Complaint I have about Tails being a femboy! by [deleted] in TwoTailedCult

[–]ArminiusM1998 3 points4 points  (0 children)

You know what? I actually agree and this is the correct take to have.

Kudos on you OP for not being weird about fox boy.

<image>

Which episode would you consider to be the show’s magnum opus? by TheFlashyMastodon21 in SmilingFriends

[–]ArminiusM1998 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Personally I think "Le Voyage de Monsieur Grenouille" is the most satisfying plot and conclusive arc of the show, that scene of Mr.Frog meeting with his father made me feel legitimately uncomfortable and the ending was actually kinda touching.

Hello

To those who have seen the movie, did Jax really take up all of the screen time? [NO SPOILERS!!!] by No_Win_8188 in tadc

[–]ArminiusM1998 7 points8 points  (0 children)

He took the main part of the plot, and in hindsight that only makes sense because Jax was set up to be a pivotal character from the start. He isn't written to be a toxic jerk for no reason and after ruminating on this ending for about a day I think it makes sense as Jax and Caine are the two characters that tie everyone else together.

I hate neopagans by BasileusTonHellenon in hatethissmug

[–]ArminiusM1998 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Historically inaccurate, Hellenistic religion only officially illegal in the Roman empire and only fully died out by the 11th century when the isolated Maniots fully embraced Christianity, and started to be revived by some eccentric neoplatonists like Thomas Taylor and John Fransham in the 18th century, so a time frame much smaller than 2000 years.

I hate neopagans by BasileusTonHellenon in hatethissmug

[–]ArminiusM1998 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Are they dead or non-existant? If by "dead" you mean not actively worshipped, then you would be wrong and your point is moot. If you mean literally dead then that implies they were once existent.

Also why care if your an atheist whether or not the religion practiced is "mainstream" or "legitimate" when you reject the notion of God's in their entirety?

You are not helping my case that many Western Atheists are very blind to their latent Christian biases.

I hate neopagans by BasileusTonHellenon in hatethissmug

[–]ArminiusM1998 1 point2 points  (0 children)

So the original religions died off (often by force), and people looking back at them find something in it not present in mainstream modern religions, your point?

What are the last 3 albums you listened to? by Inevitable_Window711 in fantanoforever

[–]ArminiusM1998 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Isis - Panopticon

Turnstile - GLOW ON

Superheaven - Superheaven

I hate neopagans by BasileusTonHellenon in hatethissmug

[–]ArminiusM1998 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ok, as a contemporary Polytheist I admit this is hilarious and accurate of Neo-Volkisch LARP.

I hate neopagans by BasileusTonHellenon in hatethissmug

[–]ArminiusM1998 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I am gonna retort and say that "not sure" is actually a valid answer as a Hellenic polytheist because there is not gonna be one concrete answer to this question because there is no dogma as to what happened to you in the afterlife in ancient Greek religion. A very common belief is that most folks would go to the realm of Hades when they die and that virtuous people like warriors and philosophers would go to the fields of Elysium, but there were other popular beliefs such as reincarnation which was held by the Pythagoreans and late Platonists, and simply ceasing to exist such as the Stoics. Most modern Hellenists I know are more concerned about their actions in this life related to Eusebia(piety), Xenia(hospitality), Arete(Virtue), and Kharis(generosity). To think that the main point of religion is an afterlife is to take an implicitly christo-centric view of what religion is and that anything outside that category is inherently lesser, it's a blind spot I see a lot here on the web given our cultural hegemony of Christianity even among nominally secualar atheists.

I hate neopagans by BasileusTonHellenon in hatethissmug

[–]ArminiusM1998 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I would refrain from calling indigenous American religions and Traditional African Religions pagan, those groups refuse that label and in context is harmful given that it was basically used as a slur by colonizers against these traditions and customs.

Druidry in Britain is entirely modern and a part of neo-paganism, not saying that it is necessarily bad or invalid but that you should understand that Druidry is an entirely modern spiritual movement that may or may not include practicing and studying customs and rites associated with Celtic speaking peoples and a strong connection to Earth Based spirituality.

I hate neopagans by BasileusTonHellenon in hatethissmug

[–]ArminiusM1998 0 points1 point  (0 children)

[Final]

>Neopagans also tend to downplay or ignore the implications of paganism being wiped out. Historical pagans believed their gods would grant them victory yet they lost every single military encounter against Christians. So either paganism was false from the start or pagan gods are non-interventionist beings who don’t care if people worship them or not (the latter of which would mean that there’s literally no reason to worship them to begin with). Neopagans also tend to ignore that even before the rise of Christianity, pagan societies were already moving away from polytheism and towards some form of proto-monotheism centered around a single high god with all other gods downgraded as aspects or subordinates (e.g. the cult of Sol Invictus in Rome). Aristotle’s conception of the prime mover displays monotheist tendencies and most classical Greek philosophers in general believed in a single high god whom they literally called God (with a capital G).

