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Why Paganism is Crap, parts I-V

Started by Doktor Howl, August 02, 2011, 08:15:18 PM

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P3nT4gR4m

I'm not into trolling but from what I gather, it's fun to troll anyone who rises to the bait?

I'm up to my arse in Brexit Numpties, but I want more.  Target-rich environments are the new sexy.
Not actually a meat product.
Ass-Kicking & Foot-Stomping Ancient Master of SHIT FUCK FUCK FUCK
Awful and Bent Behemothic Results of Last Night's Painful Squat.
High Altitude Haggis-Filled Sex Bucket From Beyond Time and Space.
Internet Monkey Person of Filthy and Immoral Pygmy-Porn Wart Contagion
Octomom Auxillary Heat Exchanger Repairman
walking the fine line line between genius and batshit fucking crazy

"computation is a pattern in the spacetime arrangement of particles, and it's not the particles but the pattern that really matters! Matter doesn't matter." -- Max Tegmark

LMNO

There's also the part about how sumbunall Pagans fall into the trap of seeing the world how they would like it to be, rather than how it actually is.  And I think that puts them in the "to be poked" category, regardless of how "nice" they profess to be.

Granted, they get incredibly thorny and aggressive when their worldview is challenged, which is like throwing chum next to an Australian reef.

Cramulus

#47
I troll pagans because paganism (like -theism in general) is absurd and its adherents usually take themselves way too seriously. Now, a lot of people fit that description (I'm looking at you, Dr Who fans) but being critical of religion is a cultural taboo, and yo, it's a taboo worth violating.


On St. Patrick's day, many of my pagan friends were talking about how St. Patrick "driving the snakes out of ireland" is a metaphor for anti-pagan violence and they feel SO OPPRESSED by these people who ... attend parades. Complaints like that show me that the person is not oppressed in any meaningful way, but nevertheless identifies as somebody who's marginalized.

Another slice of it is that a lot of the concepts which seem to be typical pagan baggage --- the "natural order", balance, energy, gender dualism -- are crap. They're not as dangerous as the Christian concept of "original sin" (which we can thank, in part, for thousands of years of misogyny) or "purity" (which we can thank for sex negativity), but I do feel they're a completely misguided way to approach the world.

Pagan Reconstructionists are the hipsters of paganism. Their insistence on a link between authenticity and antiquity just doesn't make any sense to me. If you think Zeus is real, and he exists outside of the Greco Roman times, do you think he gives a shit that you're not speaking ancient greek, or that you're wearing a robe instead of a traditional toga? Recons are like those zany Christians who believe they're one of the mere 144K people in history that are eligible for heaven. It seems like an ideology which tells its followers they're in the 0.01% of humanity that "gets it".

I've been party to so many pagan conversations where a guy is talking about how powerful he is. "So I visualized my psychic finger and poked that dude in the third eye, and BAM, he instantly got a migrane. *tokes sagely*". You get critical of that, suddenly you're "closed minded".

There seems to be a pretty strong Christian movement which is critical of Christianity - like how Stephen Colbert doesn't hesitate to call out the pope, or batshit preachers. But I haven't seen any self-critical group like that in paganism. That's what Discordians are supposed to be.

Don't get me wrong, I have some great pagan friends. Pagans don't annoy me, paganism does. The pagan movement does.

One day they'll finally get the nerve to throw us out! And with us, a lot of the useless baggage.

Cramulus

btw, any time you quote a pagan, it would be cool if you could please set it in comic sans

Blessed Be!


hooplala

"Soon all of us will have special names" — Professor Brian O'Blivion

"Now's not the time to get silly, so wear your big boots and jump on the garbage clowns." — Bob Dylan?

"Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)"
— Walt Whitman

Pæs

Quote from: Cramulus on March 20, 2014, 07:05:21 PM
I troll pagans because paganism (like -theism in general) is absurd and its adherents usually take themselves way too seriously. Now, a lot of people fit that description (I'm looking at you, Dr Who fans) but being critical of religion is a cultural taboo, and yo, it's a taboo worth violating.


On St. Patrick's day, many of my pagan friends were talking about how St. Patrick "driving the snakes out of ireland" is a metaphor for anti-pagan violence and they feel SO OPPRESSED by these people who ... attend parades. Complaints like that show me that the person is not oppressed in any meaningful way, but nevertheless identifies as somebody who's marginalized.

Another slice of it is that a lot of the concepts which seem to be typical pagan baggage --- the "natural order", balance, energy, gender dualism -- are crap. They're not as dangerous as the Christian concept of "original sin" (which we can thank, in part, for thousands of years of misogyny) or "purity" (which we can thank for sex negativity), but I do feel they're a completely misguided way to approach the world.

Pagan Reconstructionists are the hipsters of paganism. Their insistence on a link between authenticity and antiquity just doesn't make any sense to me. If you think Zeus is real, and he exists outside of the Greco Roman times, do you think he gives a shit that you're not speaking ancient greek, or that you're wearing a robe instead of a traditional toga? Recons are like those zany Christians who believe they're one of the mere 144K people in history that are eligible for heaven. It seems like an ideology which tells its followers they're in the 0.01% of humanity that "gets it".

