If Gods exist in any real personal sense then their power and success must surely be judged as that of any other person, which is to say by their achievements. Now, we could say that the various Sun gods are extremely successful, the Sun rising each day in most parts of the world. We may say the same about Moon gods, such is the frequency with which the Moon appears, Let us not forget rain gods as it is always raining somewhere, nor storm gods who are always throwing their bolts about. The oceans move around the world continuously and so the sea gods are doing rather well. City gods are doing marvellously, for cities never seem to go out of fashion. These signs of success are only conditions of our world, however, and of our way of life, phenomena upon which we depend and which could not be any other way if we are to remain in this world. A better measure of success would be those ways in which gods influence how we choose to live our lives, and it seems true that everyone who worships, acknowledges or venerates a god does so for a reason which has its root in the way they act, think and feel. Even those people claiming religions without dogma either behave in a way they feel is pleasing to their god or interact with their god for instrumental reasons. This measure is a universal measure, then, and so it serves nicely to judge the success and thereby power of a particular god when the apparent quantities of people who follow and have followed that god are compared one with another.
It’s bad news for those pagans who insist on bashing Christians, Jews and Muslims, I’m afraid. The god of Abraham wins out. This isn’t to say that the lives and choices of Christians, Jews and Muslims are any more legitimate or have any greater intrinsic value than those of everyone else, it simply means that their god is bigger and cleverer than everyone else’s gods. So, have a little humility all you ex-Christian pagans, and deal with your issues of inadequacy in some other, more gentle ways than flinging insults at the followers of the god of Abraham.
8 comments:
How did you get from paragraph one to paragraph two?
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Jez
The Return key.
your reasoning doesnt follow - gods are judged by thier actions such as the sun doing it's thing.
The god of abraham doesnt 'do' anything, his followers do. now, you could say as thier god is in everything and everwhere he is the sun god, sea god and city god all rollowed inot one. however, as these roles are pre-dated by pagan gods of one name or another, it could be said that the god of Abraham is a junior synonym of the others and as such is invalid.
:)
Well, there’s the thing. There are shedload’s of Sun gods - are they each responsible for the Sun or is it more the case that each of these gods has an interest in the Sun? There are many people on any given underground train but is it the case that everyone on that underground train is causing it to move? Is there only a single driver responsible for its motion? There are many passengers and there are many drivers. The passengers do not cause the train to move. The drivers do not cause the train to move. The train is a machine but is the reason that it moves the contingency of a man sitting in a small room at one end of it, pressing buttons, pedals and pulling levers? You may as easily say that the cause of the train’s motion is a man sitting at the front of a bus by which the train driver is transported to work. But what causes the bus to mover? Is it the bus driver or is it the pen in the office which determines the timetable of the bus?
Where does the contingency end? Better to say that the train moves because it must as part of a larger system. So too with the Sun - it moves because it is part of a larger system and not because of any single Sun driver.
Having thus disposed of this measure of success we arrive back at that which I proposed. Yes, we may say that the god of Abraham set everything in motion and winds up the Universe every night but this is unsatisfactory. Better to determine a god’s success by His influence in history, culture, society, law and in people‘s daily lives, and this influence is one which the God of Abraham has in spades.
If I may correct you on one remarkable piece of ignorance.
Pagans are critical of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. We are also critical of those Jews, Christians and Muslims that choose to tell us we are evil and in league with THEIR Satan.
I personally went on the Muslim board on 7/7 to express my solidarity with Muslim people at a time when I knew Islamophobia was about to go critical in this country.
Yes I stated clearly that I disaproved of Islam and that I was no supporter of the religion but I will not sit back and watch the Muslims become the Jews of the 21st century.
There is another key point that you may like to consider. There is more similarity between all forms of Judaism, Christianity and Islam than there are between all forms of Paganism.
You have the completely different root forms of the Norse or Greco Roman faiths to that of British Paganism of old. Even with the neo Pagan movements that are less that 150 years old there are distinct differences. Wicca is based on romantic imaginings of old Paganism whilst my Deist/Budhist inpired Paganism is rooted in late 20th and early 21st century pluralism and international understanding. Many Wiccans do not like the idea that I choose to incorperate Christ, Mohamed and Gandhi as great prophets. Indeed much of my current posting is in relation to Christ.
I am not considered a heretic by more traditional Pagans, nor do I see them in the same light as early Protestants saw Catholics.
We are different and yet remain as one. We all believe in doing no harm and letting others live as they wish.
We are not the ones that ignored our prophets and killed people in the name of our gods. Islamists are in direct breach of the teachings of Mohamed as he did not teacg Jihad for the sake of Islam, but only in protection of the lives of Muslims. Jesus went further and stated that it is wrong to kill.
