Gelert on Nostr: Fundamentally it lacks any sort of truth claim, it is based on civic observance of ...
Fundamentally it lacks any sort of truth claim, it is based on civic observance of rituals, not faith and piety towards ultimate truth that can only be revealed through divine revelation.
Without that, all you have is a mythological legend and aesthetics, the mere veneer of religion resembling the meaningful expressions from actual religions which make active claims to revealed divine truth.
No Roman, Viking or Steppe nomad would have died for their God's glory, their Gods were merely receptacles of public approval for doing the community rituals. As long as you observed them you were "pious", even if you didn't believe. Likewise, if you refused to observe them, any misfortune would be attributed to you angering the Gods or not paying adequate tribute. It was always YOUR fault for not appeasing them, failure, trouble, corruption could always be turned around and used to shame the plebs into further compliance. A mere mechanism for social control and uniformity playing on superstition.
Social pressure and the pride of observing the rituals of the current civic superstition reinforced by fawning sycophants going "so brave". But refuse to observe the ritual and suddenly it was obviously your fault that your co-worker's second cousins great-grandfather died of Covid. You didn't pay the tribute, you should be shamed.
Such is the insipid shallowness of historic pagan "spirituality" and why, lacking any actual contact with the divine, modern recreations fail to capture any of the original vitality that may have been there due to strenuous conditions of survival and tribal warfare.
Anthony Fauci will always be a better Pontifex Maximus than Sven Bloodbeard (formerly Steven Butterworth) pouring out a drop of beer onto the floor for the Gods.
Without that, all you have is a mythological legend and aesthetics, the mere veneer of religion resembling the meaningful expressions from actual religions which make active claims to revealed divine truth.
No Roman, Viking or Steppe nomad would have died for their God's glory, their Gods were merely receptacles of public approval for doing the community rituals. As long as you observed them you were "pious", even if you didn't believe. Likewise, if you refused to observe them, any misfortune would be attributed to you angering the Gods or not paying adequate tribute. It was always YOUR fault for not appeasing them, failure, trouble, corruption could always be turned around and used to shame the plebs into further compliance. A mere mechanism for social control and uniformity playing on superstition.
Social pressure and the pride of observing the rituals of the current civic superstition reinforced by fawning sycophants going "so brave". But refuse to observe the ritual and suddenly it was obviously your fault that your co-worker's second cousins great-grandfather died of Covid. You didn't pay the tribute, you should be shamed.
Such is the insipid shallowness of historic pagan "spirituality" and why, lacking any actual contact with the divine, modern recreations fail to capture any of the original vitality that may have been there due to strenuous conditions of survival and tribal warfare.
Anthony Fauci will always be a better Pontifex Maximus than Sven Bloodbeard (formerly Steven Butterworth) pouring out a drop of beer onto the floor for the Gods.