Paganism and Racism
Most Pagans and Heathens are not racist. Yet any Heathen knows that there is unfortunately a prominent number of individuals who use Paganism as a justification for racism. The usual logic for this thinking is that Pagan Gods typically are affiliated with a particular land and people: The Norse Gods being the Gods of the Scandinavian people and etc.
Many of the racists in the Pagan tradition also say that racial mixing is against the natural law, and “survival of the fittest” insinuates a superiority of certain races over another.
Yet even the concept of “race” is a misnomer. The technical definition of a species is anything that can mate within a group and produce children. If a white man and a black woman have sex, they will make children. If I have sex with a zebra, no such luck. Therefore, all humans are a members of the same race.
Are we all the same? No. All humans are different with a variety of skin colors, heights, weights and illnesses. Yet most humans have more genetic similarities with one another that various breeds of dogs and cats, since humans as a species are very young – only 40,000 years old.
Also, racism is not part of the natural law. Nature favors genetic diversity. The most obvious example is inbreeding. Those who inbreed create more genetic illnesses. Many of the famous royal families in history were rampant with insanity and Hemophiliacs because nobles liked to keep their blood line clean (more like clotted). Purebred animals tend to have weak health and many genetic diseases, while Mutts are much healthier pets.
In genetics, there are weak and strong genes. The wider the gene pool, the greater the availability of dominant genes. The more narrow the gene pool, the greater the prevalence of weak genes. Biologically, strong and dominant genes have a greater chance of being chosen than weak genes. If a tall person has sex with a short person, there is a greater likely-hood that their child will be tall than small. Gregor Mendel showed this effect in his experiments with peas . Yes yes, I know that humans don’t work like pea plants. Yes, human traits blend in intervals with light and dark skin creating caramel colors, and brown and blue eyes resulting in a few hazel eyed children. Yet all the same, nature has a tendency to pick the dominant genes over the recessive ones in children.
Also, in relation to Pagans, all cultures have a mix of influences from other cultures – unless they live underground and no one knows about them. The vikings, for example, were notorious explorers. Archaeologists have found remains of Indian statues in Norse homes. People tend to think of the Norse people as pillagers and raiders, but they were more prominently known back in the day for their aptitude in trading and exploring new places. Therefore, as a people, it can be said that their strengths came from their ability to explore and learn about other cultures – not to isolate themselves from the world.
Europeans in general are mutts, since there were several waves of invasions from various Asian cultures over time.
At the end of the day, race is just a concept – a false bracket- and should be left by the wayside in favor of incorporating the various strengths that all the cultures have to offer.
In the modern world, we use the system of time developed by the Babylonians, math developed by Arabs, gun powder and sails thought up by the Chinese, an alphabet created by the Romans, days of the week inspired by Norse Gods and the list could really go on forever.
Therefore, I believe the focus in Modern Paganism today should be on trying to learn from the indigenous traditions of all the world’s cultures. Some people call this “Cafeteria Paganism” and have mixed feelings about the practice. I’m not saying that you have to believe in everything. Rather, I’m saying that it is good to recognize the potential of what other cultures have to say. Around the world today, there is a sort of informal awakening taking place. In this awakening, people are becoming aware of the fact that our ancient ancestors had wisdom about living on the planet that could be helpful to us today.
Historically, Did Paganism Really Lose to Christianity?
So in the scheme of history, Christians may seem like the winners. After all, it is currently the world’s most prominent religion, 33% of people in the world call themselves Christians. Check here for more information about religious demographics. Also, the number of people who call themselves pagans is still very low. .2% of the U.S Population.
Yet if paganism included Hinduism and other non Judeo-Christian, Ethno based religions around the world, it would account for 40% of people around the world.
And then I must further ask, what counts, the label or people’s practices?
If you examine the pre-christian holidays people celebrated in Europe, we actually still celebrate these holidays today, 2,000 years after the birth of Christianity.
Halloween or Dia De Los Muertos is the pre-christian day of the dead.
It is said that Jesus was born in the summer, and yet we celebrate his birthday “Christmas” on December 25th, around the Pagan feast days of Saturnalia and Yule.
Easter is supposedly the day Jesus rose from the dead, and yet the day keeps the name and traditions of the Anglo Saxxon Goddess of birth, Eostre. Bunnies and Eggs are two of her symbols, since they represent fertility.
The days of the week are named after the Norse Gods: Thursday, Thor’s Day.
