THE ATLANTIC ARTICLE: THE RETURN OF THE PAGANS

[RZehr]

Read and comment on the part that you found interesting.

https://apple.news/ANykdM-51Sp-urI5JjF_wuw

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archi ... ft/676945/

[Ken]

Read and comment on the part that you found interesting.

https://apple.news/ANykdM-51Sp-urI5JjF_wuw

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archi ... ft/676945/

I found it interesting that they picked a rabbi to write about paganism. Not surprising he reached negative conclusions. comparing paganism to monotheism. There are alternate arguments that he failed to even touch.

Would they pick a pagan or atheist to write about Christianity or Judaism?

Note: I'm not any sort of defender of paganism. I think it is just the latest trendy "new age" religion. There is always something new and trendy. When I was in college, Buddhism was the trendy thing. These things go in cycles. I don't pay it much attention but the new converts can be annoying when they dive in head first and expect you to care.

[Szdfan]

My issue with the piece is that it uses an overly broad catch-all definition of "paganism." The argument feels a bit like "everything I don't like is paganism."

While Wolpe does acknowledge that monotheism "has it's failings," he does categorically ignore examples of how religion has also pursued power, wealth and beauty -- just look at the Vatican.

Wolpe is making overly broad and generalized arguments -- and ends up pointing to extremes in order to make his points. Most liberals and environmentalists are not as extreme as Peter Singer's views on animal liberation. Even Singer is not as extreme as Wolpe describes him. Singer has argued that there are ethical ways to eat meat and has argued for the importance of altruism to end world poverty.

I agree with Wolpe that there are things going on in our culture right now that are extremely concerning -- the idolatry of power and wealth (Elon and Trump are not the role models we should be looking for) -- but I'm not convinced that this is all due to "paganism." My friends and aquaintances who identity themselves as pagan would have significant issues with his characterizations.

I also agree with Wolpe that there is a divine out there that's larger than ourselves (that we are creatures created by God) and that this reality should shape our ethical behavior. However, it's also possible to live according to a secular ethical framework. It's possible to be an atheist and be a good person, just as it's possible to be a Christian and a jerk.

[Ernie]

The argument feels a bit like "everything I don't like is paganism."

In some Anabaptist circles, pietiesm is the thing that seems to include everything I don't like.

[Josh]

"Pietism" is used by Anabaptist people to mean "evangelical Protestant doctrine (that I don't like)", generally speaking. I'm not sure it's an entirely inaccurate use, though.

[Neto]

Might be well to look back at a previous (and fairly recent) discussion here about paganism.


viewtopic.php?f=25&t=5656&hilit=paganism

[Josh]

Technically "paganism" does mean anything that is not Jewish, Christian, Islamic, or some derivative thereof; but with such a working definintion, an article about "the return of the pagans" really should just be called "the rise of non-Judeo-Christian-Islamic religiosity".

[Bootstrap]

Read and comment on the part that you found interesting.

https://apple.news/ANykdM-51Sp-urI5JjF_wuw

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archi ... ft/676945/

I thought this was interesting:

Most ancient pagan belief systems were built around ritual and magic, coercive practices intended to achieve a beneficial result. They centered the self. The revolutionary contribution of monotheism was its insistence that the principal concern of God is, instead, how people treat one another.

Although paganism is one of those catchall words applied to widely disparate views, the worship of natural forces generally takes two forms: the deification of nature, and the deification of force.

Seems true to me ...

[barnhart]

Assuming there is a general shift toward "forces of nature" and power, this could present great opportunity for followers of a God who is truly and universally powerful. Maybe we should think of it as a rejection of man made religious activities and a quest to find the God who is alive and works in the world.

[Ken]

Technically "paganism" does mean anything that is not Jewish, Christian, Islamic, or some derivative thereof; but with such a working definintion, an article about "the return of the pagans" really should just be called "the rise of non-Judeo-Christian-Islamic religiosity".

Exactly. Paganism is a label that Christians apply to other non-Christian religions. There hasn't ever been a separate stand-alone self-identified Pagan religion. Although it seems that in modern times certain new age-ish religions seem to want to appropriate the term.

Apparently the term "pagan" or "paganism" was first coined by early Christians to refer to the Greek and Roman polytheism (Jupiter, Janus, Mars, Mercury, Venus, etc,).

But in later centuries after Constantine, when the Roman Empire and later "Christendom" encountered any non-Christian religion from the Celtic druids to the Norse and Germanic polytheism to every form of religion in the new world and Africa, Christians just labeled all of it pagan by default.

So it is kind of a meaningless term and could be applied to anything from Celtic and Norse Gods to the religions of the Hopi, Navajo and Northwest tribes to the animist beliefs of various sub-Saharan African tribal groups. Belief systems that differ as much from each other as they do from Christianity.