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Author Topic: Christo-Paganism: Some Answered Questions  (Read 13777 times)

Darkhawk

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Re: Christo-Paganism: Some Answered Questions
« Reply #60 on: June 07, 2012, 12:39:25 pm »
Quote from: cigfran;58993
I don't know where those conceptions diverge, but historically, aren't they the same actual entity? Isn't the Jewish God the one Jesus supposedly referred to?

 
Jesus was a Jew, yes.

That doesn't mean that his followers two thousand years later have anything resembling a Jewish understanding of their god.
as the water grinds the stone
we rise and fall
as our ashes turn to dust
we shine like stars    - Covenant, "Bullet"

cigfran

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Re: Christo-Paganism: Some Answered Questions
« Reply #61 on: June 07, 2012, 01:08:24 pm »
Quote from: Darkhawk;58994
Jesus was a Jew, yes.

That doesn't mean that his followers two thousand years later have anything resembling a Jewish understanding of their god.

 
I suppose that raises the question of whether a god is defined by the ideas that people have about it.

I understand that the way Christians view god may diverge from the way Jews do, but I don't see that "their" god is actually, existentially different. There is too much continuity of reference to the same entity, regardless of the changing rituals and theories regarding it.

Would a devout, practicing Christian or Jew actually say that the god they worship is entirely distinct from that worshiped by the other?

monsnoleedra

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Re: Christo-Paganism: Some Answered Questions
« Reply #62 on: June 07, 2012, 02:18:41 pm »
Quote from: SunflowerP;58935
JB didn't say "experimental".  She said "experiential".

This renders much of your post completely irrelevant, since it's arguing against a claim that no one made.

Sunflower


Thus the reason one should not read or respond to posts when they are filled with pain killers and thier mind upon a child in the hospital.  I would have done better to just journey last night than anything else.

yewberry

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Re: Christo-Paganism: Some Answered Questions
« Reply #63 on: June 07, 2012, 02:26:03 pm »
Quote from: cigfran;58997
Would a devout, practicing Christian or Jew actually say that the god they worship is entirely distinct from that worshiped by the other?


Moreover, does it cease to matter when the other is labeled deluded at best and a heretic at worst?

Brina

cigfran

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Re: Christo-Paganism: Some Answered Questions
« Reply #64 on: June 07, 2012, 02:52:10 pm »
Quote from: yewberry;59004
Moreover, does it cease to matter when the other is labeled deluded at best and a heretic at worst?

Brina

 
Or does it in fact matter even more... does "heresy" not carry even greater weight when what's being argued over is understood to be the same subject?

(correction, btw: I earlier referred to Yewberry when I meant Juniperberry.)

Darkhawk

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Re: Christo-Paganism: Some Answered Questions
« Reply #65 on: June 07, 2012, 03:17:54 pm »
Quote from: cigfran;58997
Would a devout, practicing Christian or Jew actually say that the god they worship is entirely distinct from that worshiped by the other?

 
I certainly have known Jews who do not think Christians have a hold of the same god; more who will allow for the possibility that Christians have the same god but have such a fundamentally different understanding of that god that they do not actually have anything much in common.

In general, it's people who have changed things who want to claim continuity.  YOu see it with Wicca and neo-Wicca, you see it with the Abrahamics.
as the water grinds the stone
we rise and fall
as our ashes turn to dust
we shine like stars    - Covenant, "Bullet"

Darkhawk

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Re: Christo-Paganism: Some Answered Questions
« Reply #66 on: June 07, 2012, 03:19:13 pm »
Quote from: cigfran;58993
I don't know where those conceptions diverge, but historically, aren't they the same actual entity?


Popping back to this point:

Isis isn't the same actual entity as Aset, in at least some people's views (including my own, as it happens, though I don't have a relationship with either).

Why would the Christian god be any different?
as the water grinds the stone
we rise and fall
as our ashes turn to dust
we shine like stars    - Covenant, "Bullet"

cigfran

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Re: Christo-Paganism: Some Answered Questions
« Reply #67 on: June 07, 2012, 05:21:47 pm »
Quote from: Darkhawk;59015
Popping back to this point:

Isis isn't the same actual entity as Aset, in at least some people's views (including my own, as it happens, though I don't have a relationship with either).

Why would the Christian god be any different?


Huh. I always figured the "God of Abraham" was just that, regardless of credal differences.

I am now a bit weirded out.

-cogitatecogitatecogitate...-

Darkhawk

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Re: Christo-Paganism: Some Answered Questions
« Reply #68 on: June 07, 2012, 05:44:35 pm »
Quote from: cigfran;59034
Huh. I always figured the "God of Abraham" was just that, regardless of credal differences.

I am now a bit weirded out.

-cogitatecogitatecogitate...-

 
Or, as a friend of mine put it, "the angel that came to Muhammad: not speaking for the Christian God! ;)"
as the water grinds the stone
we rise and fall
as our ashes turn to dust
we shine like stars    - Covenant, "Bullet"

Juniperberry

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Re: Christo-Paganism: Some Answered Questions
« Reply #69 on: June 07, 2012, 05:51:36 pm »
Quote from: SunflowerP;58938
Hmm, that (the whole post, and its predecessor, not just the bit I quoted, though the quoted bit is very much core) sheds light on our exchanges in another thread about different uses of "Christo-pagan".

In your case - and perhaps other instances of self-identification - it seems to me that the "Christo-" component is best understood as not denoting Christianity per se (with all the creedal implications that proceed from it), but as referring to the syncretizing of other aspects (in your case, a personal connection to that deity, with little if any creedal component).  This is vastly more sensical than most of those I've encountered who identify that way can muster.

