shameful proof that Europe learned nothing from the Holocaust.

really interesting, thanks for sharing!

A personal example from me: I have an altar to Kronos in my office, and I have done my research to find his equivalent from India, Shanaishchara. I recognize that these two are different cultural expressions of the same cosmic principle, and I choose to engage with the hellenic Kronos because of my background as a Western. But if I were to talk to a Hindu devotee of Shanaishchara, I would be happy to engage in syncretic talk. It’s not about closing boundaries, but recognizing cultural expression as individual colors within a larger spectrum that is the deity/cosmic principle.

Thank you for your reply. I don’t interact much with followers of Lilith, so I wouldn’t be able to speak much on that particular front. I do think that we shouldn’t make sweeping statements like “Pomba-giras is the Brazilian Lilith”, as that sweeps the indigenous practices under the rug and centers the Western conception. It essentially says “oh, yeah the Pomba-giras is just Lilith, so we don’t have to learn about her. We can just treat her as Lilith anyways, and the indigenous practices are just noise”. That doesn’t mean, however, that you can’t learn from the people of Umbanda and Quimbanda. It just means that for every commonality you find, you have to recognize the the differences and respect the cultural context. Don’t just bring a statue of Kali or Pomba-giras into your home without paying your respects or supporting the people that authored these myths and practices.

Alright I can answer these pretty well! Thanks for clarifying. I’ll got point by point:

• I don’t know about Norse mythology nearly as much as I do about its Hellenic counterpart. The difficulty around Norse myths stems from the fact that the Germanic peoples did not leave a written record that we can consult. So their theology –if they even had a concept such as that, is loosely understood compared to the concrete Greco-Roman canon. The Norse, however, still fall within the Indo-European family, so we still find aspects of their myths that point to a theological system. A good example is their creation myth involving Ginnungagap, the primordial magical void from which the first principles of their world arose. There’s a parallel to that in both Hellenic and even Vedic stories. Does that mean that the Norse had a systematized theological structure around their myths? I don’t know. You’ll have to wait for a Norse pagan to join and contribute to ask them. I can’t speak on that with confidence.
• Paganism isn’t ‘Paganism’, first of all. It’s a spiritual tradition, and its adherents don’t put quote marks on it. It stands on its own. As a tradition, however, Paganism is much more loose than Abrahamic religions. We don’t have a universal canon of texts, and we also don’t have the structure and state-sanctioned adherence that the ancient people had. This means that Paganism today is reconstructed. Modern adherents are piecing together the historical pieces left by the people who originally practiced, and we are building a religious canon for ourselves. There’s no strict universal authority over this, so groups, covens, and temple communities will largely differ from each other. What I have seen in other communities is mainly the presence of far-right elements, which do have organizations within the Pagan sphere. A good example is the Asatru Folk Alliance (AFA), which is a white nationalist organization that uses Norse paganism as a “national story” to justify their racism. The rules in this community is essentially me telling those guys “hey, this isn’t your space, fuck off”. Another big issue I saw on reddit’s r/hellenism is that a lot of teenagers will get into Paganism, but without structural guidance, they adopt just about anything that sounds cool to them, including things that may not be good for their mental health. They will also mainly talk about “how annoying it is that their mom is making them go to church”. There has also been the issue of teenagers sharing details about sexual acts “done in a ritual setting”, which is very unsafe to do online. So I’ve included mental health resources, and put guidelines in the rules that say “hey, if you post before you think, I will take it down for your own safety”. And I’ve also added a rule about posting verified sources because as Pagans building a reconstructed faith and practice, historical accuracy is important. You don’t want to just come up with stuff willy-nilly. There’s a lot of history to draw from, and pseudo-history like New Age only obscures the picture.
• I’m a Pagan. I have icons to Apollo, Dionysus, and Rhea at my home altar. I have an altar to Saturn in my office. These are not just aesthetic or symbolic. I take their reality seriously. I also have pagan scripture. I have the Chaldean Oracles, Plato’s entire works, Proclus’ “Elements of Theology”, and Iamblichus’ “On the Mysteries”, and Orpheus’ hymns in my home library. These are all scriptural to me. I’m a Pagan because I’m a Neoplatonist. I believe in an underlying principle which is the source of all being, and I believe in a layered reality in which my consciousness is a real, active and essential part of. Neoplatonism comes in all flavors. There’s Christian, Jewish, and Islamic Neoplatonism, and the Vedic tradition shares a lot of commonalities with it. Importantly, these Abrahamic Neoplatonisms all draw their philosophy from a Pagan tradition. The Catholic church, for example, draws heavily from Pagan theurgy and ritual. I chose Pagan Neoplatonism because it was interesting to me, and it seemed to me as the most honest way for me to practice Neoplatonic spirituality. Like I said above, Pagans today vary greatly in beliefs and attitudes, so I will certainly share more commonalities with a Neoplatonic Christian or a Sufi mystic than I will with some other pagans, like the AFA for example.
• I don’t believe in “sky gods”. The gods in Neoplatonic paganism are Henads, unities beyond being and non-being that are the causal origin of the world. They’re at the top of “the chain of Being” and are the first manifestation of the formless, groundless Source, often referred to as The One of The Good. These gods are not male or female, and don’t have anthropomorphic “personalities” in any way that we would recognize. They lie outside of space-time, so any predicate used to describe them will fall short. Worship of the gods is therefore not an appeasement or supplication of them, but an active participation in their reality. It’s a contemplative remembering of them, and a spiritual ascent towards The One. This is not just a modern interpretation. Ancient Hellenic theologians made a clear distinction between the fabulae (the myths and stories that depict gods as characters), and the gods as metaphysical reality. This obviously is not universal. There were plenty of people that took the myths literally. But Neoplatonism does approach the gods in more philosophical, systematic way.
• On your point about naked apes, I think that spirituality in general represents a certain humility about the universe and existence. It’s an acknowledgement that we’re small and kinda ignorant, and it’s a large and strange reality that we live in. Religion can be very limiting in its scope and institutional enforcement, but so can be a strict materialist worldview. I think spirituality and most religions trace their origins to ecstatic/mystical experiences that people had (and still have), and it has been a process of personal, subjective understanding about our nature and the nature of existence since then.

