You seem to equate the belief of a Supreme God, lesser gods, spirits, deified mortals, etc. as being the same as Biblical monotheism. :rolleyes:

Any attempt to conflate the gods into one is an attempt to control reality by the human intellect, and is only ever contemplated by those who have lost touch with nature. That way lies spiritual death.

[Cato]

Any attempt to conflate the gods into one is an attempt to control reality by the human intellect, and is only ever contemplated by those who have lost touch with nature. That way lies spiritual death.

http://www.buzzhunt.co.uk/wp-content/2011/01/cool-story-bro.jpg

[Wulfhere]

http://www.buzzhunt.co.uk/wp-content/2011/01/cool-story-bro.jpg

Is that the level of your response?

[Murphy]

So nice of you all to hijack Eckhart's thread.

[Cato]

Is that the level of your response?

I reach a certain point where I cease trying to reason with the ignorant and instead make fun of them.

[Wulfhere]

I reach a certain point where I cease trying to reason with the ignorant and instead make fun of them.

Monotheism is the worst kind of ignorance, because it thinks itself superior. And has never failed to enforce that self-proclaimed superiority, wherever it has had the opportunity. It is the true enemy of freedom and life.

[Tolleson]

So nice of you all to hijack Eckhart's thread.

It's the Christian thing to do! :D

[Psychonaut]

That's the idea, the Supreme God is entirely ineffable. It does exist.

You do realize that complete ineffability covers both rational and empirical domains, which would make it impossible for you to say whether or not such a thing existed. For, in saying that it exists, you are making a claim of knowledge, which renders the entity effable.

[Cato]

You do realize that complete ineffability covers both rational and empirical domains, which would make it impossible for you to say whether or not such a thing existed. For, in saying that it exists, you are making a claim of knowledge, which renders the entity effable.

Heraclitus: God is winter and summer, God is life and death, God is day and night...

In other words, God is a contradiction that both exists and does not exist.

[Psychonaut]

Heraclitus: God is winter and summer, God is life and death, God is day and night...

In other words, God is a contradiction that both exists and does not exist.

Logic > Poetry

If something is ineffable, then you can't know anything about it. Having the ability to know anything about it, to include the facticity of its existence, makes it effable.

[Cato]

Logic > Poetry

If something is ineffable, then you can't know anything about it. Having the ability to know anything about it, to include the facticity of its existence, makes it effable.

Sextus Empiricus.

[Magister Eckhart]

So much to do!


I don't care what they were (and they weren't Europeans, anyway). Monotheism is a revolt against life, love and instinct into arid intellectual masturbation, and the sooner it is consigned to the cesspit of history the better.

You have a wonderful vocabulary of catch-words and stock-phrases, but in reality all I can detect in this response is the very same intellectual masturbation you yourself so willingly and enthusiastically damn. You say words pleasing to yourself, but offer no substantive argument to make monotheism unnecessary to the human relationship with the Divine - furthermore, your sole argument, that monotheism is "dangerous" to human things like "love" and animal "instinct" seems only to emphasise that your cause is in clear defence of the lower inclinations of man toward animalism and away from humanity.

If you are surprised that your opponents tire easily of arguing with you, it may be because you present yourself as an animal, and I can scarcely think of a man who has the patience or the obstinacy to carry on a philosophical or theological discourse with a dog. You may well be misrepresenting yourself; perhaps your inclinations are not toward the animalistic - in any case from your present discourse I can expect only continued rhetorical attack on monotheism or ad hominem attacks against myself for my audacity to suggest that you are wrong. Strange, considering that the principal stock charge you level against monotheists is their arrogance that prevents discourse.


Any attempt to conflate the gods into one is an attempt to control reality by the human intellect, and is only ever contemplated by those who have lost touch with nature. That way lies spiritual death.

Which is greater: a broken, loose confederation of powers relegated to individual processes and things, which are in themselves fully comprehensible to the human intellect, or that which is totality, eternal, and one, beyond the comprehension of the human intellect and accessible only through itself (since, if such a thing is one, it must encompass all things and beings)?

Your charge of controlling reality according the human intellect is entirely the problem with polytheistic belief: it breaks all things down and compartmentalises them, categorising and rationalising them - it reflects the most basic nature of the human intellect inclined toward scientific and formulaic thought, and none of the characteristics of higher pondering or transcendence. The monotheist or panentheist, on the other hand, actually allows for the presence of chaos as chaos, rather than compartmentalising it as the polytheist does.