I've been party to so many pagan conversations where a guy is talking about how powerful he is. "So I visualized my psychic finger and poked that dude in the third eye, and BAM, he instantly got a migrane. *tokes sagely*". You get critical of that, suddenly you're "closed minded".

There seems to be a pretty strong Christian movement which is critical of Christianity - like how Stephen Colbert doesn't hesitate to call out the pope, or batshit preachers. But I haven't seen any self-critical group like that in paganism. That's what Discordians are supposed to be.

Don't get me wrong, I have some great pagan friends. Pagans don't annoy me, paganism does. The pagan movement does.

One day they'll finally get the nerve to throw us out! And with us, a lot of the useless baggage.

:mittens:

Pergamos

I think one reason criticism isn't as seen in Paganism as it is in Christianity is because Paganism isn't anywhere near as influential.  Christianity wields a huge amount of influence over secular power structures and is ubiquitous and visible, so you see a lot of criticism of what is done with that.

Pagans who are not Wiccan tend to be pretty critical of Wicca, Reconstructionists and Eclectics tend to criticize one another as well.  Paganism of any sort is a nature centered religion, so Pagans who get most of their spiritual fulfilment in a technologically created mediated environment like a forum are pretty clearly spiritually dysfunctional, by their own standards.

Mesozoic Mister Nigel

Quote from: P3nT4gR4m on March 20, 2014, 04:36:59 PM
Quote from: Nigel on March 20, 2014, 02:29:57 PM
Quote from: P3nT4gR4m on March 20, 2014, 10:35:42 AM
Been here years. Only a vague notion of why everyone is hating on the hippies but hey, it's a belief system, if you aint piling on the hate, you're lending it legitimacy :lulz:

Have to admit, I'm kind of baffled at the singleminded dedication a lot of you have to this mystic wicks board but I guess that makes it no different from any other hobby I don't get. At least you're attacking a part of the problem that is human belief so why should it matter that it's only a minority subset if it creates a net gain?

Of course, I'm an outlier, since I happen to be of the firm opinion that non-violently attacking any belief system is always justified

Atheists are among the funniest belief systems to troll, in fact. But the fuckers keep banning me.

Hell, yeah, the beauty of atheists is they don't realise their whole argument against unsubstantiated belief hinges on an unsubstantiated belief. Out of all the belief systems on the planet it appears to be the only one that doesn't realise it's a belief system and that puts it head and shoulders above the rest in the running for king retard crown  :lulz:

And they're touchy as fuck about it, too.

Plus, talk incessantly about God. The ones on Facebook are more Jesus-obsessed, as a whole, than most Christian groups. But don't mention how much they talk about it; the resulting cognitive dissonance it generates generally provokes an insta-ban.
:lol:
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


Mesozoic Mister Nigel

Quote from: Cramulus on March 20, 2014, 07:05:21 PM
I troll pagans because paganism (like -theism in general) is absurd and its adherents usually take themselves way too seriously. Now, a lot of people fit that description (I'm looking at you, Dr Who fans) but being critical of religion is a cultural taboo, and yo, it's a taboo worth violating.


On St. Patrick's day, many of my pagan friends were talking about how St. Patrick "driving the snakes out of ireland" is a metaphor for anti-pagan violence and they feel SO OPPRESSED by these people who ... attend parades. Complaints like that show me that the person is not oppressed in any meaningful way, but nevertheless identifies as somebody who's marginalized.

Another slice of it is that a lot of the concepts which seem to be typical pagan baggage --- the "natural order", balance, energy, gender dualism -- are crap. They're not as dangerous as the Christian concept of "original sin" (which we can thank, in part, for thousands of years of misogyny) or "purity" (which we can thank for sex negativity), but I do feel they're a completely misguided way to approach the world.

Pagan Reconstructionists are the hipsters of paganism. Their insistence on a link between authenticity and antiquity just doesn't make any sense to me. If you think Zeus is real, and he exists outside of the Greco Roman times, do you think he gives a shit that you're not speaking ancient greek, or that you're wearing a robe instead of a traditional toga? Recons are like those zany Christians who believe they're one of the mere 144K people in history that are eligible for heaven. It seems like an ideology which tells its followers they're in the 0.01% of humanity that "gets it".

I've been party to so many pagan conversations where a guy is talking about how powerful he is. "So I visualized my psychic finger and poked that dude in the third eye, and BAM, he instantly got a migrane. *tokes sagely*". You get critical of that, suddenly you're "closed minded".

There seems to be a pretty strong Christian movement which is critical of Christianity - like how Stephen Colbert doesn't hesitate to call out the pope, or batshit preachers. But I haven't seen any self-critical group like that in paganism. That's what Discordians are supposed to be.

Don't get me wrong, I have some great pagan friends. Pagans don't annoy me, paganism does. The pagan movement does.

One day they'll finally get the nerve to throw us out! And with us, a lot of the useless baggage.