The months of the year and the planets in the sky keep the names of Roman Gods and Goddesses.
Many Catholic saints are merely appropriated pre-christian Gods and Goddesses. Saint Bridget is one of the most famous examples. She was such a popular Celtic deity, that the church couldn’t eliminate her tradition. Eventually they threw their hands in the air and made her a saint. Many of her sacred fires and temples are still around today.
Also, much Pagan lore is alive and breathing in modern day stories. Everything from fairies, elves, gnomes, dwarfs, wizards and dragons are based on Pre-Christian mythos.
When you look at Christianity itself, so much of it has been changed to appropriate pagan traditions, that it’s more Pagan in practice than Christian.
How many Christians follow the 600 laws of Leviticus? How many Christians follow the ancient Germanic tradition of setting up a “Christmas” tree?
Not saying that nothing has changed over the 2,000 years of the world’s forced conversation to Christianity. Certainly much of the original wisdom has been lost.
Yet to me it seems that people may be Christians in name, but Pagan by blood.
Jesus suffered for 7 hours on the cross, Odin did it for 9 days.
Christians like to go on and on about how Jesus died for our sins. Blah, blah blah.
Sure, Jesus suffered on the cross for a mere 7 hours. Is that really that much of an accomplishment for the supposed son of God. And the results of this action were to die for the sins of man.
Well, I still see plenty of sinful people in the world, so I guess his sacrifice wasn’t too effective.
Lets compare this to Odin who hung upside down from the Tree of Life for fucking 9 days!
9 Days of suffering in agony.
He did this so that humans would have the gift of writing and the magic of the runes.
So go cry to yo “virgin” mamma Jesus.
The Norse Gods will kick your ass any day of the week – which are incidently named after them.
Thursday, Thor’s Day – just sayin.
Social Law vs. Natural Law: Wake up, you’re in the jungle baby.
Social law is a system of rules enforced upon most civilized people at birth. It is a set of rules that governs how one must live to make a society work: don’t steal, be a good person, treat others as you yourself want to be treated, we’re all equals and if we can just put our differences aside and work together we’ll live in a golden utopia. These laws are a mix of the bubbling froth of traditional Judeo Christian doctrine and modern liberal humanism. It is the greatest scam of all time, the master deceit, a system of lies wrapped in a pretty package and called civilization. It’s like being fucked by a pig dressed as a nun.
Then there is the natural law, the real law, the primitive nature of man. The part of our brains that developed over thousands of years surviving ice ages, droughts, jungles, deserts, plague and war. It is the lizard brain, the animal brain, the part of ourselves that drives instinct and behavior at the deepest level.
In our ignorance we think we are one level removed from the beasts of the Earth. Anyone who has ever had pets or who has even been out in nature knows that there is a savage law that reigns above all: survival of the fittest, sink or swim, learn to fly or die trying. “Victory or Valhalla.”
This is not to say that altruism at some level doesn’t exist. Experiments have shown that mice will risk their lives to free their friends from captivity. Bonobos in tribes will share their food with one another. A dog may adopt an orphaned kitten as its own and take care of it.
I’m not saying that kindness doesn’t exist in our primitive nature. Yet the rules of civilized society are a farce. Rules written on stone tablets and commanded from “god” were of course meant for the people on the lower rungs of the social ladder – not the rich and the powerful.
If you look at social demographics today, it is the poor who are the most religious and the rich who are the least. The rich will lie, steal and oppress who ever gets in their way – this is called living by the natural law.
The natural law is vicious. She is the mother who harps and criticizes, who points out your greatest insecurities with a laugh and a wicked smile. She is not the lovey dovey Earth mother of flowers, hugs and candy. She is Kali on a rampage, burning down the overgrown forest. She wrathful and jealous Hera, tormenting and destroying those who oppose her. Her compassion is great to those who respect her, but her ire is the death felt a thousand times over in a tsunami.
So we go about in our daily lives, speaking, acting and breathing by the social law – when deep in our subconscious mind – we are living by the natural law. Why does the established man with a wife and a family risk it all for one night of passion with a young and beautiful woman, even when he knows that the repercussions could be loneliness, divorce, and endless alimony payments? Why does the woman “happily married” to a sensible and practical man sacrifice it all to run away with a less civilized beast? Why do the leaders of countries run their people into ruin with endless debt and war in pursuit of wealth – even when they themselves are at risk?
The fools and idiots scratch their heads. Jaws open. Flabbergasted. Standing around like a flock of gaping vaginas. A question mark that lingers in the air like a stangnant stench.
