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(Sorry, I’m migrating this over).
Pope Francis has died at the age of 88. My understanding is that all of his plausible successors are more conservative in terms of doctrine. I imagine that Latin Mass will be easier but are they likely to make any significant changes to the Vatican II settlement?
As much as a lot of us complain about Pope Francis's progressivism, we can't deny that the Church has been seeing somewhat of a renaissance over the last few years: https://www.ncregister.com/news/easter-2025-new-catholics-by-the-numbers
The Pope Francis critics will say that this is despite him, but it's difficult not to see that his grace, and his kindness, likely also have an effect on the way that people view The Church.
I mean... anecdote and all, but my wife and I are trying to find a church right now, not because Pope Francis made Catholicism more progressive, but because that was nearly the last straw. We feel like all the promises of a secular, expert run society we were promised in the 90's just opened up fresh new horrors we could have scarcely imagined, and are ready to try to retvrn and believe in Christ. I find myself questioning 40 years of staunch atheism by the fruits it's bore, and am totally ready to just start going to church and see what happens.
And in that search, Catholicism is virtually the top sect we are most hesitant to consider, behind "Unitarian" which at least near us codes to "Whatever goes man" loosey goosey "spiritual but not religious" non-faith.
Then again, we've encountered a lot of very conservative Catholics near us that have invited us to services with them next week, so we'll see how that goes.
What fruits did you expect not believing in a god to bear? This seems like a strange reason to change one's belief in the nature of reality. I don't think god exists, but I don't expect to gain anything from that belief. I just know that life is meaningless and we're all just atoms, and nothing happens after we die. Whether I benefit from that or not is irrelevant, it's just how I think things are.
Since you're choosing to believe, why not retvrn a little farther and believe in your culture's traditional religions? Unless you're actually from the middle east, that is.
Do you really think that your culture is the same as that of pre-Christian Europe (assuming that's your heritage)? No, not at all. The Europeans nations have been Christian for 1500 years, plus or minus a couple hundred, depending on the place. The cultures that we have been in, or that we were in at all recently, have been thoroughly steeped in Christianity. Those pagan men of 2000 years ago may have been your ancestors, but they were not really a part of your culture, your nation.
No, no, the place to return, at least, for the American (if it is returning to our roots that we are doing), is to traditional American mainline Protestantism, the religion of sober, hardworking men with large families clamoring after divine truth and a pious life. The old denominations have been captured by lefties, but there exist remnants to be found.
Of course my culture isn't the same as pre-christian Europe, but it's also very different from Christian Europe. I obviously have no intention of becoming a pagan, I'm just pointing out that it's pretty arbitrary to define some specific point in time as "traditional", especially when we can trace back before those traditions even existed. I find the idea of "traditional christianity" especially ironic because christianity at one point was an attempt at rejecting existing culture and replacing it with one true globalist religion.
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What are your thoughts on Orthodoxy?
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I can't speak for them, but in my case I guess I'd describe it as "a more effective interface with the realities of life and human existence." Various portions of my life and mind that had not been working well under the Christianity I was raised with got much worse when I became an atheist, and then much better when I returned to being a Christian.
I'm skeptical people believe much of anything because "that's just how they think things are", mainly because I've observed that it's not why I've believed things in the past or present. I think pretty much all reasoning is motivated one way or another.
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Assuming he is a white American, his culture's traditional religion is Christianity, and it has been since before there was his culture.
Well it depends how far back you go. White Americans came from somewhere, and there were plenty of European traditions before Christianity displaced or co-opted them. Returning to the "tradition" of Christianity seems a little unsatisfying, considering that it's really a generic set of traditions that are practiced by Christians all over the world, rather than something unique and local to a particular culture. It seems like the idea of traditionalism is that "our ancestors were right." Christianity says that our ancestors were all wrong, for thousands of years, and then a guy in the middle east figured out the truth, and from that point on it's been a steady march toward enlightenment as the Truth is spread throughout the world. That seems like the antithesis of tradition.
You're getting pretty strong pushback on this phrasing, for good reason. Most are arguing the "ancestors were wrong" angle, which is very fair. I'd like to push back on the idea that the Christian's claim is that Jesus claims he figured out the truth.
Jesus never said he figured out the truth. He said he IS the Truth. He isn't a sage in the desert who discovered something outside himself. He said that he is sent. He says that he is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. The way to salvation isn't to learn what he has learned, it is to follow him. "No one can get to the Father except through me." Not "through my teachings." "Through me."
This is absolutely bizzare, if you have studied global religions. Jesus is unique in this regard. He doesn't claim to have brought fire from the gods, he claims to be the flame. He doesn't claim to have received divine revelation, his followers claim that he is the divine revelation.