No, that is an insulting and Semitic-minded thing to say.

Yes, Plato, Plotinus, Aristotle, Heraclitus, Marcus Aurelius - what a bunch of filthy Semites! :rolleyes:

You consistently betray not only your spiritual, but also your historical ignorance on these matters with the repetition of your stock phrases and buzz-word responses. You are parroting a formulaic rhetoric designed to convince the unthinking or uneducated of a given thought or line of thought - a rhetoric which they, in their ignorance, are expected themselves to parrot to other unthinking or uneducated people, and thus proselytise that which is offensive to the human intellect.


Monotheism is the worst kind of ignorance, because it thinks itself superior. And has never failed to enforce that self-proclaimed superiority, wherever it has had the opportunity. It is the true enemy of freedom and life.

More buzz-words and ad hominems against monotheism and monotheists, but again, no substantive quality. Where does the concept of monotheism proclaim and enforce superiority? You will no doubt be able to give a detailed and selective history of Christianity in Europe, and the "crimes against humanity" committed by the evil Christians against the freedom-loving pagans, but this is little more than a pathological appeal to our contemporary liberal notion that physical peace and material freedom are inherently good things, with no actual argument as to A) why monotheism necessarily contains these things as part of its nature, B) what "freedom" and "life" mean in this context, or C) why "freedom", especially, but also "life" is important.

None of these things are a priori, as you are treating them


The ones I said, aspects of myself. But the pagans gods in general, of humanity psique, needs and culture. I guess the supreme god must be totally unhuman, and we still don't have what is necessary to understand it.

If you reduce the divine to a mere aspect of yourself, of your appetites and of your inclinations, you only serve to inflate yourself at the expense of the Divine, and come to no fuller understanding of anything.


There's more in the gods then just personal interests or esotherics motivations. They are figures that carry the energy of an entire culture; their hopes and wishes. I can't say that there is a rainbow bridge that connects Asgard to the tree world, because someone questioned me with his whole sense of truth.

You contradict yourself here. "hopes" and "wishes" are personal interests. Whether they are individual or collective, they remain little more than very finite, comprehensible, and in many ways insufficient appetites which, by ascribing them to the divine, ultimately only serve to limit potential for eternality and, as a result, divinity itself.


But i'm sure there's more in ancient tales that only superstition, maybe thousands of truths are hidden in metaphors that comes from times when humans were in tune with this world and their spirituality. I love every single chance to dream and believe that there is something too great behind the simple and beautiful things of this world. They are symbols of what is most special in our existence.

You speak of symbols and truths hidden in metaphors (or allegories, to use a better word for this concept) and yet you will deny a transcending, unifying truth? You are willing to admit a deeper existence than what is plain before the eyes, but then damn yourself to a purgatory of being able to look, but not see.

Again, like Wulfhere, I see buzz-words and stock phrases popular in the esoteric and neo-pagan communities, but little actual thought given to anything you are expressing here. If there is no truth, and reality is as we perceive it - each individual - then every conceivable reality must be perceivable to human beings. Why then, was it not until the late nineteenth century (that's only 1900 years after the birth of Christ, not counting the thousands of years of human history before this, going back to some 24-25 thousand years before the present day) that anyone suggested that there is nothing divine or eternal? Something constant and singular has united the natural inclination of the entire human species from the earliest days; the relativistic denial of truth falls to pieces in the face of this fact.


The truth does not exist. Everything comes from the ability of our mind that should never be underestimated. Humanity is a messy beautiful thing!

This moral relativism, a direct result of diluted Kantian philosophy, reflects the solipsistic tendency which drives our contemporary world. To quote (at length) Søren Kieregaard's well-phrased rebuttal of the nihilistic and solipsistic approach to reality:


If there were no eternal consciousness in a man, if at the bottom of everything there were only a wild ferment, a power that twisting in dark passions produced everything great or inconsequential; if an unfathomable, insatiable emptiness lay hid beneath everything, what would life be but despair?

Further, there is no beauty in chaos; to assert such a thing is to deny the very basis of the aesthetic as a concept.


What?!?!

