This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
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.
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.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
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.
More options
Context Copy link
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)
More options
Context Copy link
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.
More options
Context Copy link
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.
I meant that nobody takes the bible literally either. Or at least, very few people. My grandfather believed literally every word of the bible, he would argue endlessly about evidence for the dinosaurs co-existing with jesus, finding the wreckage of the Ark, which day God rested after creating the heavens and Earth, etc. But that seems to be a rare breed of christian these days. I've even heard of christians who believe in evolution and the big bang. If the bible can be stretched that far, so can pagan traditions to make them more compatible with modernism.
But that is actually an important distinction, between 'nobody (well basically nobody)' and 'nobody at all (but some people are trying to revive it)'. The meme of biblical literalism is still alive organically.
More options
Context Copy link
The mainstream interpretation of Genesis in the Catholic church (i.e. the majority of Christians) is that the creation story is meant to be mythical, written for an audience of the ancient world in terms that would be familiar to them. In that interpretation the point of the story is to educate people that a single all-powerful god created the world, not a pantheon or other views that would've been prevalent at the time. This isn't exactly a fringe position you're talking about here, nor would most people (except those like your grandfather) consider it to be a stretch. The Church has known for a long time (going back to the first millennium AD) that the purpose of the Bible isn't to be a science textbook, and that trying to find those answers in the Bible would just make Christians fools.
The RCC still condemns polygenic origin of man(but allows deep time, the big bang, evolution of lower animals) and requires the belief in a literal fall of man by eating literal fruit in a literal garden of Eden. Not the same position as the creation museum in Tennessee but, like the Q source(dogmatically condemned) not in total accord with the academy either.
No, this is not required. A single original couple, committing a specific original sin, is what is required. Can you link to where you got the requirement for a literal fruit from? Edit: this article quotes from the authoritative documents to specify the minimum required belief.
I also would like your source on Q being infallibly condemned. Typically speaking the Church doesn't take sides in academic debates like that. Especially since the most obvious explanation of Q is that it is the original Aramaic notes of Matthew, as hinted to by Papias.
More options
Context Copy link
Wait, where was Q condemned? What are the range of views that people take on the synoptic problem, then? Do people tend to hold to Matthaean priority, instead of the more common Marcan priority?
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
According to Pew, among American Christians in 2022 25% believed that the Bible is the "actual word of God, to be taken literally" and 58% believed that it was "inspired by God, not all to be taken literally".
They've also found that 20% of Christians believe that humans did not evolve, while 61% believe humans evolved under the direct guidance and intervention of God. 85% of Christians believe in Heaven, 72% believe in Hell, 95% believe in souls, and 97% believe God exists.
It seems to me that quite a few people take the Bible literally, and even more take it seriously, at least in terms of what they believe.
I still know some people like this, and was this way for most of my life (I am not this way any more but still remember what it was like).
To that end, it's at least an argument for a church set up in such a way that it actually can have good answers to the Genesis question simply to scratch that gnostic itch (that is, I feel, the reason why some Christians really do want/have a psychological need for the creation story to be overly? literal). Then again, a structure that can answer that question can also get it wrong.
Giving it up also pattern-matches to the standard slippery slope that, everyone, and Christians since they've been on the losing end of the fight for freedom of religion for the last 50 years are more sensitive to it, intuitively understands- and while the removal of Jesus (and some strains of Christianity do indeed have a metaphorical Jesus, though that is a contradiction in terms) is explicitly addressed in one of the New Testament books the notion of "giving up on position X" is one that's going to pattern match as a descent into "giving up on historical Jesus" (literally the foundation of the religion, pointless without Him). Most of the Pentateuch is on relatively shaky historical ground, and a good chunk of the most dramatic, and miracles that remain in the collective consciousness, come from there- giving them up into metaphor doesn't really help their explanatory power. (I'm honestly not sure how the Jews handle it.)
Oh well, at least we can all just compare ourselves to AI models converging or diverging from Christ as everyone becomes more familiar with those topics, so now we'll get to have the fight over Calvinism if and when that idea starts occurring to the mainstream.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
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".
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
How do you reconcile this view with Christian views of Aristostle?
More options
Context Copy link
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.
I heard that before the late middle ages, there were no real witchhunts, because the official position of the church was that only god had true ‘magical powers’ – the devil, or other gods, could only create an illusion, make it appear a certain way, not actually change the world. Therefore, witches were incapable of siccing an illness-curse on a mule, or making it rain, despite their best efforts, and so they had to be let go. It is only later, in the course of the fight against heresies like the waldensian and albigensian, that the dominican preachers sent to reconvert them imputed these powers to heretics (famously, the first-ever representation of a woman on a broom was not a witch, but a waldensian heretic). Do you know anything about this change in doctrine?
