The Dreaded Monotheist
Why is it that so many pagans feel the need to dump on Christianity? When did pagans get it in their head that paganism has a less bloody and less violent history than Christianity? I recently had a rather heated discussion over on the Wild Hunt with some fellow pagans about the various evils of the dreaded Monotheists. Dum dum DUM! *Scary music and evil laughter echoes in the distance*
I find it very disturbing when individual pagans spew their shadows onto Christians and act as if our movement is without it’s own problems and controversial past. Many pagans point to historical legacies like the Crusades as proof of how awful Monotheism *evil grin* is. Yet they conveniently forget famous polytheists like Alexander the Great and Genghis Khan in their list of bad men. Why is that? The consensus, if you read some of the replies, is that the act of mass murder is not as bad if you are *not* trying to convert them to your religion. Seriously?
We pagans have just as much blood on our hands as Christians do. Period. One argument was:
I guess what I’m saying boils down to this: yes, we shouldn’t ignore that bad things happened in the pre-Christian West, but you’re simply stating the obvious and trying to equate it to something it is not equal to. Modern Pagans are nowhere near as stained by those past actions perpetrated by unrelated Pagans as modern Christians are by a thousand CONTINUOUS years of dominance and intolerance that has instituted the privilege that they now enjoy. That’s like comparing a valley to Mt. Everest.
First off, I am not sure what exactly connects the modern Christian to the Crusades anymore than the modern pagan to Alexander the Great. The post seems to be arguing that since a person is Catholic under the modern day Vatican they are complicit by default of the Crusades simply because the Vatican is still around. I am not defending the Crusades here. Nor am I defending the Vatican, which I see as a passe, archaic institution that turns a blind eye to very serious problems. Nor, however, will I defend Genghis Khan and Alexander the Great as somehow better than Richard the Lionheart or other Monotheistic *mwahahahahahaaa* military leaders. Lets also remember that the Crusades were against other monotheists *cackle*, not pagans.
This discussion began about some of Robert Wright’s opinions on the evolution of religious thought. Unfortunately it quickly turned into neo-pagans insisting that they were better than Christians and that the atrocities of the pagan past are totally disconnected to modern pagans. I have to wonder why they don’t give Christians the same pass? For instance when I pointed out that even the Celts were guilty of large scale military campaigns in the early Iron Age a response was:
“You project too much modern (or Classical) thought of ‘militaries’ on what were tribal societies. Wars were fought for *dominance,* not destruction or conversion.”
And this somehow makes it better? How?
I try not to put myself on a moral high horse about how one religion is “better” than another. I think that leads down a dangerous path that ends in self delusion and arrogance. I do not think that attitudes of intolerance and apathy are unique to Christians. I would think that would be common sense. I am not sure why it is important to argue that modern pagans are better than modern Christians. I think it is clear that every religious group has their crazies and we are no exception to that. It is when we don’t recognize that, or happily cast our shadows onto others that the trouble starts. I for one do not think that paganism is immune to bigotry, intolerance, and violence. When we ignore the past and blithely cast evil onto Christians and Monotheists *cackling laughter* we run the risk of becoming exactly what we hate.
Tír na nOuray 
“You project too much modern (or Classical) thought of ‘militaries’ on what were tribal societies. Wars were fought for *dominance,* not destruction or conversion.”
Response to this: conversion is a form of dominance! Honestly, all religion is a form of dominance in charismatic hands.
This is a hot button for me too. I fear that most of the responses that seem to “fly off the handle” come from folks who don’t know their history, or, have read it with a subjective eye. You’re absolutely correct about the Crusades going after other monotheists, in the form of heretics (Cathars) and Muslims and Jews (other Abrahambic religions).
A similar attitude appears in pagan culture when folks start chanting “never again!” to the witch trials. I’ve also found some reconstructionists very opinionated about Wicca and other branches of paganism deemed “fluffy.”
It does the pagan community no good to spout rhetoric that stems from an uninformed place, and casting judgment and aspersions (how very Christian) should be left out of serious discussions about comparative religion, as they are opinions and, therefore, subjective.
I am married to a Christian man, a Lutheran. We are completely accepting of the others faith choices, and I think proof that monotheists and polytheists can live in harmony. I’m also of the mindset when it comes to monotheists that “your God is good too!”
Jenn,
So you live with one of those dreaded monotheists eh? That is so damn cool. I agree that a lot of this stems from a lack of historical perspective. I hope that this gets corrected over time.
Our community has a lot to learn when it comes to Christian bashing. I will never support it, and will always speak out against it.
sorry, a little behind in my blog reading.
Just wanted to add in my observations on this too because i’ve seen it and thought it no good.