He also stated that it wrong to judge and yet Pagans are adjudged by Christains all the time.
Those Jews, Muslims and Christians that adhere to their prophets, and they are the majority have my love and support.
My guess is that most Pagans feel very much the same - live and let live, we can disagree with them and love them at same time. We are used to that, we have to do it to keep Paganism together.
Gareth, I suspect that you were on something of a sugar rush when you composed this post, or you have come directly from fighting some battle over on the BBC. Whichever, I really don’t care because as far as I can make sense of this uncharacteristically untidy message it’s got nothing at all with anything that I have said.
If you want to explain your religious beliefs then open a discussion on the BBC/PT or start your own blog. The same applies if you wish to explain why you oppose all the Abrahamic religions and how you can do so without opposing those who follow them, as you have said here.
You have dogs, yes? I recommend that you take them and yourself for a walk on a convenient beach and forget about opposing what people have to say simply because they belong to an Abrahamic religion. It’s a completely bankrupt way of looking at society. Further, avoid whoever it is who keeps winding you up and pointing you in my direction. You have better things to do with your time.
Fog Patches
The comments were in answer to you comment that we are constantly "bashing Muslims, Jews and Christians" when we do not.
I could not answer a question on Fluffy Fraud Central as the comments box did not appear.
I am a WASP as I am white, anglo saxon and protestant. I will always be a protestant as I was born one. It has nothing to do with religion at all, but deeply ingrained tribal nonsence that I have never been able to break.
I have stopped trying and simply say that I am a Pagan Protestant. It comes from an education grounded in accentuating cultural and religious differences to children at an early age.
Thus by trivialising all things such as race, religion, sexual orientation, gender we stop them becomming tags to divide us with.
No child of mine will grow up believing they are a Protestant until they die. I will not allow it. I will not allow them to believe that they are a Pagan until they die. I will not allow them to see such things as necessarily more important than any other social or physical difference.
The two comments tie into one, I can not be critical of the followers of the Abrahamic faith as that means sliding back into sectarian bigotry.
I grew up with that all around me and have spent half my life hating people because of our differences. I intend to spend the rest loving people BECAUSE we are differnt instead and extend that love to one and all, though not Ipswich fans I draw the line there. The only Ipswich fan that has my love and respect is Nelson Mandela.
Trivialising differences matters if we are all to live as one in a pluralist society.
I am a Christian, a Mulsim a Jew and a Bhudist, a Hindhu et al, how can I hate them?
We all have African blood in our veins, not from some far away history but from the 16th century. I even have a spot of the Irish Catholic in me as well. HAHA
Is that not humility enough for you? Yes from this post you will see that I have some deep and painful issues, but they are bourne of hating and disaproving, the solution is in loving and aproving.
Now me and the 7 1/2 stone puppy are off to the beach!!
The G
I have not said that anyone is constantly bashing anyone else.
Sometimes Blogspot seems to go on the fritz completely, so it’s unfortunate that you were unable to post on Fluffy Fraud Central
If you are speaking of yourself as a protestant in the context of WASP then your Protestantism is religious by definition.
“Thus by trivialising all things such as race, religion, sexual orientation, gender we stop them becomming tags to divide us with.”
Yet you define yourself as “white”, “anglo-saxon”, “Protestant” and “pagan” and separate yourself from those who are not as you.
“No child of mine will grow up believing they are a Protestant until they die. I will not allow it. I will not allow them to believe that they are a Pagan until they die. I will not allow them to see such things as necessarily more important than any other social or physical difference.”
In which case you will deny them an appreciation of the rich diversity within society and culture and they shall grow up amoral.
“I intend to spend the rest loving people BECAUSE we are differnt instead and extend that love to one and all”
So, in fact, you do not see differences as trivial after all.
“Trivialising differences matters if we are all to live as one in a pluralist society.”
If you trivialise differences then you cannot have a pluralist society.
“I am a Christian, a Mulsim a Jew and a Bhudist, a Hindhu et al, how can I hate them?”
You are not any of these things, Gareth.
“We all have African blood in our veins, not from some far away history but from the 16th century.”
I don’t have either.
“I even have a spot of the Irish Catholic in me as well. HAHA
Is that not humility enough for you?”
Why humility? Do the Irish Catholics have differences from everyone else about which they must be humble?
“Yes from this post you will see that I have some deep and painful issues, but they are bourne of hating and disaproving, the solution is in loving and aproving.”
I think you need a holiday, Gareth.
It’s nice of you to think of me, incidentally, and pop over but aren’t bored young people traditionally supposed to spend your weekends smashing up bus shelters?
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