Sunflower

 

I may gnaw and gnash for twenty posts but eventually I get around to making some kind of sense. ;)

G. Ronald Murray has this to say on The Heliand (8c. poem): "The Heliand contains a wealth of spiritual and intercultural contemplation, which should be most appealing and instructive in our day of a shrinking earth, where culture must, of necessity, bump against culture and religion against religion. (The author) remained faithful to the orthodox Christian teaching of the Gospel, and yet in his contemplation of that Gospel imagined an almost unthinkably new and different form of Christianity, thereby transforming the Gospel into the traditional religious imagery and values of his people. "

Wyrd, Fate, Death; all are still personalities in the Heliand. Jesus comes to earth, subject to wyrd, subject to Death. But he's a mythological hero, a warrior. Christ knowingly commits suicide (like Odin on the gallows) to battle wyrd, to battle death, to battle Satan (a demon death-eater, perhaps) and is the moment of God defeating them. Not to die for our sins, not to reach a golden heaven, but to open a doorway where all warriors can defeat death by the strength of their souls, hearts and minds.  I mean...it really is a beautiful poem and does a wonderful job of positioning God and Christ as continuing parts of the Germanic worldview. Even the shade (Germanic conception) of Christ is present, travelling across midgard back into the gravemound where he becomes whole, as blinding light, that can do and move as he/it pleases. It was this gift of freedom that Christ as tribal leader brought to the people of Europe. Basically, the measure of your life has been set by wyrd, but those who call upon God will not be captive to it in death.

Fate is still autonomous. A man's destiny isn't decided by God but by numerous other factors; norns, the superficiality of Fate (eye color, place of birth, etc.) There was a partnership between the reality of the natural world (and all of its spiritual forms) and God. Basically, God and Christ were presented to, and accepted by, the Europeans as Germanic deities. The philosophical and spiritual message behind the Gospel was unchanged, but as deity, Christ was wholly heathen. That's not to say everyone is worshipping a heathen god now, but that the process of understanding the concepts of God, and God/Christ as deity, is possible from a Germanic pagan perspective which, quite honestly, lacked that aspect of a personal worship.

Whereas the gods are much more earth-bound and earth-relevant, God provides the oppurtunity to consider philosophical what-ifs. Maybe it provides a meeting point where the opposites of  world-rejecting and world-accepting concepts can collide to create a more complete picture of the nature of the universe and reality? Whatever it is, its neither Christian nor pagan, but a blending of both, that is-- again-- unique to a specific cultural base.

 I wouldn't say it's YHWH necessarily, it isn't "the desert god", but it is a European creation that is based from those traditions. Like Darkhawk said with Isis, I find it similar to the Germanic Mercurius Gebrinius who wasn't necessarily the Roman Mercury but a Germanic acknowledgement of that spiritual abstraction which was present in the context of their own unique lives and became a tribal deity.    

Hmm.
The pace of progress in artificial intelligence (I’m not referring to narrow AI) is incredibly fast. [...] The risk of something seriously dangerous happening is in the five year timeframe. 10 years at most.--Elon Musk

I am in the camp that is concerned about super intelligence," [Bill] Gates wrote. "First the machines will do a lot of jobs for us and not be super intelligent. That should be positive if we manage it well. A few decades after that though the intelligence is strong enough to be a concern. I agree with Elon Musk and some others on this and don\'t understand why some people are not concerned."

yewberry

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Re: Christo-Paganism: Some Answered Questions
« Reply #70 on: June 07, 2012, 05:54:44 pm »
Quote from: Juniperberry;59041
I may gnaw and gnash for twenty posts but eventually I get around to making some kind of sense.


Stop stealing my method!

Brina

Juniperberry

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Re: Christo-Paganism: Some Answered Questions
« Reply #71 on: June 07, 2012, 06:14:59 pm »
Quote from: yewberry;59043
Stop stealing my method!

Brina

 

But...imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

:)
The pace of progress in artificial intelligence (I’m not referring to narrow AI) is incredibly fast. [...] The risk of something seriously dangerous happening is in the five year timeframe. 10 years at most.--Elon Musk

I am in the camp that is concerned about super intelligence," [Bill] Gates wrote. "First the machines will do a lot of jobs for us and not be super intelligent. That should be positive if we manage it well. A few decades after that though the intelligence is strong enough to be a concern. I agree with Elon Musk and some others on this and don\'t understand why some people are not concerned."

yewberry

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Re: Christo-Paganism: Some Answered Questions
« Reply #72 on: June 07, 2012, 06:17:50 pm »
Quote from: Juniperberry;59047
But...imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.


Stop!  Thief!  Don't make me call Lyric and Randall.

Brina

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Re: Christo-Paganism: Some Answered Questions
« Reply #73 on: June 07, 2012, 06:50:57 pm »
Quote from: cigfran;59034
Huh. I always figured the "God of Abraham" was just that, regardless of credal differences.

In theory, but in reality it is hard to consider deities the same if their traits and personality are very different. Even within Christianity, it is hard to see some groups following the same entity (unless said entity has multiple personalities. For example is the God of the Catholics the same deity as the God of the Fundie Christians? Their traits and personality are very different -- at least as different as Mars and Ares.
Randall
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Re: Christo-Paganism: Some Answered Questions
« Reply #74 on: June 07, 2012, 06:52:08 pm »
Quote from: RandallS;59056

Damn.  It worked.

Brina
« Last Edit: June 07, 2012, 11:30:44 pm by SunflowerP »

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