I think that some of it stems from people converting to paganism from monotheism. To make that break they have to get over their guilt of turning their backs on a belief they’ve held and was passed down to them from their parents. I think the easiest or best way most have found was to begin by hating and lashing out at it to break all ties. I think over time most of these people will come to an equilibrium. They’ll come to an understanding that their past beliefs weren’t evil just no the right path for them.
I think as a community we need to offer support and understanding that this might be a natural response to conversion. It can’t be condoned but the person needs to be taught a different way of dealing.
Dj,
This is an excellent point. It would be great to see groups providing counseling and support for those who may have recently converted and how to help them through the process. I will have to give this further thought. Great insight.
Sorry, I know I am entering this late, but I have been too busy lately to read online. . .lol but this one is too good to pass up, so here goes.
I completely agree with your reasons as listed for disagreeing with that form of Christian bashing. . .however, I bash Christians all the time and think their religion is disgusting and cankerous. Here are *my* reasons for this however.
I am a Heathen (IE Teutonic) Polytheist. I tend to be fairly ethnocentric (oooh scary, scary word lol), that is, I focus primarily on the folkways of my Scandinavian ancestry and the dilemma of the unavoidable influence of “americana” into said folkways. The way that I see it, Heathenism and Christianity have always been and always will be at odds. One of the Crusades that you mentioned were waged around the Baltic Sea to convert the Heathen remnants to “The One True Religion”. The conflict can be seen further in this scathing poem written by Steinnunn, mother of Refr Gestasson describing Thor wrecking the ship of a Christian priest:
Þórr brá Þvinnils dýri
Þangbrands ór stað longu,
hristi borð ok beysti
barðs ok laust við jorðu;
munat skíð um sæ síðan
sundfært Atals grundar,
hregg því at hart tók leggja,
hánum kennt, í spánu.
[Thórr altered the course of Thangbrand’s (the priest)
long horse (boat) of Thvinnil 1,
he tossed and bashed
the plank of the prow and smashed
it all down to the solid ground;
the ski of the ground of Atall (the sea) 3
won’t later be buoyant on the sea
since the baleful gale caused by him splintered it all into kindling.
Braut fyrir bjollu gæti
(bond ráku val strandar)
mogfellandi mellu
móstalls vísund allan;
hlífðit Kristr, þá er kneyfði
knorr, málfeta varrar;
lítt hygg ek at Guð gætti
Gylfa hreins at einu.
The killer of ogresses’ kin (Thorr) 4
pulverized fully the mew-perch bison (boat) 5
of the bell’s guardian (priest) 6
(the gods chased the steed of the strand 7)
Christ cared not for sea-shingle stepper 8
when cargo-boat crumbled;
I think that God hardly guarded
the reindeer of Gylfi 9 at all.
(courtesy of the Viking Answer Lady)
I think it completely natural for belief systems to clash and disagree. Christianity and other similar monotheisms are diametrically opposed to Polytheism. The whole of the Old Testament is story after story of the “one true god” triumphing over the decadent polytheistic cultures, many of whom predated the upstart desert nomads by a thousand years or more. For me, history (not New Age revisionism) is only one portion of my hatred and subsequent bashing of Christians, a larger part of it is my philosophical understanding that while all religions may ultimately serve the same purpose, this does not make them tacitly uniform, nor does it mean that they should all get along. I think that when we eliminate the naturally occuring conflict between world views we lose the essence of the world views involved. Without light there would be no shadows, we understand things based on their dissimilarities as well as their similarities. Without shadows we would have no perception of depth. I think the shadows here are the conflicts between world religions and spirit ways, and that we should learn to appreciate the conflicts that ensue, as this grants us greater insight and understanding of what our Polytheistic religion is not, as well as what it is.
Frith,
Bjorn
There used to be a Pagan blogger named Catalyst (Cather Steincamp- http://www.catalystpoint.org/) that referred to the problem of Pagans reacting against their Christian or Jewish upbringing as “Post-Religious Stress Syndrome” I think he really hit the nail on the head. I had a pretty liberal upbringing so I didn’t have much to rebel against. I’ve long been bothered by this, but have become more sensitive, as like Jenn I have a Christian partner. One of these I’m going to ask my friends after they diss his religion- so if my partner was black would you make racist comments in front of him? That will shut them up…
As for history- I think people need to separate religion itself from people who manipulate it for power, wealth etc. Religions always become corrupted when they are entwined with the state, and leaders become convinced that the Divine is on their side, and they have The Only Truth. Pagans aren’t immune to this- while we may not have polytheistic kings now, I’ve seen Pagan leaders become corrupted by power.