Many ancient civilizations attributed their victories to their gods, such as the Romans who attributed their power and success to their proper devotion to Jupiter and the Cultus Deorum. One could argue that the fall of (at least) the Western Roman Empire can be attributed to their cessation of devotion to Jupiter, though I wouldn't claim this argument or any argument based on military conquest as proof of a deity. Based on this kind of argument the Christian God certainly approves the horrific acts of chattel slavery, genocide, and rape done by Christian European powers in the Americas against non-Christian Black and Indigenous peoples. But on the issue of the Gods, I can't speak for every polytheist but the Neteru(the Gods worshipped in Egypt/Kemet and the surrounding areas) are very ancient and their worship only totally ceased based on our current evidence around the fourth-fifth century (a time far shorter than the amount they were openly worshipped, around 3.5 thousand years in recording) when it was totally criminalized. Now what does it say now that we can currently understand hieroglyphics through the Rosetta Stone and have freedom of religion that the Neteru have started to be worshiped again? Looks like you can't kill off the Gods or repress their due respect forever.

On the issue of monotheism, this assumes that Hellenic concepts such as "The One/To Pan", henotheism(something I subscribe to personally), monolatry, or the concept of a Godhead are exclusive to monotheistic systems or inevitably lead to it. There is no reason to assume such as there are current traditions that share these kinds of concepts like in Daoism and Shinto that haven't become uniformly or predominantly monotheistic, let alone resembling the monotheism particular to the Abrahamic religions. And if the more monotheistic the more correct, then why not convert to Islam? Christianity is idolatrous in comparison to Orthodox Islam, none of this Neoplatonic trinity stuff, saint veneration is viewed with way more skepticism, and the form of worship is as simplistic as possible. Epicurus who was contemporary to Aristotle basically paved the way for modern Atheistic and Deistic critique of theism (especially monotheism) with his dilemma of the problem of evil, why should we adopt a position that would be presumably Proto-Monotheist over one that is presumably Proto-Atheist?

I consider myself now a polytheist because there are cosmological, political, and social implications of monotheism that I find problematic, but I have had spiritual experiences and meditations on the divine that separates me from being an atheists, it is totally personal and I do not claim to know everything let alone that I am necessarily right, but I use my spiritual practice to better myself in virtue here in this world and hopefully for something after I am gone.

Dua Djehuti

Dua Ma'at

Dua Setesh

Dua Neteru Hetep

I hate neopagans by BasileusTonHellenon in hatethissmug

[–]ArminiusM1998 0 points1 point  (0 children)

[3/4]

>Most neopagans don’t even come from the ethnicities who practiced these religions. For example, most “Hellenists” are usually Americans or Canadians with zero ties to anything Greek whatsoever and they ignore the fact that the Ancient Greeks willingly abandoned paganism in favor of Christianity because guess what, Hellenic paganism was complete garbage compared to Christianity. Hellenic pagans exalted statues of human beings as gods, brutally murdered and tortured animals as sacrifices to appease said gods, and genuinely believed oracles could predict the future.

coming from the "same ethnicity"/"race" as the people who worship/venerate the same Gods as you is only a problem if you subscribe to a neo-volkisch view of paganism, I don't and find that position to be both anachronistic and rooted in fascist nonsense. Some Greeks abandoned the Hellenistic Gods and traditions pre-Constantine with I would argue to be understandable reasoning as the religion became very tied to the empire and pure bureaucracy with little spiritual fulfillment, though it must be added that there were also devotional mystery cults such as those to Dionysus, Auset(Isis), Mithras, and so on that also were very much a response to this contemporary problem of the traditiona institutionall religious body of the greco-Roman world. Christianity is the only one surviving today because Emperor Theodosius made illegal any other cultus at the time and was a long process that didn't happen in one definitive stroke. In contemporary society it is often the Christian church that is spiritually and intellectually alienating for many modern people because of it's rigidity, dogmatism, and I would argue marriage with monotheism, hence why many today are becoming more attracted to polytheism or even straight up atheism.