There is not only one tradition that allows for this. Please, before you sell your soul to St. Peter go back and read Iamblichus and Proclus. Leaping from Plotinus to Pseudo-Dionysus completely sidesteps all of the wonderful praxis associated with Neoplatonism: theurgy! If you accept that each level of the emanative hierarchy is directly contingent upon the preceding layer (if you don't then you have to revert back to the original Platonic formula of only two layers), then you run into serious logical problems with the idea that cosmogeny and anthropogeny must proceed downwards through each successive level but that apotheosis occurs directly between the very top and bottom.

I am not saying the messianic is the only tradition allowing for these things, but the only tradition allowing for and insisting on the singularity of the λόγος as a reflection of τό Ἔν; Neo-Platonism does not actually insist on singularity, but allows for multiplicity which I have concluded implicitly denies the singularity of τό Ἔν. There must be singularity and Unity in both The One and the means by which The One extends itself to us-- and that means, the λόγος, cannot merely be a means, but must be The One itself, reflecting the Unity and Totality of The One, but comprehensible to mankind. The only tradition allowing for such a λόγος is the messianic.


So nice of you all to hijack Eckhart's thread.

Yeah... well I expected this to cause something of a stir and plenty of people taking the opportunity to gloat, to damn, and to insist passionately that they don't care - the standard reaction whenever such an announcement is posted.

I'm glad to see it's generation some real debate, though. I'd love for someone else to jump into my exchange with Psychonaut here, or for someone to help me answer Wulfhere (without a mere Appeal to Authority - I'm looking at my (now) fellow Catholics here.)

[Psychonaut]

Neo-Platonism does not actually insist on singularity, but allows for multiplicity which I have concluded implicitly denies the singularity of τό Ἔν.

Quite the contrary, the theurgic praxis is most singular. You might think that the multiplicity of archons, daimones, angels and Gods allows for a plenum of pathways to the One, but Iamblichus is quite clear in his advocacy of the contrary. Like Shaw says in Theurgy and the Soul: "The soul could not rise to the paternal Demiurge alone. To reach the One, the soul had to be assimilated to the Whole, and this was accomplished only by honoring 'all the gods.' Though Iamblichus admits that noetic theurgy worshipped the 'one, at the summit of the whole multitide of gods' (DM 230, 15-16), the direct worship of the One came only 'at the very end of life and to very few,'" (p. 156).

[Murphy]

I'm looking at my (now) fellow Catholics here.

Sorry man you're on your own. I'm planning to do my studies in Ecclesiastical history you understand :D?

[Magister Eckhart]

Quite the contrary, the theurgic praxis is most singular. You might think that the multiplicity of archons, daimones, angels and Gods allows for a plenum of pathways to the One, but Iamblichus is quite clear in his advocacy of the contrary. Like Shaw says in Theurgy and the Soul: "The soul could not rise to the paternal Demiurge alone. To reach the One, the soul had to be assimilated to the Whole, and this was accomplished only by honoring 'all the gods.' Though Iamblichus admits that noetic theurgy worshipped the 'one, at the summit of the whole multitide of gods' (DM 230, 15-16), the direct worship of the One came only 'at the very end of life and to very few,'" (p. 156).

Indeed, he singularity of The One is insisted upon, yes, but the singularity of the λόγος is not, as said above. Rather, the many are treated as a "whole", but the access to The One must be One, singular and total, but also comprehensible. It cannot be the sum of the parts (worshipping all things as a means to reach The All, as in Theurgy), but it must be an expression (might I dare incarnation?) of The One. This is what I mean when I speak of the messianic as the only path allowing for singularity of the λόγος.


Heraclitus: God is winter and summer, God is life and death, God is day and night...

In other words, God is a contradiction that both exists and does not exist.

You are expressing the basics of negative theology here but I am not sure if that is what in fact you mean to express. Heraclitus was certainly a proponent of a negative theology, though (as expressed in the Heraclitus quote in my signature file). He was the chief pre-Socratic philosopher of this approach, in my opinion, and expressed many of the truths found in Plotinus long before even Plato lived.

Meister Eckhart is the Christian master of negative theology, expressing God as Nothing and everything as nothing before God - a paradox that makes self-alienation the only means of accessing the λόγος oneself. I must admit the whole negative theological approach is very compelling and part of what made me attempt to put a Heathen face on Eckhart's work in the first place.

[Wulfhere]

So much to do!



