Roman Paganism

[pompeius magnus]

NO offense intended as this is a very difficult issue to talk about. First off I am a Christian, Presbyterian to be exact, so I can not follow the pagan religion as I would be breaking one of the twelve commandments. I also study mythology of both the Greeks and Romans which is also a deterant from ever becoming Pagan. The Greek and Roman myths themselves have problems as far as not coinciding often. A lot of events don't chronologically make sense, such as the story of Prometheus and how he got his imortality from an immortal centaur who was cut by one of Herakles poison arrows and was in emense pain.

[Zeke]

Most of the time....Mythology is just plain (myth)ology! The centaures and the sun being driven by a chariot and all the time line stuff is all just a funny story inveted to make people laugh and explain stuff way back then. I agnolage that almost all Greek and Roman Mythology is entirelly false...all these mytholgies are just stories, false made up stories by illterate humans beings, exacly like the bible which is a book of Jewish mythology almost all of the tales are compleate fiction thought up by writers to explain things of the Jewish and Christian faith. I mean the tower of Babel, Noah's ark, and all the other wild outlanish tales includding the false tales they told of the worship of Baal they sound highly unbelievable just like Baccus turning pirates into dolphins or Demeter's daughter being kidnapped by Hades.

 

All I see mythology as is the unqiue indvidual stories that cultures create to amuse people and to explain things that happen in the past with the faith.

 

When in comes to religion it's the worshiping that counts not the tales of the divine being that could be compleatly false the belief is the true essence of any religion what so ever!

 

Sorry about spelling,

Zeke

[Fafnir]

I will be flamed about this response later, but i have to agree with Zeke. Most religion is false, created by humans so they could attempt to understand why everything was happening around them. Really, who's going to believe a talking, burning bush?

 

I stated earlier that im a pagan, on the poll i voted "other pagan" or whatever it was. I believe the Gods are all a part of us, they may be fabricated but they live in all of us. Fafnir, the God i am most associated with, is described as greedy. I get greedy sometimes, lol doesnt everyone? (unless you follow Stoic Philosophy, if so, then good for you!) I mean he turned himself into a dragon just so he could guard a treasure of gold.

 

I also dont like how Christianity and similar religions turn people's instincts and values against them, turning them into 'zombies' so to speak. "Believe this because i said so..."

 

I believe that the only reason its such a prominent religion is because their parents were Christian, etc.

 

Dont hate me for my opinion, because thats all it truely is. Id love for someone to prove to me that there is an omnipotent being watching over all of us, it'd make things so much less complicated.

 

-The Fafinator

[Ursus]

I'm not sure how literally modern days pagans take mythology. Surely some do. Many others see them as allegories, filled with meaning, whether divine or merely poetic. This is similar to many educated Christians who regard Genesis as more of a metaphor than a literal account of the creation of the world.

 

I let the explanation of physical nature of the universe to scientists. And I let history to historians. Mythology is poetry on a level that can be taken both as base entertainment and concealed philosophy, depending on what meanings you're willing to see.

 

Anyway, I'm not here to attack anyone's religion or defend my own from skeptics. I'm merely stating most modern pagans don't treat mythology as an inerrant holy text the way Muslims treat the Koran or some Christians treat the Bible. And the fact that different places and different poets put different twists on the same mythological tales doesn't matter to me since it's not meant to be read on a very literal level.

[Augustus]

The Greeks and Romans for the most part looked askance at their gods (as far as being moral), their relationship was quid pro quo. Most people had their household gods who were seen as more personal and protective, and then the local gods as guardians. During the Empire the Caesar became for all practical purposes The god who was to be given homage all others became secondary.

Later the developement of the Mystery cults provided many people with the promise of a personal relationship, and salvation.

[Cleopatra Aelia]

Hi there,

 

I voted for "I am another type of Pagan" because I'm Asatru since it feels natural for me to follow the gods the people in this area (Hamburg, Germany) worshipped before they were turned into Christians.

 

Of course I'm open to learn about other religions and don't mind a good discussion on religious topics.

[Ursus]

Welcome to the site, Cleopatra. Feel free to start a thread on Asatru/heathenism if you wish.

[Zeke]

I have changed my philosphys greatly on the subject of my Fatih after debting with Christians and other Pagans.

It is much different in prespective then what is was, it is more reasonble and logical in gneral though it remainds that I still and always shall worship Roman/Greco Gods and any god or goddess that came into the Roman Pantheon from conquet.

 

Zeke

[Skarr]

There are as many gods / religions / sects etc. etc. as there are people, since each individual is unique. As Lewis Black, the famous comedian said, "We are all like snowflakes".

 

Religion evolved into the hodge podge it has become today starting with simple worship of the natural beauty of the world. Most of the ancient people worshipped and venerated familiar objects from a favorite rock or mountain or a shady tree that also provided fruit and sustenance. As men and women became less engaged in the daily task of gathering food and abandoned their nomadic ways, they began to look skyward and began to worship the sun and the moon.