There will probably never be perfect harmony between our religions but at least we can learn to co-exist civilly and agree to disagree.
To my knowledge no pagan group of the present or pagan religion of the past made a claim to absolute truth and exclusive revelation. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all make such claims. The earliest record of ethnic cleansing is the book of Judges in the Old Testament. It quite happily recounts the slaughter of entire populations of city after city at the behest of Yahweh. Christianity declared war on the pagan population of antiquity and by the late 4th century the Church had made pagan observance a capital offense. Violence is inherent in the “Abrahamic” religions, and it comes from two central doctrines: the followers of these religions are God’s chosen and as such they are enjoined to convert unbelievers by any means. In Christian and Islamic teaching, unbelievers are condemned at any rate, so they have nothing to lose by violent conversion.
Robert,
This post is not about debating claims of absolute truth and revelation made by the three monotheisms that you cite. I would not argue with that claim. What I do contest is that Christianity has more blood on it’s hands than paganism does. History does not bear this out.
The earliest record of ethnic cleansing is *not* in the book of Judges, as the accounts of Sumer and the archaeological record both attest too. The Sumerians were absolutely brutal in the building of their empire by the systematic subjugation of regional tribes. Sumer was a pagan polytheistic society, without any outright claims to absolute religious revelation or truth. Systematic state sponsored violence has enjoyed just as much use under pagan empires as Christian ones.
How can one argue that violence is “inherent” to the Abrahamic religions anymore than it is in many pagan religions?
I think the issue here is motive. Alexander the Great didn’t embark on his great dream of conquest because he wanted to cleanse the land of infidels. He did it because he wanted to, and he had the military power to do it. Polytheistic cultures seldom make war on other peoples because the others worship the wrong god(s) — they get right to the point. Money. Land. Natural resources. Menélaos’s wife. And people don’t quit fighting just because Zeus supports the other team.
Fundamentalist monotheists justify their wars by saying that God wants them to cleanse the land of the infidel (who usually lives somewhere that has a convenient port or will secure passage so they can get to a rich place in Land B) or some such nonsense. It’s not that the resultant rape and murder is more heinous than the rape and murder committed by polytheistic invaders — far from it. It’s just less honest. (Maybe they realized that, when asked why what’s-his-name massacred Jericho, “Because it is located near an important water source!” was not enough to justify murdering an entire city. Or, at least not as good a reason as “God told me to!”)
Of course, I could get into the fact that fundamentalist monotheists commit cultural genocide by outlawing the worship of other gods and systematically eliminating the conquered people’s culture, and then you may counter that Hellenization looks somewhat similar because people who become Hellenized stand a better chance at succeeding in the new governmental regime. However, a Hellenized man or woman can still pray in the old temples to the old gods. Forced converts to monotheism can’t.
And by the way, that picture made me giggle.
Kaye,
I think that all conquerors and states that use violence to gain more material resources justify their invasions via some kind of propaganda. Cultural superiority or shining the light of civilization, or pre-emptive defense being a few examples used.
The Roman Empire, although polytheistic in the beginning, was really interested in acquiring land and power. They may not have justified it by religion, but they certainly felt that their civilization was more advanced and moral than others. I think you make a good point when you say that under a polytheistic empire other religions are tolerated.
P.S I laughed at that pic too. 😉
I think it’s how the man’s eyes just pop out due to the extreme color contrast. They make him look amusingly psychotic, especially with the smile.
Yes, as I said, polytheistic cultures tend to get right to the point, or at least choose propaganda that makes a bit more sense. I can understand Rome’s concern with Egypt because Egypt produced most of the grain. It might not be morally right according to modern standards to conquer someone for their natural resources, but it still makes more sense than the “God wants us to have dominion over everything” argument.
I know this is a old post, but, I just wanted to say,I am so thankful there are Pagans like you around. I’ve become quite disillusioned with the much of the Pagan community, at least, what I’ve found online. They constantly go on about the “evils” of Monotheism and Abrahamic religions (while, at the same time, saying they don’t believe in evil, as it’s all subjective!). For them, when a Christian or a Muslim, or sometimes a Jew, does something wrong or evil, somehow that tarnishes all Monotheistic religions, yet, when those same Christians/Jews/Muslims do something good, it’s just a “fluke”, or “they’re just good people, nothing to do with their Religion”. Anything that seems evil or wrong in ancient Paganism, we can’t judge (“well, they had slavery, but, it was just the time period, everyone had slaves”), they’ll berate the “Old Testament”, by saying it justifies slavery, yet ignore Aristotle who wrote in defence of slavery (in fact, all ancient Greeks believed that it was “natural” that some were born to be slaves, and others were “born masters”).