You have a wonderful vocabulary of catch-words and stock-phrases, but in reality all I can detect in this response is the very same intellectual masturbation you yourself so willingly and enthusiastically damn. You say words pleasing to yourself, but offer no substantive argument to make monotheism unnecessary to the human relationship with the Divine - furthermore, your sole argument, that monotheism is "dangerous" to human things like "love" and animal "instinct" seems only to emphasise that your cause is in clear defence of the lower inclinations of man toward animalism and away from humanity.

If you are surprised that your opponents tire easily of arguing with you, it may be because you present yourself as an animal, and I can scarcely think of a man who has the patience or the obstinacy to carry on a philosophical or theological discourse with a dog. You may well be misrepresenting yourself; perhaps your inclinations are not toward the animalistic - in any case from your present discourse I can expect only continued rhetorical attack on monotheism or ad hominem attacks against myself for my audacity to suggest that you are wrong. Strange, considering that the principal stock charge you level against monotheists is their arrogance that prevents discourse.



Which is greater: a broken, loose confederation of powers relegated to individual processes and things, which are in themselves fully comprehensible to the human intellect, or that which is totality, eternal, and one, beyond the comprehension of the human intellect and accessible only through itself (since, if such a thing is one, it must encompass all things and beings)?

Your charge of controlling reality according the human intellect is entirely the problem with polytheistic belief: it breaks all things down and compartmentalises them, categorising and rationalising them - it reflects the most basic nature of the human intellect inclined toward scientific and formulaic thought, and none of the characteristics of higher pondering or transcendence. The monotheist or panentheist, on the other hand, actually allows for the presence of chaos as chaos, rather than compartmentalising it as the polytheist does.



Yes, Plato, Plotinus, Aristotle, Heraclitus, Marcus Aurelius - what a bunch of filthy Semites! :rolleyes:

You consistently betray not only your spiritual, but also your historical ignorance on these matters with the repetition of your stock phrases and buzz-word responses. You are parroting a formulaic rhetoric designed to convince the unthinking or uneducated of a given thought or line of thought - a rhetoric which they, in their ignorance, are expected themselves to parrot to other unthinking or uneducated people, and thus proselytise that which is offensive to the human intellect.



More buzz-words and ad hominems against monotheism and monotheists, but again, no substantive quality. Where does the concept of monotheism proclaim and enforce superiority? You will no doubt be able to give a detailed and selective history of Christianity in Europe, and the "crimes against humanity" committed by the evil Christians against the freedom-loving pagans, but this is little more than a pathological appeal to our contemporary liberal notion that physical peace and material freedom are inherently good things, with no actual argument as to A) why monotheism necessarily contains these things as part of its nature, B) what "freedom" and "life" mean in this context, or C) why "freedom", especially, but also "life" is important.

None of these things are a priori, as you are treating them



If you reduce the divine to a mere aspect of yourself, of your appetites and of your inclinations, you only serve to inflate yourself at the expense of the Divine, and come to no fuller understanding of anything.



You contradict yourself here. "hopes" and "wishes" are personal interests. Whether they are individual or collective, they remain little more than very finite, comprehensible, and in many ways insufficient appetites which, by ascribing them to the divine, ultimately only serve to limit potential for eternality and, as a result, divinity itself.



You speak of symbols and truths hidden in metaphors (or allegories, to use a better word for this concept) and yet you will deny a transcending, unifying truth? You are willing to admit a deeper existence than what is plain before the eyes, but then damn yourself to a purgatory of being able to look, but not see.

Again, like Wulfhere, I see buzz-words and stock phrases popular in the esoteric and neo-pagan communities, but little actual thought given to anything you are expressing here. If there is no truth, and reality is as we perceive it - each individual - then every conceivable reality must be perceivable to human beings. Why then, was it not until the late nineteenth century (that's only 1900 years after the birth of Christ, not counting the thousands of years of human history before this, going back to some 24-25 thousand years before the present day) that anyone suggested that there is nothing divine or eternal? Something constant and singular has united the natural inclination of the entire human species from the earliest days; the relativistic denial of truth falls to pieces in the face of this fact.



This moral relativism, a direct result of diluted Kantian philosophy, reflects the solipsistic tendency which drives our contemporary world. To quote (at length) Søren Kieregaard's well-phrased rebuttal of the nihilistic and solipsistic approach to reality:



Further, there is no beauty in chaos; to assert such a thing is to deny the very basis of the aesthetic as a concept.



