How do Pagan deities come into being? What distinguished them from common-folk?

If people spent as much time looking for real solutions to their problems as they do to reading the Bible, the Quran, the Torah, or any other religious literature, going to church, preaching the gospel, going door-to-door, or writing about it on the internet, the world would be a much better place.

I may believe in a God, I’m still not sure (depends on my mood), but I will never cede control over my life to him/her/it/them.

Originally Posted By SUZANNE Paganism in the Roman Empire wasn’t very tolerant of Christians. It was tolerant of everything except people who claimed to have a universal truth, and who would not bow down to the state gods. .

Christians then, as now, had the nasty habit of assuming that they were superior, and therefore better than, Pagans. It’s not just that they refused to bow down to the state — they out-and-out demeaned and insulted the Pagan gods at every turn. Until the Christians came along, Rome had always made accomodations for other gods and cultures whose forms of worship were defferent from the Roman pantheon. But Christians were not content to simply live alongside the Roman gods. They brought their persecution upon themselves, and then they wallowed in their own martydom.

Originally Posted By balbulican Not to be rude to my very good pagan and Wiccan friends, but I’ll suspend judgement on your essential niceness until you guys get your own county. Then we’ll see how long the warm and fuzzy lasts.

No need to wait; I’ll tell you up front: I’m not necessarily nice at all. In fact, I can be downright nasty when someone tries to force their own margins and boundaries into my life. And warm and fuzzy only works for me when there’s a blizzard raging outside my window.

Wouldn’t mind having my own country, tho’. You can visit. Dinner at eight.

Originally Posted By SUZANNE Some Nazis and racists practiced a form of paganism.

There is little doubt that some Nazis practiced a form of Paganism, it’s something that is brought up almost every time a Christian enters a discussion on the subject – if that is relevant to the discussion then so is Hitler being a Christian, if you read Mein Kamph you will find him saying things like

“I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord..”

I can quote a lot of this type of material…. so …. is Nazi Paganism still relevant to the discussion about the growth of Paganism today SUZANNE?

Would it also be worth my while discussing how God fearing Christians in North America used the bible to justify their ownership of slaves? Or how racist property ownership laws, legal rights, and marriage laws, were enacted by governments in (supposedly) civilized and God fearing western societies?

But the point that is taken – there are Catholic anarchists and atheist neo-cons (Christopher Hitchens for instance).

However, in general, highly hierarchical religions that claim to hold the monopoly on universal truth and that all other religions are not only wrong, but evil, are more likely to be repressive and support repressive governments and states, than open pragmatic religions. These are people more likely to do the persecution of dissent than more individualistic, nature based religions.

And history bears this out.

That the pagan Roman empire persecuted Christians does not excuse 1700 years of Christians doing to everyone else, supposedly in the name of a “loving God”.

To my mind, it seems that people who bow to the idea that something happens or is caused by the supernatural, rather than the natural and who seek to use that belief to hold power over others, are the problem.

Absolutely. The Soviet Union and Nazi Germany both spring to mind.

But there’s something particularly odious about persecution by those convinced that they are doing it in God’s name, with God’s blessing.

Don’t forget that secular atheist governments can also be repressive. Paganism in the Roman Empire wasn’t very tolerant of Christians. It was tolerant of everything except people who claimed to have a universal truth, and who would not bow down to the state gods. Some Nazis and racists practiced a form of paganism.

It’s not about religion or non-religion. Dissent is persecuted. That is the way of the world.

It’s not about monotheism. India is predominantly polytheistic, and various extreme Hindu parties have intermittently used state power to murder or persecute Muslims.

From the wild excesses committed in the name of Sharia within Islamist states today to Spanish expulsion of Jews in the sixteenth century, from the forced conversion of natives in the Americas to the murder trains exchanged post-partition by India and Pakistan, state power wedded to state theology is a terrible thing. The United States, Canada and much of Europe enjoy our current state of relatively good governance (bitch about it as much as you want) due in part to the fact that our governments are secular. The fond neocon fantasy of American military power linked to their peculiarly primitive version of Christianity is a pretty terrible vision.

Not to be rude to my very good pagan and Wiccan friends, but I’ll suspend judgement on your essential niceness until you guys get your own county. Then we’ll see how long the warm and fuzzy lasts.