It’s regularly claimed as a point of superiority for paganism over other religions, for example, gosh, I don’t know - Christianity - that pagans do not evangelise. You won’t find groups of pagans hanging around shopping centres on Saturday mornings, banging tambourines and bawling out filk. You won’t find lone pagans standing around other shopping centres with sandwich boards damning everyone to Hell unless they embrace some horned god or other. You won’t find pairs of pagans knocking on your door on a quiet Sunday asking if they may enter and discuss the Eddas with you. You won’t find pagans visiting a developing nation to impose their religion over local forms in order to extract currency in return for educational materials.
This is the general claim, anyway.
13 comments:
low blow there Foggy. i would have expected more from you.
providing materials where there is a demand isnt evangelising, any more than tesco demanding money from people who want food is blackmail.
I think this is mildly unfair, though a fun polemical point. It's hardly an active attempt to 'convert' people: I've never, ever, met a single pagan interested in such a project.
Although Brazil has a fascinating, gaudy and varied array of native religions - Candomble being only the most prominent - what's to stop a Brazilian being interested in 'druidry' and (gag) the 'Celtic Mysteries' (double gag)? Claudio whatsisface clearly was - fascinated with Ireland, as I recall. It's important to grasp that Bobcat's idea of druidry is a way of relating to nature, seeking its exquisite inspiration, rather than a formalised religous framework. So she says, anyway (her words, not mine, there).
After all, anyone with web access can look at the TDN website, anywhere in the world, and if demand exists in a particular place to hear Bobcat speak, why not? I find the concept of brazilian druidry quite bizarre and faintly crass, but Bobcat was brought up there, I believe, so the landscape of the country undoubtedly affected her spirituality deeply (as she makes plain in various books). It may not seem so incongruous to her.
I think this is at best a curiosity, and not sinister. Goes to show that there are daft New Agers willing to go on courses everywhere, from Stockport to Sao Paulo.
You take that back this minute. I’ve never blown anyone low, I’ll have you know. What will the neighbours say if they hear this sort of gossip?
But let me see if I have this right - you are comparing The Druid Network with Tesco?
Certainly this "Project Area" of TDN is a move to provide Brazilians with an interest in the D-word with resources and courses which would have the effect of converting them to TDN’s way of doing things and increase TDN’s sphere of influence.
What should evangelism look like? This is the 21st Century. Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition.
I thought that was DELICIOUS. :0
The tescos analogy, I meant.
Ah, you say that now.
I suspected as much, though. Armando Iannucci’s work is comparable with that of Chris Morris.
I've never forgotten 'My Wrongs'. Morris is an evil genius.
something which occurred to me, it is generally proselytizing which pagans claim not to take part in. slight difference.
i still think think is a cheap shot
can you confirm or deny foggy that you are/were a member of OBOD?
Lead strikes just as nicely as silver, Lee.
Please tell me first whom it is who thinks I am whom and if you think that they are likely to believe me.
im sure it does, but they are still different, and lead used in place of silver is still inferior.
well, it is fairly clear you are RR, Rousemist etc. someone on the Beeb says they know who yu are in 'real life' and that person is called Bruce, is a member of OBOD and they have pics of him (you?) at a druid camp.
I do not hunt werewolves.
I don’t think I need to answer this but that you are capable of reaching the logical answer yourself from the evidence available, which is to say that if this person on whose behalf you ask this question is so certain of my identity, that they know me away from the internet, and if this is of such Earth-shaking importance to them then why if they are willing to say quite strong things against “my” character to people who do not know “me” do they not say these things to “my” face? Is your correspondent afraid that they might be turned into a frog or something equally slimy? A blessing in disguise, I would have thought, as their I.Q. would immediately double.
It’s obvious that your questioner is either a coward or unsure of their position and simply wishes to have something about which to moan and gather attention unto themselves. That the questioner has asked you not to name them here tells of the yellow streak running down their back. If this does not satisfy your associate then you must give me their full name and also the full name of this Bruce chap.
I would hope that you will not allow the opinion of others, nor my views of cowards, to influence our enjoyable discussions, Lee. You are your own man, a professional scientist and an independent thinker on religious matters. Know that although you and I paddle in the shallow end every now and again, the BBC/PT is what it is and its occupants will never be anything other. There are more interesting issues to discuss than those which appear there.
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