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idlewild
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24 Mar 2013, 9:09 pm

fueledbycoffee wrote:
I'm not trying to argue in favor of atheism. You complained that others were telling you to "access your emotions" and look at it less logically. I asked how anyone could rationally believe in a polytheistic religion, when so many of their beliefs are provably false.


Russell's teapot applies to any kind of theism. I look forward to your starting a thread disproving polytheism with absolute certainty, while maintaining monotheism cannot be disproven.


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Cash__
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24 Mar 2013, 9:10 pm

I attended a methodist church for a while. It was 100% emotion based. I found it very painful and could not relate at all. You might as well just drop me off in a foreign country with a different language and culture, it made that little sense to me.



fueledbycoffee
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24 Mar 2013, 9:16 pm

idlewild wrote:
fueledbycoffee wrote:
I'm not trying to argue in favor of atheism. You complained that others were telling you to "access your emotions" and look at it less logically. I asked how anyone could rationally believe in a polytheistic religion, when so many of their beliefs are provably false.


Russell's teapot applies to any kind of theism. I look forward to your starting a thread disproving polytheism with absolute certainty, while maintaining monotheism cannot be disproven.


Nothing can be disproven with absolute certainty. That's a fundamental truth. The thing with polytheism of the "Hellenic" nature (I'm not gonna get into Hinduism with its "We're polytheistic but also monotheistic" schtick), is that many of its trappings, such as Mount Olympus and the ease with which the Gods interacted with mankind, living on our Earth and just having to trot down the mountain (and usually mucking everything up) are more easily disprovable.

I'll start up a thread as soon as I do the necessary research. It'll be a while, I'm working on the Talmud atm. After I'm done I'll dig into the polytheistic myths.



trollcatman
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24 Mar 2013, 9:16 pm

fueledbycoffee wrote:
I never understood the "reason" of new age paganism. The whole thing seems so contrary to reason. We could just wander up Mt. Olympus and take a look-see. I'm not trying to beliefs at all. I'm actually hoping that for once someone can explain it to me. What reason could lead one to follow the Hellenic pantheon, or the Gaelic gods, or the Norse?

I once had a manager who was a follower of Loki. He actually believed that the world was created by the sundering of Ymir. I've spent years trying to wrap my head around it. At least with Judaism and, to a lesser extent, Christianity, you see thousands of years of rational thinking being applied to their beliefs, with people like Maimonides and Aquinas analyzing the holy texts and delivering proofs (of questionable veracity). Nothing of the kind has ever been applied to the pagan beliefs. Almost exclusively, I've found emotion (rebelliousness, primarily) to be the driving force behind Neo-Paganism.


Image

Where are the ice giants?

More seriously, emotion and faith and tradition are usually the driving force behind religion instead of evidence, and in this case there is little difference between the religions. No evidence for monotheism, none for polytheism.
The pagan religions actually have a common origin:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-European_religion

The largest of the Indo-European religions is obviously Hinduism. For them the Abrahamic religions are likely to feel as alien as the other way around. I think the main reason people don't understand why someone would become pagan is because there are so few of them in most societies.
Again, I don't believe in any gods, I just think the Abrahamic god is just as difficult to believe in if you are not raised in those religions.



idlewild
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24 Mar 2013, 9:19 pm

I should never have mentioned my specific faith, because people always find that far more fascinating to dismiss than whatever topic I want to discuss. I'm out of this thread. Talk about whatever you like.


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Fnord
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24 Mar 2013, 10:54 pm

idlewild wrote:
... I like Luther. He used a "left brained" approach to defend ideas that were essentially ephemeral. I find it fascinating. I dislike his racist and misogynistic ideas, but I admire his tenacity and the brilliance of his reformation campaign.

Another anti-Semitic German was born about 400 years later, and had the exact same characteristics ... name was Addie something-or-other ... short of stature ... beady eyes ... postage-stamp mustache ...

You know who I'm talking about.



ehymw
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21 Jan 2014, 2:26 am

Cash__ wrote:
I attended a methodist church for a while. It was 100% emotion based. I found it very painful and could not relate at all. You might as well just drop me off in a foreign country with a different language and culture, it made that little sense to me.


Yet you get Johnny Cash?