Witchcraft was a normal religious crime regulated by the inquisition in Catholic Europe, similar to blasphemy. Thus you had very few witchburnings in eg Italy, Spain, etc, and lots of them in Germany. Blaming witches, werewolves, etc for crop failures or bad weather in front of a (Catholic)ecclesiastical court tended to result in the accuser being flogged.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
The Abrahamic tradition indeed allowed and allows for missionaries to tell pagans that the ‘gods’ they worshipped existed in some metaphysical sense, but were vastly inferior to the God, yes. Nevertheless, since many if not most pagan traditions had an ultimately powerful God or interrelated concept of an infinite being in some ways analogous to omni- qualities of the Christian god (still extant in eg. Hinduism), it is categorically incorrect that Christianity allows for a world in which all pagan gods are real but just less powerful than the Abrahamic God and/or more malicious than him.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
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.
More options
Context Copy link
"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?"
You really do have a CS Lewis quote for all occasions. I respect a man who delivers on promises like that.
More options
Context Copy link
As a fanatic for stories, a fan of the best SF stories, this resonates heavily with me.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Not according to the Christian tradition!
This seems like a massive oversimplification. I’ve been exposed to a fair amount of Orthodox content, including by people with whom I’m in direct contact, and they all seem to be in lockstep agreement that the pagan “Gods” were in fact demons — they use that word over and over — to whom their worshippers were giving profane worship. It seems like the Orthodox mostly don’t directly blame those people for being so fooled, especially as Christ had not yet arrived to spread the good word, nor do the Orthodox apparently believe that such “demons” were (or are) purely malevolent beings. But it seems pretty clear to at least Orthodox Christians — unless I’m somehow misunderstanding their words — that pagans who believed their Gods were supreme and benevolent beings were totally mistaken about the true nature of the beings which they worshipped.
This is the traditional teaching in all branches of Christianity; the fundamentalist opposition to yoga is based on it(Hindu gods being, well, pagan deities).
More options
Context Copy link
Fair enough!
Scripture itself is not exactly simple on this, but it does refer to "gods" (depending on your translation, and including, yes, associating them with what might be translated "demons" or the like) and there's a very long tradition in Christianity (and Judaism) of contrasting God with the other gods not by virtue of being more real but by virtue of being superior - more powerful and benevolent than the gods of others. This is somewhat muddied by mocking idols as being powerless, but there are a number of passages in both the Old and New Testaments that do give credence to the idea of other spiritual beings that are worshiped as gods, so - walks like a duck, talks like a duck - arguably fair to call it a duck!
I grant you that there is a difference in association between "DEMON" and "GOD" but it seems to me like your Orthodox friends and the pagans agreed descriptively on what was being worshiped by pagans (very powerful spiritual beings). I will admit to not being an expert in pagan belief systems, but I am unaware of any pagan pantheon where the gods were "supreme and benevolent" in the sense that we view the Christian God. In the mythologies I am aware of, the gods fight each other, have differing values, typically do not serve all sects or people groups equally (or want to, they often seem to have their own little cults of devotees rather than aspiring towards some sort of universal status), and as I recall often seem to have stumbled into their powers through violence or subterfuge (instead of having them by right as an un-created Creator) and sometimes do things that are ~evil to humans because they can. Now, obviously you have people who say this is also true of the Christian God, but it seems to me there is a big difference between the self-story of God in the Judeo-Christian tradition and the self-story of the various pagan gods. In fact - and I think there is supposed to be fairly decent evidence for this textually, although, again, not my area of expertise - in many ways the Judeo-Christian self-story of God (at least in Genesis) seems set up as a refutation of the claims of other gods - a "setting the facts straight," if you will.
Now, Christians believe that only one God should be worshiped. Thus whatever the characteristics of any other entities, if you worship them you are mistaken about their true nature. But I think one could still call entities that had the characteristics of the "gods" of various mythologies "gods" fairly, even if in the Christian theological framework they were not the One True God who was owed worship.
TDLR; to the question, I would say that Christianity has no problems with the pagan gods being real but it does have a problem with them being worshiped.
And Christians consider pagan "gods" to be very different from the true God, in that they are creatures acting only due to God's (temporary) self-restraint vs. being the creator of everything and ground of existence itself.
Yes. But my recollection is that pagan gods are often (typically?) also not the Creator of everything and the ground of existence itself.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link