I am not saying the messianic is the only tradition allowing for these things, but the only tradition allowing for and insisting on the singularity of the λόγος as a reflection of τό Ἔν; Neo-Platonism does not actually insist on singularity, but allows for multiplicity which I have concluded implicitly denies the singularity of τό Ἔν. There must be singularity and Unity in both The One and the means by which The One extends itself to us-- and that means, the λόγος, cannot merely be a means, but must be The One itself, reflecting the Unity and Totality of The One, but comprehensible to mankind. The only tradition allowing for such a λόγος is the messianic.



Yeah... well I expected this to cause something of a stir and plenty of people taking the opportunity to gloat, to damn, and to insist passionately that they don't care - the standard reaction whenever such an announcement is posted.

I'm glad to see it's generation some real debate, though. I'd love for someone else to jump into my exchange with Psychonaut here, or for someone to help me answer Wulfhere (without a mere Appeal to Authority - I'm looking at my (now) fellow Catholics here.)

I have no intellectual argument to offer in defence of Paganism because it transcends the mere intellect and encompasses all aspects of human nature, including the animal. Monotheism seeks to deny our true nature, and is therefore doomed to failure. It is dry as dust, lifeless and arid, and eventually leads to such monstrous perversions as Islam. Paganism is life, and the willingness to live that life, come what may, through joy and sorrow. It grasps life with both hands, and says, "This is it, for good or ill. It's not perfect, but it's all there is. Let's make the most of it."

[Magister Eckhart]

I have no intellectual argument to offer in defence of Paganism because it transcends the mere intellect and encompasses all aspects of human nature, including the animal. Monotheism seeks to deny our true nature, and is therefore doomed to failure. It is dry as dust, lifeless and arid, and eventually leads to such monstrous perversions as Islam. Paganism is life, and the willingness to live that life, come what may, through joy and sorrow. It grasps life with both hands, and says, "This is it, for good or ill. It's not perfect, but it's all there is. Let's make the most of it."

I'm hearing more adjectives and buzz-words and no actual argument. You realise that even Nietzsche, the master of the aphorism, actually argued his points, yes?

You cannot speak of "perversion" as necessary outcome, since that actually deprives "perversion" of its meaning.

Your definition of paganism sounds dangerously like atheism. There is no transcendence there - there is most eloquent denial of the eternal coupled with a happy embrace of mortal shortcomings. At such a point, what need have you of anything beyond what you are? You are an atheist.

[Óttar]

Plotinus, Plato, Iamblichus, Heraclitus... etc.
Now you believe these and countless others are in Hell. No? :icon_ask:

[Magister Eckhart]

Now you believe these and countless others are in Hell. No? :icon_ask:

I have no window into another man's soul, nor can any of us pretend to know the will of The One. Anyone who pretends to know who is damned or what damnation even is is little more than a petty blasphemer and a heretic. We may guess at these things only.

Morality is not driven by damnation or salvation - true morality must be driven by the intrinsic quality of the deed or thought that is evil or good, not by the outcome that deed or thought may have for the self.

I do not know, but we have good reason to guess at the afterlife of great thinkers and good men. The understanding is that one who wilfully rejects God is damned, but this is pretty much the extent of the certainty - indeed, not even Dante places Virgil in Hell, but on the border. Those who were never made aware of The One or the Divine λόγος because of the age into which they were born should especially not fall victim to the rash and ignorant assumption that "all who don't accept Jesus as personal saviour" are damned - this statement is far to simple-minded to be of any help to the introspective believer, and, as said above, makes claims to certainty where certainty belongs only to the Divine. Christ proclaims "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life; none come to the Father but by me." This proclamation, however, has no retroactive quality: the coming of the λόγος being deliberately ordained for a given time, the teachings of Christ apply only to subsequent generations to whom the message is made available, because the Hebrews selfishly denied the message of God to the world, in an act of defiance and arrogance that made the incarnation of λόγος in the person of the Χριστος, Jesus of Nazareth necessary.

[Wulfhere]

I'm hearing more adjectives and buzz-words and no actual argument. You realise that even Nietzsche, the master of the aphorism, actually argued his points, yes?

You cannot speak of "perversion" as necessary outcome, since that actually deprives "perversion" of its meaning.