The rape of Boudicca’s daughters by the Pagan Romans becomes just something to sweep under the rug, the persecution of the early Christians and Jews becomes “something to celebrate”, or even blame the persecutions on Christians and Jews, afterall, according to these Pagans, the Christians and Jews should have just worshiped the Roman or Greek Gods, and nothing bad would’ve happened (kind of like saying, the Native Americans should have just “submitted to the Europeans”, or if only the Aztecs hadn’t practiced human sacrifice, “they wouldn’t have been wiped out”, or, if only those evil Jews had just renounced their religion, “Hitler wouldn’t have come about”, etc).
To me, violence is wrong, no matter what the reason. These Pagans who like to say “well, Pagan violence was political, or for land, or power, or sex”, and seem to think that’s better than a Christian Crusade are utter morons. That’s essentially like saying Stalin was a great man, because he only killed Christians, Jews, Siberian Shamans, and countless others because of politics, not because he was “converting them to a different religion”.
Also, “Robert Conner”, you say, Abrahamic religions make exclusive truth claims, um, why don’t you go and educate yourself, you’ll find that Judaism does not believe that all people must be “converted to the One God”, for Jews can accept that God manifests to people in different ways (and that’s not just a “liberal” approach either, many Orthodox state the same), and, I’d also suggest you look into Buddhism as well, many Buddhists believe Nirvana is only gained through the Buddhist Path (I’ve read somewhere that the Dalai Lama believes Nirvana is only gained through Tibetan Buddhism, and that those of other Religions will hopefully be born Buddhist in the next life so they can have the opportunity to enter Nirvana, although, that doesn’t make respect the Dalai Lama any less). Many Hindus believe Self-Realization is the goal of every human, regardless of their Religious beliefs, and, here’s the thing you’ll hate, Hinduism was a Missionary religion (I suggest you look up a great Hindu scholar Arvind Sharma, who recently wrote a book on that subject).
Then, again, you obviously have a grudge against all forms of Abrahamic religions or perhaps just those that have their origins in Judaism. I mean, you books “Jesus the Sorcerer” and “Magic in the New Testament” are, at best, psuedo-scholarly books, whose only purpose is to attack Christianity (I believe, Conner said that Jesus isn’t relevant to anything at all, and, apparently, that’s because he was a gay Jewish sorcerer, but, Conner, if you ever see this, I’d like to ask you, I’m gay (or a “fag” as you’d probably call us), I also have Jewish ancestry and I happen to practice magic, as does probably 99% of the Pagan community, so, I think, if your idea is true, Jesus would fit in very well with the Pagan community (and you can just wallow in your own misery), and, I think you seem to have an aversion to anything Jewish too, as I saw a review you wrote on Amazon for, I believe, Patrick Dunn’s ‘PostModern Magic’ where you essentially poo-pooed Jewish Kabbalah and said Jews have no art (I suggest you Google Jewish art), and, BTW, go into the Sistine Chapel sometime, the images are taken from (you guessed it) Judaism).
So, Conner, go back into the hole you crawled from, and take your anti-Semitic (because that’s the real reason you’re not a fan of Christianity or Islam, they’re a bit too Jewish for you, aren’t they?, you much prefer the “might” of “European Paganism”, where they had “glorious art”, and could go into any country they liked and rape the inhabitants and destroy the culture), homophobic BS and do the entire Pagan world a favour and never darken the doors of our blogs, our Pagan events, or us again.
Anyway, sorry for getting slightly OT, but, as you can say, the anti-Christian, anti-Muslim, anti-Jewish (although, most Pagans just focus on Christianity and Islam) really frustrate me, and infuriate me. In some cases, I have far more in common with certain Progressive Christians than I do with those “Pagans”.
Anyway, again, thank you for making this post, it really has given me hope for the Pagan community, let’s hope more people with mindsets like ours grow, and, drown out the voices of the anti-Christian/Muslim/Jewish crowd.
I am glad you enjoyed the post, it is an issue that I keep at the forefront of my mind.
Whew, David!! Feel better? Good.
You have perfect justification in writing this article, and I very much agree with you. I personally have no problem with the Christian religion. I don’t agree with it so I don’t follow it. It’s as simple of that. Every history of every culture or religion have violence staining the pages. No religion is more “right” than the other. The only time I have ever had a problem with a Christian is when that person, not the religion, made the choice to treat me with hate. That was a problem between two people, not two religions. I follow my path because it is mine; that simple. I see no need to justify my religion or way of believing or whatever you want to call it by needing to hate someone else’s path and prove myself ‘superior’ to them. My path is mine, yours is none of my business.