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Author Topic: Why did paganism completely die out in Western Europe Completely?  (Read 15403 times)

mandrina

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Re: Why did paganism completely die out in Western Europe Completely?
« Reply #90 on: August 27, 2016, 07:47:27 pm »
Quote from: MadZealot;195528
Maybe we oughtta agree on a sarcasm font.  I nominate This One.

 
That would be useful  

Posting rule # 1, don't edit without explanations and not too long after
Posting Rule # 2, use this font, the official sarcasm/just kidding font, if you wish to be sarcastic, otherwise you WILL be taken seriously.

now we just need to get the admins on board, as well as everyone else.  :)
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Re: Why did paganism completely die out in Western Europe Completely?
« Reply #91 on: August 28, 2016, 12:01:47 am »
Quote from: mandrina;195533
That would be useful  

Posting rule # 1, don't edit without explanations and not too long after
Posting Rule # 2, use this font, the official sarcasm/just kidding font, if you wish to be sarcastic, otherwise you WILL be taken seriously.

now we just need to get the admins on board, as well as everyone else.  :)

 
I like it. But I don't think it's viable as a rule - it'd be absolute hell to enforce, especially since people would try to use it to make end runs around the other rules.

As a custom, though? Well, it'd need a caveat that, 'but I was just joking,' never makes a rules violation not a violation - so, to use the above example, a blanket condemnation of a religion would still be a violation.

I'll note, also, that it does run up against the 'DO post in normal text' rule - not entirely incompatibly, since we do allow use of different fonts/sizes/colors in small amounts for practical purposes such as distinguishing section headers in a long post. But it'd have to be used very sparingly to be allowable, and I fear most folks wouldn't think of that.

So all in all, I think it'd probably work better to just stick with emoticons and imitation code tags to convey tone. Imitation code tags like...

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Re: Why did paganism completely die out in Western Europe Completely?
« Reply #92 on: August 28, 2016, 02:53:10 am »
Quote from: SunflowerP;195544
I like it. But I don't think it's viable as a rule - it'd be absolute hell to enforce, especially since people would try to use it to make end runs around the other rules.

 

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Re: Why did paganism completely die out in Western Europe Completely?
« Reply #93 on: August 28, 2016, 01:06:24 pm »
Quote from: SunflowerP;195544
I like it. But I don't think it's viable as a rule - it'd be absolute hell to enforce, especially since people would try to use it to make end runs around the other rules.

As a custom, though? Well, it'd need a caveat that, 'but I was just joking,' never makes a rules violation not a violation - so, to use the above example, a blanket condemnation of a religion would still be a violation.

I'll note, also, that it does run up against the 'DO post in normal text' rule - not entirely incompatibly, since we do allow use of different fonts/sizes/colors in small amounts for practical purposes such as distinguishing section headers in a long post. But it'd have to be used very sparingly to be allowable, and I fear most folks wouldn't think of that.

So all in all, I think it'd probably work better to just stick with emoticons and imitation code tags to convey tone. Imitation code tags like...

*

Sunflower
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Bonus reason is that whatever that font was...no workie for Android.
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mandrina

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Re: Why did paganism completely die out in Western Europe Completely?
« Reply #94 on: August 28, 2016, 02:28:06 pm »
Quote from: MadZealot;195561
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Re: Why did paganism completely die out in Western Europe Completely?
« Reply #95 on: August 29, 2016, 06:49:25 pm »
Quote from: Allaya;195569
Bonus reason is that whatever that font was...no workie for Android.

 
It was, appropriately I thought, Comic Sans.

But, that clinches it. And, this is why we have a rule about sticking to the default size/color/font: we want people to be able to read what other people post.

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MadZealot

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Re: Why did paganism completely die out in Western Europe Completely?
« Reply #96 on: August 29, 2016, 07:07:46 pm »
Quote from: SunflowerP;195653
It was, appropriately I thought, Comic Sans.


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Re: Why did paganism completely die out in Western Europe Completely?
« Reply #97 on: September 19, 2016, 04:08:55 am »
Quote from: sionnachdearg;186197
There was a well documented difference in power structure between Rome and the Germanic tribes. The right to lead in the Germanic culture was based on the skill of the leadership and the following that individual would gain.

It's not like an individual's skill and charisma was not a part of Roman leadership. Emperors were overthrown pretty frequently for being crazy, uncharismatic, or hapless idiots. And these allegedly meritocratic Germanic and Celtic tribal chiefdoms placed no small importance on blood ties and religious omens when it came to choosing leaders.

Quote from: MadZealot;195528
Maybe we oughtta agree on a sarcasm font.  I nominate This One.