Your definition of paganism sounds dangerously like atheism. There is no transcendence there - there is most eloquent denial of the eternal coupled with a happy embrace of mortal shortcomings. At such a point, what need have you of anything beyond what you are? You are an atheist.

Correct. I need no argument, because Paganism is the natural state of our species. It is atheists and monotheists that need argument, and both are very similar. "Let's reduce all our gods to one! No, I know, let's reduce all our gods to zero!" When, I wonder, will the intellectuals say there are actually minus one gods?

[Magister Eckhart]

Correct. I need no argument, because Paganism is the natural state of our species. It is atheists and monotheists that need argument, and both are very similar. "Let's reduce all our gods to one! No, I know, let's reduce all our gods to zero!" When, I wonder, will the intellectuals say there are actually minus one gods?

In short, you're just wilfully ignorant. No wonder you give credence to a forgery like the Oera Linda book for your "religion".
:rolleyes:

[Wulfhere]

In short, you're just wilfully ignorant. No wonder you give credence to a forgery like the Oera Linda book for your "religion".
:rolleyes:

I don't give credence to it. Paganism is not about giving "credence" to anything.

[Magister Eckhart]

I don't give credence to it. Paganism is not about giving "credence" to anything.

Behold! The Wulfhere approach to religion and spirituality:

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/files/2010/01/lalalala_beavercanthearyou.jpg

[Wulfhere]

Behold! The Wulfhere approach to religion and spirituality:

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/files/2010/01/lalalala_beavercanthearyou.jpg

And so you respond with pictures? Fair enough. It is not I who am wilfully ignorant.

[Magister Eckhart]

And so you respond with pictures? Fair enough. It is not I who am wilfully ignorant.

Just be glad I have more patience with idiots who refuse to engage in actual debate than Cato.

[Wulfhere]

Just be glad I have more patience with idiots who refuse to engage in actual debate than Cato.

I have no argument with you. Nor indeed do I have an argument to use against you. I have the earth and nature, nothing more.

[poiuytrewq0987]

I have no intellectual argument to offer in defence of Paganism because it transcends the mere intellect and encompasses all aspects of human nature, including the animal. Monotheism seeks to deny our true nature, and is therefore doomed to failure. It is dry as dust, lifeless and arid, and eventually leads to such monstrous perversions as Islam. Paganism is life, and the willingness to live that life, come what may, through joy and sorrow. It grasps life with both hands, and says, "This is it, for good or ill. It's not perfect, but it's all there is. Let's make the most of it."

Doomed to failure? I suggest you check on statistics of total adherents of Christianity vs paganism. :thumbs up

[Wulfhere]

Doomed to failure? I suggest you check on statistics of total adherents of Christianity vs paganism. :thumbs up

In the world, you mean?

In any case, I wasn't measuring failure by numbers, but by its ability to present a coherent picture of the world. If monotheism had been able to do this, it wouldn't have splintered into countless different factions all willing to kill each other over the interpretation of single words.

[poiuytrewq0987]

In the world, you mean?

In any case, I wasn't measuring failure by numbers, but by its ability to present a coherent picture of the world. If monotheism had been able to do this, it wouldn't have splintered into countless different factions all willing to kill each other over the interpretation of single words.

That is pretty off the point. The point is a massive majority of Earth's peoples believe in a singular, true God.

[Wulfhere]

That is pretty off the point. The point is a massive majority of Earth's peoples believe in a singular, true God.

Like China and India, for example?

And in any case, since a large proportion of the people you mention are Muslims, that's hardly something to be proud of.

[Cato]

Just be glad I have more patience with idiots who refuse to engage in actual debate than Cato.

Wise he is deemed who can question well,
and also answer back:
the sons of men can no secret make
of the tidings told in their midst.

[Magister Eckhart]

Like China and India, for example?

And in any case, since a large proportion of the people you mention are Muslims, that's hardly something to be proud of.

Actually, yes. If you bothered reading anything beyond your fanciful little 19th-century pamphlets and popular forgeries, you'd know that Hinduism and Sikhism both recognise a single, Divine All, of which the "gods" are aspects at best and illusions at worst. Buddhism extrapolates from this - especially Zen Buddhism - by making the entire spiritual goal of man non-existence by becoming completely subsumed in The All.

Indeed, only the most primitive and childish neo-pagans are actually polytheistic purists like yourself, because you, like the Mohammedans and the Jews, have this primitive and tribal understanding of divinity that does not reach any deeper than material conception allows. It's a religion of slaves that holds to such an "understanding" of the Divine.

