Europe's True Identity : Christian or really Pagan ? Already on 2. 0 May 2. Rome on the Orthodox and Catholic Churches of Europe , president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, Cardinal Walter Kasper, stated,”If Europe wants to have a future again, it must first and foremost renew its Christian roots.”The greater input of Christianity into public life has also been witnessed by David Cameron and his predecessor as prime minister, Tony Blair. On 1. 7 May 2. 01. Cardinal Cormac Murphy- O’Connor, Britain’s most senior Roman Catholic, warned that the spread of secularism and atheism were “very, very dangerous” fostering intolerance and the drive towards totalitarianism in order to eliminate Christianity in the nation. And recently David Cameron again has stated UK is a “Christian country“Is Europe a Christian Product? While such idealisation of Christianity can be expected from clerics and true believers in the faith, there have been other voices who see a European identity defined through Christianity as useful even if its not actually true.
Even staunchly secular anti- clerical France has not been immune from pushing the importance of faith. Just before he lost office,Ex French President Nicolas Sarkozy declared, “We should uphold both sides – accept the Christian roots of France . Scottish- born historian and political conservative Niall Ferguson calls himself “an incurable atheist” Nevertheless he is also a vocal champion for restoring Christendom because there isn’t sufficient “religious resistance” in the West to radical Islam.
Includes information about gods and goddesses, institutions and practices, religious symbolism, and related subject matter. Traditions A-Z - Pagan Traditions - Editorial Guidelines - Witchvox Central Pagan, pagan, what are you seeking, Through all of the days of your long earthly tread. Plant magic is an age old tradition dating back to ancient Egyptian times, plant magic has been used for many purposes such as healing, self empowerment and. Deck boxes: All Seasons Storage. Samhain, Lord of Darkness Samhain was known in Ireland as the "Lord of Darkness". The Druid religion was practiced by ancient.
Get trusted Online Dating Advice from the experts at DatingAdvice.com! Tips for men and for women on creating an online profile, email etiquette, and more. Easter Sunday is a festival and holiday celebrated by millions of people around the world who honour the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, described in the New.
Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci spent her last years before her death in 2. Muslim influx that was transforming her beloved continent into “Eurabia.” Fallaci was a self- declared “Christian atheist” because she thought Christianity provided Europe with the essential cultural and intellectual bulwark against Islam. These become more than just intellectual gymnastics when right- wing extremist. Anders Breivik. Anders Breivik killed 7.
Ireland is home to a wealth of Neolithic and megalithic sites ranging from tombs like Newgrange to standing stones, dolmens and fairy forts. Interest in these ancient.
Get the latest Dating Advice for men, women, and online dating from trusted experts! Articles, Q&A's, help guides, forum, and more only at DatingAdvice.com. A wedding ring or wedding band is a finger ring that indicates that its wearer is married. It is usually forged from metal, and traditionally is forged of gold or. St Valentine's Day or Ancient Pagan Sex Rite? By Dr Leo Ruickbie, Director of WICA. Pagan Origins of a Popular Christian Festival. As an estimated one billion cards. Beliefnet's Pagan & Earth Based religions page offers features on Wicca, witchcraft, magick, Goddess spirituality, indigenous traditions, guided Pagan meditations. Mithra, the Light of the World, is an ancient sun god identified with Sol Invictus, who was born on December 25th. Mithra resembled Jesus Christ in many ways.
Norway . In his political manifesto Breivik wrote “European Christendom and the cross will be the symbol in which every cultural conservative can unite under in our common defence. It should serve as the uniting symbol for all Europeans whether they are agnostic or atheists.”While not an actual believer, the hardcore nationalist nevertheless had faith “in Christianity as a cultural, social, identity and moral platform.”In his 2. Reflections on the Revolution in Europe, Christopher Caldwell of the. Financial Times speaks of the revival of “Team Christian” as Islam asserts itself in Europe such as attempts to rededicate Cordoba Cathedral as a mosque. Already in Britain and France more people attend mosque on Friday than church on Sunday which sends pulses racing because while Christianity is seen as indigenous and part of what it means to be.
France : Muslim Devout Praying on street. European, Islam and other such exotic Oriental creeds are seen as foreign intrusions. This has been as much an issue as human rights and democracy when resistance is made to Turkey joining the European Union. Free Adult Dating Hamlet Ohio. In his classic work The Clash of Civilisations, Samuel Huntington reveals that the “West” has never actually generated a major religion: Samuel Huntington “The great religions of the world are all products of non- Western civilizations and, in most castes, antedate Western civilization.”Later he does define “Western Christianity” comprising Catholicism and Protestantism as “the single most important characteristic of Western civilization” defining itself against Byzantine Orthodoxy as much as against Islam.
Yet he also mentions the “Classical legacy” which in his words included “Greek philosophy and rationalism, Roman law, Latin and Christianity”. So Huntingdon once again relates western identity back to Christianity. But it is his Greek and Roman citations which I wish to elaborate on further because they provide the core meaning when we look for the actual origins of . Her brother Cadmus contributed the alphabet to Greece .
