David: yes, I find it bizarre when people imply their own nation has some inherent claim on longevity when that nation is younger than many of the buildings in other countries. But that’s the nature of American idiocracy: hubristic and myopic.

In my humble opinion, EVERY nation ends up on the scrap heap of history, regardless of what gods/goddesses/ideals they believe in, or what sexual activity they do or do not allow.

Flipping that on its head, the societies that punished homosexuality with extreme prejudice haven’t done too well either. The 1000 year Reich wasn’t too hot on homosexuality and it only managed 1.2% of its projected time as a nation.

Here in the West we’re particularly guilty of this desire for national longevity, so much so that we mythologise our own short national pasts and call a 3000 year old culture a ‘developing nation’ without a trace of irony.

This is why it’s hilarious when conservative pundits see the Persian wars (and Alexander’s campaign) as a clash of civilizations between a monolithic Eastern Empire and a precursor of democracy. It’s deeply simplistic and does a disservice to both the Persians and the Greeks.

For all its flaws, Hellenic culture- along with most pagan (for want of a better word) faiths that I can think of- did not see sex as a sin. Plus their gods were anthropocentric. They had human characteristics and flaws and were not always to be trusted (as opposed to an omnipotent entity who is right about everything). That to me makes paganism more interesting than monotheism. On the other hand, I am a Greek agnostic (and a scientist to boot), so I don’ t tend to see civilization as an invention of the Christian West.

Apologies about the length of my post. It’s a fascinating subject and I couldn’t help myself.

Re: Greek attitudes to sex, there’s always been a lot of confusion and supposition around the subject. James Davidson’s recent book The Greeks and Greek Love attempts to disentangle what can be found in historical study from the various half-truths which have circulated since the 19th century. He writes about that here.

It’s ironic that so many churches and public buildings in America –especially New England churches–have Classical porticoes with their Doric or Corinthian columns derived from pagan temples. Many Victorian Britons preferred the Gothic style precisely because it avoided making ecclesiastic buildings look un-Christian. Makes you wonder how deep Newt Gingrich’s ignorance must run when he complains about paganism while working in the Capitol building.

For me the common threads between religions associated most prevailingly with the word ‘pagan’ are first and obviously polytheism as opposed to monotheism, giving the the older ways a variety of paths that merge and divert at will, offering a flexibility that is terrifying to people whose minds are so small that they can only see the world in black and white. Foolishly used words like morality do not apply here; if tattooing and body-mod are of central aspect to the religion, then simply look the other way if you don’t like it (another thing that can be said is that when one thinks different lands have their own indigenous deities, people are less inclined to try and convert, history has proven this for the most part), also in regards to another theme I see in this blog, they may not have all been in a hungry rush to welcome homosexuality, but pretty much all or most of the ‘pagan’ religions I know of were ‘far’ less opposed to it as say orthodox christianity. For example the Greeks / Macedonians simply wanted their lords to be straight enough to have a wife and father children, they had no qualms with surrounding themselves with art with equal portions of hetero / homosexuality in it, nor did the Thebans have any problems accepting being defended by an army of gay lovers. The first religion I know of that took a very negative view of this was Zoroastrianism (Monotheist – big surprise). For a person who thinks many forces are at work as opposed to a single rigid and inflexible one, willing partners butt fucking isn’t anything to concern oneself with, and taking it a step further into the old religions’ frisky tendencies, consensual blood drinking and other novelties aren’t of any immediate concern either. The only time wherein it went to far for me was with the common pedophilia, the Romans being the most guilty of this, which isn’t surprising, their upper classes went so far they became frightened of themselves and allowed the overly tilted pendulum to swing in the opposite and equally tasteless direction and became the world’s first orthodox christians.

Another common thread being their deities were personifications of what they saw in the world around them. Now there were plenty of very war-like religions following the pagan standard, unsurprisingly, the cruel and war-like ones entrall me much more, but christians and muslims looking back in history simply ‘cannot’ use this a justification for their actions because just as many were passive by nature, and it goes against the prophets’ own (supposed) dogma to convert and the point of a sword, how merciful indeed.