Can you be a bit more specific about what you’d like me to answer for you?

amazing

The US can help stop the cartels by:

• Fixing its drug laws / policies so that American addicts can get help getting clean, and stop paying money for Mexican drugs. American drug demand fuels the Mexican cartels.
• Actually regulating gun and equipment trafficking from the US to Mexico. US weapons and ammunition flood Latin America, and the US does virtually nothing about it.

The author of the video is a great researcher, and has made a citation document. You can access it here:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RcdN_vBFq-PUiKjvvqBhBnsGfsePuhOm2IdZ6cTRydI/edit?pli=1&tab=t.0

No, you make a good point there. A Marxist analysis that focuses on historical / dialectical materialism would certainly highlight the contradictions of Capitalism without needing religion. Thank you for highlighting that blind spot.

I would say that this post is more directed towards the kind of neoliberal secularism pushed by Steven Pinker and his ilk, which is certainly a narrative that blends secularism and capitalism together, and does not apply critical thought to structures of capital.

Religion and science can co-exist and even inform each other as long as they don’t step on each other’s epistemic domain. Creationists using the Bible as “empirical evidence” for their claim that the Earth is 6000 years old is religion stepping into scientific discourse, and it will always lose that battle. Physicists claiming that everything, including consciousness can be reduced to the interaction of quantum fields is science stepping into philosophy and spirituality. both of these examples show tools being used to approach problems that they are not designed to solve. Science focuses on publicly verifiable results. Spirituality focuses on inner experience and participation. These two can work together as long as you don’t mix up their channels.

by all means share the thoughts

I’ve never even heard the french version lol

That’s weird. If you can’t add flairs through Lemmy, just go ahead and post your questions. I’ll add the flair myself just to keep it all clean.

I saw it and I desperately hope and pray there’s a second season coming.

Nah it’s fine. I’m from Central America but my dad is Spanish and I’m also a Spanish citizen. My wife and I are preparing to move to Europe and set down roots soon.

I actually joinied your server before you asked because I do like European comics quite a bit. One of my comfort shows is Érase Una Vez. Have you seen that one? I also have to get back into Astérix soon.

If i had ridiculous amounts of money I would totally fund and produce an animated Dune series in the style of Moebius and Jorodowsky. And I would do all the books up until Chapterhouse just for the trippy animation. I don’t care that the story gets unhinged after Children of Dune.

I just forgot to check up on the notifications of that post. My bad.

You’re just being willfully obtuse by now. Modern pagans know that it’s impossible to fully practice ancient traditions in their original forms, because these traditions were practiced by large groups of people within state-sanctioned and organized festivals and temple worship. Nevertheless, modern pagans do look at historical texts and value academic history of these traditions to reconstruct what we can in good faith and accordance with as much historicity as possible within our modern context. New Age is an uncritical approach to ancient religion that does not study or respect texts and scriptures, and tends to follow naïve anthropology and archaeology that came out of 19th century Europe and America. Your confusion about these speaks more to your lack of knowledge than the rules of the community.