At the beginning of our lives we are placed on a chess board, but told that it is a checker board. Like obedient pawns, we concentrate on advancing one square at a time – only to be shocked and appalled when the rook claims our lives with one clean sweep. How could he do that? That wasn’t fair? You can’t just go all the way across the board? Sure you can, when you realize what game you’re playing.
So wake up. You’re in the jungle baby. As apes that’s where we started and we never really left. Sure, we may be savvy enough to build little houses and neat little roads and fenced up suburbs in which to divide our fake neat little lives.
But civilization as we know it is only 5,000 years old. Modern industrial society is only 200 years old. The real laws of man were established over the 40,000 years of our existence as beasts, and even the laws of the apes before that have carried over.
Would the human psyche change that quickly? To adapt to the humanitarian, liberal and christian laws of the land? Maybe when you chop off the genitals and lobotomize the mind. Why do you think antidepressants are so prevalent in today’s society? Why do you think people have to go to expensive therapies for their limp marriages and sex lives?
So wake up from the delusion. Everything you have been told is a lie. Realize what game you’re playing and play it right. There are no equals. Only winners and losers. Are you the wolf or its prey?
“You can taste the bright lights, but you won’t get there for free.”
Native American Wisdom
“The first peace, which is the most important, is that which comes within the souls of people when they realize their relationship, their oneness with the universe and all its powers, and when they realize that at the center of the universe dwells the Great Spirit, and that this center is really everywhere, it is within each of us.”
No Impact (on saving the planet) MAN!
Bringing you “Survivor for Yuppies in Manhattan!” or “Michelle Whines!”
Colin and his wife Michelle, the writer for Business Week, ditch a high consumption lifestyle to make as little impact on the Earth as possible. In the beginning of the movie Colin states that the average American produces 1,600 pounds of trash a year. He attempts to change his life to take that number down to zero.
In this attempt, his family cuts anything out of their lives that could leave a footprint on the planet. No take out food, no driving their SUV, no electricity and yes…they even stop using toilet paper. They switch to buying all their food locally, since the average piece of food travels 1,500 miles. Instead of using paper towels, they use old clothes. They stop buying new clothes completely and make the rule for themselves that they can only buy used clothes.
However, Colin forgot to mention something in his movie.
Currently, our government is making…
NO IMPACT on saving the planet MAN!
The government currently sneezes a mere 8 billion at the environmental crisis. This is pocket change…no, pocket change would be too generous. This is pocket lint!
During the blood bath of the French Revolution, Marie Attoinette said, “Let them eat cake.” To the problems of the working class. Not content with cake, the working class decided to take her head instead.
Not content with the pocket lint of the U.S. Government, the severity of the climate crisis will claim several billion heads. Scientists around the world are unanimous in agreeing that we can see a death toll in the billions at the end of this century, if we don’t do something about our addiction to consumption.
As the aging hippy character in the film said, the problem with this movie is that it is going to fool people into thinking that all they have to do is change a light bulb and recycle – and BLAMO climate change will be fixed!
The problem is much larger than that. It is living in a capitalistic society that is powered by waste. Society itself must be completely re-calibrated if we want to see change.
Too much film time in the movie is dedicated to showcasing Michelle whining about how she can’t drink her quad iced espressos or buy matching handbags. Wah wah waah. I’ll cry you a river Michelle. Or more like a tsunami, for all the people in third world countries who get to enjoy the effects of our consumption culture: severe drought, pollution, destruction of crops, hurricanes, tsunamis and more.
Climate experts believe that there are going to be wars over water in this century. Our agricultural methods are completely destroying the soil so that farming will be less feasible in the future. In the United States, we are contaminating our drinking water and air with chemicals that are banned in other countries.
But hey! Change is on the way!
Colin and Michelle are going to bike to work and eat organic food. The starving children in Africa can sleep safe tonight.
Ragna Rok (A prophesy of destruction and rebirth)
Ragna Rok is a Norse prophesy of destruction and rebirth.
Othin, chief of the Gods, calls on a “Volva” – or wise woman. She talks of talks of the past – the creation of the world, the dwarfs, the creation of men and women, etc.
But then she speaks of the future ahead – the final destruction of the Gods. The final battle. In this battle, fire and flood will overwhelm heaven and earth as the Gods fight their enemies. Valkyries will bring the slain warriors to support Othin and the other Gods in battle. Othin will be slain as fire leaps high over heaven itself.