[Cato]

Actually, yes. If you bothered reading anything beyond your fanciful little 19th-century pamphlets and popular forgeries, you'd know that Hinduism and Sikhism both recognise a single, Divine All, of which the "gods" are aspects at best and illusions at worst. Buddhism extrapolates from this - especially Zen Buddhism - by making the entire spiritual goal of man non-existence by becoming completely subsumed in The All.

Indeed, only the most primitive and childish neo-pagans are actually polytheistic purists like yourself, because you, like the Mohammedans and the Jews, have this primitive and tribal understanding of divinity that does not reach any deeper than material conception allows. It's a religion of slaves that holds to such an "understanding" of the Divine.

Let me give a couple of great quotes by Paine:

“God exists, and there it lies.”

"Every person, of whatever religious denomination he may be, is a DEIST in the first article of his Creed. Deism, from the Latin word Deus, God, is the belief of a God, and this belief is the first article of every man's creed. It is on this article, universally consented to by all mankind, that the Deist builds his church, and here he rests. Whenever we step aside from this article, by mixing it with articles of human invention, we wander into a labyrinth of uncertainty and fable, and become exposed to every kind of imposition by pretenders to revelation."

You might not agree with this entirely, but the travels of mankind through the realms of fable and superstition are far too many to accurately comment upon.

[Wulfhere]

Actually, yes. If you bothered reading anything beyond your fanciful little 19th-century pamphlets and popular forgeries, you'd know that Hinduism and Sikhism both recognise a single, Divine All, of which the "gods" are aspects at best and illusions at worst. Buddhism extrapolates from this - especially Zen Buddhism - by making the entire spiritual goal of man non-existence by becoming completely subsumed in The All.

Indeed, only the most primitive and childish neo-pagans are actually polytheistic purists like yourself, because you, like the Mohammedans and the Jews, have this primitive and tribal understanding of divinity that does not reach any deeper than material conception allows. It's a religion of slaves that holds to such an "understanding" of the Divine.

Monotheism is slavery, Paganism is freedom. You clearly have no argument left but personal insults.

[Psychonaut]

Actually, yes. If you bothered reading anything beyond your fanciful little 19th-century pamphlets and popular forgeries, you'd know that Hinduism and Sikhism both recognise a single, Divine All, of which the "gods" are aspects at best and illusions at worst. Buddhism extrapolates from this.

Yargh!

That's not true at all, for Hinduism. It is kind of true for Advaita Vedānta (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advaita_vedanta) in particular, but is not even close to the theology of the Śrauta (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrauta), Śāktaṃ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaktism), Tantra (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tantrism), or Folk (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folk_Hinduism) denominations. The first and last are hard polytheists, and the middle two are whatever-word-you-call-duotheistic-henotheism.

[Magister Eckhart]

Yargh!

That's not true at all, for Hinduism. It is kind of true for Advaita Vedānta (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advaita_vedanta) in particular, but is not even close to the theology of the Śrauta (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrauta), Śāktaṃ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaktism), Tantra (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tantrism), or Folk (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folk_Hinduism) denominations. The first and last are hard polytheists, and the middle two are whatever-word-you-call-duotheistic-henotheism.

Henotheism is still henotheism, but that only means it's a more nuanced monotheism. Admittedly, I was unaware there were still hard polytheists on the subcontinent - after reading a bit on the Bhagavad-Gita I was led to believe the whole "power lunch with the gods" approach to religion vanished from the subcontinent a couple thousand years ago.

[Psychonaut]

Henotheism is still henotheism, but that only means it's a more nuanced monotheism.

Eh? Monotheism, by definition, denies the existence of any Gods but the One; henotheism admits their existence but claims them to be lesser than the One (or in Tantrism and Śāktism's cases the Two)—the ontologies are way different. And, since the above two theologies are duotheistic, not monotheistic, that adds about 100% differentiation from monotheistic ontology. :D


Admittedly, I was unaware there were still hard polytheists on the subcontinent - after reading a bit on the Bhagavad-Gita I was led to believe the whole "power lunch with the gods" approach to religion vanished from the subcontinent a couple thousand years ago.

The Gita really only holds the super-duper-revered status among the the Vaishnavas (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaishnavism) who, while they may be the largest single denomination, aren't representative of the whole.