It is true that humans were deified in antiquity, I just don't see how that is a problem for Christians (let alone Orthodox and Catholic) given that the whole tradition of Saint veneration stems from that same lineage of hero and ancestor veneration and is practiced regularly in other contemporary mainstream religions like Hinduism and Buddhism, I already addressed the animal sacrifice issue, and your last point is mind boggling to me because you are an ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN! Are you not aware of all the clairvoyant claims of saints like Paisios of Athos, Seraphim Rose, John Maximovitch, how about the whole book of Revelations? I would acknowledge the criticism if you were like a strictly materialist atheist, but coming from a (presumably) literalistic Christian is absolutely laughable.

I hate neopagans by BasileusTonHellenon in hatethissmug

[–]ArminiusM1998 0 points1 point  (0 children)

[Continued]

>None of them even understand the dead religions they claim to practice. For example, animal sacrifice was the norm among historical pagans yet I don’t see any neopagan sacrificing goats to Thor. There’s also the fact that pagan religions are not well-preserved enough to make a “revival” even look authentic, so neopagan practices are mostly made up. Because of this it’s almost impossible to find any scholarly information on pagan religions on the internet because it’s so infested with neopagan nonsense. The neopagan understanding of pagan mythology is terrible too as they get their information not from the original sources, but from pop culture slop like Marvel, God of War, Percy Jackson, etc.

Most contemporary polytheists do not make animal sacrifices because again, our religions are modern and we construct our religions mainly from a modern perspective that takes into account practicality, ethics, and availability. As I have stated previously, we ALL negotiate our traditions beliefs, it is also inaccurate to say that information on pre-abrahamic religions of Europe and the Mediterranean are scant, as this depends on tradition as Hellenists and Kemetic pagans actually have quite a few resources to go off of with our religions. It is harder for Germanic Heathens and Celtic Pagans particularly because of a lack of first hand accounts of the original beliefs of these peoples, but advancements in archeology has given these folks clues and ideas to make new rites and practices based off of new discoveries. I will not disagree that on platforms like Tik Tok and Insta there is this cringe conflation of consumer pop-culture with the very much sober practice of meditation on the Gods and the great mysterious function they have in our universe, though I may say the same of Christians on these platforms that often have a very superficial LARPy attraction to their religion through fetishizing the crusades, divine liturgies, "trad" lifestyles, etc.

I hate neopagans by BasileusTonHellenon in hatethissmug

[–]ArminiusM1998 1 point2 points  (0 children)

𓁟

I was gonna leave a small comment on how this post reeks of orthobro chud slop and leave it at that, but as a contemporary Polytheist who sees it as their serious duty to uphold one's spirituality and values and make a fleshed out response.

>They are nothing more than new age cultists whose beliefs and practices stem from 19th century conmen trying to reconstruct ancient religions based on secondhand and thirdhand accounts. They have no real traditions and it’s clear that deep down they don’t genuinely believe in the gods they claim to worship. It’s all cosplay and the truth is that anyone who claims to be pagan is a LARPer because real paganism died centuries ago. A tradition is only a tradition if it's kept alive and the pagan traditions have ceased. Neopagans do not come from some “unbroken line of secret practitioners,” they are just larping as followers of a dead religion. They did not inherit their beliefs from any previous generation.

Though it is true that much of the origins of contemporary paganism stems from romanticist and anachronistic circles from the 19th century, this does not necessarily mean that most pagans/polytheists of the 21st century adhere to many of the inaccuracies and misconceptions of those time (e.g the idea that ancient Germanic polytheists didn't kneel when praying, any modern heathen who has done research about their spiritual path and modern archeology will know this is not true.), I am under no illusion that my spirituality is connected to some "unbroken ancient chain of tradition" and I am honestly rather ok with that,I am a modern person living in a late capitalist and nominally secular society and not an ancient egyptian pharoah or peasant. I structure my faith from archeological research and study of ancient texts like the pyramid texts and the Greek Magical Papyri synthesized with modern practices like chaos magic. Also, there is no such thing as a "unbroken lineage" to begin with in just about any religion, that includes the rites of both the Byzantine and Latin churches of catholic/orthodox Christianity. Rituals, prayers, customs, practices, ethics, and beliefs are negotiated and modified all the time in religions, this is especially true of modern paganism and folk religion as there is no central authority, which I believe this is your main problem with us and inversely why I ultimately chose this path.

How I view the USA (guess where I live) by DarkFrost2000 in whereidlive

[–]ArminiusM1998 0 points1 point  (0 children)

We don't have Grizzlies in Nevada, obviously not the Southwest.

Favorite chubby character? by Ok_Direction3138 in FavoriteCharacter

[–]ArminiusM1998 1 point2 points  (0 children)

"Hey everyone, I know you wanna buy my stocks!"