But indicating that you're being sarcastic kinda defeats the point of being sarcastic, yeah?

Born Again Pagan

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Re: Why did paganism completely die out in Western Europe Completely?
« Reply #98 on: September 19, 2016, 04:42:47 pm »
Quote from: sionnachdearg;184082
Considering how long paganism existed in Europe, why did it completely disappear in less than 1000 years since the introduction of Christianity to Europe?

 
Burning at the stake and other Christian behaviors and activities in the service to their God may have contributed to its decline I would suppose.

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Re: Why did paganism completely die out in Western Europe Completely?
« Reply #99 on: September 19, 2016, 04:48:51 pm »
Quote from: Born Again Pagan;196443
Burning at the stake and other Christian behaviors and activities in the service to their God may have contributed to its decline I would suppose.
Mmm....the burning at the stake thing didn't really start in earnest for a few centuries after Christianity was well established.
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Re: Why did paganism completely die out in Western Europe Completely?
« Reply #100 on: September 19, 2016, 05:51:53 pm »
Quote from: Born Again Pagan;196443
Burning at the stake and other Christian behaviors and activities in the service to their God may have contributed to its decline I would suppose.

 
As well as Redfaery's point that the timings don't match up, the impact/number of deaths of the so-called 'Burning Times' were  grossly overestimated until relatively recently.

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Re: Why did paganism completely die out in Western Europe Completely?
« Reply #101 on: September 19, 2016, 06:47:22 pm »
Quote from: SunflowerP;196449
As well as Redfaery's point that the timings don't match up, the impact/number of deaths of the so-called 'Burning Times' were  grossly overestimated until relatively recently.

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Re: Why did paganism completely die out in Western Europe Completely?
« Reply #102 on: September 25, 2016, 11:10:56 pm »
Quote from: Born Again Pagan;196443
Burning at the stake and other Christian behaviors and activities in the service to their God may have contributed to its decline I would suppose.

 
Burning at the stake was a somewhat limited action, taken primarily in the later medieval period, for particular heresies and sometimes treason. But neither of those crimes are related to practicing polytheism or witchcrafter as the former presumes practicing the state religion and the second is a secular offense. Pre-13th century death-by-burning is primarily limited to the Manichean heresy, which is unrelated to polytheism/paganism. Pst 13th century burnings are also primarily related to heretical activities, such as Lollardism.

That being said, I personally feel that paganism didn't so much fall as become syncretized with the dominant Christian faith (which became Catholicism). It's a fairly standard understanding that many local deities/honored dead/powers became localized Christian saints with their own cults - that's an issue the Protestant Reformation itself took and remains an issue of division within Christianity. I'm hardly supposing that modern Catholicism looks like pre-medieval paganism, but that the Classical Church absorbed those beliefs, much like the Roman empire absorbed peoples and integrated them.

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Re: Why did paganism completely die out in Western Europe Completely?
« Reply #103 on: September 28, 2016, 03:37:58 pm »
Quote from: Born Again Pagan;196443
Burning at the stake and other Christian behaviors and activities in the service to their God may have contributed to its decline I would suppose.


As others already have informed you, the conversion of the Roman Empire and the use of burning at the stake as a penalty didn't belong to the same parts of history.

To be more specific: Sacrifices to the ancient deities became outlawed in 392 CE. The penalty was paying a fine, unless you happened to be one of the few who belonged to the imperial court, in which case you were sentenced to death (and in some cases pardoned). Though theoretically concerned even of domestic cultus, in praxis, the law was only applied to public sacrifices. Proclus was still performing household rituals in the 470s.

Some former pagan festivals were transformed into civil (i.e. non-religious) festivals with festivities without pagan sacrifices. Rutilius Namatianus decribes one such festival in Faleria in 417 CE. The story about a non-religious perfomance of Lupercalia during the reign of Pope Gelasius (490s) is rather famous. Emperor Justinian (otherwise not known to have any warmer feelings towards old Greek religion and learning) celebrated Brumalia non-religiously in the 520s. In the Byzantine Empire, pontifices were changed into officials responsible for surveying.

Mediaeval laws from a part of Europe I know well, Sweden, prescribe a fine as penalty for the offence of sacrificing to pagan deities.

I am not knowledgeable of burning in other parts of Europe, but in Sweden the actual execution of offenders by burning them alive was a trend in the time period 1608-1635, before and after that routinely preceded by decapitation or changed into a milder penalty in upper court. There are only two certainly known case of witch-burning after 1635: They happened in 1663 and 1676. Likewise, there is only one known case of burning a person because of paganism. It happened in 1693.

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