 

Even today, in most religions, some form of sun / moon worship is prevalent ( a remnant from the past nature oriented beliefs, which primarily venerated life and creation, especially the birth of a human being in the womb of a mother, or what became an iconic mother goddess). Most religious celebrations in the past were centered around the worship of the goddess, a symbol for the fertility of the earth, which produced the things that humankind needed to survive - from crops and fruit, to life giving rivers, fresh clean air and enough game. People prayed for rain to arrive so that their harvest would be successful. The Egyptians believed that without prayer, the sun would not return the following morning and so on. Of course, we don't have an exact record of the practices and all we can do is guess and make deductions based on what records exist in the form of papyrii or hieroglyphics on various tomb walls and monuments.

 

As humankind became more comfortable with the Earth and the need to placate its anger (earthquakes, volcanoes, storms and the like) by building shelters, cities and even understanding things about how to look for storm warnings, navigate the oceans and so on, religion not only became more spiritual in terms of asking who we are and where do we all come from and why does life exist in the first place, it also became a tool for control. Kings and others saw a way of maintaining power over large sections of the populace as humankind began settling in cities, abandoning their small camp like, nomadic settlements. If religion did not exist in some form, it would have to be invented as there was no way a king or other ruler could maintain control over the masses through sheer logic, reason and laws.

 

You need something else, a fear of the unknown, a fear of death or what happens to your soul after you die, an afterlife, rebirth, reincarnation, whatever theory that could explain or attempt to answer the perennial and age old questions that people have been asking for 1,000s of years. These questions were posed 5,000 years ago, if you read an ancient Indian epic poem called the Mahabharata and these remain unanswered today.

 

Where does everything come from ? Science tries to explain the mechanics but again, it's all vague and while everyone is more or less convinced on the big bang, what existed before the big bang is another question. Did something come out of nothing. In the beginning, everything was infinitesally small. String theory is talking about multi dimensional worlds, which is again all theory.

 

In short, no one has any answers and I think the point is that there aren't any. If life was not a mystery, it would be dull and boring and if you knew the future, the present is not worth living and the past is irrelevant. Celebrate each moment as you live and live each moment as if it were your last. There is only the present and nothing else. The past - it's already gone, never to return. If you think about the past, you waste the present. The future ? No one knows what the future holds. Believe in yourself, believe in others and as long as you try to live a life where you live and act according to your beliefs, you help people who are in need and you can afford to and are comfortable within your own skin, what need do you have for anything else ?

 

Religion, spirituality and other forms of belief are private, intense and personal. Anyway, all of this is my opinion. Everyone is unique and entitled to their own opinion.

 

Who knows in the end ?? Perhaps every one of us, each human being is a universe all unto his own. Think about it, do you exist independent of everything else ? Or does everything else, the entire universe exist only because of you and does everything in it die along with you when you die ? No one can answer this age old question. Not any religion, saint, no one.

 

I'm reminded of an old saying here - He who says he knows, does not know. He who knows, does not say. He who says he doesn't know, he is an honest and wise man. Try to be like the wise man and live in truth, that is the only religion I try to practice.

[Lost_Warrior]

I'm an...."ecclectic pagan" I guess...I believe in all of the Gods (Roman, Greek, Celtic, etc.) but I usually only pray to The Morrigan and occasionally Brighid and others for specific things.

[Black_Francis]

I'll repent on my deathbed though..just in case

 

LOL, According to the Catholics... this would be perfectly acceptable. I don't think it matters though, if it turns out in the end that Christianity was the right way to go, I think everyone will end up in 'hell' anyway. I mean does anyone truly follow the teachings of Jesus?

 

Good point though Catholics also realise that it is almost impossible to be a truly "good person" and follow the teachings of Jesus to the letter (unlike many Protestants).

We understand that we are all naturally sinners and there is no escaping this (we are all selfish buggers, admit it!) but that it is our struggle against sin that God takes note of. After all, it is the mercy of God that we rely on for enterance into Heaven, to assume you are going to go to Heaven because you consider yourself to be a "good person" is presumptuousness and probably linked with the sin of pride.

Jesus is the ideal that we should measure ourselves against but we should also realise that this ideal is almost impossible to reach as a human being. Basically, we will always fall short of really deserving the love of God and salvation but this does not mean that we will go to Hell as it is through His mercy and forgiveness alone that we can obtain salvation and not really through any deed of our own.

 

I do apologise and I feel I have wandered way off topic... I felt I had to reply to Primus Pilus though.

 

Anyhow,

The form of Roman Paganism presented seems to make a lot of sense and certainly holds more merit than the beliefs that many new age "crystal gazers" hold to be true.

I have a great deal of respect for Pagans that worship the old gods in a proper and traditional manner. It saddens me to see modern Pagans devaluing the ancient Pagan tradition through association.

Needless to say and as you may have guessed, I am proud to be a ROMAN Catholic and through my faith feel a tenuous and valuable link with the Roman Empire.... After 312AD at least...

[Ursus]

There is a rift between more traditional pagans and the more New Age types with a penchant for crystals. Personally, I get offended when they try to pass off their practices as some lost and ancient faith. Most of their stuff comes from WWI era occult sects.

 

Thankfully as the years go on less and less of them buy into the myth of some pristine, lost matriarchy where pacifist, vegetarian eco-witches ruled the world in peace until those naughty Christian males came to ruin paradise. ;-)

[Lost_Warrior]

Thankfully as the years go on less and less of them buy into the myth of some pristine, lost matriarchy where pacifist, vegetarian eco-witches ruled the world in peace until those naughty Christian males came to ruin paradise. ;-)

 

 

vegetarian? Bah, we have canines for a reason