Susan's Place Transgender Resources

So I have to ask here. Why did pagans convert to Christianity without fighting wars among themselves on their home turf? Was a kings word enough to turn a viking pagan into a Christian?

Christianity was very good at co-opting pieces of pagan religions in order to make the conversion easier, and even better at slowly demonizing the practices it opposed.  Whether or not it's a *good* religion, it is guilty of being very very subversive.

I think they wanted to keep their lives.  :P

And pagans would fit under our 'other' board.

I believe, they wanted to keep tyeir Wives!

Considering how few pagans there are in general, I think it'd be better to have one board for all pagan religions, rather than having a specific one for Wicca and while pushing the others into "Other".  The Wicca board is deader than Gerald Gardner.

It does seem that we transgendery folk have more pagans than the general population, though. :)

It was call 'Converting the Heathen', by the Spanish troops who went with the Priests to the New World.  We would call it 'Genocide' now.  'Ethnic cleansing' or murder.


Janet

Quote from: Janet Lynn on October 17, 2009, 10:52:27 PM
It was call 'Converting the Heathen', by the Spanish troops who went with the Priests to the New World.  We would call it 'Genocide' now.  'Ethnic cleansing' or murder.


Janet

We're talking about two distinct phases of Christian proselytism here.  They didn't always have the power to conquer people, and used to have to infiltrate and subvert existing religions.  It's why Yule is now Christmas, Samhain is All Hallow's Eve (Halloween), Lupercalia is St. Valentine's day, Easter is tied to the vernal equinox, etc.

EDIT:  And some Christians have the nerve to be angry about people allegedly "taking Christmas out of Christmas".  It was never their holiday to begin with.

Quote from: Janet Lynn on October 17, 2009, 10:52:27 PM
It was call 'Converting the Heathen', by the Spanish troops who went with the Priests to the New World.  We would call it 'Genocide' now.  'Ethnic cleansing' or murder.


Janet

Janet, the Spanish troups wiped out entire civilizations & committed serious crimes against historical & human history in S.America & its' regions. But Spain did not play a part in converting pagans to Chritianity in Nordic Europe. My curiousity is how were these pagans converted without going to war?

Quote from: Bellaon7 on October 17, 2009, 11:04:49 PM
Janet, the Spanish troups wiped out entire civilizations & committed serious crimes against historical & human history in S.America & its' regions. But Spain did not play a part in converting pagans to Chritianity in Nordic Europe. My curiousity is how were these pagans converted without going to war?

Christianity was often pitched as a refinement or adjunct to existing faiths, then gradually broadened into its common form.  In some cases, it was sold mostly as-is, just tweaked to fit the customs - it undoubtedly has a strong emotional appeal all its own.  The idea of a personal god who is concerned about your soul is strong stuff.

Same way.  But if you can 'convert' ( read brainwashed ) some high rank prominent people they will force the new religion unto their people.

As so putting higher ranking spiritual leaders on trial for 'witchcraft', and then punish accordingly, it becomes easy to "convert' pagans.

The Inquisition, the "Holy" Wars, the Salem Witch trials.


Janet

Quote from: Nero on October 17, 2009, 10:39:37 PM
I think they wanted to keep their lives.  :P

And pagans would fit under our 'other' board.

Nero, I apologize if I posted this topic in the wrong forum, but as long as it is a constructive exchange of ideas without hostility or disrespect towards others,will you please allow it? ty, Isabella

another reason is that pagans pretty much think one religion is just as good as any other. Christ? Mary? Sure, why not? The more gods and goddesses the merrier! At least that's how I look at it lol. And remember they put the face of the Greenman in a whole lot of churches and cathedrals, peering down form the walls with a decidedly pagan grin on his face. It was easier just to go with the flow, and remember the pagans had no stigma about burning in hell if they happened to worship more than one god. It was the Christians who started the crusades and religious wars, not the pagans, it just wasn't/isn't our style.

Fairy Girl, I've not heard of this "green man". This is why I value this human interaction above watching dvds from the libraray. I wish to learn & I have & I treasure it especialy amongst those in the ts community.   

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Post Merge: October 17, 2009, 11:32:42 PM

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For a thousand years, Christianity was spread at the point of a sword. When the nordic heathens were "asked" to turn Christian, they had already seen the massacred southern folk of non-Christian faiths on their trade routes and knew what a "no" could cause.
So they said "yes" and put their heathen tools and carvings under their bed, becoming Christian in the public eye but heathen in privated. This went on for a few hundred years, during which the hidden aspect of their lives became less and less used.
Eventually, by the burning times, the public faith of Christianity had outweighed the private practices.

There's plenty of clear documentation about this in old Icelandic sagas.

That's a very intersting idea, did it happen at the tip of the sword gradualy? I know it did happen at leaast somewhat gradually as someone mentioned examples of early Nordic Christian churches clearly displayed pagan symbols along side Christian. 

Actually, I'm refferring to the fact that the nordic folk were merchants and so had seen christianity being spread through southern and mainland europe by the point of a sword, which is something that's also well documented.