His teaching is secondary - a nice lovely tantalizing icing - compared to his life, death, and resurrection.
Interesting, though that seems like a very abstract distinction, and not something that really contradicts what I said. From my point of view, Jesus was just a guy who claims to know everything about how the universe works. If a guy like that appeared in 2025, we would call him mentally ill.
It's not a very abstract decision. It's what makes the "Liar, Lord, Lunatic" trilemma distinct about Jesus compared to the Buddha. The Buddha could simply be earnestly mistaken. He fasted and meditated, entered some weird mental/physical state, thought he understood something no one else did, passed it along. With Jesus, "earnestly mistaken" isn't an option.
If a guy like Jesus appeared in 2025, healing the sick and raising the dead and multiplying food in front of crowds of 5,000, some would call him mentally ill. But I don't think they'd be right to do so.
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I am willing to listen to people who claim they understand how the universe works when their explanations allow me to make testable predictions, and those predictions are verified. This holds true even when only some of their explanations are testable; the testable ones increase my confidence in the non-testable ones.
Most people appear to do likewise.
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And where did those European traditions come from? If the game here is simply to trace back as far as we can, then we should look at the first man. What did he believe?
I would suggest that he walked in the garden with the LORD, sinned and was expelled, and fathered us all.
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There really isn't a good way for someone to return to the "European traditions before Christianity". Modern neo-paganism has almost nothing in common with actual pre-Christian paganism. They share some of the same names for gods, and that's about it. 95% of their practices are things that were made up in the 1800s by the occultists and romanticists of the time.
As an example, how many practitioners of Asatru join the military in order that they may hopefully die gloriously in battle, so that they may be chosen by the Valkyrie to join Odin in Valhalla? How many of them respect the marriage oaths, since the souls of adulterers will be consigned to Nastrond to be devoured by wolves and poisoned by serpents? How many of them, when they have grown old or sick, will pick up a gun and attempt death by cop? After all, those who die of old age or sickness are consigned to Hel's cold halls. How many of them will even consider human sacrifice, as their ancestors did among the hanging trees of Uppsala? How many of them support slavery, as the three adulteries of Rigr clearly separated the races of thralls, churls, and jarls?
The fact is that we don't really know all that much about northern European paganism, and what we do know the neo-Pagans mostly don't do. They're cosplaying as pagans, making it up as they go.
While I agree that most neopagans are mostly making it up, there's at least two people buried in Arlington under a Mjolnir symbol. Can't post link cuz I'm on mobile but it was a Fast Company article from around 2013 that talked about it. I also personally know an Odinist who's an Army officer, and have met others who don't describe themselves as such but certainly have an affinity for the symbols of such (with varying degrees of seriousness and understanding)
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It's interesting, while reading that list of beliefs I couldn't help thinking how much of that has permeated so thoroughly into western culture. Maybe retvrning to paganism would provide spiritual comfort to the type of men who are drawn to glorious battle, and don't want to grow old. Christianity tells us that suicide is wrong, even if you're too old to enjoy life, but so many people intuitively seem to feel otherwise.
I don't really see how these pagan beliefs are more outlandish than anything in the Bible, if taken literally.
You are entitled to your opinion about what is/isn’t outlandish- quite literally, it’s not the sort of thing there can be an objective discussion over, but factually there are people walking around who literally believe the things that Christians believed in 1000 AD, and who put those beliefs into practice. It is unclear that you can say that of heathens.
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The trouble is that nobody does, including the neo-pagans. They mostly just get together and try to cast spells and protect the environment. You get lesbian Wiccans calling on the blessing of fertility goddesses, and not recognizing the irony of that one bit.
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One of my brothers in law is a "pagan". Which basically means fat slob reddit atheist cosplaying to "own to the cons" and just being a complete degenerate manchild. As well as some bizarre victim identity because "Christian's killed my forbearers and stole all our holidays".
I'm a heathen. :shrug: Happy to ally with whoever necessary on issues of importance to both. Such as, you know, schools transing kids.
(Just so you know, the whole "heathen vs. pagan" thing evolved after "pagan" started to gain a connotation of "woke." The "heathens" are the non-woke ones. As usual, that includes everyone from normies to Nazis.)
I mean they did. Can be good; family members can still celebrate the same holidays! :) (Mostly it's whatever but not going to deny that it happened. Roman pagans tried to suppress Christians, Christians then tried to suppress pagans, religions often try to suppress other religions, etc...like I said above I'm more interested in allying with whoever necessary on matters of importance to both.)
There are more heathens out there than just the "oh paganism is just secular humanism" contingent. (Also: I left UU for this. One day I should write about my experiences growing up UU as part of a heritage-AUA family. The post-merger/Boomer-influx changes broke my mom's heart. Though she'd never say so of course because that would be rude.)