Zeus was enamoured of Europa and decided to seduce by transforming himself into a tame white bull and mixed in with her father’s herds. Europa onto his back allowing Zeus to run into the sea and swim, with her on his back, to the island of Crete . Here he revealed his true identity, and made Europa the first queen of Crete . Plato and Aristotle. Therefore the very identity of Europe is not grounded in Christianity but the long lost pagan past which produced the first great civilisation on the continent. Does anyone regard the teachings of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Pythagoras and other great philosophers as backward? These are the great founding fathers of European and western civilisation which is so often touted as superior.
Yet they were all products of a pagan environment as was the very . For that reason if Islam and other ? By that token it is as . The myth of Europe having Christian roots is exploded. This use of . The historical reality is somewhat different. Hammer of Christ. Roman Gods. The Romans were generally tolerant of different creeds and hence the empire had spiritual dynamism and vitality.
Mithras and Isis shared the pantheon along with Jupiter, Mars and Serapis. It was this environment which allowed Christianity to grow and flourish in the first place until Constantine accepted it as the imperial creed because it helped him gain political power over his rivals. Once in power the angry male demiurge known as .
That. Constantineincluded within its own ranks as the Nicene Creed deemed many self- confessed Christians as heretics. The Emperor Constantius II, who reigned from 3. Paganism by the Christian Roman Empire, with the emanation of laws and edicts which punished Pagan practices. From the 3. 50s, new laws prescribed the death penalty for those who performed or attended Pagan sacrifices and for the worshipping of idols.
Pagan temples were closed and the traditional Altar of Victory was removed from the Senate. Increasingly ordinary Christian formed mobs destroying, pillaging, desecrating, vandalising many of the ancient Pagan temples, tombs and monuments. Julian the Apostate attempted to restore the traditional pagan tolerance as practiced by the emperors before him but it was too late. Roman Emperor Julianbecause the monotheistic mind set had spread too deep. The decrees of Emperor Theodosius from 3. The remaining Pagan holidays were abolished, the eternal fire in the Temple of Vesta in the Roman Forum extinguished, the Vestal Virgins disbanded, while auspices and witchcraft were punished. St Ambrose Converting Theodosius to Christianity.
Until 3. 95 Theodosius authorized or participated in the destruction of many temples, holy sites, images and objects of piety throughout the empire, participated in actions by Christians against major Pagan sites, issued a comprehensive law that prohibited any Pagan ritual even within the privacy of one’s home, Paganism was now proscribed, a “religio illicita”. He also is likely to have suppressed the Ancient Olympic Games whose last record of celebration is from 3.
The repressive laws were continued by Honorius and Arcadius as they attempted to snuff out any revival of paganism. The surviving pagans blamed the sack of Rome in 4. But the monotheistic juggernaut of hate was by now unstoppable. Rationalism and philosophy became the b. The temples of Alexandria were closed by Patriarch Theophilus of Alexandria in AD 3. Anyone who could think outside the narrow confines of the monotheistic gagging order was at risk as Neoplatonist philosopher Hypatia found to her cost in 4.
Hypatia being dragged by Christians to her brutal death. Taken by a Christian mob to the church called Caesareum, they completely stripped her and then murdered her with tiles. After tearing her body in pieces, they took her mangled limbs to a place called Cinaron, and there burnt them. During the fifth century all Hellenic monuments, altars and temples of Athens , Olympia , and other Greek cities were destroyed. In 5. 29 Emperor Justinian closed the Academy of Athens leading some of the remaining Academy members to flee to Ctesiphon , the capital of the Sassanid Iranian emperor Khosrau I. In 5. 42 Justinian allowed the inquisitor Ioannis Asiacus to forcibly convert the pagans of Phrygia, Caria and Lydia in Asia Minor .
Within 3. 5 years of this crusade, 9. In the sixth century, Christian authorities suppressed in Egypt the Navigium. Navigium Isidis festival banned in Egpyt as Christians took over.
Isidis, a religious festival in honour of the goddess Isis. Yet as late as 8.
Laconia in Greece , resisted the attempt of Tarasius, Patriarch of Constantinople, to convert them to Christianity. The ancient culture and civilisation which had given rise to essential elements in our modern civilisation, were extinguished by the intolerant monotheistic deity of Christianity. Women as Christ’s Sacrifice. Collapse of Rome. Christianity is said to have civilised the Europe of the Dark Ages, that period after the fall of the Roman Empire in western Europe plagued by disease, fragmented political systems, de- urbanisation and a return to a more rustic way of life as Germanic tribes, Huns, Magyars and Norsemen pillaged, raped, enslaved and caused general mayhem as well as massive demographic upheavals. Christianity has always had this false vision of itself as a superior creed against the rude backward ramblings of heathen tribes who worshiped fierce unforgiving gods that sometimes demanded human sacrifice. We need to look behind a history written by the Christian victors.
In doing so we find remarkable revelations. Peaceful Druids. For example the Celtic druids had immense control over the population not so much from fear (as with the Christian clerics) but due to their knowledge of astronomy and religious rituals.