In my conditioning, I learned pagans were primitive people who used animal sacrifices and rituals involving skulls and bones in their houses of worship.  If that same stigma could be attached to the pagans centuries ago, that may have made conversion possible without war.

Humans can only handle so much pressure before they cave.  And each person's limits differ.  Start with the weak, and work your way through, building an army of support along the way.  One thousand weak people can stand up to one strong one.  Divide and conquer.

But in my conditioning, I learned those converted to Christianity agreed to do so because they realized it was the right thing to do.  The knife to the throat or gun to the head wasn't mentioned.  ::)

Julie

Quote from: Bellaon7 on October 17, 2009, 10:31:55 PM
So I have to ask here. Why did pagans convert to Christianity without fighting wars among themselves on their home turf? Was a kings word enough to turn a viking pagan into a Christian?

There were actually many fighting words and many lives were lost.  Unfortunately, the Christian myth of a peaceful conversion is so well-accepted as truth that even though it was well-documented by the Romans (and far better documented than the existence of Jesus), few modern books have been written about how much fight and bloodshed took place in this conversion.

One good book I have and have read is by the French classics scholar Pierre Chuvin, it has been translated to English as Chronicle of the Last Pagans -- it's currently out-of-print, but often enough comes up on Amazon, eBay, and half.com for reasonable prices; I got mine for $10, hardback, after shipping.

There was also a Roman emperor, Julian (Julian the Apostate, to those who were raised Catholic), who made efforts to restore Graeco-Roman polytheism to a major religion.  His death is surrounded in "mysterious circumstances", and some scholars hypothesis that he was assaniated on ideological grounds.

Quote from: Kaitlyn on October 17, 2009, 10:50:22 PM
It does seem that we transgendery folk have more pagans than the general population, though. :)

It's probably because of Kybele and Hermaphroditos.

Quote from: Kaitlyn on October 17, 2009, 11:04:48 PM
We're talking about two distinct phases of Christian proselytism here.  They didn't always have the power to conquer people, and used to have to infiltrate and subvert existing religions.  It's why Yule is now Christmas, Samhain is All Hallow's Eve (Halloween), Lupercalia is St. Valentine's day, Easter is tied to the vernal equinox, etc.

No, that's only part of how it worked.  Converting polytheistic celebrations into Christian ones was more of a consolation for those who finally converted.

Also, the modern form of Christmas was originally born of Saturnalia (of Rome) and the rural Dionysia (of Greece).  And Hallowe'en really wasn't in common practise as anything more than an obscure Catholic feast prior to All Saint's Day until the last century, so it's really not fair to bring Hallowe'en into this comparison.


Also, while I'm at it (and because I'm obviously a nerd), the term "Neo-Pagan" pre-dates Gardner by at least sixty years, as it was first applied to late-Victorian classicists who romanticised ancient Hellenic polytheism, some to the point of "adopting the religion", in whole or in part, (including Percy Bysshe-Shelley, and to even lesser degrees, the term was also applied to Oscar Wilde [a Catholic with a statue of Apollon in his bedroom] and Lord Alfred "Bosie" Douglas, who frequently refers to Hyskinthine imagery in his poems, which aren't very good, but hey, at least I've read them).

Quote from: Bellaon7 on October 17, 2009, 11:04:49 PM
Janet, the Spanish troups wiped out entire civilizations & committed serious crimes against historical & human history in S.America & its' regions. But Spain did not play a part in converting pagans to Chritianity in Nordic Europe. My curiousity is how were these pagans converted without going to war?

if you read early medieval histories it was not a peacefull conversion

Quote from: Kaitlyn on October 17, 2009, 10:50:22 PM
Considering how few pagans there are in general, I think it'd be better to have one board for all pagan religions, rather than having a specific one for Wicca and while pushing the others into "Other".  The Wicca board is deader than Gerald Gardner.

It does seem that we transgendery folk have more pagans than the general population, though. :)

[Yet another pagan here, waving arms frantically] >_> Hullo. xD Sorry, just had to make myself counted here. xD I think a Pagan board might be a better classification, since, generally, Wiccans ARE pagan, but not all pagans are wiccan, and 'pagan' is a nice umbrella term that covers all bases without usually offending. :) I've got a couple of wiccan friends who agree with that notion. :p

As a solitary witch coming from a long long line of celtic wise woman seers and prophetesses, I'm never quite sure about all these faith terms anyway.

I come from a basically christian background but at various times have also embraced Hindu, Buddhist, Dao, pagan, and various other beliefs in my spiritual practice.

I sort of regard being a witch as an esoteric life calling operating on the level of my spiritual essence, and which one can express using a variety of different exoteric religious principles and rituals. I "AM" a witch - but I can "believe" in many different faith systems (if you get the distinction).

For some reason it was the fact that I seemed to have inherited the family "gift", which by tradition passed only to daughters, that I think did the most to convince my mother and grandmother that there was something real going on when I was growing up. (Although personally I'm not sure I would want to put too much emphasis on all that stuff, but it kept them happy, so I'm not complaining.)

I'm not sure where that places me as regards to spiritual categories but anyway I just thought I would add my support to y'all! :)