AFAIC Jesus was another holy man and anyone who wants to is fine to worship (or heck just study) him. (See also: "What Pagans can learn from Christianity".) I wouldn't particularly recommend becoming a heathen unless you have some actual (religious or philosophical) reason to.
And uh unlike another commenter in this thread I don't have a CS Lewis quote for everything :D but I do have one for this:
You said 'The world is going back to Paganism'.
Oh bright Vision! I saw our dynasty in the bar of the House
Spill from their tumblers a libation to the Erinyes,
And Leavis with Lord Russell wreathed in flowers, heralded with flutes,
Leading white bulls to the cathedral of the solemn Muses
To pay where due the glory of their latest theorem.
Hestia's fire in every flat, rekindled, burned before
The Lardergods. Unmarried daughters with obedient hands
Tended it. By the hearth the white-armd venerable mother
Domum servabat, lanam faciebat. At the hour
Of sacrifice their brothers came, silent, corrected, grave
Before their elders; on their downy cheeks easily the blush
Arose (it is the mark of freemen's children) as they trooped,
Gleaming with oil, demurely home from the palaestra or the dance.
Walk carefully, do not wake the envy of the happy gods,
Shun Hubris. The middle of the road, the middle sort of men,
Are best. Aidos surpasses gold. Reverence for the aged
Is wholesome as seasonable rain, and for a man to die
Defending the city in battle is a harmonious thing.
Thus with magistral hand the Puritan Sophrosune
Cooled and schooled and tempered our uneasy motions;
Heathendom came again, the circumspection and the holy fears ...
You said it. Did you mean it? Oh inordinate liar, stop.
Or did you mean another kind of heathenry?
Think, then, that under heaven-roof the little disc of the earth,
Fortified Midgard, lies encircled by the ravening Worm.
Over its icy bastions faces of giant and troll
Look in, ready to invade it. The Wolf, admittedly, is bound;
But the bond will break, the Beast run free. The weary gods,
Scarred with old wounds the one-eyed Odin, Tyr who has lost a hand,
Will limp to their stations for the Last defence. Make it your hope
To be counted worthy on that day to stand beside them;
For the end of man is to partake of their defeat and die
His second, final death in good company. The stupid, strong
Unteachable monsters are certain to be victorious at last,
And every man of decent blood is on the losing side.
Take as your model the tall women with yellow hair in plaits
Who walked back into burning houses to die with men,
Or him who as the death spear entered into his vitals
Made critical comments on its workmanship and aim.
Are these the Pagans you spoke of? Know your betters and crouch, dogs;
You that have Vichy water in your veins and worship the event
Your goddess History (whom your fathers called the strumpet Fortune).
(Sorry I don't have time right now to get into a long discussion; I just thought I should mention that my type exists and at least one of us is on this forum.)
ETA: @LiberalRetvrn
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How do you reconcile this view with Christian views of Aristostle?
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No, this is definitely not what Christianity says. Not that our ancestors were all wrong, and not that a guy 'figured out' the truth.
So our ancestors who believed in multiple gods weren't wrong?
The bible literally says that the pagan gods are a) real and b) demons. The traditional Christian position would be that there is no difference between Asatru and satanism, not that Asatru is hilarious larping ridiculousness.
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No; Christianity has always (until very recently and only in the West) understood that there are many, many gods, divine beings, whatever you want to call them. Our conception of 'monotheism' is incredibly anachronistic and silly. I'm unaware of any monotheistic religions.
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"I believe that in the huge mass of mythology which has come down to us a good many different sources are mixed—true history, allegory, ritual, the human delight in storytelling, etc. But among these sources I include the supernatural, both diabolical and divine. We need here concern ourselves only with the latter. If my religion is erroneous, then occurrences of similar motifs in pagan stories are, of course, instances of the same, or a similar error. But if my religion is true, then these stories may well be a preparatio evangelica, a divine hinting in poetic and ritual form at the same central truth which was later focused and (so to speak) historicized in the Incarnation. To me, who first approached Christianity from a delighted interest in, and reverence for, the best pagan imagination, who loved Balder before Christ and Plato before St. Augustine, the anthropological argument against Christianity has never been formidable. On the contrary, I could not believe Christianity if I were forced to say that there were a thousand religions in the world of which 999 were pure nonsense and the thousandth (fortunately) true. My conversion, very largely, depended on recognizing Christianity as the completion, the actualization, the entelechy, of something that had never been wholly absent from the mind of man. " C. S. Lewis, "Religion Without Dogma?"
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Not according to the Christian tradition!
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