I think that largely describes my feelings as well, only add the hierarchy freaks and the culty control freaks and my own particular personal loathing of medically dangerous ideas like anti-vaccination crusading, and to me it makes a target I cannot resist poking at.
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


trippinprincezz13

Pretry much everything that Cain, LMNO, Nigel and Cram said. (It is pretty rude to throw out unsupported accusations of bigotry, when a look at just about any topic tends so show that attitude of this forum tends to be in complete opposite of that).

I was originally a member on The Celtic Connection. They were definitely way too into hierarchy and, as I believe Cain (maybe Nigel? I can't scroll that far back in the quotes) mentioned, tended to shit on people asking sincere (the silliness of which may vary, but still, sincere) questions - "What you dare to ask a question? How stupid that you do not know all the things! Did you think that this was some sort of place to learn and discuss ideas!?!)

That and when I, among several others, said "hey, maybe these Discordians ain't so bad" ---> Traitor!!!/I R Worried about U! --> BAN.

So yes, I am against those types of behaviors, which many internet pagans tend to exhibit. But I have nothing against paganism itself, any more or less than any other religion, and may even have a bit of a soft spot for it, along with Catholicism.

That, and anyone taking themselves too seriously is just begging to be poked at.
There's no sun shine coming through her ass, if you are sure of your penis.

Paranoia is a disease unto itself, and may I add, the person standing next to you, may not be who they appear to be, so take precaution.

If there is no order in your sexual life it may be difficult to stay with a whole skin.

Cardinal Pizza Deliverance.

Yeah, I'm a TCC refugee as well. You really had to be there to understand the levels of fucked up creepy that were revealed as PD-ers peeled back the layers of crazy. It's one thing to chill with people of similar interests and compare stories and share knowledge and shit. It's another to use a forum as your personal yes-men to confirm your belief that astral projection really can heal cancer and vanquish your enemies all without leaving the comfort of your own bed. It's another thing to spend the entire time stoned and putting people in time-out for disagreeing with your stoner logic.

TCC was awesome when Herne was involved. But after he died his wife dumped it in the laps of some serious narcissistic meth-heads and it went to shit quick when exposed as a holding pen for fart-huffers being brainwashed into buying shit from the TCC store for loyal and pure and supportive magickal karma.

Fuckers. :(
Weevil-Infested Badfun Wrongsex Referee From The 9th Earth
Slick and Deranged Wombat of Manhood Questioning
Hulking Dormouse of Lust and DESPAIR™
Gatling Geyser of Rainbow AIDS

"The only way we can ever change anything is to look in the mirror and find no enemy." - Akala  'Find No Enemy'.

The Good Reverend Roger

Quote from: Chelagoras The Boulder on March 19, 2014, 07:25:10 PM
K, see this is something that's always kinda stuck in my craw. Why does PD seem to have such a hate-on for pagans?

We don't, as far as I know.  We just have a hate-on for interbutts pagans, because they're authoritarian dickwads and wannabe cult-leaders.
" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."
- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."
- TGRR, raising the bar at work.

The Good Reverend Roger

Quote from: Chelagoras The Boulder on March 19, 2014, 07:41:01 PM
Yea, but it just seems that with all the people to troll, trolling internet forums pagans would seem to have the least effect on anything ever. I know i started here as an anon groupie, but at least they piss off people worth pissing off. Pissing off Internet pagans and teenage wiccans is about as relevant as yelling "yo mamma" jokes at amoebas in the grander scheme of things. Sure, they're jerks, but the world is filled with jerks of all shapes and sizes, and picking on only the ones who are already so low that they need to pad their egos like that just feels...i dunno, unsporting, even bullying in some cases.

Ask Lizzay about Pagans and Bullying.  Or outright predatory behavior.

And who says we ONLY pick on them?

Jesus H Christ. 
" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."
- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."
- TGRR, raising the bar at work.

P3nT4gR4m

How about we look at this another way - if your ideology or philosophy or whatever can't stand up to having fun poked at it, maybe fuck your ideology or philosophy?

I'm up to my arse in Brexit Numpties, but I want more.  Target-rich environments are the new sexy.
Not actually a meat product.
Ass-Kicking & Foot-Stomping Ancient Master of SHIT FUCK FUCK FUCK
Awful and Bent Behemothic Results of Last Night's Painful Squat.
High Altitude Haggis-Filled Sex Bucket From Beyond Time and Space.
Internet Monkey Person of Filthy and Immoral Pygmy-Porn Wart Contagion
Octomom Auxillary Heat Exchanger Repairman
walking the fine line line between genius and batshit fucking crazy

"computation is a pattern in the spacetime arrangement of particles, and it's not the particles but the pattern that really matters! Matter doesn't matter." -- Max Tegmark

The Good Reverend Roger

Quote from: P3nT4gR4m on March 21, 2014, 06:06:34 PM
How about we look at this another way - if your ideology or philosophy or whatever can't stand up to having fun poked at it, maybe fuck your ideology or philosophy?

:mittens:
" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."
- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."
- TGRR, raising the bar at work.