Examining a relatively war-like preChristian culture closer to where I live than say the Druids or the Babylonians, the Aztecs (of the past, and not their modern descendants) bore a facade that would repulse many; ‘massive’ scale festivals of human sacrifice – I won’t linguistically masturbate over the details, this being a very pro-peace article, extensive body modifications, and pantheon of deities wilder and more taboo shattering than the most left-handed of hindu tantrists.

Modern christians forget though, people have always fought, this isn’t a pagan invention, and the point of human sacrifice wasn’t aesthetics, as it was to the Inquisition, but appeasing the more the destructive deities who were always as present as the nurturing ones. There was no true division between things like dark and light for them, they were part of the same world. Seeing things in just black and white, ‘if you’re not kissing our asses, then you want to kill us’ type attitudes are something that puts a society “in the garbage heap of history” and not other mentioned things.

Some of the ancient world’s costliest wars were those between Greece/Macedonia and Persia. Now I am not one for Persian-bashing – I hear enough of that around here believe me – I think they had many things more accurate than the Greeks and vice-versa, but I see in history a direct correlation to having one god, and trying more so than one would otherwise, to force oneself upon neighbors, than would people who have many or none.

Back to the New World, unfaithfulness to one’s spouse (either gender) or treachery against one’s bloodline was met with severely harsh punishment, which really cannot be said about christian societies who allegedly place concepts like marriage and family upon sacred pedestals. Also, the human sacrifice wasn’t self-indulgent, and it was practiced in the open and under broad daylight for all the terrified onlookers to see the price of their current favor in the gods’ eyes. The number of people killed by the MesoAmericans and the bloodiness of the act was easily surpassed by the number killed sadistically by the Spanish and other European -christian- successors ‘behind closed doors and for very self-indulgent reasons.’

As always, my apologies for the long-windedness, but I live in the bible belt of America and am always in the mood for a rousing game of ‘thrash the idol-haters over the heads with their own idol’.

All the best

As for your second point, I agree that it is exactly this rigidness and dogmatism of Christianity that have made it irrelevant for so many people. I believe the same point applies for the other monotheistic faiths as well, although I can only speak with authority on Christianity- having been exposed to it (in tedious detail) at school.

Anyway, speaking as an agnostic, Paganism is a lot more fun than any of these austere, fossilized systems of thought.

Dimitris: if pastors such as the meth-taking, male escort-obsessed Ted Haggard can’t stay on the path of righteousness then few others can be expected to. The common sense attitude would be to frame Christianity to accommodate the modern world, not expect the modern world–which is too fluid and diverse to submit to antiquated strictures–to accommodate to Middle Eastern tribal decrees.

Basically, reality is an insult to their values. And Newt Gingrich is trying to convince them that they are besieged by an army of omnisexual, liberal Satanists who want to exterminate them and their way of life (And Christmas, lets not forget Christmas).

May Lord Summerisle have mercy on their ridiculous, bigoted souls.

I guess the only problem with the decline of a religion is the decline of a morality. There is much to dislike about Christian morality (this is coming from someone who never could take Christianity or its sillier tenets seriously from a very early age), but there is also much to dislike about other cults too. I hope we manage to evolve/develop something a bit more elevating next time. There are currently no cults/religions about that I know of that I would like to see dominant.

If religions could clear out of the morality game, leave us with ‘do unto others’, and let well alone, that would be great. I am not convinced, however, that that little spot for religion in our brains is content with such a humble role. That scares me a bit – better the devil you know, all that.

That said, Christianity has been determinedly fighting its way to irrelevancy for many a year now, and I don’t see any likelihood of change.

…I just had a cool thought – how about ‘Religion – the board game’ where you throw dice and pick a card and each card makes up a component of a religion, and whatever combination you get means you have to pass certain laws against some harmless activity or something, and the person who gets the most converts, or kills the most infidels, wins. Just a thought. Oh, maybe you get to go to heaven too…