But this is not all.
A new and beautiful world rises to replace the ruins of the old.
Because creation of the new must result from destruction of the old.
Old prophesies relate to the near future.
The world needs vikings. Vikings believed that the most honorable deed was to fight an enemy greater than themselves.
We face a world where Goliath sized corporations and the mega-rich are seizing a majority of the world’s resources, using political strings to start wars for oil and destroying life on the planet for the sake of money.
Most of us know that what our leaders are doing is wrong. Yet few have the courage to fight.
Speak out. Fight.
Your sword will cut the throat of liars and murderers
Their heads will tumble to the ground
Let their heads lie where they belong
In a pool of their toxic blood.
I do not claim credit for this fan made video, but I believe it is awesome.
A Visit From A Feathered Spirit
An eagle swept down from the mountain of dreams
And flew into my sleep
She lifted me up from my bed
And showed me a vision from her eyes
To see what she sees
To ride the jet stream of wind and light
Is to know the wisdom of a feathered shaman
It is no longer enough to see the world
By what merely lies in front of my eyes
I must see as the eagle sees
Through every valley, mountain and plain.
Depression, A Modern Disease.
The medical industry estimates that one in two Americans will get Depression in their lifetime. Depression itself is treated as a disease, an unavoidable condition that requires medication and therapy. I’m not making light of the issue. Having experienced it myself, I know that its a serious and debilitating problem that hampers the life of many people. Yet what isn’t discussed is that depression itself is often a consequence of modern living. This isn’t to say that people in the past didn’t get depressed. But my theory is that more people experience it now than ever.
Lets look at the factors that contribute to depression.
1. Isolation
2. A lack of exercise
3. A lack of healthy eating
4. A lack of sleep
5. Stress
6. A lack of Vitamin D from sunshine
7. Drugs and alcohol.
In the past, when people lived off the land, they got more exercise, more sunshine, ate pure food that didn’t contain hormones and harmful chemicals – and due to a healthy amount of exercise – probably were less stressed. Also, for most of history, people have lived in extended families and relied on a tight knit community for their day to day survival. Today, people either live in nuclear families (which are a modern construction) or alone. Also, in the past, living off the land meant a greater connection to nature.
There is a spiritual flow to all things and we are all part of a shared spiritual energy. The Indians call the shared God within us Krishna and the Chinese call the shared Energy Chi. Cutting ourselves away from that energy is going to create a spiritual isolation and death. Depression certainly has a neurological component, but it also has a spiritual one too. Part of depression, is the spiritual death many people in the modern world experience as a consequence of living material lives and abiding by synthetic values.
How the Legend of Dionysus and The Bacchae Relates Today
The music for this video is from Behemoth’s “Ov The Fire And The Void.”
The Bacchae is a story of drunkness, intoxication and self destruction. In this story, the cult of Apollo reigns over all. It is a cult of order and society. Yet where it once represented ideas of enlightenment and knowledge, it later came to represent a politically corrupt authority, an authority that was drunk off of power and wealth. The ruling authority was a senile group that was far removed from the people and the Earth – and stuck in their own ways.
The God of chaos and hedonism, Dionysus enters the situation to shake things up. There is a vacuum of power into which he surges. As a long haired, non conformist, he arrives at the capital city with an angry mob. This demigod is arrested, interrogated, mocked and thrown into prison.
Yet the authorities could not imprison the violent forces of the primeval. An earthquake leveled the royal palace, destroying the symbol of the Apollonian World Order. Wild women tore cattle to bits with their own hands. Then these women proceeded to dismember the current authorities just like cattle. They played ball with their arms and feet, and then impaled their heads on sticks.
Our current world order is only 200 years old. It’s currently headed towards a path of destruction with its unsustainable policies. In a vacuum that lacks true and noble authority, a void will consume all and release a force of bloody revolution.
James Inhofe Says The Bible Refutes Climate Change
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/james-inhofe-says-bible-refutes-climate-change
So the church was also right when they said that the Earth was the center of the universe, and persecuted Galileo, right?
What the Frak Are We Doing?!
Fracking, the new political answer to our Energy Crisis, could actually cause a global water crisis.
Check out the link below for more information.
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/03/07-2
A very small, teeny tiny percent of the U.S. budget goes towards renewable energy.
We need to form an intense focus on solar power if we want to continue being able to live on the planet.
Fracking is not a solution, it’s a new – and perhaps worse problem.
Metal Gaia 